hello i'm back!! :)
was telling lip june that i'm afraid the overseas trip with the other 7 from the university group may not be a very good idea since there might be some personality clashes, but it turned out fine. i mean, i did have a few moments here and there when i felt irritated and stuff, but generally the trip had been good! i came back with tanned skin and muscle aches, but the memories are good; tour guide is good to look at hahahah not say very handsome but pleasing to the eyes (or maybe just to me since he really looks like a typical chinese/korean) and has a great personality..he is very knowledgeable too..erm sometimes (most of the time actually) he will sway off topic, but the knowledge he displayed is remarkable. from TCM to minerals to history to geography to medical knowledge, he knows it ALL. maybe he played a great part in making the trip enjoyable too, because he adjusted the attractions to visit based on the situation during the tour and has been very accommodating to us all.
the tour group comprises of 18 people, 8 from our group, a 2-friends group, a mother-daughter couple, a family of 3, and 3 siblings/brother-in-law; of which only 3 guys in total, 4 if u include the tour guide. the group is smaller than usual so slightly more relaxed and close to each other i feel, not that i socialise that much but the interactions are there between the cliques.
okay and now i shall go into the trip details proper..trying here to write a travel journal to ease my detachment-post holiday blues......
flight was on the 19th and took off at about 2240h. a lot of turbulence experienced and it was my first mid-distance haul. since it was an overnight flight we were supposed to sleep, but the chair is just too hard and uncomfortable, so i watched movie instead. caught "A Werewolf Boy" and cried in the dark hahaha. sarah was sitting beside me, and afterward she said that she saw me crying in the middle of the night but was too tired to respond. LOL. so in the end i slept for about 2 hours in total, and the tour started when we touched down in Incheon Airport.
we found our tour guide (Jacky) and the rest of the tour group when we touched down, and then we were sent to find our own breakfast in the airport, cause it wasn't provided on the plane. had a hard time finding a restaurant because all the directories are written in symbols ie the korean characters. saw mac and kfc there, and that was probably the only time i saw either restaurants in korea too. settled our breakfast in the end in kraze burger, and we had some sweet cheese fries if i dun rmb wrongly. basically it was with mango sauce which turned out fine haha. we had the chicken breakfast set as well. the pictures from the menu are totally deceiving because the portion was so much lesser. but anyway that was what we had, and then we went back to the guide and started our tour proper.
we went to the Kimchi school as our first tourist attraction. jacky told us that kimchi is just a generalised name for alllllll the preserved food with the chili powder, because last time koreans did not have enough money to buy refrigerator/ did not have refrigerators so they had to preserve some vegetables to eat during winter. and the vegetables they preserve can be anything, from the most commonly seen cabbage to small turnips to ginseng. and the longer they preserve the food and let them ferment, the more nutritious it becomes. and the time period of the preservation will matter to the taste eg start fermentation in winter is different from summer; ferment for 1 week is different from 4 weeks. then he went on to talk about during 2003 SARS period korea did not have any cases, and that was due to the dietary intake as later found out by scientists. and americans are now trying to adapt to korean's lifestyle for better health and immunity. jacky said that that was probably due to the amount of garlic they take in each day. because basically kimchi are preserved with chili powder and garlic and ginger, and they take in bulk. seriously none of us realised korea was not involved in the SARS until jacky mentioned it..LOL. okay back to the school. we had kinda a hands-on session on making the kimchi (just spreading the pre-prepared spicy sauce onto the cabbage leaves that they prepared beforehand), and then ordered some to be sent to the airport on our return flight day. the product of whatever we made will be sent to nearby old folks home and orphanage, so the instructor and jacky asked us to make them with love haha. anyway the school has a section for trying out hanbok, which we did. the people working there just took a look at us and they will choose the hanbok based on ur physique and help you wear it, then u are on your own to take photo until u're happy. didn't really like the pink outfit chosen for me, but the person just pulled it over me and well, i just went on to take photos haha.
after that we rushed to have our lunch. it was abalone chicken soup with a cup of ginseng soju, which i topped up:P the meal itself is a whole chicken about the size of my 2 fists combined, stuffed with small ginseng and glutinous rice, and a whole abalone with shell, in a super big stone bowl of ginseng abalone soup. erm, i tried really really hard, but couldn't finish the whole bowl. and that was just the first meal of many abalones for the next few days.
initially the itinery was planned for us to go to the premium outlets on the first day, but since Jacky said that the trip is about 2-3 hours per direction and we'll have to rush to catch another plane in the afternoon to Jeju island, he swapped it with Dongdaemun. on our way to dongdaemun we passed by the presidential estate. erm basically the whole stretch of road before and after it was guarded by police officers. and cause the bus cannot stop for us to take photo, we only passed by it on the coach. to me it's really just a green roofed traditional building with extra security. according to Jacky, the road in front of the presidence house was not even opened for public use till recent years cause of the security issues. what was interesting is that as i positioned to take a picture of the house as we moved past, somehow something happened and the picture i captured was whiteout. was thinking if that just signify yet again the top secrecy of the place?haha
and then we reached dongdaemun. it is named dongdaemun because it is right next to the east big gate of the previous wall built to fend off invaders in the ancient past. it comprises of allllll the buildings along that road actually, not our normal shopping streets as expected, and we only could shop in one of the buildings "doota!" before the time given is up. connie and ibnu went back to dongdaemun on their own during the second last day on cab from the hotel, and they said that the feel is different during the day and night time, with pasar malam like stalls outside on the street in that area during night time and a lot of youngsters around. either way, didn't buy much during this shopping trip cause it was either too expensive or just not my style.
