South Korea 2006: Day 2

Woke up on Tuesday morning all snug and cosy. Sleeping on heated floors with a firm korean pillow and soft covers is better than any beauty sleep I've known. Anyway, after breakfast it was off to Nami Island, shooting location for Korean drama Winter Sonata. Actually its an artificial island formed by the building of a dam across the Bukhangang river. It was named after a General Nami, a young brilliant military guy who shot up fast but was dragged down fast also. He was promoted to national defense minister at 27 years old, but got executed at 28 by jealous peers. Such is the fate of good, brilliant people...anyway, we went to see the autumn trees made famous by the show, and shot some pics there.

My family..

Here's my pic....

Keeping warm...

After that we went for lunch at Chuncheon, where we had fried chicken and rice cooked on the spot on a hot plate, quite tasty actually...our tour guide's assistant did most of the cooking

Most of the food in Korea comes with a few side dishes and ,of course, kimchi. Almost every meal has rice.

Next stop, Kimchi-making, which turned out to be a disappointment. All they gave us was preserved lettuce and the ready made sauce and showed us how to mix them. After that, we didn't get our Kimchi back, instead they collected it in buckets. Given Koreans' frivolousness, I don't think they just threw the kimchi away. I'm not sure I want to know what they did with it.

Nearby was a little shack of costumes where we dressed up in Hanboks, the traditional Korean dress, and the men's attire.






Thats all thats notable for Tuesday. More pics when I have the time
Oh, theres one more. I took this pic of one little girl in our tour group. She and her younger sister were quite adorable and cute haha, so I managed to get one last pic:

Some more pics.....


Thats me any my family posing.


Thats where the seasoing and sauces were kept...


This was the kitchen, prep area for the king's meals


low income residential area aka Korean kampongs
this was where they took the village scenes...


I'll blog more about my trip after I come back from class chalet.
Adieu...

South Korea 2006


DAY 1: Monday 27 November

After a 6 hour flight on Asiana Airlines, we touched down in Incheon Airport in Seoul at 0600 hrs. Couldn't sleep on the plane, so I was pretty tired by that time. First thing that greeted me when we stepped out of the airport with the tour group was a cold blast of air right in my face.

There is nothing that makes you come fully alive like 6 degrees celcius cold wind blowing at you. It was worse than being doused with ice water. Instantly I felt so much more awake. It was cold, veeery cold.

Korea is in Late Autumn season now and the temperature is constantly below 10 degrees centigrade. My face was freezing, my hands were numb.

After that we proceeded in a heated bus(whew) to the Dachangjin filming site in Gyeonggi-do province. The whole set was built on the side of a steep granite cliff, so it was quite majestic. FYI, Korea has a lot of spectacular landscapes because 70 % of the peninsula is covered with granite and limestone mountains, not high but quite steep. there are 9 provinces in all.

This is the main entrance:



Where the king sat to eat


This was how they pounded the rice



Next stop after a delicious lunch was the Daemyong Vivaldi Park resort on Mt Maebong 2,132 feet above sea level. Its a ski resort but the snow wasn't ready. Anyway we went to the Water theme park there to chill, or rather warm up. There are hot spring spas there and I tried them for an hour or so. the spas are divided into Men and women sections because, well, you have to go in totally nude. But its worth the experience. One hot spring in particular, was open to the sky unlike the rest which were indoors. So you can feel the drizzle of cold rain on your face while the rest of you is immersed in 40 degree hot spring water. Super shiok.

I did'nt take any pics coz photography is not allowed. It would be porn wouldn't it?

After that we went for dinner and back to the hotel. Our tour guide told us to try sleeping on the heated wooden floor like traditional Koreans and so I did. It was really quite comfy and warm sleeping on the floor with those firm Korean pillows.

The days are shorter here, with sunset at 5pm, and so I couldn't get a good picture, so here's one in the morning:


Because Korea is located at high latitudes the sun barely rises 45 degrees of elevation in autumn. the climate is temperate(eastern and western, depending) so the vegetation there is mainly temperate forests. There's oak, pine, maple etc.

Thats all for now. More later OK?

I"M BAAAAACK!!!

Touched down in Changi Airport at 9.45pm Singaporean time. Slept the whole night and day, and after that I was too busy unpacking, gaming, editing photos etc.

Korea has been an interesting place, so I'll share my travels with you.

So here goes nothing.