Korea Day 2 (part 3): MyeongDong

After 2 long and sobering posts about the DMZ, time to lighten the atmosphere!

Day 2's evening was spent in MyeongDong, where I did my cosmetics shopping and fulfillment of cosmetics purchase requests from friends and colleagues. 

The sight that greeted me as I stepped out of the station

MyeongDong is the area renowned for cosmetics shopping, the entire street / area is filled with cosmetics retail shops. Whatever brand you name it, they have it. Faceshop, Laneige, Holika Holika, Etude House, Nature Republic, Innisfree, and other local brands that are not available in Singapore. Not only do they have almost all brands possible, they also have multiple branches of the SAME brand on that SAME street. It is crazy. 

A humongous branch of Nature Republic, 

very eyecatching with its green foliage on the building

Coincidentally, it was the season for SALES. 

Can you imagine... the already-very-cheap cosmetics undergoing FURTHER discounts!

It's a no wonder that tourists are grabbing the products without any hesitation.

Spotted Laneige! where I was tasked in buying some items. 

Went in and out, done with the purchasing, within 10 mins. 

When night falls... 

Wanted to try something different for dinner, something that is not the usual jigae or ramyeon or bbq version, and chanced upon this:

Porridge! The chinese character really stood out and caught our eye. 

Located on the 2nd floor... 

Making our way up

The restaurant

(pardon the yellowish photo, was too hungry to bother adjusting 

/ fiddling with the camera settings to change it to white light)

Check out the massive spread of porridge available! 

Oh my, they REALLY specialise in porridge indeed...

Ordered the Crabmeat porridge but they were sold out on it =( 

So we changed to Shrimp porridge instead. 

Order for the night! 

Koreans are really very generous in the side dishes serving, they always make it free flow. The porridge serving was also MEGA huge, luckily it was a shared portion, else I wouldn't be able to finish it on my own. Was glad to try something local and yet, not the typical Korean dish. Porridge is definitely not the first item that comes to mind when one mention 'Korean food'. 

Close-up of the steaming porridge; 

texture was thick enough, taste was sweet enough, and sufficient ingredients for you to munch on.

Thumbs up!