and so that marked the end of the first day trip in Seoul, and we went to Gimpo airport to take the 1 hour flight to Jeju Island, during which i slept from before take off to landing and missed the beverages they served. we had our dinner there after we landed: 白煮黑猪肉, which means the meat is from the black pig (Jacky said the pigs are not black, the fur is) and cooked with just water with no spices etc. apparently a lot of people rear black pig to keep the snakes around the area away from the house. erm, okay the full explanation given by Jacky was that since the food is not stored in the fridge it will attract mice, which will be eaten by the snakes, which is good, but we cannot let them stay in the house, so the people put the pigs near the entrance so that the snake will stay away from the stench of the pigs thus stay away from house. ehhh...okay so after dinner we went to yongduam, basically a lava-formed rock that looks like a dragonhead to the locals. our dinner was very early, and it is still the period of the year where days are longer than nights, so when we reach Yongduam the sky was still very very bright. erm, Jacky said that Jeju was formed after a volcano eruption, so the rocks we see at the coastlines are all black in colour and the beaches as well. anyway so after that visit we went to the hotel (Juju Grand Hotel), and retired for the day.
Second day breakfast was abalone porridge, which was slightly green in colour. According to Jacky, they boil the porridge using the intestine part of the abalone. apparently that is the part with the most nutrients because the essence of the seaweed the abalone ate is there, so when we eat the food cooked with the intestine part we are effectively taking the essence of the abalone. it was delicious with seaweeds actually, and felicia and me and betsy and keyun had a second refill:))
after that we went to the mandarin orange plantation. this year's weather was very bad it seems, so even though this period is supposed to be the harvesting season, the fruits are still green and thus unfit to be plucked. so in the end we went to take photo with the fake orange oranges and went into their shop to buy the specialty goods - orange chocolate. oh did i mention jeju's main produce is oranges? apparently half the population engages in plantation now, and the other half in tourism (last time was 100% sea harvesting because jeju is surrounded by the sea with aplenty seafood). and out of the plantations, almost all are of oranges, with some green tea ones. since we couldn't pluck the oranges ourselves, Jacky bought some for us to try instead. they were sweet with very thin skin, but to me nothing really special LOL.
and then we went to climb mountain! just kidding. we went to Seongsan Sunrise Peak about 8.30, when it was already super hot.when we reach there we had the choice to walk down the slope to the beach where the 海女 are selling living seafood, or we can climb the mountain. jacky asked on the bus before that if we brought extra shirt cause if we were to climb mountain, we would perspire alot, but apparently none of us did, but me and jasmine still headed up anyways while the rest went down. after climbing flightsss of stairs and asking myself multiple times why do i always do this to myself, we reached the top! the stairway actually went narrower and narrower as we went higher, and i was telling jasmine maybe because they anticipated the number of tourists making it to the top is very limited. hahah okay anyway so we took a while taking photos and resting up there, and we had to rush back to the tour bus to our next location and didn't have the time to go down to see the seafood. apparently we were the only 2 of the tour group who climbed. anyway about the 海女, they are the professional divers who go into the sea and catch abalones. they are not permitted to wear any oxygen cylinders to the seabed, but they can hold their breath for about 3.5 mins during each dive. they will carry a balloon with them holding onto the string to tell them how deep down did they go into the sea. according to Jacky, there are a lot of occupational side effects for the long term such as migrane when they are older, so the youngest 海女 now is about 50+ years old. but it is a very traditional role that the government is not ready to give up, so they have a school to train new 海女.
okay so after that we went to take the ferry to change to a submarine to see the seabed at 牛岛 (its namesake because of its shape). the ferry trip was cool with us busy taking photo on the open upper deck with the sea wind and stuff, but the submarine trip was slightly stuffy and claustrophobic. we had to climb almost vertically down into the not-so-big submarine almost filled with the capacity number of passengers. the sea isn't very deep and there isn't really much to see, maybe the most exciting thing was when the diver come past the windows with the fish food and the fish followed him, exactly like what jacky told us. apparently because the submarine is very big in size, the big fish all went to hide leaving the small fish behind, so giving fish food was the only way to let the visitors to see more fish. i did see a few fish biting on the algae on the submarine though haha..other than that...maybe i didn't know how to appreciate :| anyway it was so stuffy that sarah puked in the submarine and a number of the tour grp members don't feel well too.
