Korea 2010.

Had a short vacation before I’d start my senior year at University. This year we went to Seoul, Korea. We didn’t really tour around much so I’m just gonna write about my observations/highlights of the trip.

First off, this entry cannot be considered Korean without starting off with a helping of kimchi...

Every meal, every day and everywhere!

As usual and when possible, I take the window seat during our flights and whenever I do, I really cannot put myself to sleep or take some rest. The view beside me would be too captivating and I’d find myself constantly staring at the sky immersed in deep random thoughts…

Bye Philippines~ Everyone looks so tiny now.

And another perspective, now a tiny airplane and jet.

The weather in Korea right now is perfect in my opinion. It’s like a mix of Philippine heat balanced with the coolest breeze. It’s really hot but one won’t be able to feel the heat (or notice the darkening of skin) because the air is just right and cool. Right now it’s summer although I would have preferred to be there during their spring, autumn or winter seasons. We get too much summer in the Philippines already.

I give you a glimpse of Seoul Tower.

We had to walk way up a hill to get to the tower since the bus could only take us so far. When we arrived, my sister told me to take pictures of the flowers somewhere in the distance but I was surprised to find out they weren’t flowers at all.

“Love Forever”

There’s a countless number of locks with inscribed love dedications. If I recall this right, I’ve seen this in a koreanovela I’ve watched before. The tower seems to be a popular attraction for couples (you see them everywhere in Korea)! Korea seems to be the asian capital for dating imho.

Matching outfits for couples.

Whenever we go abroad, we’re also official ice-cream connoisseurs. This time, Cold Stone Creamery beats everything we’ve tried. It’s originally a franchise from the USA but it’s also in Japan, Taiwan and China.

Really innovative how they mix and make them;
forgot the exact flavour names but they’re strawberry and yogurt ice-cream.

Inside the Seoul Tower is the famous Teddy Bear Museum~

Teddy Bear Museum depicts the history of Korean with yup, teddy bears!
So cute it reminds me of Princess Hours/Goong.

It’s not evident in my photos but the little bears were all mechanically moving and portraying their roles actually!! So cute and innovative. I bet the Korean kids know their history as much as they love teddy bears.

The next day we went to Nami Island or Naminara Republic (yes, it’s a Republic!). The owner must be crazy rich to maintain this huge private island. It’s really so beautiful that it was the main setting for the filming of Winter Sonata.

This is Yoona, our awesome tour guide for the day.

I took a photo of old photos Yoona keeps with her to show tourists. This is Korea in the 60s I think?
My memory is so bad. The quality of these old photos are even better than the quality of my memory.
Goodness.

One can go around riding bikes–couple bikes, family bikes or just solo bikes–around the island and enjoy the scenery. A lot were camping and having picnics or playing ball in the field. The food around the area was great too, better than what I tasted in the city.

Going around Korea is actually fairly easy. There’s a city bus that comes every 15 minutes called the “Seoul City Tour Bus”. You just hop in and listen to the earpiece in the preferred language and wait for the stop where you want to go to. A ticket can get you anywhere in the city for the whole day, way better than the rush times when you’re in tours.

Because we traveled on Cebu Pacific, we were able to have more money for shopping (haha!). On the next days we just went around the area near our hotel, Myeong-dong Ibis, and did some shopping here and there. Loads of free stuff when you go around the Myeong-dong area so I suggest you stay there when you’re in Seoul! Just do a little “window shopping” and you get free facial masks that costs a valuable amount here in the Cebu. Lots of The FaceShop, Skin Food, Etude House, Hollika Hollika, Tony Moly (sounds like Holy Moly!) and Nature Republic.

Obligatory peace sign in the land that made the peace sign obligatory.

My older sister who doesn’t look her age either (29 years old this year)

It’s around that same area that I found Kosney’s, a sort of variety shop. I purchased my first lomo cam ever ever there, a Diana F+, which I will name Dee.

Bought a sky-inspired camera strap for it too.

Can’t wait to use it!
Except for the fact that 120 film isn’t readily available to purchase around Cebu.

I bought some Ginseng bars (doesn’t taste that bad actually!) and Dragon’s Beard to bring home to my dad and friends.

Making Dragon Beard.

Finding myself eating Japanese food in Korea.

A kind of doughnut at Doughnut Plant.

A selection of bread from Bread Talk.

Wheat bread at some steak house.

Korea’s food is usually bland. Made me appreciate the tasteful food we have here more!

On my twitter account I twitted about being scammed on the streets. Sigh. A really simple toy-like thing that was hard to resist:

Dancing Paper Puppets
See how cardboard and strings stand/dance on their own!!

It looked reaaallyy cuuute as we passed by. I couldn’t help but laugh everytime I’d see them dance to the beat of the loud music. My sister and I figured they’d be great stress-busters so we bought one each. I kind of suspected something really off about how it worked since it didn’t make sense that it could be able to do such a thing simply and yes… I was right. When we tested them in the hotel room, I realized that they were only able to “dance” because of the condition they were placed in (i.e., small wooden box blasted with loud music to create vibrations)!!

IRL how/why in the world would we make such a thing just for this toy? Pssh. Money wasted. 🙁 Charged to experience.

So vacation’s over and it’s back to reality– OJT and senior year at university.

Graduation. Getting there…