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Hi Seoul, Soul of Asia & Jeju - 18 May - 26 May 2013
Thursday, 1 August 2013
Anneonghasaeyo! I'm back to this city where I said I will never step back here again after I'm been step,push,kick,hit etc by the local people. However 7 years later, I decided to change my mind as Dear & I (ok it's just me) are crazy over running man and korean drama/kpop (Girls Generation is my Dear's favourite) and most importantly, there's promotion for the airticket. I have learnt from my previous trip that we can't spend 9 days in Seoul so we are going to Jeju this time round. Everything was planned by us from scratch eg, booking domestic flight to Jeju, engage a tour guide for Jeju, search internet and read reviews for Seoul/Jeju Hotel and of course the 9 days itnerary. On the day of departure we had some disagreement (my fault for not bringing my Dear's oil oil) but we managed to patch back in plane so in the beginning, you will not see any pictures of us. Wahaha! There's always a disadvantage of cheap tickets which is a stopover but I'm glad my stopover was at Hong Kong. As we reached HK at 5am plus, most of the shops are not open so we grabbed the only available food stall and proceed with a little shopping when they finally open at 6am. I'm happy that I bought Dear's favourite Mcdull camera strap and replaced the dirty smelly old one.
Upon reaching Incheon Airport, we took a train to Gimpo Airport for our domestic flight to Jeju. My first impression of Gimpo Airport is similar to our budget airport where there's limited shops and food stalls. Since we don't want to eat so full before reaching Jeju, we decided to grab fastfood at Lotteria, a popular fast food restaurant in Korea. I'm quite pleased with Air Busan although there's a quite delay but still it's worth the price. Something funny that we encounter was there's a lucky draw during the flight. Dear still commented that they are so noisy that woke her up from her sleep! haha! We took a cab to the hotel after some research online that travelling by cab is just 5-8mins away and it's not expensive to travel in cab in Seoul/Jeju. The hotel we choose is indeed another good catch, cheap/big and near the shopping area. The reception is a friendly middle aged man who spoken a rather good english as he explained to me on the remote control function. I wondered if the land in Jeju is cheap as the room is far bigger than our expectation. After settling down, we quickly find a nearby shop for our late dinner. During my research, I saw there's a BBQ stall opposite our hotel with good review therefore we decided to go there, indeed the black pig meat is one of the best. As the night is still "young" and we don't want to waste the night away, we took a stroll nearby and that's when we know the hotel is located at at New Jeju City.
We started the day as early as 6am and as agreed our tour guide picked us up at the hotel and we proceed to our first destination : Seongsan Sunrise Peak. However on our way there, our driver told us that there's another driver waiting for us as well which makes me confused as the few days, I have emailed a few tour guide and most of them are unavailable and recommand me their friends so all along I thought it's the same driver. Totally messed up in the morning but luckily, we solved the issue and the other driver accept my apologies. Knewing that we did not had our breakfast, our driver stopped by at a small shop and bought us Kimbap, something similar to sushi. We are so glad that we had that as the next scene we saw scared us... my Dear's nightmare.. Stairs!! To get to the peak, there's at least 200plus stairs we need to climb and the whole journey took us 30mins. Luckily we started early so as we have all the stairs to ourselves and while climbing, we took some nice pictures. We proceed our next stop which I'm quite look forward to : Trick Art Museum. In the past, I used to see other people taking 3D pictures that's why this is a must list in Jeju. Indeed it's not easy to take those pictures and you must look as if you are in it but glad my Dear is a good photographer so most shots are nice, only those she took for me, as for those I took for her.. Hmmm I shall not give any comments. As both of us are fans of Running Man, another must go place is Maze Land. Initally, we wanted to go another maze but luckily our driver know we are fans therefore he told us it's actually another maze, so here we are.. at the same location where they flimed ep105. We settled our lunch here too and of all days, the cafe is closed so we bought cup noodle in the nearby shop. The maze is made up of 3 mazes which one is made of stones, bushes and luckily with the map, we finish the maze with a breeze (in between we did lost our way out). Our final stop is Manjunggul Cave. Another place where we have to walk at least 20mins before we reached the finishing point. Overall, the cave is naturally cold, wet and have many small rocks so Dear almost tripped and need to walk slowly as her feet tends to struck in between of the rocks. Finally it's shopping time, we asked the driver to bring us to Jungang underground mall but I find the shopping around our hotel is better than this. Dinner was at a small cafe at the mall and both of us are quite satisfied with it.
We set off a little later than yesterday after non stop of walking & climbing that's explain why I look a bit tired than yesterday. Haha! As planned, we wanted to visit Cheongjyeon Waterfalls but our driver said since Jeongbang Water is just 5mins away therefore we decided to visit both. Indeed both are different kind of waterfall where Jeongbang is more natural, closer to the sea and there are many small/big rocks surrounding it and Cheongjiyeon is more of a tourist spot where there's a mini park before you reach and there's a lake infront of it. Not to mention this is the place where I fell down when there's only 5 stairs. Sobs Sobs! Seeing there's enough time, our driver drove us to one of the kdrama : Secret Garden film spot and almost wanted us to do the popular scene.. kissing on the bench. Lolz! No way we are gg to do that. Next on the list: Teddy Bear Museum. Our driver did told us to change plan to Teddy Bear Safari but we insisted as that's where the Gong Bear and LV Bear is. Well, he's right afterall. Teddy Bear Museum is a smaller scale than the Safari, although the bear seems more expensive and exclusive. Before we proceed to Safari, we went to Jeju Glass Castle where they use glass to make all kind of different things. Quite an interesting sight as we don't see this often elsewhere. This ends our journey in Jeju and hopefully we will be back for other places that we have missed. Seoul, here we come.