but after the not-so-pleasant submarine ride we went to horse-riding! was feeling afraid on the way there, but once we actually got onto the horses it's more of excitment and nothing else. the horses are generally smaller in build as jacky informed us earlier on, but they are horses alright. rearing of horses and cows are generally the activities they engage in at that part of the mountains accordin to jacky, because of the field's uneven floors and high altitude making it unsuitable for agriculture. anyway my horse was a brown one and every one of the horses has clipped mane. according to jasmine the horse i was riding on has large amount of discharges from the left eye probably due to some eye disease. for a while there i was a bit frightened if it would be blinded to the left side and take me to somewhere. anyway it didn't, and in fact i think mine was quite cute. he kept sticking with the horse jasmine was riding, and refused to go near to sarah's horse. oh and ibnu's horse passed motion and urine with ibnu on top of it LOL. anyway seeing the flies coming to attack the horses actually got me into pitying the creature because of its inability to fend for itself, then again i thought that is probably why the flies come, because they know they won't be fended off. we all had a good ride on the horses and despite still being frightened by living animals, i like the warm skin feeling and i really really dun mind riding it again. if only the owners were nicer..the lady who was in charge of taking photo was very rough with the horses, beating them when they disobeyed :( [and i patted the horse in consolation after it was beated for refusing to go near sarah's horse to take photo] times like that i wish people can be kinder and not treat animals like they're just animals. oh well.
so after that is our lunch..黑豬燒肉..basically according to jacky it's adding oil to water and semi fry-boil the meat to cooked..quite a healthy method of eating actually, and the sauce is quite nice too:) and did i mention alllll the ingredients from allllll the meals can be topped up unlimitedly?and jacky always go around the tables refilling the near empty plates of side dishes and the meat in the main course.*burp*
manjanggul lava tube was the next tourist attraction, and before that jacky has already been talking about this natural aircon very excitedly for a long time, how a few steps of stairs and the temperature can drop by 10 degree celsius; how it is the best attraction spot in the hot summer and previous tour grp refuses to leave because it is more cooling in. jacky said that the temp remains the same all year round, so the tube is a coolin place in the summer and a warmer during the winter. talking about the lava tube proper, it's actually a huge geography lesson; the tracks on the wall, additional platforms on the floor and along the wall etc. it was wet and cold and dark inside.. i simply like the coolness away from the hot weather hahaha.
after enjoying the cool natural aircon we went to watch nanta!. this is a show originated from jeju and now performing worldwide. it basically is a non-verbal show with the players using kitchen utensils to create music and a storyline. actually there was some chinese and english words they used during the show, but very minimal. it was very enjoyable and we did laugh and cheered our lungs out. one of our tour member in fact got chosen to go up to the stage to participate in one part of the story line. erm basically it was a dumpling folding competition and i was annoyed slightly that she was being sooooooo slow, and thus our side lost. LOL talk about competitive streak. but generally it's real fun and original performance.
to finish the day off we had sashimi and raw abalone. the abalones were still cringing as we scrap it out from the shell and into our mouth. it was crunchy more than anything, and probably i chewed too long it tasted very very raw and disgusting after a while. oh well still an experience after all. the sashimi was decorated with fake tang hoon that jacky warned us against eating. otherwise we were happy with the french fries and baked corn with cheese:))
on the side notes after dinner some of the grp members were asking jacky about the proper salutation and how to sit in the korean style (cause the restaurant has a section for people to sit on the floor and dine) and he was showing them. i was glad i watched dad!where are we going? cause it taught me that too. hahaha okay that was totally random. anyway so dinner concluded the activities for the second day.
but we went out on our own after we reached the hotel and asked for directions from jacky on where and how to go. didn't manage to find the famous roadside fried chicken but we bought spicy rice cake and fried chicken from one of the restaurants. the spicy rice cake was nice but the fried chicken..well they are fried chicken hahha. we had a fun time playing charades on sarah's phone in keyun and connie's room, but still retired to bed early at abt 10plus.
22 aug started with buffet in the hotel, with me and betsy being the latest of the 8 to arrive. the food was nice and always topped up. the grapes are of special taste..erm don't know how to describe, but definitely not our usual taste.
first thing onto the tour bus jacky told us that the wind was too strong and water was too choppy and they are not operating the jetboat in the morning, as we had jetboat scheduled. so he informed us that we will still drive to the port to see the water for ourselves, and we will go to another place before he call the place again in the early afternoon to confirm operation in the afternoon before we end our activities on that side of jeju and move on to another side. the water was very very choppy, with waves splashing against the shoreline like there's a storm coming. according to jacky there are sea traffic police who monitor which type of sea vehicles can go out for which type of weather, and if u go out against the rules u and ur ship will be grounded for a period of time. anyway so we proceeded on to the next planned activity since it was a confirmed no-go, which is jusangjeolli cliff.
