Changdeokgung Palace and Huwon (Secret Garden)

The place Dae Jang Geum filmed!!!! I just finished DJG very recently (yes slow i know) and i really adored the drama and the rich culture that it taught me. So this palace was something I had anticipated, and since Deoksugung was such a disappointment, we decided to spend some time at Changdeokgung so the BF can see a proper palace.

We bought both the palace and Huwon (Secret Garden) ticket. You don’t need a tour for the palace (unless you want to), but it’s compulsory for the secret garden. So we checked out the secret garden and tailored our itinerary to that.

Tour timings for reference!

We decided to head over to the nearby Bukchon Hanok Village to walk around a bit and eat our food! There were a LOT of really pretty cafes there that were crowded due to the village being near an office area. Example:

We sat around eating Patbingsoo in the heat before heading over to the palace to start our exploration!!

And then we were in! DJG’s fimling locatino!!

The main place where ceremonies take place

Looked like a familiar corridor so i took a pic anyw

looked like a familiar place too where the court ladies always pass by

 

Haha. Love this picture because of the contrast between me with ze snapback and shorts and portable charger, and the palace building~ #sweg #notreally

We joined the English tour that had started earlier on when we stumbled upon them by accident. We left the tour pretty fast too though, to rush to the secret garden for the tour.

The secret garden rules were pretty strict because they are trying their best to preserve the palace as an ‘untouched’ beauty. You can’t get ahead of the tour guide and she gives very specific timings for each location. You could get reprimanded for running off on your own. In the olden times, the secret garden was restricted to members of the royal family.

Successful Panorama shot!!!

The above place was where I recalled seeing Janggeum and the king strolling. It was where he told her all his stories etc~

The spot where the crown prince sits and ponders about life and reads books.

in the process of taking that above panorama shot

picture taken from the pavilion the royal family sits on

The tour guide was saying that autumn was the best season to visit the secret garden and I can imagine why.

A tree that’s been around for hundreds of years. It’s probably seen the life of all the people that came and go from Joseon dynasty till now.

That’s all for Changdeokgung and Huwon! Honestly this was the best palace in my opinion, less touristy than Geongbokgung and the Huwon is a lovely place, although the tour got a bit boring in the later half. If you absolutely must visit a palace in Korea, I’d definitely recommend Changdeokgung over any others!

How to get to Changdeokgung: Take the subway to Anguk Station  (line 3) and exit via Exit 3. There will be signs on the road that will lead you to Deoksugung straight ahead from the exit of the subway. You will walk past Bukchon Hanok Village.

Jeju Island 2D2N

Jeju Island! I’ve been there once with my family before but i can’t really recall much besides a lot of oranges. So the BF came over and for a few days we decided to head over to Jeju island! I’m not going to share my itinerary in full detail honestly because it rained on the first day till about 4pm, but I’ll share what I remember and recommend what i think is good.

Car Rental

First of all, I’ll recommend renting a car. We rented a small car (Morning) from KT Rental and we realized how necessary it was. Buses are few and you would have to take taxi to a lot of places. Having is important if you can drive! The car itself cost about 85,000 won plus insurance for 2 days, and petrol cost us about 30,000 won. So altogether almost 120,000 won which is 60,000 won for each of us for 2 days. Rate of 30k/day is not cheap, but mostly that’s because the car was split between two of us. If you go in a group of 5 for example, you’d only be paying 12,000won per person per day which is very cheap!

Oh yes you need an international license so remember to apply for one 🙂

There is a shuttle bus from Jeju Airport to KT Rental at gate 5, when you walk out you would see a KT car rental booth nearby around gate 3 if my memory doesn’t fail me, you can ask them and they’ll direct you to where the shuttle is. They don’t ask for much, they just asked me what car I rented and drove off to the rental place haha.

Accommodation i will talk along the way as it’s related to my itinerary haha. I will post both intial and actual itinerary because if it didn’t rain we would have followed that plan 😦

Day 1 Planned Itinerary (City Area aka North -> East): Airport -> KT Rental -> Love Land -> Manjanggul Cave -> Gimnyeong Maze Park -> Udo Island -> Seopjikoji -> Hotel
Day 2 Planned Itinerary (East -> South -> City Area aka North): Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise) -> Jeongbang Falls -> Cheonjiyeon Falls -> Oedolgae Falls -> Jungmon Resort (Teddy Bear Museum inside the resort) -> Hallasan National Park (Hiking) -> Hotel

Day 1 Actual Itinerary ( -> East Area): Airport -> Mystery Road -> Hotel -> Seongsan Sansu (Seafood) -> Seongsan Ilchulbong -> Hotel
Day 2 Actual Itinerary (East -> South -> City Area aka North): Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise) -> Udo Island -> Jeongbang Falls -> Hallasan National Park (Hiking) -> Hotel

So as you can see, we had to slash a lot of things on our itinerary because it rained until 4pm on the first day. In fact the fog/drizzle only faded out away about 6pm leaving us just enough time to just climb Seongsan Ilchubong.

Anyways, I’ll start on our modified and slashed itinerary!

Mystery Road

This is well on the way to the east area so you shouldn’t have to purposely detour to get there. It’s on the highway. We stumbled upon it by accident and was curious as to whether it’s really true, but it really is! The roads look like they are upward sloping but it’s an illusion. We really did look like we were going up the slope!

 

Seongsan Sansu

This is a rather famous restaurant recommended to us by the hotel staff. Not sure how the BF knew about it, I think online? It was our anniversary so we decided to splurge a bit. The restaurant was really pricey haha. We went straight to the hotel to rest a bit and then straight to this place because we couldn’t climb up seongsan ilchulbong due to the heavy fog. It was looking like this:

Nope not going up there. It was freezing and raining and too foggy :c

Snapped a picture of it the day after because i forgot to do so previously!

We had a bit of a struggle ordering from the dude because it was seafood and i have trouble using serving terms like weight size etc and also i didn’t know what each seafood was called. It took a while but we figured that we had to order one kg of filefish sashimi (50,000won) because they need it to be able to serve us soup, and we also ordered two pieces of raw abalone (about 15,000 won maybe).

Food without the soup

The very expensive sashimi and abalone!

The very expensive filefish soup which was super duper delicious!!!!!

Pricey anniversary meal but we figured we would have spent more in Singapore~

After the nice meal we looked out the window and saw that the fog was clearing at Seongsan Ilchulbong! So we quickly headed there before the sun sets.

On the way up!

Halfway up!

View from the top 🙂

The crater

The crater was disappointing because from the top it looked like a normal field of grass lol, but we were saying that perhaps it would look much more magnificent in other seasons. I can kinda imagine how it’d be filled with snow or flowers~

Just in time to catch the sun setting 🙂

Love this picture ❤ the path down.

D1 Accommodation – Suhari

We stayed at a rather pricey hotel for the first day and if you ask me, I wouldn’t recommend it unless you’re willing to pay $40 per person per night. There are many cheaper alternatives that were nearer to the sea, but the BF wanted a smaller and nicer place.

