Korea Trip 2009 – Dongdaemun Market, Day 3

Dongdaemun Market (동대문시장) is the largest shopping center in South Korea. We are taken to Doosan Tower, aka Doota for our shopping needs. This time we had things to buy. A better scarf for me and ear muffles for both of us. Our ears are freezing cold!!

Night view of Doota.

A snapshot of their food court. Similar to Everland, the concept is order and pay at the counter and then collect at the respective stall.

Another snapshot of their food court.

I love their toilets. All exceptionally clean and quite a number of it features ass washing jets. Woohoo. With a press of the button, you can wash your butt clean.

 My arty farty photo. Fail.

Rating for Dongdaemun Market : 3.5 / 5. We got our souvenirs here, plus the much needed ear muffles, and the cookie brownie. Pity that I didnt take a photo of it.

Next up…Korean Ginseng Chicken Soup w/rice Dinner, Day 3

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Korea Trip 2009 – Making Kimchi, Day 3

After Everland, we were headed to learn how to make kimchi. The tour guide said that all kimchi that we made today will be donated to the poor and needy. How true, I dunno. We didnt really get to learn how to make. What was being done was that there will be a short talk or demonstration on how they prepare the kimchi. What was left to be done was only to apply the kimchi sauce on the cabbage and wrap it up.

Making Kimchi session. Look at the plates. They all come with one section of the cabbage and a heap of kimchi sauce. Just apply it to the cabbage will do. More importantly, look at the blue cup with the misery small amount of milk. That is the Ginseng Milk in the itinerary. Quote the itinerary "You can also have a taste of Korean Ginseng Milk". SA Tours is not wrong you know. You really did have a taste. Word for word.

The photographer did take some nice photos of us with the kimchi. Kudos to her.

Wifey with her Kimchi.

Me with Kimchi.

And the last part here. We get to dress up in Korean Traditional Costume.

So what is really here? The whole making Kimchi thing is just a cover up to get you to buy their Kimchi in bulk. You cannot just buy one. You have to get 5, free 1 = six. And they are not exactly cheap. Me no love for kimchi.

Rating for Making Kimchi : 3 / 5. At least I get to see myself in a "Korean Traditional Costume"

Next up…Dongdaemun Market, Day 3.

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Korea Trip 2009 – Everland, 에버랜드 리조트, Day 3

We were greeted by snow covered scenery when we woke up the following morning. It was really beautiful. Roads all white, building tops covered with snow. It's magical.

And someone made a cute little snowman out in front of the hotel lobby.
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Simple snowman but hey, that is my first snowman I have seen in flesh. They could have used stones for the eyes and mouth though. Hmmm.

Group photo! Cannot remember the names for the first couple on the left. The two ladies beside us are Yinmei and Priscilla, really nice ladies. Lots of our photos are taken by them! Thanks!

Off we go to Everland! Everland is South Korea's largest theme park and even includes a zoo and a water park. Everland is operated by Samsung Everland, a subsidiary of the Samsung Group. The scale of Everland is comparable to Disneyland, even the themes looks rather similar.

 
The only group shot of all the 30 people in my tour group. Quite a nice mix of ppl except one irritating boy that keeps talking and talking. Arggh. I need peace.

We didnt play much in Everland. We only had about four hours to spend in everland and the queues are horrible. Festive season I guess.

First thing…up the slope to the recommended snowbuster.

Wifey Hazel with our snow sledges getting ready to slide down. No kick le!

View of the snowbuster slope. Not very steep = not that much thrill!

The queue took almost 40 mins for a less than 1 min ride down the slope. And it's lunch time! This time no packaged lunch. We have to buy lunch for ourselves.

We had lunch in a "food court" kinda place. You need to place your order and pay at the counter and then collect your food at the stall.

I had seafood fried rice. Not very seafood to me. Two prawns maybe and the sauce taste kimchi-ish. And it doesnt taste fried cos the whole rice is like sloggy.

Hazel had this. Some chicken dish I think. Cannot remember, maybe later she will comment.

Rating for this meal : 2 / 5. Food to avoid being hungry and to keep ourselves warm in the heated environment.

After the meal, we rush to queue up for the safari ride. I was so happy that the queue looks so short but it actually leads all the way in. I think we probably queue almost 75mins for the ride.

Fake short queue. ARgh.

One interesting animal here. The "Liger". The liger is a hybrid cross between a male lion and a tigress. It is also the largest cat in the world.