jacky told us that the pillar like structures were formed when the volcano erupted and the lava shot out from beneath, but was met with the cold atmospheric air almost immediately and thus "frozen" and formed the shapes. anyway remember the choppy water i mentioned? jacky said it would be a nice weather to see the cliff in and it is different from the solemn feel with still waters, for me i think i prefer very much the choppy water we saw rather than the would-be solemn feel. the huge waves just came crashing into the cliff and creates mists and rainbows:D and there was this huge splash and keyun, jasmine, connie and ibnu were wet from head to toe not sparing their cameras. hahaha i would say it's a nice experience from the bystander point of view, a blessing of shower from nature:P
up next is to seonimgyo bridge and cheonjeyeon falls. jacky was warning us on our trip there that this years has been hot and the water are more or less dried up so maybe we can't see a waterfall but just streams of water. anyway so when we reach there during our short toilet break jacky finally told us that the statues we saw ever so often in jeju were the earth gods of jeju, and rubbing its nose will mean blessing to birth a child which rubbing its hat means will get promotion. erm ya so we went to the bridge first which is linked to the fall. the bridge was very arched, but we had a fun time doing jumpshots on it hahha. oh before that we went past 天帝樓, which looks like a temple more than anything, and too high on top with flights of stairs that none of us was willing to climb lol. okay anyway so we crossed the bridge and went down the stairs to the 2nd part of the waterfall which is currently opened to tourists. the fall wasn't as bad as i imagined, and still have quite an amount of water falling. we didn't stay long there cause one of the tourist from a china tour grp started smoking in the more or less enclosed area with huge "no smoking" signs. oh well not the first instance to experience their "courtesy" during our trip.
after that we went on to chocolate land passing by the mysterious road. erm we didn't alight from the bus though the driver did switch off the engine and let the bus roll, so i didn't really see the bus going up slope, with everyone crowding to the front of the bus trying to see something. according to jacky it is simply an optical illusion, mainly caused by the narrow road and trees beside the road that makes a downhill slope looking like an uphill one; he compared it to how when planes take off you will see the aeroplane as ur horizon and thus the ground outside will seem slanted like a slope, when in actual fact u are the one that is going up. sounds confusing?basically scientists have came and concluded that if the road was made wider and trees removed, the optical illusion would no longer exist. and chocolate land is, well, a museum of chocolate:) they have different coloured chocolate making into different interesting shapes, chess and flowers and such. the place apparent conducts some chocolate making workshop that we saw kids enrolled in, but for us it was just sightseeing.
and so after that we went to eat our lunch - seafood steamboat! alot alot of seafood for the whole period when we were in jeju, and this pot has a lot a lot of cockles and well, abalones LOL. and as usual we didn't finish everything despite my effort to not waste food..
the teddy bear museum and glass castle are next to each other. the teddy bear museum is well, a museum of teddy bears. greeted by two huge bears in wedding gown in display, and there was this cool one where one side shows bears filming and the other side show bears watching what was filmed at home. the teddy bears from goong were also displayed, and albert the bear from goong was on sale too!LOL. glass castle on the other hand is everything to do with glass sculptures. had a fun time walkin through the glass maze even though it was really nothing much.
by this time the jetboat was confirmed cancelled because they are still not operating in the afternoon, so we had spare time and jacky brought us to osulloc tea museum that he told us previous that we were just passing by. the green tea ice cream was strongly recommended by him and which we alll tried. the very authetic taste and so rich in green tea that it is bordering bitterness. erm we spent too much time shopping we didn't have time to cross the road to the other side where there were huge fieldsss of green tea plantation. if i don't remember wrongly jacky mentioned that this plantation produces most of the green tea in jeju.
and then we went to ice sculptures gallery and trick art museum, which essentially are in the same building, just one floor apart. i wore a very thin sleeveless and was freezing in the -5 degrees ice sculptures gallery, but it was very cool and we tried the ice slide and sat on the ice chair and slept on the ice bed:)) by the time we came out of the gallery our hands and fingers and numb, despite the fact that each of us were given a blanket for the cold. trick art museum was a bit weird to begin, but very fun after. because you'd walk into a huge hall with painting on the wall and on the floor, and u gotta act like u're in the pictures. had a rough time warming up to posing with the pictures, but when it was less crowded it was very very fun hahaha.
dinner was a fish feast, with two types of fish cooked in different ways. and as usual, we didn't finish our food T.T in fact most of one type of fish was finished by yours truly. on our way back to the hotel jacky informed us that our flight back to seoul is the following day morning, but he could not get a seat for himself on the same flight so he had to depart earlier, right after he send us off to breakfast. he would have to drop us off at our breakfast place and then he cab over to the airport which is 5-10mins away to do checking in of baggage, then he would meet us at the airport to give us the air tickets and passport he would collect earlier, then he would take his flight and meet us in seoul itself. not sure about the rest, but for a while there i felt a bit lost because he had been the planner and timekeeper for everything. anyway so that night was spent on packing up for the following day's trip back to seoul.