If you’re willing to pay a little more for somewhere more comfy, this is definitely a yes. It was a beautiful building at first sight and the interior was beautiful too 🙂

Foggy picture :<

They have their own Suhari Cafe, perfect for grabbing a cup of hot latte on a cold day, or in the morning 🙂

the cafe

perfect for chilling, except we were always in a huge rush to get to places

A kind lady and her daughter run this place and I had a nice chat with them too. Lady was super happy to see that I spoke some Korean and was very kind with all her praises, like how I speak like a Korean and look like a Korean because I’m pretty (subjective lmao), and I think because my reaction was similar to a Korean she was even more happy. FYI Koreans usually act very shy and polite with praises and I acted that way not on purpose but more like my limited proficiency didn’t really allow me to say a lot, so i just bowed and thanked her. Haha.

She also helped us call Seongsan Sansu earlier when we checked in and luckily she did because they only opened in the evening.

Even the room key was so adorable ❤

That concluded Day 1. Nothing much accomplished but it can’t be helped! We just went to rest early because we wanted to catch the sunrise tomorrow and also go to many places.

Sunrise at Seongsan Ilchulbong

Perhaps a bit misleading because we didn’t actually go to the sunrise peak haha. Reason being we woke up a little late and the sun seemed to have risen earlier than expected. When we left the hotel it was already kinda bright so we rushed down to the area. We also realized that we have to climb Ilchulbong again and decided there’s no point. So we were driving back and somehow the BF went to a random route and we ended up on this nice spot near the sea, beside Ilchulbong. We could see the sunrise in perfect view from here, and there were also a lot of hostels/hotels in that area where people were walking out to the balcony to take a look. It turned out for the better because it was empty with only a few cars who stopped by~

Favorite picture!! Loving the hipster feel of this picture and the unintentional ‘romantic’ phrase on the cap xD

U Island (because ‘do’ means island so Udo Island is U Island Island #irrelevant)

We spared only a few minutes grabbing breakfast before we were off to Udo Island.

shagged faces~

The plan was to take the first ferry at 7am to the island, but when we reached the harbor it was strange because it seemed like the ticket counter was closed even near 7am and there were a lot of ahjummas haha.

We lingered around and the ticket counter opened a little after and we paid for a round trip. There was tax so the cost will be higher than what the visitkorea website said.

People waiting around for the counter to open feat. very unglam me

says here 7am departure from Udo

Turned out we weren’t really supposed to trust the timetable timing lol in the end i think we departed at about 730-740am. And the ferry isn’t obvious, you gotta ask around and show people your ticket and they’ll redirect you. We were wondering why so many ahjummas here but we found out later on they’re workers, I’m assuming fishermen or a field related to the port, and that the boat we took were mostly for them and not tourists. We found this out because the bus tour hadn’t started when we reached Udo. So don’t go too early to Udo if you’re planning to do so!

You could drive into the boat as well, but i think you need a different ticket (?) there wasn’t much info on this so i have no idea :< but i know it’s possible.

 

PDA alert inside the resting area amongst ahjummas

boyfriend-style sweater because it was FREEZING i look normal here but trust me a part of me died from the cold

Reaching Udo~~

Lovely view from Udo Island port!

Loving this picture and unintentional perfect color combination! ft. awkward pose

#smlj #nostrils #tongue #dyinginthecold

As mentioned, it was too early for us to be there so we found ourselves not sure what to do. We tried to rent the scooters so we can begin our exploration immediately but we made the mistake of leaving the international driving license behind :X

This was where the tour bus would depart from but service starts only around 820am. The red buses labelled 개인 are the buses for tourists like us. They have group buses too but we ca’t get on those.

There are various ways to get around Udo as I’ve mentioned before, you could rent scooters etc but only with an international license. You can also rent bikes if you don’t have a license, but it would take too long to bike around Udo and we were pressed for time. Would recommend it if you put aside a lot of time for Udo~ They will give you a map when you buy tickets to Udo.

But if you’re pressed for time, a bus tour is really good because you pay only 4000won (if i remember correclty) and the bus will stop by four major stops where the attractions are. You can choose to pass and stay on the bus, or you can go down to look around. The frequency of the buses are pretty regular, I’m not sure I can recall correctly but definitely not more than 20 min, in fact probably less than that. So don’t worry and go down to look around, you can catch the next bus easily 🙂

Udo Island – 지두청사 (Jidocheongsa)

Our first stop was 지두청사 (Jidocheongsa) which was a little like Ilchulbong. We went down and grabbed some food first because what’s a trip without food

Me in my most natural setting with a bowl of ramyun

Ponies were the first thing we saw!!

OTW up!

View from the top!

 

 

i thought it was a good panorama but turns out it was gross now that i look at it close up LOL.

Random bed of flowers to compensate for us not being able to see the elusive ‘yellow flowers’ you see when you google Jeju

Udo Island – 동안경굴 (Dongangyeongul)

The next stop we went to was 동안경굴 (Dongangyeongul). This was a cave that you could ride a ferry to, but we skipped it as we felt it wasn’t necessary. We just went down to take a look~

Beautiful panorama shot by the BF!

Posting this pic because of the BF forcing his eyes open against the sunlight when he had sunglasses

Stacked stones as a mark to say “I was here”. We left our pile there too.

The water was so clear!

From inside the cave~

selfie #1 inside the cave aka black background

selfie #2 in the cave

After we were done we went back up to grab snacks and try this hallabong ice cream!! Seems to be a famous store with lots of celebrites’ autographs? Haha.

Hallabong ice cream not visible BUT IT WAS DELICIOUS it tasted a little like Froyo~ expensive though, 4000 won.

Udo Island – 서빈백사 (Seobinbaeksa)

The next stop was 서빈백사 (Seobinbaeksa) which was a beach! Famous for its clear waters and white sand.

Didn’t take fabulous pictures like the ones you see when you google it HAHA. But it was a beautiful beach 🙂

 

We left pretty quickly because beaches are beaches and if we are not gonna stay and bask in the sun, it’s kinda the same as all the other beaches we’ve been to?? Hahahaha flawed way of thinking but oh wells, we’ve been to a lot of pretty beaches so we decided to abandon this pretty quickly.

We hopped on the bus and it brought us back to the harbor. Well actually it brought us to a different harbor. I don’t want to say for sure that the harbor to take the shuttle bus from, and the harbor where the shuttle bus will drop you off, are different harbors… because we took a very early ferry it’s possible it dropped us at a different harbor. I’m speculating that if you go at regular timings, it wouldn’t be a different harbor or anything, so don’t worry~

 

Beautiful udo~

goodbye 😦

Jeonbang Falls

As soon as we were done, we returned to the seafood area near Ilchulbong and grabbed a nice abalone porridge lunch. The shops there sell almost the same kinds of food so it’s safe to walk in to any one of them!

We then dropped by one of the waterfalls, more specifically Jeonbang Falls!

 

Um sorry to say it wasn’t anything impressive. The falls itself was tiny and we had to pay to go in too. It was just nice to get close and feel the mist spray that’s all…

Hallasan

We left really quick and it was time to go to the central area to hike up Hallasan, before going up north to the city area. However we failed to consider the time and didn’t realize that Hallasan hiking trails were already closed by the time we reached, around 3pm. They wanted to give people sufficient time to trek down. But the guard told us that we can go further up the road to a trail that’s open until pretty late, it’s not really a hiking trail and more of a sightseeing trail.

