안녕하세요! day 1

Annyeonghaseyo 안녕하세요! 

I just recently came back from a trip to Korea. I went there with my grandmother and my aunts on a tour with Arirang Tour.

The meals, accommodation, transport, and entries to tourist attractions are inclusive in the tour so all we had to do was kick back , relax, take the occasional photos and shop

I was already in Asia anyway (booked a one way ticket to Bali) so I thought why not, plus my gran paid for everything so I couldn't refuse.

We were there for 6 days and our daily schedule is always full of activities to do and places to visit. It was Autumn in Korea, I thought the temperature was going to be at least similar to UK; before I left it was absolutely freezing in the UK, even in Autumn. So I packed all my winter clothes, hoping that it will keep me from the cold.

We left from Soekarno Hatta Airport in Jakarta and I already had my winter coat on hand, but as soon as we landed in Incheon, seoul, it was a lot warmer than I thought it would be.

So here's the breakdown of our tour :

DAY 1

Landed at Incheon Airport in Seoul with the tour group we flew with from Jakarta along with the tour leader.

We were greeted by the two local guides who were going to be with us for the whole duration of the tour.

It was raining in Seoul when we landed. Kind of reminds me of landing at Heathrow, London.

Korean snacks & mineral water~

Our first stop was Kimchi making and Hanbok wearing . Below is the photo of the ingredients for making kimchi, before I smeared the red paste all over the cabbage.



Here's the Hanbok that ahjumma selected for me to wear. Not sure if I wore it right.



For lunch we went to this restaurant that serves Mushroom Shabu Shabu, it came with side dishes - 반찬 (banchan)They kept refilling our side dishes, i think it was like this everywhere we ate. We were so full just from eating the side dishes alone. I've never had so much kimchi in my life in the span of a week



I saw this on my way in to the restaurant, they're fresh octopus, ready to be served/ eaten. Not sure if my palate is ready for something that's still alive and would wriggle in my mouth. yum.



This was the view of outside the restaurant. As it was Autumn there were lots of trees with yellowing leaves. Photortunity for our tour group!

Shortly after we had to transfer to Gimpo Airport to catch our flight to Jeju Island, we flew with Jin Air . We were free to choose our seats in the airplane, which was pretty neat. The stewardess were in jeans,  polo shirt and baseball cap which was quite new to me :o

we headed straight to Dragon Head Rock ( Yongdu-am) as soon as we landed in Jeju. Apparently you have to use your imagination to see the Dragon head in the rock formation, some people saw a bunny rabbit.  I think I could just make out the outline of the dragon head.


here's a photo of my grandma near Yongdu-am. That's one of the local tour guide sitting in the background on your right, he's Korean but speaks Indonesian quite fluently, which I find really surprising.

There was a stall near Yongdu-am that sells some kind of street food and they had dried cuttlefish outside the stall.

We went to our hotel afterwards to freshen up, leave our suitcases and get ready for dinner. The hotel we stayed in for 3 nights was Oriental Hotel in Jeju. they had a casino in the lobby. ..
For dinner we went to a place that serves Ginseng Chicken - Samgyetang 삼계탕 
The tour guide wasn't joking when he said that we will each get a whole chicken
Apparently samgyetang is to be consumed to prevent illnesses.
The dish is made by stuffing a whole young chicken with rice and boiled in a broth of Korean Ginseng
It was ok, i just find that the portion is a little too big and it's quite bland, but I enjoyed the dish nevertheless.

After dinner we went to see Nanta! It's a South Korean Musical where they use kitchen utensils to make music, the performance is almost non-verbal , i thought it was a bit like Stomp, with cabbages, cucumbers, carrots, knives flying everywhere. 

after Nanta! we went back to the hotel to rest, but I couldn't help having a snoop around the Korean convenience store right next to the hotel, bought some Nikuman and Banana milk~