so as what jacky mentioned the previous day after dinner, he went off after he sent us for breakfast at a chinese style restaurant, where they served porridge and side dishes. maybe everyone was scared that they would be late for the flight, everyone left very early, when i haven't had my fill T.T so we reached the airport uber early when jacky was just making his way out to probably wait for us, and even he was surprised that we reached the airport earlier than expected. passports and boarding pass was distributed and everyone checked in the luggage and jacky went off to his flight. because we reached so early, we had a bit of time to rot in the waiting area and ended up buying souvenirs from a store. i managed to buy the cactus powder that i didn't manage to buy previously because i thought that was not what my sister wanted me to buy due to some very unprofessional advice from a salesperson during the only night we were out to do some shopping. phew. and then! our flight was delayed LOL. for a gd 30mins or so. apparently seoul was not clear to receive the flight so we had to wait till clearance from that side before we could board the plane, and ended up we were delayed in our schedule by about an hour.
when we reached seoul we went straight onto the bus ride to mount sorak instead of taking lunch first because of the delay. the bus trip was about 3 hours and at the 2nd hour we stopped to have lunch, 野菜拌飯. jacky was saying we should take a photo of the colours of the rice so that when we come back to singapore we could put in ingredients of similar colours to have the correct spectrum of nutritions in our diet. we do not need to have the exact same food but just the colour will do. erm apparently the amount of carbo in korean rice is twice of that in thai grains. after lunch we went on our way again.
throughout the 2 hours bus trip prior to lunch jacky has been talking non-stop, some are of great educational values, and after lunch because we started playing at the back he stopped himself from continuing. sarah said he was gettin ready to continue but saw we were playing so went back to sit down. me and jasmine feel super guilty after hearing but there wasn't much we could do. anyway shall try to recall what he said during that 2 hours trip..we passed by 漢江 and he said something about that which i forgot :| ohh okay..because we were going to mount sorak so he was talking about the forest. basically some government people came to singapore and saw our garden city and they have went back and started planting in seoul too. he mentioned that last time there was this 新生活動 where it is the duty of every citizen in korea to go to mount sorak to plant a tree, but that was only 30 or so years ago so the trees are still quite thin and short. jacky said that last time there were rules to say guys cannot have hair longer than the ears, if some were caught by the police they have a pair of scissors to cut everything off on the streets and then ask the offender to go to the barber to trim; girls are not allowed to wear skirt shorter than a certain length so the police also carry around rulers to measure suspicious skirts; and no one is allowed to be on the streets past 10pm, if you are found the police will bring u in for investigations to check if you are some spy from north korea, etc. jacky said that 60 years ago when north and south korea first separated south korea was worse off than how north korea is now, so his parents are very short ppl. it was to the state that one meal per day is a luxury, and people dun go to school because of the lack of money too. some said that in the span of 60 years it is a economic miracle that south korea raise to be one of the well-established countries, but that was because of the cheap labour or sth. oh he said that mount sorak's trees are newly planted because during the war with north korea they cut off all the trees to reduce the chances of the enemies hiding amongst the trees, and it was not until the father of the current president that trees were replanted. oh jacky sang praises about the current female president's father, who is apparently known as military president or sth. LOL dun ask me why everything is jumble up as such, this is because i can remember bits and pieces from everywhere but have no idea how they are linked to each other, because mostly they aren't. remember what i said about jacky swaying off topic? anyway so we passed by fields of agriculture and he said that ginsengs are grew in the field and hiden from the sun with cloths hanging above it. generally ginseng takes abt 6 years to mature fully, and because naturally the habit is in the shady areas of the forest, they need to shield them from sunlight when they plant them. jacky went on to ask what are the main agricultural harvest they do in korea, and it is corn, wheat and rice. corn and wheat in korea are unlike those in thailand where they have 3 harvests per year; koreans only have 1 due to the weather. therefore a lot of farmers engage in planting corns because they can survive in high altitudes also and can harvest multiple times per year. the corns they plant in korea is different in taste and texture, more sticky and less sweet and therefore also known as glutinous rice corn, 糯米玉米. we tried later on and well, it is sticky and not sweet and filling and erm, not to our liking haha. oh jacky also talked about the resort in mount sorak. apparently when it was about december january when the mountain is colder the resort will spray water and create manmade snow to cover the place and to start the skiing activities. the next winter olympics will be taking place in the resort area we were staying in but that only can hold 70% of the competitions. the government was thinking about expanding the compound but that would mean need to chop off more trees, and then the environmentalists came to protest that they shld not cut away years of effort for a few days of enjoyment so the government had not start yet. anyway by end of feb the mountain would not be cold enough for skiing and they would close the complex by march. oh i don't know how it is linked, but he talked about korea being abundance in rocks and thus extraction of metal flourished..oh!!he was talking about the 3 biggest companies in korea..samsung, another company and another company. one of the other company was involved in extraction of metal and then sell it to car companies and such so dun have interaction with ground consumers and thus we won't know them. this company buy rocks from germany or sth and then extract the metal out etc.. hmmm what else did jacky say?ermmm..shall add on when i remember