We headed there and kinda understood what he meant. It was only an hour walk up and down and the site said that it’s more for tourists to stroll LOL.

the easiest and shortest trail LOL

We were secretly thankful the trails closed actually, because i don’t think either of us were fit enough to walk the 5 hours trail LOL.

At the top!

the trail

 

It was pretty worth it because it was just a short hike up~ the other trails had different peaks so i’m not too sure about the view from other trails.

After Hallasan we finally returned to the city area, to check into our hostel called Yellow Guesthouse. It wasn’t brilliant and i didn’t like the toilet, but it was affordable. while we were out looking for food to eat, we accidentally stumbled upon Black Pork Street!! I saw it online but didn’t really think of googling and finding out where it really was because our itinerary was packed as it is, but just our luck that our hostel was right around the corner 🙂

happy faces at the thought of food

We were contemplating between eating cheap and trying the black pork. Earlier on we had been calculating our expenses, well more like me calculating both our expenses, and I had been panicking and wanting to be budget for the rest of his stay in Korea. But we decided aiya heck black pork street then eat black pork lor. It wasn’t super expensive, 16,000 won per person which is less than $20, so we just decided to give it a go at the most crowded restaurant.

It was the first restaurant on the left upon entering the street!

we had free dwenjang jjigae and steamed egg too!

Sigh…

It tasted really good! Lots of people ask me if it tastes the same as normal pork, i’d have to say yes there wasn’t anything particularly outstanding, it’s basically like good quality pork to me. Not sure about the difference between black and normal pork…

We wrapped up the night after that and rested for our flight the next day!

Thank you Jeju!!

MBC Dramia!

Something I’ve wanted to visit for a while now! Mainly because of all the dramas i’ve been watching that somehow made this more attractive than the actual palaces throughout Korea xD Getting there was kinda far, we had to go to Nambu Bus Terminal and take a bus to Baekam Terminal which was a really small bus stop. Then we took a taxi in to save time, which wasn’t too expensive, about 8000won.

This trip didn’t turn out that well for me at first honestly because i was lugging my DSLR around and then found out i didn’t put in a memory card. That’s gotta be one of the worst 😦 It’s like my DLSR took a free trip to Dramia at my shoulder’s expense and now I don’t have great HQ pictures 😦 but well, made do with my phone camera and Karin’s digital camera haha.

Outside MBC Dramia, ticket booth!

On the way in!!!!!!!!

Life-sized figures!

just chilling with jang geum and almost touching her boobs

my king oppar

Pots probably used by janggeum

This place looked so familiar somehow i was trying to figure it out..

let’s go on a trip

village area

village shopping street

The king’s place, and from my memory, where the final battle for Moon Embracing the Sun took place

 

saw a bunch of cute siblings playing with the torture chair lol

looked familiar so i took a photo lol

SECRET MOOOON PAVILION *sings moon sun ost*

#likeayeonwoo

 

where the crown prince cried seeing yeonwoo dragged away

senget sorry hahahha i recall this to be where the crown prince played when he was younger

again, familiar…

And that was it! Nothing much to say sinc the pictures speak for themselves~

And before I forget! This is the ‘bus terminal’ at baekam lol, it’s really just a tiny place. In fact it’s safer if you show the bus driver your ticket and tell him to inform you when you reach Baekam, because it’s not very obvious and the bus doesn’t end there. It’s a short bus ride and only about 4000won~

 

The ticket counter at Baekam wasn’t very informative either but just tell him you want to go to Seoul and he will tell you the next timing (in Korean lol).

It was pretty tiring and we went back to have a good budae jjigae meal haha.

Anyway for drama lovers this is truly a good place to visit and relive the dramas you loved. But for others, i woudln’t suggest this as a tourist spot as the palaces in Seoul are more beautiful 🙂

Jeollanam Province pt. 2: Suncheon and Boseong

Part 2 of Jeollanam is here! This time we actually woke up early in Suncheon and headed to Boseong first via train, before returning to Suncheon to finish up. This is mainly because there are no buses from Boseong headed to Seoul, eventually you’d have to stop by Suncheon or somewhere else first!

So we woke up at the hostel and grabbed some toast and coffee quickly before crossing the road (luckily it’s just across the road) to the train station~ Bought a 7+am ticket to Boseong. It was only about 4000won and it was an hour ride. I was secretly fascinated although I’ve ridden trains like these a lot in Japan, but it’s been some time and i love these kinds of trains~

Dining/lounge area!

Our cabin ^^

Boseong – Green Tea Plantation

After reaching Boseong, we headed to the bus stop right outside the train station to take a bus to the green tea plantation. Boseong isn’t that big so don’t worry~

The bus schedule to Boseong Green Tea Plantation if you’re curious~

How the bus stop looks like from opposite the road

The bus driver will call out for Green Tea Plantation in Korean and also probably everyone gets down here so don’t worry~ We followed the crowd in, past the carpark, and up the little hill into a foresty area. Once in you’ll see the ticketing booth along side a pretty looking cafe~

the way up

Beautiful green tea plantation~

hi

im a bunny

It took maybe 45 min max as we only climbed up mid-point and not all the way! We headed back down and decided to stop by the rest area that we passed by on the way in.

The cafe sold really odd things like Green Tea Jjajjangmyeon, Green Tea Bibimbap, Fried rice… you name it they got it in green tea. Lol. We only got the ice cream and shake at the little store next to the big cafe/dining place.

This was super good!!! THe day before actually one of the Koreans told us not to try any of the green tea products there because it sucked, but I’m like no?? did he try from some other store or something (there are many ice cream shops around the area, including the ones next to the carpark before entering Boseong). This particular one we tried was super delicious, the green tea was fresh but not too overpowering!! <333333 I don’t even like green tea that much but this was really ❤ I can still remember the taste vividly!

On the way back to Boseong station we were mildly confused, we actually had to cross the road via the tunnel to the bus stop opposite. Here’s how it looks:

Don’t get lost!! Haha.

We headed back to Boseong and got a bit lost finding the train station again haha. A kind pair of father and son heped us find our way back~ We bought the ticket and grabbed some quick lunch at a Korean branch restaurant haha. These branches are everywhere throughout Seoul and apparently throughout Korea too, lol we could recognize it from far. It’s like the food court of Korea, they basically sell every typical Korean food, from ramen to bibimbap to fried rice to jjigae to ddeokbokki. But i always heave a sigh of relief when i see these branches because i know i can trust their affordability and taste even though some of them use ramen seasoning xD

classic korean food~

Suncheon – Open Filmset

After that we headed back to Suncheon via train and took a bus down to the bus terminal after stopping by to ask the tourist info how to get there. When you get down at the bus stop that says bus terminal, you have to walk backwards to find the bus station. We walked further ahead after stopping and got a bit lost and two Korean girls had to bring us back haha.  We bought our tickets back and then went back to the bus terminal bus stop and took a bus to the filmset. You can see it on the sign board too, just look out for 드라마세트 decided to go to the filmset! it’s apparently a filmset used to film older dramas from the 80s.

entrance to filmset

Got a shock seeing the queue for the ticket.

