trip to Korea

last week, my wife and I had the chance to embark on a trip to Korea. well, not really a chance coz we paid for the trip, okay!! haha

it was a group trip, and except for my wife, I knew nobody in the group. but later, we became friends.

on 11^th December at approximately 1 am we boarded the AirAsia flight to Incheon Airport from Klia2. the flight took six hours and twenty minutes. like previously, I found difficulty to sleep. only around 2am I managed to doze off. but an hour later, stewardesses came and asked for our boarding pass. they wanted to serve us nasi lemak. can you imagine? having nasi lemak at 3 in the morning! I would have eaten up everything if it were to be served immediately after we were seated, or, if this were to be somewhere at the mamak’s stall perhaps 10 years ago, yours truly would definitely obliged. but not to waste the food, I took a few spoonful and that’s it. I would rather catch up on my sleep than to be a zombie come morning, kan.. hehe

we touched down at 820 am Korean time. after stretching our limbs and getting through the immigration and getting our luggage, we boarded the bus. before that, I walked out of the airport to catch a quick puff, and, wow! it was freezing cold!  the temperature was -3c then and was dropping with each passing day. understood, coz it was the beginning of winter. the bus took us to Nami Island but we stopped along the way for lunch. Lunch, Korean style, was served hot, kimchi was certain to be on the menu, plus ikan mackerel bako, and assorted Korean dishes. being hungry, coz we missed breakfast, we savored our lunch. nothing was left behind hahaha..

korean cuisine

nami island

Nami was really beautiful and picturesque. and i took a lot of pics.on the average, I took 100 pics per day. even the book café located there was awesome. after spending three hours there, we left for our hotel. what a relief. we stopped again at another restaurant for dinner. Delpino Resort, the place to sleep for the night, was a well-maintaned apartment. it looked like a one-room flat, cozy living, kitchen utensils available, and it even had heat-provided wooden floor. we slept soundly. guess we were tired from the journey and excitement.

the next day, we checked out after breakfast, and after snapping loads of photos. our next destination? Mount Seorak. but before that, we stopped at Teddy Bear Museum which was located nearby. the dolls had faces of bears, I would say so, but they were incredible, in the sense that they looked charming. and to make things better, some of the dolls were alive. animated and moving to the sound of music. should have brought home a gigantic bear for nia.. hehe

everland

delpino

at 10.30, we reached the foot of Mt Seorak. we took a cable car up the hill, and continued up on foot. the view from the top was magnificent. everywhere was covered with snow. it felt so good, so satisfying to be there. before going down, I had an icecream. sejuk-sejuk lagi mau makan aiskrim, haa! layan..

it was lunch time, and we did our prayer, before heading to  vivaldi park,the ski resort. it was quite a long journey, and once we reached there, we rented clothes and ski equipment. we sent our bags to our apartment and straight away headed for the ski slopes. it was at 9pm but the place was so bright with all the spotlights around. I took the opportunity to try skiing. emm, it’s not that difficult actually but I would need a couple of days to get the hang out of it. after spending time skiing and building snowman for the children, it was time to rest.

the third day, we headed to everland but before that we went to a strawberry farm, tried making kimchis, put on Korean traditional clothing hambok, after lunch, it was time for Everland. Everland was a land of joy, full of exotic stuffs and a day would not be enough to cover everything. but we just made do with the time allocated. we covered the safari ride, where animals such as bears, white tigers, lions were right by our van. the bears even came near our van coz the driver gave them food. mind you, this is not the bear you find back home, okay, but these were 8 footer bears, the grizzly type. the looked on their faces were so adorable and I wished I could have one as a pet. in your dream.. : )

xxx

roller coaster giler!!

after solat, I jokingly told my wife to go with me for a ride on the roller coaster. but what do you know? she said she was willing. the roller coaster track was enormous, with killer corners and uphills and downhills to stop your heart beat. but there we were, queuing up for our turn. when our turn came, we took our seats, and acting bravely, kept a positive mind for the outcome. PEEEHHHH ! the ride was the furthest, the scariest, the most awesome one I ever had. well, comparing this to the one at Genting haha. but it was really a mix of scare and fun. adrenaline was pumping so fast and if the ride were to exceed five minutes, I think my heart would stop.. lucky me, after a couple of minutes, the ride came to an end. thank God. phew!

we then took photos of everywhere, and by 7, we were so stretched and tired, and headed for Seoul. and as usual, we had dinner along the way, but this time at a Siamese restaurant. we had thai’s dishes, which were quite familiar for our tastebud. before reaching our hotel, we stopped at Dutta to do our shopping. the prices of the items were reasonably cheap, but since our currency is lagging behind so much compared to Korean won, it burnt a hole in my pocket. I spent quite a fortune there, emm, half of the money I brought for this trip. but we only got t-shirts, keychains, fridge magnets, some exclusive stuffs for my mum and my wife, children, siblings relatives and friends. upon reaching capital hotel, we gladly checked into our room.

the next day, Wednesday,we had breakfast at Bombay Grill, went for a short tour of the palace, stopped at Ginwel, an outlet selling ginseng product and headed for lunch. and out of the blue, snow fell down from heaven. peh! though the snow was so tiny, it was a moment to remember. and all day long it was snowing.  after lunch at Taj Palace and solat at Itaewon Mosque, we went to Namsan Tower. the place was brimming with people: families, couples, lovers. I bought a heart-shaped pendant and wrote the names of me and my wife and all my children. it was immortalized there along with hundreds of thousands of other keychains and pendants.

after that we went to the famous shopping place in Seoul, Namdaemun

layan octopus kt namdaemun

Market and Myeongdong Shopping Street. since we did not have much money left, we didn’t really buy anytning except some caps for the children, but my wife still got herself a pandorra bangle. I ate an octopus roll at one of the foodstalls there. well, I had dreamt of doing so after watching boys over flower where jun pyo gobbled a few sticks of these kinds of food.. it was so big, so delicious that I was tempted to go for a second helping. but I didn’t haha..

at Myeongdong, we took photos, help ourselves to some free stuffs given away by store assistants. it was tiring but exciting to find myself here. after dinner, we went back to the hotel for a well-deserved rest.

finally it was the last day. after packing our stuffs, we checked out from the hotel, went to taj palace again for breakfast, and on the way to the airport, stopped by at Redpine and Jeil Amethyst. Redpine was selling health product, using the extract taken from the redpine flowers. I was interested but it was so expensive. but the irony happened when we got to Jeil amethyst. my wife saw a ring, with a lotus-like purple amethyst stone. she loved the ring but it was expensive and she was unsure but I told her, ‘bila lagi, kn?’so she got it, just like that. haha..

book cafe

and after that it was straight to the airport. we checked in our luggage and got cleared by the immigration and security. I found we had two hours to spare so we went to a musolla to pray and lepak at the seats nearby to eat our lunch which was kebab. our flight was delayed for 45 minutes but I was thankful everything went well after that. it was dawn the next day when we reached home sweet home.

in a way, I was thankful to be home to see my children and to be where I would be comfortable the most. but I guess I would surely miss korea too, the cold weather, the highlands, the Korean cuisine, the cleanliness of the places we visited and the warmth of the locals.

Dear Allah, thanks for this pleasure. Alhamdulillah.