so so! we reached seoraksan national park and took the cable car up the near the peak of the mountain. the cable car is the huge ones which capacity is about 50 standing spaces. when we reached the mountain we were given a choice to climb the remaining 50m for nicer view, or just rest in the cafe of the station. this time around most of the grp climbed up. me and jasmine stayed back a bit to take photo from the platform itself, and jacky came from behind and said that the far away sea is the east sea 東海, and the beach somewhere near is where autumn sonata or that series film the guy carrying the girl walking on the beach. erm dun really know exactly where he was pointing at because there are a few beaches and seas from what i can see, but roughly i guess it's the one nearer to us. haha anyway after that we climbed to the wider space on the mountain, where we took a few photos before proceeding on to even higher grounds. me and jasmine climbed to near the top, until the part where it is only accessible by hiking and not suitable in her slippers and my pumps. slightly disappointed, but i guess for safety it couldn't be helped. so after a long while all of us went back down to take the cable car down to the main national park, where jacky brought us to visit the 神興寺/新興寺, the temple with the biggest buddha statue in whole of korea. jacky said that the place is named as such as they believe that the temples shld be where the gods are happy, since heaven in chinese is called 極樂世界. the big buddha in the new extension of the temple is called 統一大佛, in the hope that north and south korea can one day be unified. to sidetrack slightly, jacky said the main problem now for unification is the different in the standard of living and economic status. apparently during the 60 years post war when south korea moved forward, north korea remained stagnant. now the north and south korea has this collaboration where the families that were separated by war many years ago could meet at a designated place, once in a few years. hrm. back to the buddha. according to jacky, 阿彌陀佛 is in charge of welfare of the future life when u've passed on, and someone else in charge of the present and another of the past life. can't rmb which is which..anyway we had a bit of free time to explore so we went on...to take jumpshots in the midst of the dried up river in the middle of the temples LOL. but to be frank the scenery is very very nice there, but i failed a lot of times at my paranoma shoots T.T
okay and then we went to have our dinner before going to The Hotel in pheonix park to rest for the day. it was cuttlefish for dinner with pork 魷魚燒肉. the method of cooking is still the water with a bit of oil, but the main ingredient for today was cuttlefish..love the sweet sweet taste haha for this meal we ate alot, and one of the rare times when we topped up the meat AND finished them:D
after we returned to the hotel we went to the nearby cvu to buy food and for the first time, rice wine before converging in me and betsy's room to talk and play before retirin for the day.
day 6 started with the hotel buffet in The Hotel, before we started on our way back to nearer to the city area. there was a whole field of lavendar coloured flowers outside the hotel on the slopes that possibly are the ones they ski on during winter, and we rushed our breakfast so that we could go out to see the flowers and the mist that came down during the night before we set off on our trip. it's 18 degrees out there but i didn't feel cold somehow..the sight was breathtaking even though very simple. took tonnes of photo before we headed back to the hotel and resume our planne journey.
we went to yeoju premium outlets where all the branded goods are on sale. it's like a row of poshed shophouses with amx and coach etc. jacky said that this is opened by an american company and this is just one of the branches of it worldwide. this is second time when i saw our tour guide actully involved in the activities and bought something. the first was at jusangjeolli where he bought some oranges from the ladies at the entrance. anyway i bought something here too :O hahha and then we went to everland!!
everland is the biggest outdoor amusement park in korea with tonnes of rides and shows and such. after giving us our lunch coupons and telling us which shows to look out for, jacky brought us to see the psy hologram show..personally i'm not a fan of psy and i think it was wasting our time, but it was still a cool experience, seeing 3d effects without the glasses. and after this show we are on our own in the park for 5 hoursss :D apparently our grp was separated with different agenda in mind, and i went with jasmine and sarah. we had slight difficulty buying our lunch because we wanted something different than the menu, and there is our tour guide, appearing out of nowhere to save us all LOL. we took burger takeaway and went on to queue for our first rides. hurricanes, double rock, viking ship, T express, roller coasters, carousel...other than the shows which we missed them all, and the wet rides which jasmine vehemently refused to ride, we screamed our lungs out and took twice of the rides when possible. it was a very fun and crazy day, and for the first time i understand why some people buy annual pass to have unlimited rides to an amusement park.
dinner was barbeque pork and chicken specially arranged for ibnu. 五花肉 to be exact, and it was nice:) jacky was telling us how some health freak from previous groups went on pick out all the layers of fats from the meat, so he had the marinated pork version arranged for us too. as usual we couldn't finish our food, and then we're off to the hotel.. JW marriott!! ahem it's my first 5star hotel stay so pardon me for my excitment..and it was a total difference from The Hotel so we enjoyed ourselves more. we signed up for memberships as recommended by jacky, so that we can have free access to wifi even in our rooms (or else it's chargeable). we didn't go out and just rested in our rooms..
breakfast the following day was in a chinese banquet restaurant. according to jacky, because of the huge area of the restaurant they usually open up for tour grps to have breakfast before preparing for the wedding lunch to maximise profit. apparently koreans usually have wedding lunch and the latest they finish weddings is 3-4pm; he has never heard of wedding dinner in fact.
