Jeju

I tried to wirte this post like 100 times, but all of those failed attempts made it look like I was complaining because it wasn't really the Paradise I was expecting lol, but if you want to read more about it, you can check my sis' blog post here, now that I look at it, she didn't write much either, but she has better pictures lol.

All in all, I did enjoyed our 3 day trip to the Island and I'm looking forward to go back with a better weather since we went in the middle of october and it was pretty chilli hehe.

Bye Seoul!

Lovely weather

Yummiest food ever!

Almost pardise ~ ~ except, it was very cold and windy 

Love the blue sky^^ 

Beach #2

Hello!

Creepy pool is creepy

This is what Jeju is about

Bye Jeju!

Hello Seoul!

If you wanna read more about Jeju, you can read my previous post here, it's very old (2010) but that's what happens when you have been blogging for quite some time :)

-Gisela 

Ps. SORRY for my lousy blogging, i'll try to update more often, even it it's just pictures lol

Seoul Walking Tour - App Review

Hi everyone!

I'm sort of back!!, I've been pretty busy lately, working, planning, catching up on some sleep, studying Korean and well, doing some research online, as you know I still have plans of going back to Korea but this time my sister is coming with me, yay!!!!, we traveled just the 2 of us for the first time last year when we visited Italy and it went better than expected :)

We are both very different, but so alike at the same time, the only day we spent appart in Florence we ended up doing almost the EXACT same things just in different order, I'm pretty excited to go to Korea with her and show her some of the amazing things I've seen/done and to do new things I didn't have time to do before like Jeju Island!!!, but the 1st thing is... SEOUL!

I got so excited that I didn't know where to start, until I found the App "Seoul Walking Tour", created by the KTO (Korean Tourism Organization), you know it's going to be good when is created by the KTO.

1st of all, it's totally User friendly, there are only 5 options:


Home


The Home has 2 views, Map and List, remember this is only for SEOUL and since it's a walking Tour it will only show you things within a walking distance, the map is precise, it has a drawing of the "place" to visit and the name, if you find this confusing you can see it on "list" mode, although I would totally go for the MAP version :)


Camera

I don't think I need to explain this, you basically use it just like the regular camera on your Mobile device.






Travel Info

This one contains the Korea Travel Hotline 1330, operated by the KTO, languages supported, Service hours and fee!





Attractions


This is the same as seeing "Home" on List mode, only if you click on each location it will give you a picture and a brief explanation of such place, it also gives you the "Map" option and it will display a more detailed map than the one on "Home".

Last but not least, you'll find the Settings, to change your language to Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese. It will also give you "Related Apps"



















I found this app very usefull if you are planing a short trip to Seoul only, very easy to use and to the point, it reminded me to the "GuidePal" application, I've used other Apps for Korea but some of them had way too much going on and it was confusing using them, so if you are visiting Seoul for the 1st time, I would totally recommend this App, specially if you don't have much time and want to make the most of it!

-Gisela V. 

WKB Tour - Day 5 / Final Day

Biking and our well deserved lunch!

Sunday was the last day of the WKB Tour with Kocis-Korea Net. I can't remember what time did our day started. I can only remember waking up, taking a shower and hurry up because we were leaving, we were schedules to ride a bike through the Island, some decided not to bike and take a "golf" car around the Island, I of course was very excited to ride a bike (HA! I didn't know what I was about to get into...)... I've been riding my bike for a couple of months in Mexico City on sundays...on AVENUES....so riding on an Island was way harder than I thought, 1st it was a HOT day, 2nd there were UPs and downs, you'll think the Up's were the only problem but some downs were scary because the road is uneven, at some point 3 of us had to walk with the bike because it was just too high (hahahaha), we finally reached the beach and it was a smoth ride for a little while :) *Happy times*, we got to the Lighthouse but it wasn't just any lighthouse, this one was on the form of Praying hands and some of us started praying to not ride the bikes anymore hahaha, the sea on that side of the Island was AWESOME! it was this green-blue water!, there was an elder couple there fishing^^ and after a little bit it was time to go back to have some lunch (yay!!), we were really tired and the Camera crew "offered" to take the bikes for us... but we didn't want to trouble them so we took the bikes and this time we won the people in the Golf car...until we reached the 1st (and highes) up... when I realized Grace was getting off her bike and getting on the car so Ema and I followed and the poor Camera Crew had to ride our bikes (Sorry guys!!!!!!), a couple of minutes later we arrived at our acommodation it was time for a well deserved lunch!, we had rice, Kimchi, a Fish soup and some banchan..oh yea and lts of water.

