Seoul - What to Do On a Rainy Day

This is a recollection of what we did on a rainy day in Seoul. We decided to spend the day in Hongdae.

1. Visit the Trickeye Museum

First, we visited the Trickeye Museum.

The term "Trick Eye" is short for "Trick of the Eye" (Trompe l'oeil). It is an art technique for turning two-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional images through optical illusions.

The Trickeye Museum can get quite crowded in the afternoon (operating hours 9:00-21:00). So it is advisable to go there in the morning. We spent around two and a half hours inside (mainly because it keeps raining).

You can interact with the paintings as if you're part of the art itself. There are also hands-on programs on making art toys for children age 4 years or older. A great indoor hang out place for people of all age.

The exterior looked like this. The museum is located downstairs:

Tip:

• Download the 20% off coupon for the Trickeye 3D Museum. You can visit for free if it's your birthday. Click here to go to the Visit Korea Website for details!

2. Lunch: Korean pork bone soup with potatoes (Gamjatang)

For lunch we had Gamjatang (Korean pork bone soup with potatoes). 

Ingredients include pork ribs, potatoes, cellophane noodles , perilla leaves (Korean mint leaves), sesame seeds and green onions. A great comfort food to brighten a gloomy, rainy day. It was easy to replicate this dish at home, as long as you have access to fresh perilla leaves...

High sodium broth. Boiled pork backbone... So delicious...

Credit: Wiki

I had to borrow the photo from wiki because my photo looked like this:

We finished the entire pot before taking any photos!

3. Afternoon Break: Hongdae Cat Cafe

It's time for afternoon tea... at a cat cafe! We saw this sign on the street and decided to enter the shop.



There were around 20 cats in the cat cafe. Soon, we surrendered to this mass of fluffiness... ^ↀᴥↀ^

These cats were mean, very mean...

"Your drink belongs to me!!!"

"Don't touch me. I kill people for a living."

4. Hongdae Free Market (Saturday)

We then traveled to the Hongdae Free Market. 

Hongdae Free Market is a Saturday arts and craft market run by students of Hongdae University. It is a good place to relax and listen to singing performances by students. 

On our day of visit, we found students drawing portraits and practising guitar.

It was also filled with art stalls and souvenir stalls. Jewelry, painted shoes, clocks, painted fans and art pieces were sold in the streets. Hongdae is an area filled with young, trendy people. It is worth dropping by in the afternoon to purchase some souvenirs!

Information:

• From March to November, 13:00-18:00. 
• The Hope Market is held on Sunday.

5. Cake! Dessert!

When walking down the streets of Hongdae, we found many young people holding a black and white cake box.

The cake looked appealing in the store. We purchased a chocolate cake for 10000 won and it was disappointing... Maybe the dog shaped cake would taste better?

6. Eat Seafood Pancake. Drink rice wine.

At night, we went back to Sinchon.

This restaurant serves pig trotters (Jokbal) and seafood pancake  (Haemul Pajeon). It goes well with rice wine (Dong-dong Ju, 15-20% alcohol).

Korean have a habit of eating seafood pancake and drinking rice wine on rainy days. And we did the same...