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! 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~