right. new skin sucks. i better blog about my korea trip before the memories start fading away.

at departure - lovely gfs geraldine & fangying came to send us off. so sweet..considering our flight was at 11plus and the bfs wouldnt be able to send them home after that. oh and nice freddy's parents gave me a lift to the airport too. :) flight was delayed for an hour so we hung around the transit area shopping and getting our feet massaged. the guys took some time to choose a cigar and we also grabbed some sashimi from the sakae sushi express counter.

on the plane - all were feeling excited for yingming as it would be his 1st time on a plane. mine was a window seat with royston sitting next to me. the seating arrangement was quite coked up so we were separated from the rest. it was a long flight abt 6-7hrs. we chatted a little before we decided to try and get some sleep. service on korean air was relatively good. there wasnt any on board entertainment though. breakfast was omelette or some korean dish "bibibap". i wasnt feeling adventurous so i chose the omelette. when we finally arrived at korea, captain announced that the temperature was 13degrees! and that korea is an hour behind singapore time.

annyeong-haseyo!

upon arrival - tour guide was a middle aged korean lady who calls herself mei nu. we're all pretty impressed with the fact that she can really talk non-stop. whenever we're on the coach, on our way to the next destination, she'll tell us the history of korea, the significance of our next destination, jokes and even taught us how to greet, say thanks and bargain in korean. it was very informative although some of the time we didnt appreciate it as we were more interested in catching some sleep in between each stop.

mt hallasan 1100 roads - our 1st stop. before we reached we heard the legend of the white stag and some holy person. nothing much to do at this stop so we just took a few photos with the white stag and the mountain which was covered by the fog. 1st meal - 1st meal was some zha jiang mian @ 5000won(~s$9) with yucky preserved carrots which only jianlin appreciated. after which we took an hour long domestic flight to the romantic jeju island.

jeju island - we learnt that jeju island is full of wind, stone and women! the ratio was about 8 to every 2 men. so it was said that the men on the island are like protected species. they stay at home while the women go out to work. and of cos understandably the men had more than 1 wife and had to work extra hard at night. lol. think the guys got excited at this point of time. jeju island also had no thieves, no door and no beggars.

1st meal on jeju - 1st meal on jeju island was some pork that we had to cut and wrap with big pieces of vege with some other side dishes such as garlic and ikan bilis and their special sauce. it was then we found out that kimchi was part of every korean meal. and that almost every meal we had bbq meat. either pork, duck, fish, cuttlefish or chicken. their korean rice was very nice.

hotel - we changed about 4 hotels. there wasnt any airconditioning in the hotels as temperature go down to as low as 5-6degrees at night. we only had to open a small window to get "free aircon". jeju pacific hotel. the hotel-phoenix park. imperial palace. the hotels were generally of good standard except one which left us a bad impression. electricity was cut off 1hr after we arrived at the hotel until the next morning. there was nothing we could do so we all turned in early. imperial palace was the coolest of them all. it had a victorian theme and was the only hotel which provided shampoo, bath foam and all. furniture was nice. everything was in place. most of the time we just gathered in 1 room to play asshole daidee and mahjong or just watching CSI:4 or harry potter on their english channel OCN.

meals - breakfast at the hotels were generally ok. twice we had chinese styled breakfast at some chinese restaurants with nice dou jiang and you tiao. once we had abalone porridge. one dinner we had instant noodles we bought from their family mart and went hungry so that we could save more money to shop at Doota! lol. we also had ginseng chicken for dinner once. most of the other meals were different types of bbq. all meals came with kimchi, rice and other small side dishes.

seongsan sunrise peak - our one and only mountain climbing experience. view was magnificant. mountain was damn high. we were given an hour to climb up to the peak and down. we all didnt think much of it. so we took our time to climb and take photos on the way up. until we realised we didnt have much time left and that we were even halfway up the mountain, we started to seriously make our way up the mountain and we did it non-stop until we reached the peak. by then, most of us were panting and legs were aching. took a few photos at the peak where there was supposed to be 99 stones arranged in a shape of a tiara. it started raining on our way down. bought some tangerine chocolates at the souvenir shop at the foot of the mountain.

