![\"Botak](\"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/01\/20091231_UTC050147_DSC_0633.jpg\" "\\"Botak")
<\/a>In Seoul, there are tonnes of shops with coffee and waffles (waffels in some places) and also, the other favourite – doughnuts and coffee.<\/p>\n
So we decided to sit down in Coffeesmith. We were the only customers for a long while.<\/p>\n Their waffles are good. I haven’t tasted such waffles in a long time. They’re crunchy outside, soft inside, but drier with more airholes, less dense and doughy and less thick-pancake-like inside.<\/p>\n I didn’t care for the whipped cream, but the blueberry that accompanies the waffles is great – not too sweet. In fact, we had another waffle later in our trip with the same jam. Real nice.<\/p>\n We waited for life to begin at Garosu and watched very few people go by.<\/p>\n There was shopping for some people.<\/p>\n And interesting light play for me.<\/p>\n And strange shops for all…<\/p>\n Then we headed to another neighbourhood – Insadong, which is more traditional. The vibe is totally different, and there seem to be more older people around too.<\/p>\n And the roads are tiny.<\/p>\n Taking it slow, we had another break – this time for citron tea.<\/p>\n When you order citron tea (that has a dried date cut in the shape of a flower floating on it), it also comes with a little kueh<\/em> and another (bitter) type of tea that clears the palette. They mention nothing of this in the menu, so for a first-timer, it’s a nice surprise.<\/p>\n Then we headed to the Dongdaemun Markets – which are huge buildings with floors and floors of little shops selling clothes, shoes, bags etc etc.<\/p>\n There’s a huge entrepreneurial spirit here, and owning your own shop makes it easy to negotiate on prices to get things moving.<\/p>\n I didn’t take a photo in those buildings as I didn’t see anything that caught my eye. Also, the narrow space between stores made me feel rather claustrophobic, even though it was devoid of crowds. I can just imagine how mad it must get when it’s full of people.<\/p>\n Then it was dinner time. Well, it was a bit early to have dinner – 5? Maybe 6. But I was already very hungry.<\/p>\n For me, dark sky = night = time for dinner.<\/p>\n Being ya-ya Singaporeans, we ordered the spiciest gravy, which unlike the hotpot in Hong Kong, isn’t just spicy, but sweet. So I preferred this to the Hong Kong one, which is all chilli and makes your tongue so swollen you can’t taste anything.<\/p>\n My nose leaked as I ate this.<\/p>\n Then we walked up the Cheonggyecheon again (this time at night) and in about an hour, reached the head of the river and took photos of the lights there.<\/p>\n This time, the lazy me swapped the mobile phone camera (which I’d been using for most night shots) for the real camera.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a>