on our way out from the hotel to the city, we had to cross over a long bridge. jacky said that the river was 漢江 and the hotel is at the gangnam because it is at the south side of the river. the price of the building across the river is half of gangnam, meanin if you sell away one apartment from gangnam, you could buy 2 in 江北. jacky said that gangnam was originally a farmland, but i didn't catch the part where it becomes the most pricest of the whole country.
anyway this day is another day where the schedule is shuffled to maximise usage rather than travelling. jacky said that since korea is a democratic society, peaceful strikes are allowed as long as you applied for approval with the police before that. usually it is permitted to be carried out over the weekend where traffic and businesses will not be disrupted, but that means we should avoid the city central to prevent us from being caught in any possible jam. so for today, instead of the palace which is situated in the middle of the city, we went to shops instead. first stop was at the korean ginseng shop. jacky was briefing us on the bus regarding ginsengs, how it was super effective to his dad after his bypass that even the physicians recommended ginseng as supplement. apparently there are a few kinds of korean ginseng, and different grades of them depending on the percentage of the roots and bodies of the ginseng and the size of it. the red ginseng that is famous from korea is known to be more nutritious because they soak the ginseng multiple times in nutritional stuff and absorb a lot more nutrients than other kinds. the american ginseng is the cool ones and the red ginseng of korea is the heaty one. there is also a type of ginseng called 天極, which is neutral and is good for all. powder form are more for kids because easier to absorb, while the essence is better for older people for the added effects. since we cannot pull the ginseng from the ground to see how many years the ginseng has grown based on the size, this is done by looking at the number of branches of leaves the plant has. interestingly with increment of year the number of branches of leaves increases, to 6 branches in year 6. then we went to the showroom where we had a cup of ginseng tea each and betsy bought a box of ginseng powder before we head back to the bus.
next stop is at bokanyeong, where they sell medication that helps in detoxification of the liver. 2 experiments were done to show how the medication helped to extract and remove the pigmentations and cholesterols from the food, and i'd have bought if not for the lack of money hahha. according to the salesperson, u need to detox first before giving any supplements, or else the supplements will be all wasted.
and then we went to art korea, where branded korean brands of cosmetics are on sale in the showroom. jacky has been recommending carino for ppl of late 20s to use, and how this brand is rarely found outside and is at a manageable price for a branded good. well so we bought a lot of things from that brand and nowhere else, but i'd say it's a good buy:)
lunch was korean style bakkuteh, with their special sesame leaves and overusing spices. tried to finish as much as i could but oh well, leftovers prevail.
Hello kitty cafe was our next stop. it is situated in a small substreet where if u are not looking out for it, u'd missed it. we had to alight at the main road and then walk in to the small street. we ordered our drinks with jacky before we reached so by the time we reached, we just grab our drinks and went to the storey we preferred. we just sat there and took photo and chitchat while jacky sat at one corner playing with his phone.
after this we walked a bit more, and we reached sinchon shopping district. after showing us where evista is, we were again on our own shopping spree. felicia and betsy and i just whacked all the shops we could see, and bought a lot of stuff LOL. super lucky that i went in to the it's skin shop i saw, and even though i shld be bought more from there, at least i bought somethings, because i couldn't find the brand anywhere else again. anyway as usual we ran late for the tour again, and we rushed to where we were supposed to meet only to find jacky bringing us back to where the bus is parked, so apparently we were the last 3 oops.
and off we went to lotte world! i think we would be much more interested in the rides if we weren't at everland the day before, but that day we were a lot more interested in the cosmetic on sale in the other block. so after jacky helped us buy the tickets into the indoor amusement park, he told us to follow him to the duty free shops if we are interested...and the whole grp came along hahha. the shops are situated on the 9th and 10th floor; and we spent a good 2 out of 3 hours that we were allocated to lotte world on buying the cosmetics. and after we bought so much, we didn't feel like taking rides nor have the time to do so. we went to settle our dinner at marco's world restaurant and wanted to take the "helium balloon" ride but couldn't because of the time factor, so in the end betsy jasmine and i went to take the viking ship while the rest walked around. and it concluded our day.
