Last week of my holidays and I really wanted to travel out of Seoul. But the weather was not kind. After seeing the weather forecast "Rain on Monday through to Tuesday, potential flooding", I decided to stay in Seoul.
I'm not a fan of rainy days, since I love to take photos of the scenery and outdoors, so I stayed home the whole day yesterday. I decided I shall not hide from the rain anymore today and went to Coex Mall, one of the largest shopping malls I've been to (where I lost my camera lens cap unfortunately).
Coex Aquarium (COEX 水族馆)
코엑스 아쿠아리움 (524, Bongeunsa-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul 서울특별시 강남구 봉은사로 524 (삼성동)
How to get there: Samseong Station, Line 2, Exit 5/6 (about 600m from the station)
Opening Hours: 10:00 - 20:00 Admission is available until one hour before closing time.
Prices: 19,500krw (Adults), 16,500krw (Youths 13-18), 14,000 (Children 4-12), 16,500 (Senior 65+)
When I asked for directions at the information counter, I thought the girl was kidding when she said "Walk straight for 10 minutes." She was right! It really took about that long to reach the aquarium. The place is very family friendly, areas for baby trolleys, lockers, slopes for trolleys, nursing rooms, etc are available.
I reached at about 1pm and there were many young children. Despite that, it was not overly crowded and I was able to take photographs leisurely.
There is a total of 12 areas in the aquarium (1 Our Land, Our Fish, 2 Fish's Wonderland, 3 Amazonia World, 4 Kid's Aquarium, 5 Mangrove and Beach, 6 Seas All Over the World, 7 Ocean Kingdom and Undersea Tunnel, 8 Marine Mammal Zone, 9 Touch Pool, 10 Deep Blue Square, 11 Deep Blue Sea, 12 Penguin's Playground), and my favourite is probably "Deep Blue Square" where I watched the sardine show.
The place looks quite worn out and needs some upgrades to make the experience better. However the number of sea creatures I have not seen before makes up for that.
Arowana
Electric Eel
Spotted Frog
Guinea Pig
Ciliated threadfish
Starfish
Diver at the Sardine Show
Jellyfish
These jellyfishes were swimming upside down!
Maybe I have not been to an aquarium for quite some time, but there were some really huge sea creatues that amazed me. It was intriguing to be able to watch them from so close!
I can't say I'm 100% overwhelmed by the aquarium, but it's definitely a fun place for families.
Souvenir Shop
Pulmuone Kimchi Museum (Pulmuone泡菜博物馆)
서울특별시 강남구 테헤란로87길 58 (삼성동) 코엑스몰 지하2층
How to get there: Samseong Station, Line 2, Exit 6 (about 600m from the station)
Opening Hours: 10:00 - 18:00 (Last admission 17:30), Closed - Every Monday, Seollal, Chuseok, Christmas, New Year's Day
Prices: Ages 20 and over: 3,000 won, Ages 8 - 19: 2,000 won, Ages 7 and under: 1,000 won
Since the museum is at Coex, I decided to take a look as well. The museum is quite small and took me about 15-20minutes to finish looking at the exhibits. You can find out about the history and different types of kimchi. There is also a tasting room for some common types of kimchi.
In my opinion it's not a must-go museum given its size and corresponding entrance fee.
Different types of kimchi for each season
Create your own Hanjeongsik - Hanjeongsik is a full-course Korean meal with an array of savory side dishes. Finding the pictures of the Korean food I like from the pile on the table probably took a longer time than my tour of the whole museum. Oh wells!
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