Finally after many months of perusing tour agents, newspapers and the best deals, my mom and I flew to Korea, a place both of us wanted to visit very much. Korean Air was in two words, uncomfortable and tasty. Weird huh? The seats all had this very irritating head rest which made me sit in a fetal position for 8 hours to Incheon Airport. The funny thing was that the food they served was one of the best I've ever had the privilege of eating on an aeroplane. Maybe if I flew first class I could have both; comfort and good food. The Gold Crown on the right belongs to the Korean Royal Family which sadly is no longer around due to absence of heirs. Honestly, I think the crown would look better on a girl/queen. Oh and isn't it weird that they keep a national treasure like this in their airport???



Thats our cute tour bus carrying 17 very eager Malaysians to discover Korea. The first place we zoomed off too is Dae Cheong Kam's palace that was built just to film Korea MBC's most succesful tv drama. In the show, everything looks huge, the palace and the peasant's village but the real set is obviously smaller and some angles or rooms are used to film different scenes.


These are different sections of the set and my gosh, I discovered the sweetest strawberries I've ever tasted! Anna, our tour guide told us that all strawberries in Korea are grown using the same soil from which ginseng are harvested. No wonder!



Our first meal/ lunch in Korea. Its an interesting stirfry mix of cabbage, chicken, mee etc... It took me some time to get used to it though and yeah, I ate my first authentic kimchi (Korean cabbage) here. Koreans actually have to consume kimchi all the time and every meal is served with kimchi which in my opinion is too sour, too salty, too bitter and too cold at the same time. Yuck!


This is how they make kimchi. First, wash cabbage 3 times and marinate in lemon, red pepper, sesame seeds, salt etc... and smoke it like in the left pic. The kimchi will be ready to consume but if you want to use it to boil soup or make stew, bury it with earth in a natural ground oven (right) and leave for a couple of weeks.



Then we hopped onto a ferry and went to this gorgeous island called Nami Island. Named after a 26 year old general who became a war hero after being murdered and betrayed by one of his officers, this place was used to film Winter Sonata. The last pic on the right shows mom posing in front of the statues of the two Winter Sonata stars embracing. As you can see, Nami island is filled with cherry blossoms and pine trees. Absolutely breathtaking!



After snapping loads of pics and nearly missing the ferry, the bus took us to a shopping area in ChunCheon where you get Korean designer stuff. Its super expensive!!! The shops here mostly cater to Korea's affluent families and are modeled by Korean actors and actresses. Remember Full House? The Rain and Song Hye Ko drama? All the clothes worn by her is sold by this store known as Roem and ya, buying a jacket here would have cost us all our Korean won. Then, dinner time! The middle picture is Korean seafood steamboat. Very very delicious! Besides Kimchi, we also had grilled pollack, foo pei (finally something familiar!) and fried sweet potatoes. After dinner, we headed off to a Mountain resort and thus ends our first day in Korea.



The reason for staying in the Mountain resort was so that we could be close to Mt Sorak, the third highest peak in Korea. This place reminded me that everything God made is so beautiful and that his love and faithfulness extends way past mountain tops, Amen! Brrrrr.... Super cold area though. It was so cold that my ears and nose turned red. Mom had to let me wear her wind breaker and she also bought me some gloves. To make it worse, Joe, our malaysian tour guide said, "Har! This place cold meh? Trust me, Liverpool is 5 times colder than this".



Everland Theme Park was our next stop. This is the Korean version of Disneyland and I think the main attraction here was not their rides but the thousands of tulips in every imaginable colour that filled most of the space. I wanted to go on their rollercosters but no one else wanted to so yeah, I didn't sit any of their rides except for their motion master. The thing in Korea is that if more than 10 ppl in an international tour wants to sit a particular ride, a fast pass is given free so instead of queuing for 2 hours to sit that rollercoster for example, your entire group simply enters a VIP door and goes for the ride pronto! We had a fast pass for mostly everything but the most worthwhile was the fast pass to Safari Land.



For 40 minutes, we enter the presence of bears, tigers, lions and ligers. The bear on the left seemed extra friendly and bumped into our bus with good intentions I hope and the pic on the right shows the 2 ligers born in Everland. They have the head of a tiger but the body of a lion. Hmm... weird...