After lunch it was time to pack and go :( , we rode the back of the truck for the last time and talked about how much we were going to miss that truck haha, for some reason we all loved it.... although the 1st time I rode it I felt like an immigrant being taken to the US ilegally lol.

Fun times @ the Ferry

The owner of the houses where we stayed was very nice, he took us to the Ferry station and after we thanked him we were ready for our ride back to Gunsan. We took the "slow" ferry this time so we were up for a 90minutes ride (yay!...not so much), at 1st we were on the outter part of the ferry just having fun, taking pictures, joking around and some were trying to feed the seaguls again, after a little while I felt dizzy and I went back inside, turned on my music and plugged my earphones :D then Ema and Annabel joined me (I was actually on their seat as some guy was sleeping in mine haha), we listened to GD's new CD and then they started to educate me about Kpop :), introduced me to a couple of new bands and explained how they also felt a bit awkward by telling people they liked Kpop....

About 90mins after, we arrived at Gunsan's Ferry Station and it was time to go visit the Dongguk-sa Temple, this temple is the only remaining Japanese temple left in Korea after Japan's ocupation of Korea. The outside of the temple was completely different from Korean Temples, this was White and Brown (or black?..it was a dark colour), there were beautiful gardens surrounding the Temple and once inside you could feel the peacefulness of the place, the main room's ceiling was filled with Lottus lanterns, we had some time to enjoy the Temple and then we were off for an early lunch, this time we had a representative dish from the Jeonbuk area... Gan Jang Gae Jang aka Raw crab marinated in soy sauce, it came with banchan... LOTS and LOTS of Banchan and a Spicy crab soup... to be honest I didn't really like it O_o not because I'm picky with my food... Come on! I tried the alive octopus!, but this one had a slippery texture and not much flavour....as for the Banchand and the spicy soup I loved them, I don't know why didn't we put some of that raw crab on the boiling hot soup hahaha, even though I enjoyed watching everyone eat because for some creepy reason I enjoy watching people eating...

Once done with the crab we went to Gunsan's Modern History Museum and right next to it we saw the old Gunsan's Customs Office. The Modern History Museum holds a big collection you can find information going from Ships to the 3rd floor that resembles a Korean Villa, inside you can try on a Hanbok, take a picture, or do some ink stamps!

Once each of us finished the tour of the Museum we gathered outside and just across the street from the museum you can find the Jinpo Marine Theme Park, the park houses some retired military vehicles used in the past, on the inside of the Ship you can find weapons used during the Jinpodaecheop war and how it is the life inside this kind of ships, fun fact is…. Some parts are kind of Dark and creepy, this was the perfect spot to play some jokes on Ema (She’s easy to scare… Sorry Ema!!!), the Park opened in 2008 to commemorate Jonpodaecheop (Victory of Jinpo over the Japanese forces).

It wasn’t until I started researching for this post that I realized how important Gunsan is :O

After the Park we rushed to see a Japanese style Villa (?) in Gunsan, the place haven’t been completed, so we just looked around and then it was time to take Jessica and Asif to the bus station to return to Busan and Daegu *sad moment*, when we dropped them off at the terminal we took our last group picture and the rest of us went to the Famous Bakery “Lee Sung Dang”, this is the oldest bakery in South Korea and was founded in 1945, there’s a huge variety of Bread, Sweets, Coffees and snacks, I think each of us grabbed like 3-4 to try O_O but we all tried Lee Sung Dang’s most popular item… the Sweet red bean paste filled bread :)

                            
We packed our sweets and went back to the bus that would take us back to Seoul….this was the end of the WKB Tour… we arrived in Seoul around 10pm on a Sunday, I had around 13hours left in the country and I wanted to make the most of it, so when we arrived at the hotel I grabbed my backpack and went to Dongdaemun Night Market in order to find my K-pop souvenirs ha!, I took a taxi and less than 10 mins later I was there, I was told the place was going to be packed but it wasn’t!, I found a store dedicated to Kpop and did a little shopping there... and that’s how I got my BigBang’s Alive Special Edition CD :D , the next day I woke up really early and went out to buy as many snacks as I could :) and by 10:30am I was ready to part…. Maria, Annabel and Ema came to say goodbye L and that was it…I rode a taxi back to the Airport and had a nice talk with the Ajusshi and I couldn’t help it but I shed a tear on my way to Incheon… about 50mins later we arrived and this is where the bad part of the trip started… 