This is not a very nice thing to say in public LOL but because the queue was so long we just went in. No one was checking the tickets cuz it was crowded xD

eating ‘traditional’ corndog

bus stopz

 

View from the bottom of the ‘shackles’

😀

demurely cleaning up

questioning existence

It didn’t take that long to finish unless you wanna do a lot of photoshoots haha. Then we headed back to the bus terminal to take another bus to Suncheon Bay!

Suncheon Bay

You can only take one bus to Suncheon Bay, bus 66. The frequency is also very rare like half an hour distance, and when the bus came it was crowded like Singapore buses. So I think it’s better to go Suncheon Bay earlier, we went around 5pm and i think everyone wanted to go to see the sunset although it was cloudy that day so a sunset was actually not likely. Anyway the frequency was about half an hour so when we couldn’t get on the first one we were thinking of taking a cab. Then these two girls from China started asking us if we’re going Suncheon bay so we all took a cab together~ we paid only 2000 won per person which isn’t very far from bus fare ^^ luckily we found them.

the entrance!

 

kinda useless spiral thing that serves to show us the view at the top only haha

gone w the wind

And we’re done!

We crossed back out and found the bus stop:

From here bus 66 and 67 goes! Luckily it came quickly and we could take it back!

Went back to the bus station and dropped by Cafe le Monde after eating because we had time~ It was a superr pretty cafe! Really liked it. I forgot the name now but i have the sleeve i’ll refer back to it. it was opposite the bus station! The owner was also really pretty and nice~

There was a spot where you could write messages and everyone was writing about Suncheon. So me and Sheryl left our little note behind about our journey and thanking the cafe ^^

It was a nice chill session and also let’s not forget charging phones session hahahaha.

Finally it was time to go back to Seoul! By the time we reached the bus terminal though it was so late that there were no more buses back and we had to take a taxi. The taxi stand queue was super long and we were stressed out at first, heading to the main roads to take a cab but after that realizing that there’s no point as the cabs don’t stop for us. We resorted to staying in the super long queue, but the queue moved really fast thankfully.

That’s it for Jeollanam pt 2~~~~

 

Jeollanam Province pt.1 – Yeosu

This trip was originally planned with Jasmine, and then Zenn, and then i ended up going with Sheryl. Haha. It’s a long story anyway but yeah, it’s hard to find travel partners willing to go on such a busy itinerary!

The plan also changed a lot! It was supposed to cover the south area as well, which includes Ulsan and Gyeongju. But because it was a public holiday, it was difficult to find buses to those places and between the planned places, it was crazy and we planned so much the week prior :< Anyways, we ended up deciding to focus on the Jeollanam province instead and leave the rest for another weekend. Haha. Amazingly though, from a 4-day planned itinerary, we finished it in 2 days and went home early.

This was our final itinerary: Yeosu -> Boseong (stop by Suncheon) -> Suncheon which we finished in 2 days! 😀

It’s complicated and hard for me to share our planning details but I’ll share the details of our trip as much as possible so it can provide as a useful guide for people looking for the best arrangement to complete these places in a short amount of time! Granted, we left out a lot of places we weren’t quite interested in haha.

This post is part 1, which will feature the beautiful quaint little city of Yeosu!

Our first stop was food HAHA. Bus took a lot longer than I expected, it took 7 hours-ish because of the jam and all, we departed at 810 am and reached at 3pm ish.  So of course the first stop was foood haha. Right opposite the bus terminal you can see plenty of korean food, they’re all in Korean though so it’ll be good if you have some knowledge on how to read Korean or general Korean food.

Soondubu Jjigae!

This was good! The down side was that we ordered two so they gave us two portions in one bowl which i’m pretty sure was discounted… haha but it was tasty and there were these nice soft snow crabs in it, which i think is some specialty of Yeosu because it’s a port?? Haha.

Also the many side dishes you see is another specialty of Yeosu apparently from the guide books, they’re well-known for their baek-ban, which means side dishes. This whole meal cost only 7000 won each~ $8-ish.

Odongdo Island

After a nice meal and almost 4PM LOL, we quickly headed to Odongo Island by taking a bus at the bus stop opposite the bus terminal. It’s bus 33 if I’m not worng but you can double check. We got lost a bit trying to find Odongdo LOL so be careful. The moment you get down from the bus terminal, cross the road and head to your right. Don’t follow the crowd cuz a lot of them are heading towards the marine thingy, if you want to go Odongdo don’t follow. You should see this hotel:

You’ll know you’re on the right path. My angle is from where i got lost so don’t follow the angle haha, this building is pretty noticeable anyway. Head towards this hotel and you’ll see it.

We stopped by the tourist information center to ask for some detailed directions and well she could’nt speak much english so it might be a problem if you don’t know a little Korean. Nevertheless I’ll give as much info as I can. She was really really nice though, called the bus terminal and all that to make sure we get everything we asked for! 🙂

Beautiful waters!

You have to pay to take the tram, it’s not a long distance though so walking is fine~

On the bridge to Odongdo!

 

Odongdo island!

Random farmer just chillin

And then we’re in!!

Going down to the dragon cave!

the explorer @ dragon cave

It’s really just a huge cave with a fancy name lmao.

posing demurely

selfie w the dragon

selfie with the slushie bought in the middle of odongdo

bamboooooooo

Where you watch the sunrise/set(forgot which) i think

Light house~

After that was done, we headed to Jinnamgwan! We initially slashed it from our list due to lack of time, but it turned out to be a bus transfer point – we can’t go Dolsan bridge directly from Odongdo, gotta take a bus first to Jinnamgwan and transfer ot another bus. So we stopped there and decided to visit Angel Alley, which was just across the road.

Angel Alley

Entrance to Jinnamgwan

Cross the bridge to get to Angel Alley~

Angel Alley itself wasn’t fascinating to me because it’s quite similar to Ihwa mural Village except the latter is better. But AA does offer a breathtaking view of Yeosu city.

We dropped by Jinnamgwan later on but found out we missed it just by a few minutes. It closes at 6pm… 😦

missed it!!

Dolsan Bridge

We actually had a little time to spare, nevertheless we decided to head to Dolsan Bridge first. If I’m not wrong any bus above 100 takes you to Dolsan Bridge but don’t quote me on that, best to double check with tourist info at Odongdo 🙂 Or just check the bus stop and try to match 돌산대교 if you can’t read Korean! A lot of buses take you there. The bus will announce in English when they reach Dolsan because it’s a tourist spot.

When we reached the lights were already on. We were clambering to this little traditional pavilion next to the entrance of the bridge, which I assume is a place to take photos from. We were right~ there was a couple next to us who started backhugging and stuff :< i kinda think now that any place in Korea but Seoul is a place for couples’ honeymoons. Scratch that even Seoul is too.

Beautifu beautiful Dolsan~

Lighted bridges in the distance too~ 

After that, we crossed the road and headed back down to take a bus back to the city (any bus goes, except 1 bus i think, better check again) but was confused because the bus took really long and no one was stopping at the bus stop. We ended up walking down to the city area and incidentally an ahjusshi from a dining place tried to help us. But he spoke Korean in such an accented and speey manner i was just plain confused. After he figured where we were going, he told us to take a taxi instead as it’s cheap, definitely below 5000 won, and also because bus frequencies aren’t that often there.