jet boat ski - one of the more exciting stops where we took a jet boat which sped through the huge waves and made 360degree turns. the ride was exciting, bumpy and water splashing on our faces. fun!

korean folk village - film site of da chang jin. we were lead through by a really interesting korean lady who claimed to have cameo-ed in da chang jin for 2seconds. she's really cute and kept grabbing onto royston, trying to "sell" her daughter to him. there, we were introduced to their jeju-produced products - honey, ling zhi and wu wei zi. we also saw the black pig. which we later had for lunch. haha.

teddy bear museum - film site of goong. lots of interesting teddy bears made to look like many famous personalities such as mona lisa, elvis and even einstein! carebears and paddington were spotted too! think most of the photos were took here. met a group of korean students who were visiting the musuem too. learnt to say "kimchi!" when we take photo instead of the boring "cheese!"

o'sulloc green tea musuem - pretty boring place but we ate some 3000won green tea icecream which sucks too.

tangerine orchard - not the tangerine season. tried the famous jeju tangerine. took some photos with fake tangerines which made it picture perfect.

yongduam rock - some rock which supposed to resemble a dragon's head. seems more like a rabbit or chicken head to most of us. the guys tried raw seafood which had just been directly brought up from the sea. left royston with a stomachache.

mysterious road - we experienced the phenomenon of going uphill with the coach engine switched off for abt 100m. the guys werent very impressed. kept insisting that it was just rolling downhill. took some funny photos there.

everland theme park - supposedly the highlight of them all. the rain spoilt it all. im still very impressed with the spirit of the employees at the theme park. it was wet and cold but their spirits were high. they were still singing and dancing with their signature waves. the everland theme song was playing all around the park. our 1st ride was a 360degrees roller coaster which was a huge disappointment. most of the rides were down due to the rain. even the parade and fireworks performance was cancelled. the 3D movie sucks. safari was pretty ok. there was the liger which was a cross between tiger and lion. it was the highlight bcos ligers are precious as they could not reproduce. wasted 1 free ride cos we got lost half the time. towards the end it started to rain quite heavily and the cold wind was blowing. all of us were freezing. my hands and feet got pretty numb.

icheon termeden spa & doctor fish - woot. doctor fish was this place where the fishes nimbled at the dead skin cells on our feet. supposed to be some kind of therapy. was a very ticklish experience. there were like almost 50-60fishes on my feet at one point of time and it was so ticklish, my tears rolled. >.<

korean farm & ATV - where we learnt to make cheese with fresh milk, apple cider and some salt water used to make tofu. our cheese turned out to be the worse yet we da-baoed to play asshole daidee back in hotel at night. we were also given red wine to go with the cheese. ours was cherry-flavoured. later we had to feed the sheeps at the farm and then the usual sheep shearing. we had to use scissors and we were all scared that we might injure the sheep. had nice grilled potatoes too. then there was glass sledding which was pretty fun too. we just sat on some plastic board and slid down the grass patch. later we got to ride on the ATV (all terrain vehicle). was a 4wheeled bike. the guys rode pretty well. took some nice videos and photos.

hanbok wearing & kimchi making - was quite an informal thing. we all got to choose and wear the traditional korean wear and took many photos. kimchi making was ok. but we never got to noe where the kimchi went to.

shopping - @ insadong, myeongdong, dongdaemun, sinchon ladies street. all had to agree that Doota! was our ultimate favourite shopping place! we were given about 2hrs to shop there on one of the nights. and finally on our last night, the 6 of us took a cab down to Doota! to do our last minute shopping and we spent most of our money there. well, at least i did. :p Doota is like our far east shopping centre but the fashion is 1 step ahead of us and alot more expensive. everything in Doota! looks nice and fashionable! i've never seen the guys more excited about shopping. in the end we all had to force ourselves out of the place before we really empty our pockets. also helped the guys choose presents for the gfs. the rest of the shopping areas were just ok.

overall the trip was fun! company was good too. definitely worth the money i guess. i would want to visit korea again.. in fact, im missing it already. =(

photos at http://picasaweb.google.com/christeenlim/8DBestOfKorea

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