Our last hours together :(

My flight ticket was with Air France but operated by Korean Air…the 1^st part of my flight was Korea-Paris… I won’t deny it… Korean Air is awesome… I loved it and I wish Korean Air had flights from Mexico, the service is Top notch even if you are in Economy, the seats are very spacious and they had BigBang’s new album available to listen haha, 11 hours later I arrived in Paris…. This airport is…well Incheon should show the French how to make a proper Airport, my boarding gate was EMPY…well.. there were like 7 boarding gates and all were empty, the stores were closed and there was nothing to do… I had a 5 hour layover and after a while I got bored and fell asleep…luckily I woke up just in time for my flight… again things were confusing because I thought (once again) I was flying with Air France but my flight was operated by Aeromexico…I don’t know what is it but I just don’t like Aeromexico (Sorry Mexico, but you need better Airlines), the service was OK I guess… I slept most of the flight but I did notice that the flight attendants either don’t speak English or just refuse to do it..I understand this flight is going to Mexico and there are a lot of Mexicans on the flight, but there are also international passengers and not everyone speak Spanish, so even if you yell in Spanish really slowly they won’t understand you…ugh  K… good thing I slept as soon as I boarded the plane, just woke up when they were serving dinner and back to sleep…when I woke up again we were about to land.. YAY!! 33 hours later I was home!!!!

I still miss everyone very much but we Kakao/FB very often and whenever someone posts a new picture or something related to the trip I can’t help but to wish we were all back in Korea together!

Hopefully we’ll all meet soon for a new adventure in Korea…and I hope the Camera crew can Join us because now I’m used to give interviews hahaha.

-Gisela V.

WKB Tour - Day 4

We woke up early and had breakfast at the Guest House :) I can only remember eating rice, soup and banchan but I don't recall exactly what it was, I was still sleepy and I didn't have any cameras with me to document my food haha, we packed all of our stuff and were told our bus had arrived.... OUR BUS!....because we are cool like that we didn't have a VAN...nop we had a WHOLE bus forthe 11 of us... it was like being a Rockstar (Ok no) hahaha... I still remember Grace feeling shy telling us we were not taking a small bus or a van but a bus.... I know we all liked it :D

Last group pic  @ Hanok / Bus!

Before taking the bus we were invited to have some Tea with the Guest House'owner at the main House (room?...construction?), we got there and she told us a little bit about the history behind the Hanok, his ancestors and the Tea wewere drinking, if you read my last post you probably read KoreanClassMassive'spost about the Guest House (pretty informative, huh?), we were told that the tea we were drinking was a special mix made by the owner itself :) , we all had a cup of Tea and then a tour through the House... it's impressive how it's made, you can find divissions on 1 floor that will make it 2 very short floorsO_O (You know what I mean, right??....errr....sorry), after the Tour, we took some Pictures, Group pictures and pictures of us receiving a Green Tea bag as a gift from the owners we were ready for our bus and it was time to get ready for the Cameras again. You can be ready for lots and lots of shots of us going in and out of that bus....I can imagine a remix with a catchy song of us getting on/off the bus (Oh GOD why!! haha)

We had some time to rest at the bus while we were driven to Jeonju's FilmStudio Complex, this studio was opened in 2008 and consists of 2 indoor studios and outdoor sets, the place is BIG O_O ,saddly the indoor studios didn't have any sets done and were underconstruction, so we didn't really get to see an actual finished set, also...we weren't really allowed to take pictures inside. This studio is the first studioin Korea to be established by local government, some of the movies recorded in there are Ssanghwajeom (2008), Private Eye (2009), Jeonuchi (2009), BattlefieldHeroes (2010), and My Way (2011) [Apparently the Movie My Way is pretty famous,so I guess we should check it out], admission is FREE and operation hours are from Monday-Friday: 9:00-18:00.
 
Besides the 2 indoor studios, there's another building with Props of some of themovies, fake guns, knives, clothes, original scripts, fake rocks O_O, etc.... 