The liger! It really looks rather huge as compared to a tiger or lion. Just look at the paws. I think the paw can cover my whole face. The lines also gets progressively darker towards the rear of the liger. A sight to behold. Too bad it was just lying down there. It would have been quite magnificent if the liger was moving around, prancing elegantly.

White tiger! Eleven of them. The white is really nice with the backdrop of the botak trees.

And dancing bears. The driver will shout commands to the bears and throw treats at them. Some of them will turn in circles on two legs, others will wave their paws, etc. The commentary was in Korean so of course, I didnt catch a single word of it.

This is the safari bus that we sat in to view the animals. Nice right.

Wifey posing in Everland. That is all we did in Everland.

Rating for Everland : 2.5 / 5. Too short time given to play enough rides. We didnt even have time to see the rides there! One whole day in Everland would have been more appropriate.

To be cont'd….Making Kimchi, Day 3

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Day 2 of 2000 pieces puzzle

We bought a Mickey mouse 2000 pieces puzzle and have just started on it. Today is day 2 and we got the border done. Wonder when we will ever get it completed. Hahaha.

Regards,
Kelvin Ang

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Korea Trip 2009 – Decksan Spa Castle, Day 2

Decksan Spa castle is another item in the list. It is both a water theme park, a spa resort and our hotel. It is definitety the best hotel in the whole lot of hotels that we have stayed in Korea. Our rooms come with a living room, bedroom, huge bathroom with seperate areas for showering and bathing, a small pantry, a balcony and a small kitchen.

View from the living room into the bedroom. This are two tvs in our hotel room. And the floor can be heated up for sleeping on tatamis!

Our room comes complete with a internet capable PC for surfing. We didnt really get to use much of it but it is great that it comes with internet!

Nice comfy bed with ridiculously small pillows. Koreans' heads are smaller????

Nice rain shower and a completely seperate bathtub area. BIG BIG Bathroom!

The view out of our hotel window. Peaceful and quiet. No snoring!!!

Rating of Decksan Spa Resort Hotel : 5 / 5. It has everything! More like a suite than a room! What more to ask?

Both of us did not went for either the theme park nor the spa as we were both too tired from the lousy sleep last night caused by the snoring monster. We just stayed in the hotel and rest. Anyway, it was christmas and the crowds in the spa is too much. I did not regret not going out to the spa or the water theme park. Not too keen on it also.

We waited till dinner time and went down for dinner. This is our dinner. Steamboat with different fungi and the standard side dishes. The lotus roots were quite nice, sweet to the taste. Soup was also rather delicious due to the amount of golden mushrooms. I LOVE THEM!

Rating for the meal : 3.5 / 5 since it has the mushrooms I like!

The night view of the spa resort. The best part of it? It snowed! The first time I am seeing real snow in my life and not those fake soapy foam bubbles in Sentosa or Orchard Road. The feeling is really therapeutic. The little snow flakes just flies in the air and sways whenever there is just a slight wind. A sight to behold for a guy that lives in the hot humid Singapore.

Merry Christmas….or belated Merry Christmas!

Overall Rating for Decksan : 4 / 5 because I saw snow there first time!

To be cont'd….Everland Resort, Day 3

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Mickey Mouse Puzzle

New 3D Mickey mouse puzzle. Now….Where to hang them?

Regards,
Kelvin Ang

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Korea Trip 2009 – First Korean lunch, Day 2

This is taken just outside of the place that we had our first Korean lunch in Seoul. Later on, you can see that most of all the meals are taken at little outlets like this in Korea.

A view of the place inside the shop with all the hotplates set up and waiting for the customers (us!).

Close up of the hot plate. Notice the long white color stuff. That is called ricecake, a sticky chewy food that both of us didnt really fancy. Koreans are big on this type of food, scambling everything together, whether in hot plats, hot stone bowls or hot steamboats. And they have huge servings of vegetables with unlimited flow of kimchi and other side dishes.

Close up of the side dish. From up to down: Boiled Bean Sprouts, bean curd thingy, kimchi

Kimchi (김치) or 泡菜 is a traditional Korean pickled dish. The above is the most common form of it made from cabbage and spicy seasonings. It is commonly served as a side dish and termed as a healthy food. I called it decomposed food since most of the good kimchi are made during winter and left to ferment till the next winter. No offence to any kimchi lovers but I am no big fan of the taste. I have from time to time tried to eat it but my taste buds could not take the taste.

And so, this is how it is eaten. All mixed up and adding some chili peppery sauce. Fried rice? Nah.