We reached Seoul as per schedule, finding the hotel and checking in is as easy as a breeze. We are glad that our hotel is very near fastfood outlet, shops and even Gong Cha. We had ramen as our first meal in Seoul and after we are done, we took a stroll along the streets. Here comes the joke of the trip. As we walked along the streets, I find everything familiar and even Dear asked me if we are at Myeongdong. I told her it look like but it's not. Heading back to the hotel to preserve energy for tomorrow. Breakfast are served at the hotel and I'm so overjoyed to see bacons!! ok I don't mean sunnie baby. Done with breakfast, we proceed with our first stop : Myeongdong. Switching 2 stops, change lines before we can reached there, here are we, at the most popular area just like Orchard Road. While walking along the streets, Dear suddenly asked me, isn't this the place we went last night? LOLZ! Indeed our hotel is just one end of Myeongdong and stupid me still took train to come here. This the biggest joke of all my trip! As I promised Dear I will bring her to eat Ginseng Chicken so we walked almost all the streets before we can find the same shop I went the previous trip. I really enjoyed walking Myeongdong as there are many small shops that sell different kind of clothes, shoes, bags, cosmetic and of course food. We spent almost 3/4 day there before we proceed to Banpo Bridge for the rainbow water fountain.
We spend the next day at Lotte World, the first indoor theme park. Unlike disneyland, most of the rides are more for kids and their mascot is a pair of fox. Not very cute..at least to me Haha! Dear and I took the "merry go round" ride, tram ride, bumper car and the outdoor swan lake boat ride. There's a small outdoor theme park which has the roller coaster , haunted theater etc but as age gets older, both of us don't take such exciting rides anymore. haha. We finished the theme park at around 4plus and we decided to go shopping the nearby mall. We went to the supermart which one of my colleague said I can buy the korean brownies so belived that that's the only place, we bought almost 7boxes back (which I later found out, I can buy it in Myeongdong!!) Not wanting to waste the night, we went to another underground shopping mall called Express Bus Terminal. I quite like this place as the clothes and bags can be found in Myeongdong but at almost 20-30% cheaper. We ended the night with new shoes and clothes :)
As I said earlier, being running man fans, how can we missed out restaurant opened by the crew. Before I depart, I have made some research that one of the crew, Haha, opened a restaurant near Hongik Univ. Also recommended by my colleague, we decided to go there for a walk and also find the restaurant. As the weather is getting hotter day by day, Dear and I bought a cap from one of the popular cap shop which features other K-star wore before too. Me of course choose one that running man crew wore before and Dear bought one that has cute wings on it. Oh I forgot to mention I saw one of the korean stars which I like, he acted in a korean drama Hanoi wife. We passby a shop that sells many interesting things that we could deco our house in the future, Dear, we will come back again hor! As Dear bought the full set of Avengers figuring (made of paper), we head back hotel before going to next destination. Along our way to the subway, we grab some snacks along Myeongdong, i simply love to eat.. haha! Nothing much in Dongdaemun as the shopping is much expensive than elsewhere. The only part that amazed me is they open till 5am! I wondered what time they opened. Dear was angry with me for bringing her to eat spicy food for dinner. Well, it's wasn't like that the first time I went that's why I told her the red sauce is not spicy. Oops which turns out to be chilli. Sorry love!
Finally no more shopping, instead we went for some sight seeing in Seoul the next day, Gyeongbokgung and Seoul Tower. Gyeongbokgung is a place where the king, queen used to stay. It's so huge that we didn't finished the whole Gong and left the place. Before going to Seoul Tower, we stopped by at another shopping mall, COEX and so happen there's a casino there, therefore we decided to go and take a sneak. Left with limited cash, we just stayed a while and left for our final stop for the day, Seoul Tower. This is the second time I have been there but first time I took the cable car but I didn't know to get there, I need to climb a hill, stairs (again) etc. Tiring! I told Dear that I must buy a lock so we can lock our "love" forever and she did and both of us wrote words on it. So sweet and cute! The reason I went Seoul Tower at 5plus as I wanted to take the day and view of it but I waited till 8 and the night is still not as dark, feeling hungry, I told Dear I decided to give up and we went to our hotel nearby for late dinner. Another food I must eat there is fried chicken and we happen to passby a shop opened by a popular host in Korea. Indeed, the chicken is tender and juicy thou it's not cheap, we still enjoyed the meal.
This is the last day we are spending in Seoul therefore we are doing the last min shopping. Our first stop is Ewha Woman Univ, another shopping heaven for me as I loved everything there. We happened to go into a shop that sells bags that cost only $11! I grab 4 bags including one for my mum and Dear bought 2 for Gladys and Jasmine. What a pity that we should come here earlier and less than 1min, I bought another pair of shoes that cost $30plus which is also cheap given the material and brand. It's sold in Singapore but cost 50-60% more expensive. Carrying so many bags on hand, I have soon used up my energy but refused to head back to hotel as we wanted to go to a flea market at Hongik Univ. I'm glad we went there as there's many things which I don't see in Singapore or else where flea market. All are handmade by the seller and Dear bought a few bottle caps with cute design drawn on it for J&J. We settled our dinner in Myeongdong with spicy noodle (me) and Kimbap (Dear) and of course non stop of snacks along the streets. And I finally made up my mind to purchase my shoes (custom made) and delivered back to Sin.
Overall, both of us enjoyed the trip and commented that actually Seoul is better than Tokyo as in shopping and food. So we believed near future, we will be back here again :) Thanks love for everything during the trip. Love you always!! Muackies Muackies!! Labels: first-time, fun, holiday, korea
xoxo,
darling |
16:25
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