Seoul, Korea - Day 1

After planning for many, many weeks we (three of us gals) finally left for Seoul on Friday, 25th November 2011 night via Air Asia flight D7506 departing LCCT at 11pm and arrived Incheon Saturday, 26th November 2011 at 5.50am earlier by 30 minutes. The flight was almost full and we manage to get our seats together. Was too excited to sleep but Caryn who just arrive from Cape Town that Friday morning itself slept thru the journey.

With the new Columbia winter jacket :) , all set to pave thru the cold weather that has been forecast. We came out from the gate with our luggage (somebody has a bag in a big bag) and looked out for the bus stop that goes to Suwon our first destination. We didnt wait that long and the bus arrived at almost 9am and get on our way! Bus fare was 12,000KRW. The bus was warm and we watched thru the bus windows, passing by the places that is new to us. By over an hour, we were in Suwon.

Suwon - Hwaseong Guesthouse 26-Nov

Mr Choi (pix), the owner of Hwaseong Guesthouse picked up at the Homeplus Mart and brought us to the guesthouse. It was so sweet of the old man as he carried all 3 heavy bags. But wait, my bag was the lightest. We settled with 2 rooms (1 single and 1 double) instead of each of us single rooms since the single rooms does not have ensuite bathroom. Me & Sharon shared one double room (pix) with ensuite bath while Caryn had a single room to herself. The floor was heated...nice!

Mr Choi recommended a free tour guide which we gladly accepted. He made a call and later inform us that the guide will be with us at 12 noon. Our guide, Kwan is a university student which offers free walking guide within Suwon town. He took us to Suwon Hwaseong Museum and UNESCO World Heritage - Suwon Hwaseong Fortress

How to get to Hwaseong Guesthouse?

http://www.hsguesthouse.com/direction.html

First stop is to the convenience store since my wear only once,

year 2005 Hangten shoes decided to give way - need elephant glue to stick the rubber base back.

Koreans don't understand what glue is cos they call them 3M. While I apply the glue on my shoes with Kwan's help, the two girls were helping themselves to hot sweet potatoes. It was hot and yummy.

Kwan guided and we walked to Suwon Hwaseong Museum

where it has outdoor exhibition space displaying replicas of the equipments used during the construction of the fortress. Inside exhibition halls display the overall construction process of the fortress. It has live size human statues and also the miniature bit (pix).

We left the museum and then walked towards the palace, just as we are

about to start our tour in the palace, we heard the loud music and rushed towards the frontal of the palace where the stage was already setup and performances just started. We quickly took seat on the low benches available and watched the various performances ancient and modern and was truly fascinated. The walking on the rope performance was the audience's favorite as it received a lot of cheer. It gets dark early, so after the performances, we quickly went round inside the palace and took some pictures.

As its almost dinner time Kwan showed us a restaurant that serves good beef galbi 연포갈비 (pix).

It was a very good dinner and we are all stuffed to the max. Kwan showed us the way back to the guesthouse before we part and say goodbye. I had to write a testimonial for his college reference and he insisted in bahasa. Yeah, like my bahasa is great but I did give him a good referral. I haven't heard from him so far since he mentioned he will email me.

Anyway, after that we decided go out and explore Suwon town ourselves and did a little shopping ;) We went to Missha to check out the famous BB cream.

Bought some face masks and got free samples of the BB cream. Sharon could not resist the orange red crocodile brand duck down jacket and I 'gatal' also bought a fleeced blue green jacket which I didn't even wear throughout the trip. I brought it back to KL unused since used the Columbia jacket which kept me warm all the time. We also bought not so expensive winter boots to keep our feet warm. Satisfied and also feeling a bit tired we went back to the guesthouse to retire as we look forward to another full day tomorrow. We bought a small cake on the way back and celebrated Sharon's birthday back at the guesthouse with some 10 Korean kids that had arrived at the guesthouse while we were out (pix).

saeng il chuk ha ham ni da
saeng il chuk ha ham ni da
sarang ha neun Sharon shi
saeng il chuk ha ham ni da!