He then followed us to the main road and tried to help us flag a cab. As he was doing so the buses started to arrive so he RANNNNNNN TO THE NEXT BUS STOP TO STOP THE BUS god omg we were so touched :’) Like there was nothing in it for him he was really just a kind person. ALso because our experiences told us older Korean people tend to be a little more unfriendly towards foreigners due to language barriers, his willingness to help was so touching :’) him and the tourist information staff at Odongdo literally made my day and made Yeosu one of my favorite places in Korea~~

As we boarded the bus, we incidentally met these two Australian middle-aged women, one of whom was living in Singapore before she moved to Australia. We chatted a bit and found out we’re all going Suncheon that night, so we went back to the bus station together and bought our tickets and took the same bus~~~ it’s a short distance to Suncheon so there’s no specific timing tickets to buy, you just buy a ticket and get on the next bus that comes.

The reason we did that was because it was bloody difficult to get accomodation in Yeosu. Like seriously, everythign was snaped up because it was a public holiday! Do take note to book early~ luckily we found a guesthouse in Suncheon so we decided to take the bus to Suncheon from Yeosu that same day. We covered the main parts of Yeosu in like half a day!! xD

Accommodation – Guesthouse Danim

Upon reaching Suncheon, we alighted at the train station since that’s where our hostel is, and grabbed some Korean food before finding our dorm. It’s directly opposite the train station which makes it super convenient!!!! It’s called Guesthouse Danim. 

Granted, it wasn’t the best of hostels and i didn’t like the bathroom at all but it was for a night and at 20,000 won so we weren’t complaining. When we entered we were greeted by 10 or so Koreans who started clapping and inviting us in lmao that’s culture shock right there. They asked if we’ve eaten (in Korean) and i responded and they got excited because they knew we were foreigners but apparently we could manage Korean so they invited us to sit and stuff. They had lots of alcohol but me and Sheryl gently declined because we had to wake up early the next day. They said they just met each other today and that it’s custom for Koreans to be like this in guesthouses haha. They were all about 30 years old although they looked young, but it was fun talking to them a little bit. They were really family like! But after a while it was awkward as they were talking and joking in Korean, so we decided to head back to the room first and settle down to sleep. Room was okay, two bunk beds so 4 per room. We were rooming with the two ladies we talked to previously.

The bedsheet looked suspicious so we laid out our blankets out over the bed and i was a little cold but it all turned out fine~

So that’s it for Yeosu and a little bit of Suncheon! I plan to update Suncheon and Boseong soon~ thanks for reading  and feel free to ask me any questions about Yeosu! ^^

Jeonju Hanok Stay

Guess what? It’s Jeonju again!! Hahahah!! Long time no see Jeonju! The previous time I went, I dropped by Taeyeon’s parents shop, but this time I went with a lot of exchange Singapore kids so i just stuck by them haha.

It was a very last minute decision actually, at that time Jasmine’s buddy Yoojin had already booked two rooms and the people going were still pretty uncertain, some dropping out and all. So I just decided to secure a spot while there was still one. This was a month ago, the hanok stay places get snapped up really fast so be sure to book way in advance.

It was a mix of us Sogang students, Hanguk University students, Jasmine’s room mate from China and Yoojin the only Korean haha.

I met up with Xiaochen (jas’s roomie) first to go to the bus terminal as the rest had free shuttle bus. She could only speak Korean or Chinese and I opted for the first option, it wasn’t easy but we kept up at it all the way throughout the trip ^_^ proud of it, but at the end of it i was so drained i didn’t want to speak a single word of Korean again. Same repeat as with Zenn and Shaun xD I got better through the trip and the other Singaporeans noticed too, asking how i became fluent in Korean. when actually i’m not, i just sound fluent because I speak Korean a little more naturally  like a native compared to most foreigners but i don’t actually get much point across in a sentence because i go in circles LOL.

We regrouped in Jeonju Hanok Village and grabbed a quick lunch, before heading to Nambu Open Market.

Obligatory shot, i’ve taken so many pictures of Jeonju the previous time alr 😡

I’m not going to make Jeonju food recommendations because the place is so small it’s not that hard to find food~ Jeonju is famous for its bibimbap so you might want to give that an obligatory try HAHA. I say obligatory because well, it was normal to me… yeah.

As you can see, such food as the one above can easily be found in Seoul too ahahaha.

We arrived and dropped our stuff at the hanok we stayed at before going to Nambu Market to take a look. Most of the stores were closed so there was really nothing much , but we did find this youth/artsy area on the second floor of Nambu Market.

Found a cute cafe called Cafe Nabi in the area and decided to chill around for a while! It was my first time meeting the other HUFS people and i remember two of them from some modules i took back in SMU and i remember they are big fans of Korea too. We talked a bit and got to know them a little better!

   

Found a random pony along the way, not kidding man it was super random .___.

Stopped by a museum~ it contains the portrait of Joseon’s first king, i think. I wasn’t paying much attention D:

 

There really wasn’t much to be honest, I don’t mean to sound unenthusiastic LOL.

We chilled around for a while before deciding that maybe it’s time to grab dinner, walking in circles to find this Dakgalbi place. It was nice bu

t i didn’t take any pictures because phone dead haha.

Then we walked more just to locate this famous bakery called PNB, which didn’t turn out to be good… the chocopie was supposed to be famous but to me it was just dry and tough and like a brownie-cookie confused piece of pastry, and i much preferred my cheap choco pie off the supermarket shelves ._. i’m critical aren’t I D: But yeah not gonna recommend it, although you’ll see it quite prominently in the Hanok Village with long queues which i still can’t comprehend. Are people just blown away by the ‘trend’??

disappointing chocopie that i’d give up for a supermarket one anytime…

famous PNB that didn’t live up to expectations.

Then we decided to try this beer that looked like a beer with ice cream like a beer float. But it turned out to be just ice. So you will drink the beer through a layer of ice that’s the concept.

clearly looks like ice cream ok

See how pictures can be so deceiving?? That clearly looks like ice cream to me.

I talked more with Rynn and got to know her better, she’s a bubbly girl so it was easy to talk to her because she broke the ice in the beginning~ And also Yiwen because I met her before during the NB2 clubbing night, and she’s mostly rather nua as well so we got along well HAHAHA. She kept saying it felt like 5 hours but only 1 hour has past, and like ‘it’s still 2pm??’ ‘it’s 4pm again??’

After a tiring day of mostly walking around the ‘slow city’, dubbed not by me but by the korea tourism site (i can testify to it, i bet i could get all my work done there because time slows down in that city), we finally retired back to our Hanok. The best part of it!!!!! The one we stayed at was called 모련다원 address: 전로북도 전주시 완산구 교동 137-2 however i think you have to reserve by phone which is what Yoojin did for us. otherwise i’d suggest just looking from the korean tourism sites, they have some recommendations. Probably more expensive though, but plenty available. Remember to book in advance, like at least a month or two before.

