안녕하세요! day 4&5

Sorry it took a while to blog about the rest of my korean trip,  I have been busy with work, so many things happened . Anyway here's the last part of my Korea Tour experience 

DAY 4

We stayed at Hotel Maremons in Sokcho, close to Mt Sorak. With the tour always moving to different places everyday, we always find ourselves in different hotels. This hotel is my favourite by far. Our room has a nice view of the East Sea, the room is spacious and super lush. Me and my grandma watched the sunset from the balcony in the morning

I lost count of the amount of times I had this Banana Milk in Korea. It's hands down the best drink ever. 

If I could I'd love to get a crate full of this banana milk. 

My gran catching up with sleep at the hotel lobby~

After Breakfast we left the hotel to go to Mt Sorak. We had to get a cable car to get up there. It was so high up I thought the ride in the cable car was going to be scary and shaky but no it was actually quite pleasant and super smooth. I didn't get to climb up the peak of Mt Sorak when we got to the top though  but still the view was lovely

And then.. 

We visited Buddha . 안녕하세요!

I'm not too familiar with the praying ettiquete here, but these stalls were selling rice. 

Not to be eaten I guess. These little houses looks quite Japanese btw.

We left Mt Sorak to head towards Yong-in for Everland! But before that, lunchtime~

I can't get enough of the Korean BBQ. We had Pork this time. There's a small souvenir shop under the restaurant .My aunt found some Girls Generation smothered stationery for her son. le sigh. 

and omagah. we finally got to Everland ! It's like a Korean Disneyland.

There were so many cute Korean kids I just want to adopt/kidnap them all. Agh.

Misleading ride name. I actually thought there would be human bodies hanging from the sky. like. literally.

But it was actually this.

And as soon as I got off at the other end of the Human Sky ride I was greeted by Mr.Polar Bear or should I say しろくまさん　(Shirokuma san from Shirokuma Cafe ; this anime I dearly love)

and then I found  ペンギンさん

unfortunately i didn't find パンダちゃん  but we found PORORO . Pororo is everywhere in Korea. At least thats how it seemed to me. There were even Pororo dolls on the security screening area at the airport.

It feels so Christmasy already here with all the decorations

and even more Christmasy at night with all the lights lit up.

We had dinner at one of the restaurant inside Everland, went for a bit of souvenir shopping then headed to our hotel back in Seoul.

I got these from Everland for me and my sister, they're clip on cat ears! They had so many cute accessories similar to these but in headband form, I just wanted to buy them all .

DAY 5

We got to the hotel back in Seoul quite late. So I just crashed straight in bed as I was too tired to do anything else. I didn't really know where we were in Seoul or what the location is like.

But in the morning when I pulled myself together and finally woken up, i realised that our hotel is really close to the Han River. This is the view from the elevator.

We stayed at Ellui Hotel.. in Gangnam. At first I didn't believe where this hotel is located. But here's a proof that I stayed in Gangnam and that this place actually exists. Not just in Psy video. 

apparently Gangnam is one of the posh area in Seoul.. i guess it's like the West End in London?

The first place that we headed to was The Ginseng Centre, but they didn't allow us to take photos plus there isn't really much to talk about as the products they sell are expensive ginseng pills etc and I'm not interested.

But here are photos from the Presidential Blue House. They had some kind of ceremony, with flag waving, tossing rifles in the air, and dancing mascots.

It was so fun to watch up till these guys came up close and i was hoping they wont drop the rifles not toss them in my direction.

But these guys are pros. 

My gran with the mascot~

After all the sightseeing has finished, i was finally time to do some shopping. 

Donghwa Duty Free, my new favourite place in Seoul. They have overseas brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior, etc and they have domestic brands too. I spent most of my money in the domestic brand make up section.

Nabbed  some Etude House / The Face Shop goods.

I really love these small roads in Seoul.

and then off to Dongdaemun. To be precise we were at Doota mall .sI wished we spent more time here but there were just too many things too see / want to buy and so little time

With that and dinner out of the way, we headed back to the hotel and I headed back out for a little walk around Gangnam at night.

Spotted BoA on the billboard

Lot's of cafe nearby

Aha and this is my favourite part, I just happen to stumble upon JYP's studio. Didn't see anyone famous though.

And around the corner from JYP studio was Cube cafe ! What a coincidence

So that ended the last full day in Korea. The actual last day was when we flew back to Indonesia. And just so happen that our flight back was on Pepero Day, which always falls on the 11/11 every year. It's like Valentine and they give out pepero which is like Pocky. Because 11/11 resemble 4 sticks of pepero.  Coincidentally this day was me and mon cheri 8mth anniversary.   

Our flight was in the morning and we couldn't really go to that many places. Only breakfast, more souvenir shopping, and airport. I managed to find myself Korean Vogue and Korean Vogue girl in the airport bookshop which I happily took with me to read on the plane .

