Seoul --> Suwon

Hi Dad & Mum,

Hello from Suwon! :-) Travelled 1hr from Seoul via subway...

We are using the free internet access in the tourist information centre so this will be a brief post only...

Yesterday was a fun day. We didn't get to sit the submarine coz there was a thick fog and strong winds... our plane back to Seoul was delayed for about half hour.... but that was good already coz hundred plus other planes were grounded...

Though we didn't get to sit our submarine.... we did manage to see an interesting mongolian horse show, a miniature world park and a "mysterious" road where the taxi we were in could roll "uphill" with the engine off... show you the photos next time...

oh... guess what... our Somerset accomodation in Seoul was upgraded.... FREE... :-) good stuff... free breakfast too.. hehe...

Going to grab lunch now before we head to Suwon's Korean folk village and Hwa Seong Fortress.

Happy Valentine's Day! ;-)

Cheers.

p.s. we haven't started our shopping yet.... ;-)

Sunrise Peak a.ka Seongsan Ilchulbong (Jeju Island)

Hi Daddy & Mummy,

We made it to sunrise... just barely.... ;-) It was really funny...

The lady owner of the place we were staying at told us last night that the sun usually rises around 730am and it will take 20mins to climb up to the peak... being kiasu and unfit Singaporeans, we decided to give ourselves buffer time... Left our rooms at 645am....

We were in for a good workout! My gosh... it was 182m high.... and VERY VERY STEEP! (or at least it felt steep...) Our legs are still aching from the climb.... :-) Almost didn't make it up... but we were inspired by the old aunties carrying walking sticks who climbed up.... ;-)

Here's some snapshots that we took from the peak.... not the best coz we trottered along too slowly.... Ping was saying we have not even seen sun rise at East Coast... ;-)

Will be going to watch a mongolia horse show today and prob also squeeze in another folk village visit later in the day... We will also be checking into our 5* Lotte hotel (Jangmun resort)!!! Whoooeee.... a good change after so many days of cheap (but safe) accomodation..... ;-) Suppose to be very good....

Will try to blog again soon....

p.s. our flight back is SQ17 1130pm on Sun

Volcano Island -- Jeju! :-)

Ping & Wen took a domestic flight to Jeju from Busan today (Gyeongju --> Busan --> Jeju)...

hello from Jeju! :-)

this is the room we are blogging from...

For the price we're paying... it's a cool room, big and spacious and with good heating and it has a tv, computer with internet, cooking area, fridge, etc... plus a great seaview... stylo milo sia... it's like a studio apartment! haha...

we took very long to find this motel though... our guidebook recommended it but we took hours to find it cos this place didn't seem to have an address, only a name... in the end, just as we were about to settle for a normal motel, we decided to ask the police station officers... they were all watching the Iran vs South Korea football match and the senior officer told his junior to call the motel for us... and so we got chauffered to this motel in a big car... :-)

this motel is in Seongsan-ri, which is 20 minutes walk away from Sun Rise Peak... this is supposed to be a VERY beautiful place to watch sunrise from... tell you more about it tomorrow... if we can wake up... :-)

oh yes, today's food was not bad: we had rice crackers (like our keropok but made from special Icheon rice), abalone porridge (but not much abalone and which had a fishy taste) and some seafood soup... and Ping really enjoyed the ikan bilis (not fried but prepared in a very nice Korean way)... we had a free refill in the restaurant and when we were about to leave, Wen went to ask for somemore, offering to pay... but the auntie was very nice and offered us alot of it free, wrapped up in aluminium foil... so we felt pai seh and were trying to find something to give her since she won't take our money... guess what we gave her in the end? haha... it was the green tea that we brought from home... :-) the auntie was so happy with it that she offered us the Jeju tangerines (supposed to be very nice and famous in Korea)...