 

To bee honest I was not in a very good mood when we were at the Studio because some stuff there reminded me of my mom O_o and it's hard to be OK around somany people :S ....at a moment I tried to refuse to say something at the Camera because I just wasn't feeling it u_u luckily Ema (KCM) came to the rescue at that moment and joined the hmm..."interview"?  ~Thanks Ema!~

When we were done at the Film Studio we got back in the bus and went to a very cute Coffee Shop close to the Studio... this is only memorable because I had the weirdest drink you can have at a Coffee Shop... you know how I like to trynew things, right? ... well this trip was no exception, so when I was reading the menu I found the Coffee Coke.... yup.... neither of us really knew what that was (Not even Grace or the Camera crew) so I decided to order it... aftersome time I got a big Coke glass with a shot of espresso and contrary to what everyone though I wasn't hyper the rest of the day... :) ...just as a sidenote....people says the BAGELS from that shop are quite good ;)  ;)
 

Very yummy food

Once we finished our drinks we went to a convenience store to buy some drinks and we were off to Gunsan to take a Ferry to take us to Seonyu. We arrived to Gunsan to have lunch, we went inside a big building that had giant fish tanks O_O, turns out the whole building is full with Raw Fish restaurants,we went up and there was a room reserved for us (How VIP of us!), at 1st we sat on the "floor" Korean style and about 5 mins later we realized the seating wasn't very Korean Style, more like western style on the flood or as Jessica says "We had drop-down seatingon the floor, meaning that our legs could hang below us in a hollow space underneath the table. It is like sitting on a chair, but with no back,and it is very comfortable". Once we sat the food started arriving... itwas a never ending feast, Raw Fish, ALIVE OCTOPUS, sea food I was unable to identify but was brave enough to try, Sashimi, Tuna, Seaweed cones with fisheggs and vegetables, a soup we didn't get to try, Shrimps, Tempura....lots of yummy foods, the Alive Octopus is something I've read about and I still can't believe I tried it.... everything was OK until Ema and Annabel told me this story they saw on TV about people eating alive octopus and then having weird stuff growing on their mouths..... sometimes I feel things growing on my mouth.... Thank you Emabel!!!, we had to rush out (that's why we didn't get to try everything) because we had a Ferry to catch, apparently we were taking the"Fast" ferry and it would only be a 40-45min ride... I'm not a big fan of the sea in general, but the 1st half was very fun, some were trying to feed the seagulls, we were taking pictures and just being random until we were to tired to keep doing it and we all ended up seating just waiting to arrive at the Island.

When we finally arrived we were told a driver was waiting for us... it was thispretty cool truck and most of us decided to ride on the back on this tiny chairs to enjoy the view :) the weather was nice, not too hot not too moist, just perfect :) the ride to our accommodation took about 10 mins, it was next to a rocky beach and there were this wooden little houses, We would share rooms (2 people per house).

 

Amazing views of the Islands

We left our stuff and were ready to go back to the truck and it was time to takea tour through the Island, after a short drive we arrive at a bridge that connects with Janga Island, we walked and walked and walked... Did I mention Yeon and HanJeon took bikes instead of the Truck?... HanJeon went M.I.A and about 30mins later Yeon found us, he was pretty tired and you could tell he was regretting taking the bike with the Camera hahaha, we walked some more, up the hill, down the hill, pictures here and there and just when the sun was setting we were done, we walked back (I helped Yeon and took the bike back for a little while) and then took the truck back to our Houses (what?? it was my house for over 12 hours!! haha). Since we are bottomless we were ready to eat again, we chilled for a bit and then HanJeon, Yeon and Sun Ho started the fire for a BBQ, I went out and offered some help but they refused and instead offered me some meat and drinks...just a few minutes later Ema and Annabel joined me just in time forthe 1st batch of barbequed meat and little by little everyone gathered and weall had a nice dinner, barbequed meat, rice, Kimchi, Lettuce, Pork, banchan, etc... 

After we finished our food and chatted for a lil while, we were all pretty tired (it was just like 8pm) but I can say this was the best meal of the trip, I had so much fun talking to everyone, sharing stories and just chilling while listening the waves crash... we cleaned the table a little bit and went down the beach to play with fireworks :), once we were done with the fireworks we went back towere we had dined and were just talking... and guess what! about 20 mins later Yeoncame out and offered some Ramyeon....because apparently that's what you do whenyou go to the Beach / Mountains / Trips (????)... the worst is... we all ate somemore haha, after our ramyeon it was time to go to bed, we felt it was like 2amand it wasn't even 10pm!, we said goodnight and finally went to sleep, we set up our floor-beds (I was told sometimes those rooms can fit even 8-10 people O_O), I shared a room with Jessica and Grace, we all fall asleep as soon as our heads touched the pillow and that's how we ended Day 4 of our Tour.

Sorry for thee lousy pictures, I'm not good taking night pictures

-Gisela V.