I really liked this hanok!!

❤

The room wasn’t fancy but it’ll do! Fluffy blankets and rectangular pillows. Sorry i’m not very cultural to know what theyr’e called xD

Mr/Mrs/Ms Moon *sings Moon Embraces the Sun OST*

 

What I found quirky in particular was how they named the rooms. Mr/Mrs/Ms Sun, Mr/Mrs/Ms Moon and Mr/Mrs/Ms Star. And then there’s one random room called “Smile”. It’s pretty 😀

We gathered at the pretty traditional table outside and tried to play Go-Stop, to no avail. Yoojin wasn’t sure either how to play so she literally stopped two Korean guests and asked them for help haha. They were about our age and were surprised we didn’t know how to play Go-Stop, since i’t s a pretty popular game here. But even after intensive explaining we still didn’t get it OTL so we gave up and just chatted a bit before sleeping.

Go-Stop!

The next day I woke up the latest as expected. The rest went exploring to buy dumplings etc but i lazed in and ate the horrid chocopie for breakfast.

But at least we went to a good place for lunch. Yoojin booked this traditional restaurant for us and we got a private room. At first i though it’s the Royal Table thingy but turns out it was ordinary traditional Korean food ._. but it was still delicious and the price wasn’t too bad, about $15.

Brief review of food: soondubu tasted fantastic, easily the best i’ve tasted. Everything else was just… salty.

After that we parted ways and some of us went to eat desert while the rest queued to get hoddeok.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Patbingsoo!!

We went to this place called Grandmother’s Best, seems to be a pretty popular Patbingsoo place! It didn’t disappoint though, i loved it 🙂 Reminded me of Homilbat~

You can read more about it from this blogger here, they’ve reviewed and left the address too.

After that we hung around some more wandering around in the rain, and finally decided to just drop by a cafe LOL. SEriously that’s all we do, eat and drink… but granted, this cafe was a true gem! It’s called Sarang Namu. The moment I stepped in the cafe was playing Wait a Minute, one of my favorite songs in SNSD’s new album, and that basically won me over LOL. We stayed there for so long because it was so comfy sitting at the corner sofas right next to the window on a rainy day~

I requested takeaway to be able to keep the pretty coffee sleeve for memory sake. They served the tea in really cool cups, you can’t see it clearly here but it’s like double-layered glass so it won’t be hot to the touch. They also give you a tumblr of hot water to refill.

The view from where we were sitting!!

View from outside

A pretty toilet too!!

   

Sunlight at the back so not a good picture, but yep we had the best seats in the cafe!

Sarang Namu address: 86 Eunhaeng-ro, Wansan-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do

I’m posting the address because on the namecard there are directions but they’re in Korean so it’s rather complicated anyw :X it’s basically opposite Grandmother’s Best. If you must look at the map though, because i was lazy to upload the pic of the namecard I found a Korean blog who had it so here

So basically we sat there until it was time to go to the bus station xD Half an hour earlier the rest left to get Jeonju Bibimbap but i didn’t really want to as I was full and I’ve tried it before. So I just sat on with Yoojin stoning haha.

And finallyyyyyy it was time to go back! Haha. Slow city indeed. But no regrets, loved the Hanok stay and it was nice to chill and do nothing for a weekend 🙂 Good company too.

Samcheok: Haesindang (Penis Park), Jukseoru Pavilion and Cave Exploration Hall

WARNING: Photo overload scroll all the way down if you want to see more text, and also graphic images, kind of. You have been warned.

I’ve been looking forward to typing this post for a long time HAHA. So Samcheok was something I planned to go with Zenn and actually our initial itinerary was just to cover the cave and the penis park. But things don’t always go as predicted, when we reached we realized the problems of the bus frequency and travel time. Because bus to the cave was so scarce, only like 4 times in an entire day, if we hopped on the earliest one which was at 2.40pm if i remember correctly, we would only be able to cover that one destination alone, since our bus back to Seoul was at 6.10pm. Travel time was about 40 minutes alone. So I guess when we thought about it, we figured out that our priority will be the Penis Park (NO JUDGING) and since that has greater frequency, afterwards we can come back and cover pavilion and museums  and relax around a little bit. So that became our plan.

I guess that’s kind of the problem and charm of traveling, sometimes things don’t go as you plan but really it’s necessary to have the attitude to embrace and do what you can to continue making great memories. 🙂

So giving up the beautiful caves of Samcheok, we headed off to Penis land. Luckily we decided on that because it turned out that the bus ride was hugely underestimated on paper. 40 min turned out to be an hour, and it was when the bus traveled fast and didn’t stop at most stops. Haha.

Neverthleess we made it! It was bloody cold almost like winter again because we were near the sea.

Ignoring the theme of the park, it was beautiful in itself because of the flowers~

The first two sculptures we saw!

me with the horny one

me with the bench

The lone one

The view

The ones by the lake

Me with the one  by the lake

Zenn with the one by the lake

random flower

The ones in a clique

The clique, featuring the one with the tongue + ahjusshis and ahjummas

The one with a baby double at the bottom

The one with another one at the top

me with my buddy

the second clique

the one with a dragon coiled around it

the one with penis earrings and penis lizards swarming it ok wtf

the one with two doubles as legs and the one with a baby in its mouth wat

the ones with removable parts

the sexy one with a female part

me with the removable one

the side one

the view pt. 2

the view pt.3 featuring the zodiac animals clique

me with the one with legs

view pt. 4

the villagers

Presumably the girl that started this park. Legend has it that a virgin girl once went out to sea with her fiance, but drowned while he was away. Fish didn’t come to the villagers so they decided to built these structures to calm her spirit and the fish returned.

attempt at artistic shot but lazy to do editing to make it look vintage and hipster

random stacked stones

“Only 20 and above can enter”

Basically it was kind of like a sex museum where there are figures of people having sex, but it’s just one couple. Not a big deal but still shall not post it here. If you want the real deal Jeju has  a Love Land….. ahahaha.

I suppose this is the virgin gill on a penis boat?

The museum in the park

the penis see saw omg

the fishing village~

the cute ones

THE CANON LOL

THE CANON when it’s facing downwards yep

no i shall refrain from making inappropriate puns rn

the second largest one

me getting off

me riding it GAWD IM SORRY I SAID NO INAPPROPRIATE PUNS but i couldn’t help it

in all its erect glory

view pt.5

the ones you can sit on

view pt. 6

the one with another one wtf

the penisception one

the ones you can lie in

the see-saw, i’m riding on the other side gawd this one is so inappropriate sorry zenn lmao

the really long one…

the double

finally a real man

the view from the bottom

the beach

Okay that was it. Hahaha what a long picture-y post!! We took the bus back and decided to explore the pavilion area which was relatively near to the bus station.

Funky looking buildings!

Pretty road leading to the museums and pavilion area~

inside the funky globe im sorry for unglam shot zenn..

inside the funky globe

the cake building

We went inside and saw that we had to pay and it didn’t look interesting enough so we went back down lol. We decided to go to the Cave Exploration museum indeed which sounded more interesting.