I would really recommend Arirang Tour if you ever consider going on a tour to Korea. The guides were really friendly and helpful, super patient, and they always made sure we are ok and having a good time. 

There were places I still wanted to explore more like around Hongdae. Where the Hello Kitty cafe, Cat Cafe and Dog Cafe's are, but I'll save that for next time I go.

Here's a song to finish this blog post by Linus Blanket, a lovely Korean indie band

안녕하세요! day2 & day 3

DAY 2 

Had an early start. Went to have my korean-ified english breakfast down at the hotel's restaurant. Then got on the coach to head to Seongsan ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak). 

On the way we stopped at a little souvenir shop to buy Jeju oranges. 

Jeju Oranges are a little tangy, but i like.

When we got to Seongsan Ilchulbong. Grandma had to stay at the foot of Sunrise peak as there were loads of steps to go all the way to the top, so I went by myself to hike up seongsan ilchulbong

Our tour guide explaining how to get to the top.

They say it takes around 25 mnt to get all the way to the top. it’s very considerate of them to have places where you can sit down along the way, i saw a lot of people getting out of breath already before they even made it to the top. I wasn’t any different to them. I was so unfit i thought i was going to collapse.

But I made it to the top and had a lovely view of the whole island , it felt so rewarding.

After a nice break on top of sunrise peak, I headed back down to meet the rest of the group. We went to a restaurant nearby for lunch and had grilled fish, miso soup and other banchan. i was enjoying the crispy seaweed a little too much  

After lunch we got on the bus again to get to Seongeup Folk village, this was apparently where they shot Janggeum

We were told all we need to know about traditional Korean house and how people lived back then. like how there were more women than men back then (in Jeju) and it was considered normal for men to have 3-4 wives, and men were treated as king because they were such rare items. 

They were saying how the toilets were outside and had pigs right underneath the toilet hole.

<tmi :located strategically there so the pigs can feed on the faeces>

We had a talk about the local produce. I had horse bone pill and 5 flavour tea with Jeju honey , which are supposed to be really good for your health. the horse bone pills tasted like nut ( you were meant to chew them too )

 we went to Cheonjiyeon waterfall after.

and then to TESEUM ! Teddy Bear Museum in Jeju Island.

there were just a plethora of teddy bear in this museum, different shapes & sizes  and not just bears, there were giraffes, lions , fishes, etc. 

and right downstairs they have a shop where they sell all kinds of teddy bears to take home

and i officially found the softest, most fluffiest teddy bear ever! even softer than the ones i checked out at Hamleys in London. I wanted to take one home but it was priced around 30000 won ,  and at the time i wasnt able to withdraw any cash out ( forgot to notify the bank i was going abroad duh!) so i had to say bye bye

here's my gran with a baby tiger plushie.

by the time we finished at the teddy bear museum, it was already dark, so we got back on the coach to go to our final stop, the mysterious road or the ghost road *eerie music plays*

rumor has it that when you turn the engine off of the coach/car that you’re in, your coach/car will mysteriously go by itself, spooky huh?

so we got on the coach and the driver turned the engine off and straight away the coach went by itself, it was like a slight uphill road from what we can see on the coach. and it went faster gradually. 

i won’t tell you any more because i’d like you to experience it yourself.

when we were done we had bulgogi at the resturant next to the hotel. 

the local tour guide was going to take us to have raw horse meat, but even he didn’t enjoy the taste of it when he had to go to try it out haha

DAY 3

After breakfast we left the hotel to head to Jeju Airport to head back to Seoul. We flew again with JinAir. As soon as we landed in Gimpo we went to have lunch 

We had Korean BBQ with duck this time , it was so good i couldn't stop eating .

as usual, there were plenty of side dishes that they kept re-filling.

When our tummy was full, we went to the Gyeongbok Palace.

When we were done, we got on the coach again to embark on quite a long journey to Nami Island. As it was quite a long journey the tour guide prepared us for Namiseom by playing Winter Sonata on the coach. Oh and he also played some k-pop videos. Including the much needed Gangnam Style. yiss.

if you think about it, the coach that we were on for the entire duration of the tour kind of looks like the one featured in the gangnam style video .

We had to take a ferry to get to Nami Island. 

Got to Nami Island finally !  It's really picturesque here, 

there were so many photortunities. the paths were lined with yellow leaves, it was quite whimsical~

So yea , Nami Island is basically where they shot Winter Sonata, there were places where you can re-enact scenes from the drama. 

A lot of reference from the drama around the location. 

It's so peaceful I'd love to live here

Had dinner at Nami Island. Another Korean BBQ with Chicken this time. Look at that portion. This was only for four people ! 

There were so many couples in Nami Island, esp when we were about to take the ferry back to our coach. It made me feel a little irky. 

We went on another long journey from Nami Island to our hotel in Mt Sorak. Had a quick stop at a convenience store to buy some snacks for the night. I bought the usual banana milk ~