(MBC - one of the tv stations in Korea recommended this restaurant)

Gyeongju's UNESCO sights were so-so only... quite hyped up but we didn't enjoy it as much as Andong... but the process of finding the places and taking pictures along the very scenic way was fun...

for this Jeju part of the trip, Wen will be planning the schedule... we'll try to fit in a submarine ride tomorrow (it's about S$80 but we figure this will be a once in a lifetime experience and should be fun... other than this submarine trip and watching the sunrise at Sunshine Peak (a UNESCO natural site), nothing is firmed up yet... Wen will do her research tonight and tell Ping tomorrow... it'll be an adventure! :-)

adventure day

today has been an interesting day of trains, traditional houses and being on tv shows! :-)

first, we woke up at 5.30am (overslept) and rushed to catch our 6am train to Andong... we reached the train station (at Gangneung) at exactly 6am and the station officer was nice enough to walkie talkie the train not to go off before we got on... haha... sounds familiar right? just like us in Singapore... :-)

anyway, Andong turned out to be a really nice place... it's supposed to be a very traditional place and we visited the Andong Folk Village and the Andong Folk Museum... the Andong Folk Village was the shooting location for one of the Korean dramas we watched and Wen liked the film set alot... on the way back to the main road, we walked on Korea's longest walking bridge which was 300+m long and which was over a very nice and scenic river...

our original plan was to take the 12.15pm train from Andong to Gyeongju but we did not manage to get a taxi... there were no cabs in sight for quite a long time! so we decided to go eat and chose a restaurant where we saw some MBC (Korean TV station) crew walking out... we figured if that restaurant was good enough for the stars, it was good enough for us! :-)

and guess what, it turned out that the Korean crew was shooting something (we guess it's a travelogue) and they filmed us too... they posed for photo with us and asked us where we are from and where we are headed to next... so fun! Wen was in her ming xing mode for quite a while after and even jokingly suggested going to look for them in the Folk Village (where she wanted to take more photos)...

instead, in the end, we cabbed to Hohoe Folk Village... it was quite expensive but worth the trip as the scenery was very nice and it was a real village with real villagers staying in there (buildings preserved by the Korean government)...

and we caught the 5pm train to Gyeongju...

checked into a place called Sarang Chae at about 7+pm... it's a cool guesthouse where we met a Singaporean lady travelling on her own (she works for an insurance company too and we swopped work stories and travel tales with her), a Japanese lady with her 2 year old (very cute and friendly) daughter and a Belgium lady...

oh yes, then we went to the Tumuli park... the attraction there was grassy mounds like little hills which were supposed to be the excavated tombs of some dead kings... there were exhibitions on what the diggers found in those tombs...

overall, travelling has been fun with some unexpected moments (like missing our train but then meeting the MBC filming crew, etc)... but we have met many nice people who have really gone out of their way to be nice to us...

like the old couple, especially the auntie, at the motel we stayed in last night who helped make calls to find out what time our train to Andong would depart... this is even though there was a big language barrier...

like the train officer at Gangneung who made the train wait a minute for us...

like the taxi uncle who drove us to Hahoe Folk Village and took the initiative to do a free guided tour for us...

like the Sarang Chae lady owner who went out of her way to show us directions on the map and give us travel tips when we just wanted to tell her that we would be going out...

like the Singaporean lady traveller who shared her travel stories freely with us...

and like our dear parents who are reading this right now and thinking what their kids are up to... but still give us their blessings to go and experience life outside... :-)

tomorrow, we will explore more of Gyeongju (which used to be a Shilla kingdom) then go to Busan to take a flight to Jeju...

hope all is well at home, cheers! :-)

p.s: weather here is ok, can be chilly outside sometimes but we are well prepared with our thick clothes... and the insides of all buildings and transports are all warm...

Winter Sonata

we are at the winter sonata ski resort now, writing this... will be taking a bus back to our hotel in Gangneung in 20 minutes... think the ski resort may be somewhat overrated... either that or it's too dark for us to see anything now... but we had healthy Korean food here! :-)

and we stayed very very safe by not skiing... so dun worry... hehe...

this morning, as usual, we did not wake up as scheduled... but we had a good rest... it must be the winter syndrome, making people want to sleep in and hibernate... haha...

we checked out of our hotel only at 11+am (when we had scheduled to take a bus to the ski resort at first 5.50am then 9am)... ahh... the beauty of a free and easy tour...