The exploration museum~ just realized from this pic that it’s meant to look like a bat otl

It was actually pretty cool? It was made to mock  real caves so it’s not like pictures of caves and shit but real cave mazes @.@ I really liked it actually like it made me feel better about missing the real cave and also it’s super fun to navigate through the narrow spaces. ALthough i think Zenn was a little claustrophobic haha.

  

 

  

Bonus slide wheeeeee

Yup that was it for the cave! We then moved towards the pavilion!

Mostly peaceful except the two bff ahjusshis and a solar panel accidentally captured on the bottom left lulz

Jukseoru Pavilion~

The inside! Sun was just setting so it was nice and warm.

   

Selfies!!!!! face looks chubby must be the ramen

We did some gross photoshoots pretending to be Yeonwoo from Moon Embraces The Sun because that’s my favorite period drama female lead with Jang Geum coming second. I just like them cuz they’re super smart and well-read and i like to think that if i was a girl from the period period (geddit) i would have loved to be a well-read sophisticated dignified court lady or queen too. Although in reality i’m pretty far from ‘dignified’ so maybe not HAHA.

And that was it for the day. We returned to the bus station early and saw more news of Sewol ;( Caught the bus back to Seoul and finally rested~

It was a nice visit to Samcheok! Although i would recommend that if you really want to explore everything including the caves and what not, two days would be better than one, primarily because of transport, unless you take one or two taxis. I’m not sure you could rent cars there lol but it’s possible to drive from Seoul to Samcheok. With the public transport, unless you arrive at the earliest time possible and spend less time on each destination, probably possible. Ours turned out to be really nice and relaxing because we gave up some destinations.

So yes that’s it for Samcheok! Wish you guys all the best if you want to travel out! 😀 And try to book for the cave in advance! We didn’t get the ocean railway thing because I’ve been on something like that and Zenn isn’t too keen, but that’s also a big thing in Samcheok!

Next post will be the summary of the week~~ ciao

Ddeokbokki Town + Korean-only rule chatting @ Coffee Smith~

I guess I’ve made it pretty much an unspoken rule to myself to separate my korean travels posts with my college week in seoul more mundane kinda posts? Haha. I might start separate posts for cafes too like “Week 8’s Cafes” i think that’ll be fun 😀 damn i should’ve thought of it earlier haha!

SO this won’t be a long post since it’s just Ddeokbokki Town but yep!

Zenn was asking me that day if I wanted to go to Ddeokbokki Town. I was hesitant at first because Wednesday was a really long class day but after that i figured out meh why the hell not. So I met her and Shaun and somehow or another we made up the Korean-only rule. Haha. It was tough at first but it got so comfortable towards the end of the day, we still struggle and google the vocab we don’t know but otherwise sentence structure wise they don’t flow as awkwardly.

Basically i expected Ddeokbokki town to be a street of street stalls where we stand around and eat, but turned out that it was a street of dining houses that serve their Ddeokbokkis in full dishes complete with ramyun, eggs, fish cakes etc. Which is actually what i prefer considering how hungry i was~

oh god blur picture and signage lights blown out HAHAHAH. Regardless… Ddeokbokki Town~

Before everything is cooked!

LOOKS DAMN DELICIOUS NOW :<

It’s per person basis, it was 14000won for three people which is around $16. A totally okay amount for such great rice cake and food 🙂 And there’s ramyun :)))) Ramyun is the love of my life :)))

The soup will boil down to a thick paste similar to what you find on normal street ddeokbokki.

How to get to Ddeokbokki Town: Take the Subway Line 2 or 6 to Sindang Station, Exit 8. Go straight until you reach Jungbu Fire Station and turn left. Don’t pass the station! Turn left when you see it and you will see the sign from afar.

After that we headed over to Coffee Smith, which is a branch cafe, but idk it exudes so much class from outside i always wanted to go in!

This is taken not on the same day of cuz haha it was kinda late when we reached back Sinchon but we kinda wanted to continue our chat elsewhere. I was actually having a lot of fun chatting in Korean but im pretty sure i expanded all my energy on that day and i rmbr for the next few days i refused to speak a single Korean. Too tired LOL

Not going to post directions for Coffee Smith cuz it’s a branch cafe haha.

That was also the day we found out about Sewol. Remember it dinstinctly. Sewol sank that morning but I only managed to hear the news at night when there was time to breathe. It was devastating. 😥 I feel really strongly about this incident perhaps beause I’m living in Korea right now. Sigh. But I won’t go there, i’ve talked about it a lot on Twitter hahaha.

The week with the parents

Places visited: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Yeouido, Dongdaemun, 63 Building, Garosugil (Gangnam).

The parents finally came over last weekend! So basically i spent all the free time of that week with them, whenever possible staying in their hotel too and crashing on the sofa. Haha. It was kinda tough planning for parents’ itinerary, gotta be sensitive to what they want and also sometimes they’re tired and stuff so things will change a lot.

The night I returned from the field trip, i joined them immediately and we planned to go Gyeongbokgung palace the next day!

 

Like honestly it was a bit obligatory for myself and my mom just wanted to take nice photos with the nice buildings LOL. So we ended up at the palace ahaha.

엄마랑

부모닙께서

I DON’T KNOW WHAT THIS IS? LIKE VERY CANDID PHOTO BY MY DAD LOL BUT IT’S CUTE SO I POSTED IT im shameless

So yeah that’s kinda it actually. Nothing that much in the palace, nothing that amazing or anything. I did like the stories behind the buildings and stuff since we went on a free english guided tour, but still, eventually my parents got bored too.

On Tuesday, I brought them to Yeouido to see spring blossoms because i heard they were dying. Disappointing though, a lot of them were really dying :<

After that we cabbed down to Dongdaemun because my parents really wanted to see. Dongaemun was lame though… haha i feel bad saying it but idk there’s reallyyyyyyy nothing there. We only saw dept stores and they were all quite pricey. I heard Dongdaemun market only becomes cheaper after midnight? I don’t know if anyone knows what’s really so interesting about Dongdaemun do enlighten. Lol.

I was contemplating whether or not to skip my Korean class but my mom refused to let me do so she said she would wanna come over to my campus instead to check it out and take photos.

On Wednesday, we had dinner with Amber! Invited her over because she’s such a nice unnir haha.

We ate BBQ and walked around Myeongdong for a bit.

On Thursday my parents shifted hotels to D Cube Sheraton and omg i really liked this hotel!! The bathroom was so pretty and had a view of the entire city haha. Lazy to post photos now but anyways yeah it was a great place. My dad traveled a lot in the past for business trips so he accumulated hotel points that he saves up for trips like these~ We headed over to the 63 Building in the late afternoon after moving and honestly i have to say i was also quite dispapointed. There isn’t anything that impressive about 63 buildin… 😡 we didn’t go the aquarium and all that and just chose to go to the Sky Art gallery.

Hazy view from the top.

Okay well i’d never return to the 63 building unless obligation hahaha. I expected so much more i guess I should lower some expectations a bit haha.

