When boss babes become Seoul sisters

As “corporate girlies,” “boss babes,” educators, nurturers, mothers, wives, daughters, and friends, we have been juggling multiple hats throughout each day to keep up with life’s demands—tackling one situation at a time or managing them simultaneously, whichever is required. That being said, it’s been six months since our trip to Korea, and hardly any of us have posted photos of our trip.

For the first time ever, my high school barkada went on an international trip together. The agenda: eat, shop, eat, visit a park or do a touristy thing, eat again, shop, and eat. Not in any particular order, but notice how many times I mentioned “eat.” The order shuffled from day to day, as we would often stop to eat random things every few minutes of walking.

We started our trip with a visit to the Jongmyo Shrine, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and royal shrine. We were there during Jongmyo Jerye, the bi-annual ceremony held to honor the spirits of the imperial family, on the first Saturday of November and the first Sunday of May.

Our first meal together was at the Gwangjang Market, which has become more touristy since it was featured on the Netflix series Street Food Asia. There was a line at the Netflix-famous food stall, but to be honest, the guy controlling the line was quite rude. So we ended up going to the stall across from it for kalguksu, or knife-cut fresh noodles in a seafood broth. We each had a hot bowl of noodle soup, and I ordered mine with dumplings. This was the main meal among many other bites at the market.

We then visited Changdeokgung Palace, which means “Palace of Prospering Virtue,” another UNESCO World Heritage Site. I noticed we had a lot more photos here, not sure if it’s because we had already eaten and had coffee at this point. But of course, after a couple thousand steps, it was time for tea.

We made a 2 p.m. reservation prior to the trip for the Bukchon Tea Course at Ossuloc. We had a four-course tea pairing. The first course featured pure tea, the Ossuloc Baked Green Tea. Steamed tea leaves were freshly baked in an oven to give a deeper aroma and richer taste, paired with an Ossuloc matcha pretzel. The second course featured a tea variation, Marron Glace Black Tea—black milk tea with a roasted chestnut flavor, paired with a Mont Blanc cheesecake. The third course was a tea cocktail made from Ossuloc’s Volcanic Rock Tea, a baked oolong tea with the aroma of roasted nuts, paired with assorted canapés. To close the tasting, we were served the Master’s Matcha Short Drink. We went shopping for tea and snacks at the Ossulloc store on the first floor, where they had pretty much everything we tried during the tasting and much more, such as soft-serve matcha ice cream.

We went for KBBQ for dinner at Hansik Wangbijib in Myeongdong. The meats were of such good quality and came with great service. I didn’t have to lift a finger to cook. It came with banchan, and I had a side order of Bibim Nengmeyon, or spicy buckwheat cold noodles with cucumber, radish, boiled egg, and gochujang. We washed everything down with cold beer and soju.

To burn more calories after a very satisfying dinner, we walked through the Myeongdong night market, and I’ll admit, we did partake in more street food along the way. To complete Day 1, we couldn’t help but shop for skincare at Olive Young, shoes at ABC Mart, and snacks at HBAF before we called it a night.

Early the next day, we took the train to Seongsu to line up for the viral Jayeondo salt bread. Since we were there early, the line wasn’t as long as expected. I won’t discount the fact that the ordering system was efficient and that they had set a limit on how many one person could purchase. The salt bread is best eaten fresh for that crispy yet chewy texture, with a very buttery taste and mouthfeel. It is made with fresh French butter, after all, and flaky sea salt.

After trying the salt bread, we moved on to a pretzel place nearby called Backerin, which actually had seats, a very wide range of pretzels, and good coffee while we waited for the rest. We then went to our first Olive Young for the day and came out with our bags full. And finally, we were off to our touristy agenda, the Seoul Forest, where we spent most of the day just walking around, taking photos, catching up, playing around, and laughing till we couldn’t breathe.