A Winter Wednesday Welcome: Shopping And Driving Through Snowed Seoul!

My friends Arlene and Loren, who have both lived in Seoul for years, flew from Manila and into the country to visit old friends, do some shopping and spend a few wintery days in the city.  They scheduled their visit in the winter time as they wanted to experience a white Christmas once more.

And lucky them! Not only were they able to see the whitened city of snowy Seoul, but got lots of discounts at their favorite cosmetics shop within 24 hours of their arrival!

They flew in late Tuesday night and took a taxi from Incheon International Airport up to Seongbuk-dong in Seoul, where they would stay with another  friend, Joy. And the next morning, on Wednesday, they drove to a Faceshop store, where another friend was able to give them more discounts on top of the current 50%-sale event! As I said, lucky them!

They must have spent a lot at the Faceshop store as the sales girls took a long time racking up their bill. With all the items in the store mostly on sale, it was indeed difficult to decide which one of this-and-that cleansers, creams and everything else would be a good Christmas gift to bring home to Manila!  After more than half an hour shopping, the sales girls were just glad to give them a lot of free samples and reusable Faceshop bags! Sales from these shoppers from Manila must have been enough to reach their quota for the day!

And since it started to snow outside, they didn't venture far to grab their first Korean food of the trip - buddae-jjigae!  A few doors from Faceshop was a buddae-jjiggae restaurant, where tables were mostly full of office workers, although they were made to wait for a few minutes for a table. The flight from Manila to Seoul was about four hours. What's a few minutes more, right?

With their Faceshop shopping bags in hand and their tummies full from the hearty buddae-jiggae lunch, it was time to head out in the snowy streets of Seoul! The snow last Wednesday started to fall at noon, which got heavier later that day and caused some serious traffic everywhere.

With all the streets along the way covered with snow, Arlene and Loren's wishes were all fulfilled! 

A snowy Wednesday welcome for both with shopping, Korean lunch and a snowy sightseeing in Seoul! 

                 (The Christmas tree at the Seoul Plaza)

Here are the rest of the photos of the snowy Seoul...