we had an interesting time getting to the ski resort by public transport (walk half an hour to some mrt station, take mrt then take intercity bus) and managed to squeeze an extra tourist spot in between, which made Ping happy... and Wen was happy because she discovered suburban shopping at the Express Bus Terminal and even the rest stop!

tomorrow, we'll be going to the historical places of Andong and Gyeongju... tell you more then! :-)

(will upload photos the next time we blog, as we are rushing for a bus now)

hi from seoul!

hi pops and mops!

the travelling sisters are in seoul now... it has been a fun time so far and we are both well... :-)

yesterday, after reaching incheon airport, we took an airport limo bus to the ascott apartment (missed a stop and took a cab to the apartment)... then after resting, we walked to the palace (Gyeongbukgung) which is very near our apartment... we were fortunate to reach there just when the palace guard was changing and it was a colourful sight...

lunch was a nice pumpkin pasta thingy with chips, at the Korean National Palace Museum...

then we walked to this quaint shopping area with lots of interesting shops and art galleries called Insadong, where we also had a Korean dinner...

oh, and we also popped by the Korean Tourism Office, which had friendly English speaking staff and who gave us tips on travelling Seoul... there, we rented the traditional Korean costumes (called a hanbok)... think your daughters look good in them? :-) we're looking out for nice cheap hanboks to buy home! :-)

Koreans wear the traditional costumes to pay respects (bai nian) to their elders during the lunar new year... so maybe we'll do that next year... haha...

anyway, after dinner, we went shopping at Dongdaemun (dong da men in mandarin, i.e. East Big Gate), this used to be the eastern gate of Seoul city but now it's a shopping area... we covered 7 storeys of one of the shopping malls and Ping was exhausted after that! Wen still wants to go back for more!!

Today, we lazed around in our room till 11am... then we went to the world's biggest church Yeoiudo Full Gospel Church... it has 1 million members all over the world and about 100,000 in Seoul alone... the service we attended had 10,000 people and they have 12 services a week... the service was in Korean but they provided headphones with English and Chinese translations...

we wanted to go to the prayer mountain after church but missed the bus (cos a church elder was talking to us and it was pretty inspiring)... so we went back to the palace for a very interesting (and free!) performance... there, a nice Korean guy (working for Kia Motors and in the palace with his colleagues to take photos) with a super-pro camera took lots of photos for Wen with our memory card...

oh, we went to eat the pumpkin pasta again... :-) wanted to try the Korean red bean porridge but it was out of stock, so Wen ate some Emperor's food (which we know as glutinous rice back home)... and Wen had a great time taking photos of all the food...

and now, we are at Itaewon, a very happening place with a big foreigner population... everywhere on the streets, people are speaking English... we happily ate ice-cream and tried shopping for a hanbok... and Wen tried to buy a winter sweater cos she complains that all our warm clothes are black coloured and not nice for taking photos... fortunately, she has her purple scarf and gloves... :-)

so, as you can see, we are having fun here and enjoying our differences! :-)

tomorrow, we will head to the Winter Sonata ski resort... tell you more then... :-)

will be flying in 24 hours! :-)

at home with pops and mops, doing pre-trip packing...



it's quite fun, what with the usual hunt for long-lost items and also jokes about big ears... :-)



anyway, here's what ping and wen have agreed to do in korea:



Day 1: Seoul city tour and Suwon

Day 2: Cho Yonggi's church and prayer mountain

Day 3: YongPyong Ski Resort (Winter Sonata)

Day 4: Andong and Gyeongju (historical area)

Day 5: Gyeongju, Busan and will reach Jeju in the later afternoon (Domestic flight)

Day 6: Jeju Island

Day 7: Jeju Island, then fly back to Seoul at night

Day 8: Seoul (Everland or Lotte World) and Itaewon

Day 9: Seoul finale and back to Singapore

In order that we make it back home safely (still as sisters), we have come up with 3 rules...

3 Rules for the trip:-
1) Peace & harmony --> No arguing!
2) Everything is ok.... as long as we are safe... even if we miss a bus, train or flight. Chill!
3) .......


it has been a great process of planning and bargaining about where to go (and how/ when to go!)... so far so fun... and dun worry pops and mops, we'll keep safe! ;-)