and the last day we had activities to rush before we officially say bye to korea :( after breakfast in the hotel (which was a topped up of the refunded jetboat cost with the originally planned breakfast), we went to gyeongbokgung. jacky said that this is the first palace to have ever built in korea and since that time words were not invented yet, the names of the different parts of the palace were written in chinese characters (oh we passed by the statues of a famous soldier and the emperor who created the korean letters on our way to the palace). anyway so we bought the tickets and went in. while jacky was explaining about the palace we missed the handover shift of the soldiers in the palace, and by the time we rushed over the crowds have already dispersed and the guards assumed their posts:| anyway what jacky explained also is educational so okay lah. he said that the flooring of the main square is uneven on purpose so that with each step and every stairs the ministers will look down and remember to be humble, which is a virtue that can be easily forgotten when u're high up. then he explained that the animals carved on the palace pillars and surroundings are the 12 zodiacs, which they called the 12 spiritual animals. there are 2 zodiacs missing from the palace, namely the dragon and the pig, because last time korea was still under the reign of china and thus dragon shld not be displayed in this palace as a respect to the "one true dragon" in china. pig was also omitted because it represents food and thus is given to the common people. fun fact is that they even included 孫悟空 and co on the roof of the main palace as guardians. animals at the side are carved with their heads tilted to the centre of the whole thing, and jacky said something that i never manage to remember, about the palace being in the centre of the whole korea and is used to determine the directions of every other places in korea. and he pointed out the presidential residence from the palace! that was very cool in my opinion hahaha. erm ya anyway so he explained that the main hall was the place the emperor will meet the ministers every month or 2 monthly, and behind that is a building where the emperor worked; behind which is the place he sleep and then after that is where the empress sleep, a place where the yin and the yang meet and create balance of life. there is also a place where it is specially built for the gods to celebrate with the people. oh i forgot dunno when jacky mentioned that the drums are loud to tell the gods they were celebrating. anyway. the whole row of the palace from the main hall were the only places recovered and rebuilt from the impressions of the ancient books, and the rest of the compound where there were just grasses are the places that the people know there were buildings over there but have no idea how the buildings looked like. oh and if u see in the main hall, there is a dragon sculpture in the ceiling. jacky said that was added on later when they refurnished the place. the whole place was generally new because it was only rebuilt about decades ago. (forgot to mention we passed by the 南大門 and jacky said it was burnt by some lunatics and just rebuilt too; 南大門and 東大門 are the only 2 gates of the wall that still remains, the rest were demolished by the japanese during invasion). anyway so during our allocated free time we did jumpshots again, and didn't manage to see everything. oh well we did have fun though:)
after this we went to the amethyst shop. apparently jacky knows the owner of the shop and when we reached there he went behind the counter and giving us discount like he owned the place, which i dun really mind since there is discounts hahha. i bought one pair of ear studs that costs usd88. anyway on the trip there jacky was saying the ring and bracelet he is wearing are all amethyst, and korea is the only country where grade A amethyst are found. grade A meaning the purple is so dark it is almost black, with the hardness reaching the standard of expensive precious stones. grade B and C are different in terms of colour but of the same hardness, grade C's colour being so light that artificial colouring is needed and usually made into keychains and stuff. the amethyst has a certain magnetic field and thus cannot be lent to another person, other wise is good for health and circulation etc. after we made our purchases we were instructed to put it into the amethyst cave in the shop to demagnetise for about 2 mins before taking it out. according to jacky, if u put ur hand in it without touch the surface for a few times ur finger tips would feel some tingling sensations because of the magnetic field. i tried and indeed i could feel it, but just very mild. anyway because we saw that there is a convenient store next to the shop, we made our purchases quickly and went over to purchase tidbits:)) almost cleared their shelves.
and we went to the local produce shop as our last stop before going to airport for our flight home. we swiped mostly seaweed and stuff and packed into a box for checking in to the flight. and then, we're off to our journey to the airport.
jacky told us on the trip that he likes his job very much because he bring joy to people, and he always try to maximise the fun the tour grp has. he loves to talk which this job allows him to, but there was one down point and that is to say goodbye to the grp. he said that it is fate that brought us as a grp to have fun for the 8days, and he cried in the toilet in the produce shop, probably the reason why his eyes are smaller since he cries almost once per week. jokes aside, i was sadden for a while too. i am never good at separations and even simply preparing a project for a long time and it ending will leave me feeling sad, moreover these 8 days when we slept and eat and played and had fun together. when jacky said that he cried, i could not help but to feel near to tears too. no matter he was just joking or not, i do agree that it was fate that these 19 person came together to have fun for these 8 days, and am very thankful for our tour guide for being very spontaneous and accommodating throughout. i believe, and betsy agreed, that this trip had been made successful and filled with joy mainly because of his efforts too. the passion he has in his job is evident, and even though i don't work to bring joy to patients, i wish i'd find his passion someday and truly love what i do as a living.
after he helped us settle our boarding pass and tax refunds, the 8 of us went into the boarding area and shopped around. bought korean dunkin donuts for my lunch and settled dinner on the plane as well. oh ya our kimchi arrived and we checked it in. when we reached changi airport later, we divided our loots and we're on our way home.
i was unpacking at home that very same night, when i realised my amethyst earrings was missing. called asa, asiana, changi airport and incheon airport the next day but all to no avail. maybe it is the cost, but it also is like a piece of this trip's memory being stolen from me. most things i bought elsewhere are perishables, and this alone would have helped me remember the trip, and it's gone. i could only console myself that maybe our magnetic field cannot match each other thus it had to go:(
and so our 8d6n very belated grad trip to korea ended, with tonnes of memorries to be kept forever, or as long as my memory permits.
p.s. i've officially spent 4 days on this post..LOL