Rating for this meal : 3 / 5. Average meal at best. The accompanying seaweed soup is also quite bland.

Nice view of the city out from where I am sitting in the restaurant. I like the winter view. Bald trees. Cool.

To be cont'd….Decksan Spa Castle, Day 2

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Korea Trip 2009 – Myeongdong Fashion Street, Day 2

After lunch, we were headed to Myeongdong Fashion street (명동) for some shopping. We dun like to do unnecessary shopping and this is one of the fine examples. Shopping during winter is ridiculous anyway since there is no need for winter clothings in Singapore and all of the shops are just having big sales on winter clothings.

We did some window shopping and went to take some neoprints!

Hehe.. pretty fun since we have never taken neoprints before back in Singapore and this will be a memorable keepsake.

The only other thing that we did was to get this.

Tornado potato or that is what they call it back in Singapore. (I saw it in ION Orchard) Yummy when it is hot. The guy deep fries it in hot oil and then sprinkles some salt over it when it is done. Nice.

See how satisfied she is. Hehehe.

And oh, it rained. No snow but rain. What is worst is we left our umbrella in the bus! Did I say I love the look of bald trees?! They look awesome!

Rating for Myeongdong : 2.5 / 5.

To be cont'd…to Decksan Spa Castle, Day 2.

 

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Korea Trip 2009 – From Singapore to Korea

The flight was at 2140hrs. A six hours plus flight, probably the longest flight I have been in so far. The furthest I went was Shekou, China on a business trip and I think that is just 3 hours plus.

We reached quite early, before 8pm for our dinner and then to meet up with the tour leader Ken to confirm the boading pass and the full itinerary of the tour. The tour sequence has been changed. We are supposed to go to Jeju Island first and then back to Seoul. Now, the Jeju island trip is changed to the last 2 days which confused the itinerary quite a little. Not sure if this is better but the tour leader and tour guide kept emphasizing that this arrangement will be for the better.

We got the window seats which we wanted but it came with a price. Little did we know that right behind us is a snoring monster. The snore is really VERY VERY loud and for goodness sake, we are on a night flight and this is the time to be SLEEPING. I did managed to catch some winks after getting used to the sound and drowning his snores in my loud music. But Hazel did not get much needed rest. I am still amazed at how his wife can tolerate his snores. OMG. We later got to know them a little. Snoring monster = Denise. Snoring monster's wife aka one of my colleague's sister = Christine.

This is my first taste of the Korean food for the next 8 days. A dish called 비빔밥, (Bi Bim Bap), a popular Korean dish or affectionally called "beggar rice" by some of the Koreans. It was said to be part of the Royal Court Dish and in the present, the ingredients are varied according to the current tastes of the nation. I did manage to get to taste the more correct Bi Bim Bap later in my trip.

So with all the ingredients you are supposed to mix everything together including the rice which will give you something like this…

Doesn't look very appetizing ya…but it is still quite okay.

Here we are at 인천국제공항, Seoul, Incheon airport arriving from OZ752 @ 0630hrs in the morning. The temperature was supposed to be around -1 deg. Woohooo! My first time in such a cold country. We were introduced to the local tour guide, Novel Hsu, a local Korean who speaks good Mandarin. We were told to get some breakfast in the airport and will depart to our first destination in about one hour time.

We picked the most common food that is being sold everywhere.

Macdonald's breakfast! And it is almost identical to the ones they serve back in Singapore. One complain though…the coffee taste yucky. Ewww. And I did have any coffee at all during the whole eight days in Korea. Probably too frightened off from the first experience.

The first place we went. A beauty shop teaching us the essentials in applying chemicals etc to our face. The guy on the extreme right is our tour leader Ken. Pretty quiet and nice guy like me! There is a total of eight steps to be done if I remember correctly. If we have to do this everyday, I think I will waste one more hour daily for this. A price to pay for beauty. Nonetheless, we went ahead with the demo and did this.

Tada! Ginseng face mask. Hahahaha. Quite a fun experience though but on the hindsight, the time could have been spent better elsewhere.

Rating: 2.5 / 5 for this place.

I also realized that this was not part of the itinerary when I came back to Singapore.

To be cont'd…more to come for Day 1.

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Vietnam Green Bean Cake

Some snacks or tibits from my brother’s Vietnamese gf. Green bean cake. A little oily to the taste. It is more of a powdery item that is compressed into a small dice. Doesn’t really have any green bean taste to it. I still prefer my green bean koreng pisang.

Sent from my iPhone

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