The entire journey in Korea was really blessed. Not only did my mom and I get to see lovely cherry blossoms everywhere and not to mention snow, it hardly rained and whenever it did, we were always in the bus or sleeping at night. When we stepped out to sight see or to shop, it was always nice, cooling and cloudy. However, in shops, on buses and planes, with pets, on T-shirts and chocolates, on city walls and Giordano outlets, it was definitely "Rain"ing! Shopping in Giordano is like shopping in Gap Malaysia!



When we were in Seoul, we visited one of the last remaining traditional court houses. Due to Korea's phenomenal modernization which may be perceived by some to beat Japan's, most traditional houses were cleared away to make way for modern buildings so yeah here it is; simple with an understated elegance. There are also traditional games to you can experience here. Outside of it, there was this shop selling Korean ice cream which is super creamy and thick!



More shopping ensued on the streets of Korea. We found this antique pottery place on a certain street while going to the toilets and manage to get a few pieces to decorate back home. The last pic on the right shows a stone pagoda erected thousands of years ago. As they can't move it, a glass structure was built to protect it.



The other famous thing about Korea is its ginseng. They claim that only Korean ginseng is rich in Saponin, a substance that promotes good blood circulation and other health benefits. The only thing I remember about ginseng is Yeoh Peng Nam saying,"Don't simply let your patients eat ginseng ar, it can prevent blood from clotting." Sure enough, when we had our ginseng wine chicken stew, the old lady opposite me had nose bleeding. My cheeks simply turned red ha ha natural blusher :)



In Seoul, we also visited the Fifa World Cup 2006 football stadium and by golly, it was huge! Its a bit small but I'm the extra player next to Park Ji-Sung, Man U's shining star. The beautiful thing about Korea is that everything is so tidy and so well taken care of. Sigh... If only Bukit Jalil was the same.



I also had a hilarious time at Nanta, one of Korea's most famous musical. Its a fast paced monologue about 3 restaurant chefs and the owner's nephew. Its loud, its funny and it involves lots of sharp knives. I laughed for the entire duration. They made music with kitchen utensils too! Superbly entertaining and interactive! The street shown on the left was taken on the way back to the subway station. This is the most expensive road in Seoul where all hotels here are 5 stars. The most protests also take place here.



On our last day, we went to Itaewon, another city district in Seoul. Known as the American Ghetto in Seoul, this place has plenty of Americans especially around areas near the American Military base. The War Memorial we went to showcased preserved army tanks, planes, jets and submarines. The left most pic shows a statue of 2 brothers; one a South Korean and the other a North Korean embracing after reuniting in the midst of the Cold War. Their story is real and is documented. The middle pic is a rocket launcher and the last shows me standing in one of their war planes.



The other thing I loved about this place is that its filled with kids in all sizes! My mom couldn't resist it and took pics with some of them. She inevitably scared some of them off ha ha! I did take some pics with them too but it was in the toilet and my kids weren't as cute so I decided to post these instead.



Its nearing the end of this loooong blog and these are the people I want to thank for such a great time. Next to my mum is Joe Lau, our malaysian tour guide and next to me is Jin and Anna, our korean tour guides. They were all really attentive throughout our stay especially Jin. He would help us refill food, get us water, run up and down with our stuff and carry our luggages for us. To all of you, KAHM-SA-HAMN-NI-DA!

The one thing that really stood out to me about Korea is that this country is first class and the mentality of their people is also first class. Everyone knows they play a role in the well being of their Korea and because of that, crime rates are low and its safe everywhere. In fact, one of the couples left a big bag of passports and cash at the everland theme park. When Jin ran back there to find it half an hour later, it was amazingly still there! None of the hundreds of people taking pictures there took it. Really amazing! Its the same thing with their toilets. Everyone in Korea throws toilet paper in a waste bin instead of flushing to prevent clogging toilets. There is always a clean toilet to go to without having to pay for and without having to bring your own tissue paper. They also try to make most of their stuff biodegradable like their toothpicks, plastic bags and paper. All rivers used for drinking water are unaccesible to the public, boats, factories etc to ensure a constant, clean supply of water. In fact, if you commit suicide in one of these rivers, your family is fined a hefty sum to rid the waters of your body.

Okay, I think I've made my point that Korea is pro-environment. Our government should sponsor Malaysians to visit Korea so that everyone will be inspired to develop a first class mentality for the sake of our country. I really enjoyed Korea but when I reached KLIA and saw my dad, I felt relieved. If Korea is Yeh!, Malaysia Boleh! The pic(Vickie would be so proud of it ha ha!) below summarizes my trip to Korea the best. Ahn-Nyung-I-Keh-Seh-Yo!