We chilled around at the top and decided to head to Gangnam instead because my parents wanted to check it out! I’ve been to Gangnam but the Apgujeong side of it, this time we all went to Garosugil which is a famous trendy street in Gangnam district. There was nothing amazingly great about it but I did notice people were really well dressed and everyone just looks damn good! We tried to find a cafe i saw online but couldn’t find it, so we just walked the streets and finally found a nice restaurant selling Beef Galbi soup!! ❤ Hungry just talking about it man. I would actually wanna go back to visit Garosugil given the chance, but in the daytime. Just to explore the shops and cafes!

really love my hair under bright light cuz it looks so orange-y! This was the last shot before they flew back to Singapore! Been a super busy week going back and forth from dorm to their hotels haha, but it’s worth it!! ❤ so nice to feel like home once again.

Sogang Field Trip: Chuncheon!

Yay the first field trip!! I remember waking up  at 9am and rushing to J building to register for this trip OTL and space ran out really fast. We assembled in front of the admin building at 730am and got ready to set out! After abut 2 hours on the bus, we stopped at our first station of the day: Railbiking!! A lot of people asked me if this is the activity that Running Man did, i just said yes haha i haven’t seen that episode yet but i do hear a lot about it.

Rail biking!! 😀

w the korean-american homie <33333333 also my kind-of korean language practice partner lol she’s good at speaking local korean and im better at grammar and written korean so we help each other out~~

w the weird kid

and we’re off! We sat in the same cabin thingy with Sheryl and Jasmine!

it’s kinda hard to take photo of ourselves so well this is how it looks like. We basically just cycle, lol.  the weather was a bit chilly (who am i kidding it was fucking cold) so i just kept bracing myself with my thick jacket and cap. Haha. The tunnels were really pretty, there were themes like one tunnel was a disco one so they were playing Psy’s songs complete with disco lights as we cycled through, there was also a romantic one with very pretty white lights at the tracks with nice soft music. I really loved that one but it’s hard to capture a picture, it turned out showin just the white lights LOL.

There was a rest stop where we ate some fish cakes with super nice soup (odeng) and after that went on a second time. Because jasmine was in the toilet we waited and went to the cabin right at the back (forgive me saying cabin because i’m out of vocab ideas rn) and at first that was abit sian because it’s too quiet. Only a group of ahjummas were behind us. But after that it turned out to be awesome because we realized we could do crazy photoshoots without holding anyone up, besdes the ahjummas who kindly told us it’s okay~ so therefore:

yep.

The bus was waiting for us at the end of the rail biking trail and i found out randomly that the office of international affairs organizer studied in Singapore for a few years, and she graduated from CJC before going back to Korea. Hahaha. Fellow alumni!! We dropped by a daggalbi restaurant to eat. Daggalbi is really popular in chuncheon like every other korean i’ve talked to about chuncheon asked if i’ve tried the chicken dish haha.

:DDDD

After we ate like most of it, the ahjumma threw in our rice and egg and seaweed and spices and cooked fried rice!! It was super delicious T__T After the dish we headed off to visit a temple.

I honestly didnt’ listen much to our tour guide HAHAHA. Sorry T.T She was nice though, she said she’s brought around a group of Singaporeans from SMU a while back, Liz said it’s the scholars programme or smth. Damn i’m not smart enough to even know about the existence of the programme LOL The views at the temple was nice though!

The story of this statue facing a certain direction to protect Korea from outside invasion.

And finally it was time to head to our accommodation! The tour guide warned us not to expect much because it was a traditional condominium style haha and all of us singaporeans girls ended up in one room xD Amber was put in another room with other Westerners but she snuck out and joined us in the end haha she is seriously practically Singaporean now!! The other day when Jasmine said she went shopping Amber was like, “You went shopping without me! Walao-eh!!” that’s the most relevant application of Singlish i’ve heard from a Westerner HAHAHA. Most of the others i’ve met (like the Mich from Canada) mostly just add lah at the back of their sentences.

We reached our hotel by night time where it was freezing and checked out our rooms. I was shocked because i reallye xpected a small place but it was huge!! a nice spacey living room with two cosy rooms (prolly the size of my room back in Spore) and a large bathroom with luxurious looking bathtub haha.

Heated floor system! We had to lay out the beds ourselves. Had a nice peaceful sleep ahaha ❤ I love these kinds of cosy environments. If we had a board game it would be so great! Convenient store was closed so we didn’t get alcohol. Other rooms had though, i think they brought from Seoul. So we just played normal drinking games with cider LOL and in the middle of our games some people knocked on our doors wanting to join us but they were just looking for alcohol anyways. Haha. We slept a little earlier that night because of the hiking the next day.

Next day came around and i woke up the last as expected, but also as expected i was the fastest to get ready. No makeup or face care products, no fuss, this is a hiking trip after all hahaha. We piled out to the lobby area and got breakfast, chatted a while and got on the bus. We were brought to a mountainous area where they said we can take a cable car up and explore the area. This isn’t the hiking yet tho, the ‘real’ hiking was supposed to be after breakfast.

The Singapore gang + one american at the foot of the mountain!

Waiting for the cable car up!

In the middle of the ‘hike’

Sort of at the top of the mountain! As you can see there was snow everywhere although it’s supposed to be spring haha, luckily i was dressed warmly. Some were not that prepared though.

Touristy shot

Demure touristy shot

We climbed these rocks to the top. It looks fairly simple from the picture but trust me it was damn tricky with all the snow and wet rocks, especially when climbing with sneakers or sports shoes. Climbing down was easier because we just sat our butts down and slid down slowly rock after rock. It’s unglam but it keeps me alive so why not. Lucky i was wearing leggings and not jeans. Pretty sure i had a few shots of me taken from below in the most unflattering angle. Should hunt down those pictures. It was fun though, sitting at the top and looking at everyone and all the mountains and ignoring the risk that you could slip and break your skull anytime yes. Regardless, i escaped with only a few scratches on my hands~

More pretty touristy shots

  The view from the cable car when we headed back down. We reached solid ground a little late and so our tour guide said plans would be changed and the hiking would be replaced with a lake visit, since we technically did hike on this mountain. I don’t think she expected that a lot of us would want to climb personally to the top and people were trying to chase us back down because

1. It’s obviously not really a common touristy hiking trail to go all the way to the top, and obviously not for amateurs like us
2. It’s still a student trip so they have to be responsible for us
3. They didn’t expect it to still be so snowy in April and thus slippery
4. We were taking way too long waiting for each other to climb all the way up and taking jump shots and doing all those nightmare-y dangerous stuff students do on school trips
5. A student fell and had to be sent to the hospital orz

So yeah. That took a little too long and so they cancelled the hike and i was secretly happy because i was tired as shit LOL. They took us to a lake which was a bit lame sorry hahaha, like nothing special but ok i took an obligatory pretty pic anyway!

oh btw, an obligatory selfie of myself barefaced complete with black eyebrows and flattened cap-hair screaming at me accusingly After that it was time to eat (YAY!) and we were brought to a meat buffet restaurant, legit one of my favorite things in Korea here. Especially the fatty pork parts…

YUMMY

Luckily after that it was time to head back to Seoul. Phew. It was a long ride with traffic jam and I fell sick on the way, perhaps from too much BBQ or the cold weather in Chuncheon :< anyways, I headed straight to my parents’ hotel because they just arrived that day!! Will update on the parents soon~