A Visit to Seoul, Korea - Day 2 of 6 (Part 2)
Day 2: 22/11/2012 (Thursday)
Right after the tasty Ginseng Chicken Soup for lunch, we headed to Namiseom Island. This island is just 63km from Seoul and is famous to many because of Winter Sonata, a South Korean television drama series; known as one of the major drive of the Korean wave in South East Asia, especially in Japan. The filming took place on this resort island of Namiseom. Admission fee is 10,000 won (RM30) per adult. We don't need to pay anything there because our tour package from PYO Travel has included all entrance tickets.
We arrived at Gapyeong Wharf at about 2.40pm and we need to take a small ferry to cross to the island because the island was as a result of the construction of a dam called Cheongpyeong. The ferry was fast, every 10 minutes you get one ferry arriving. The journey from the wharf to the island is around 10 minutes only. By the way, the weather was quite cold and windy. Don't know what is the exact temperature but definitely need to button up my jacket and put on gloves. There were 2 areas in the ferry, either seated or standing inside the ferry with heater, or can stand outside to enjoy the scenery, no heater of course :)
The moment we arrived at the island, everyone mouth just open up...wow!!! Everyone can't wait to start shooting photos because the beauty of this place is everywhere, all round in 360 degree.
Along the walkway to the famous tree lined road in the centre of the island, we saw lots of stalls, rides and restaurants, all with unique architecture. It is like you have landed on a fantasy island, everything looks unreal and can't imagine it exist...the true dream world. Also, we realised that there were no telephone and electricity poles around. How do they survive? Seems like the uniqueness of this island is that all the wires were build underground, just to give the natural feeling of the landscape; how thoughtful!!!
After walking for about 10 minutes, we reached the centre of the island where we saw the statue of Winter Sonata main characters, Bae Yong-Joon and Choi Ji-Woo. Many couples were there to take photos. Can see the love signs everywhere; very romantic feel. Guys, if you want to show true endless love, got to be in this place.
The island mainly consist of chestnut trees and poplar trees. As such, Melvin told us not to simply step on the leaves that falls on the side of walkway. This is because if we stepped on the poplar tree fruits which drops on the ground, it can create a strong sour odour, which smells like faeces. So, better be very careful.
Time flies, and at 4.30pm, we have to gather again to wait for the ferry, leaving this beautiful island. Time to stop dreaming and get back to the reality. Glad that the tour organised our visit to this island on Thursday, not so crowded.
I think if we come to this island ourself, we can spend half a day here, to really enjoy the experience here. We don't have sufficient time to visits all the shops and explore the entire island, but it was good enough to have been here, at least once in a lifetime experience.
With that, we then proceed to our next destination, Mount Sorak. It was a 2 hours journey after departed from Namiseom Island, until we reach our dinner destination. We stopped at a restaurant for dinner, on our way to our resort at Mount Sorak. Everyone was so tired after posing for many shots, and slept all the way. So, the 2 hours journey was not felt. Some were so reluctant to get down from the bus because it was really cold in the evening. At 6.30pm, its already dark, like 8.00pm in Kuala Lumpur.
The restaurant looks like a rest station along the highway. We had Korean Buffet dinner, serving a lot of variety of local delights (not our local delights; nasi lemak, mee goreng, etc). Its Kimchi, rice, soups, eggs and more...So far, our meals are fine, not that many choices but enough for some selection. I think it is good for me.
After dinner, we proceed to the Sorak Daemyung Resort (known as Del Pino Resort) for a night stay. The hotel looks nice and really like a up market resort. Never thought the package we bought got such nice place to stay, kind of meeting my expectation at this point of time.
There was a CVS inside the other block of the resort too. They sell everything...the convenient stuffs.
I have never experience such a productive day in my life before. It was fun and exciting, seeing something different from one place to another. I don't even feel tired at all because the beauty of nature landscaping and the historical infrastructure drives me all the way from morning until night. The cold weather was fantastic.
That's the end of Day 2. Will be posting Day 3 adventure to Mount Sorak National Park soon. More eye opening experience to share, not just 'something'! Follow my blog to get the latest update :P Good night for now.
Right after the tasty Ginseng Chicken Soup for lunch, we headed to Namiseom Island. This island is just 63km from Seoul and is famous to many because of Winter Sonata, a South Korean television drama series; known as one of the major drive of the Korean wave in South East Asia, especially in Japan. The filming took place on this resort island of Namiseom. Admission fee is 10,000 won (RM30) per adult. We don't need to pay anything there because our tour package from PYO Travel has included all entrance tickets.
We arrived at Gapyeong Wharf at about 2.40pm and we need to take a small ferry to cross to the island because the island was as a result of the construction of a dam called Cheongpyeong. The ferry was fast, every 10 minutes you get one ferry arriving. The journey from the wharf to the island is around 10 minutes only. By the way, the weather was quite cold and windy. Don't know what is the exact temperature but definitely need to button up my jacket and put on gloves. There were 2 areas in the ferry, either seated or standing inside the ferry with heater, or can stand outside to enjoy the scenery, no heater of course :)The moment we arrived at the island, everyone mouth just open up...wow!!! Everyone can't wait to start shooting photos because the beauty of this place is everywhere, all round in 360 degree.
More stalls, food zone, and souvenir shops...
Everything is so natural here, even we saw some stalls using dried woods for cooking. Also, after some walking distance, there were staffs setting up fire to help visitors like us to keep warm. We can stop for awhile to heat up before continuing our walk around the island. Everything is being planned so that the visitors can experience the greatest moment and beauty of Namiseom island.
After walking for about 10 minutes, we reached the centre of the island where we saw the statue of Winter Sonata main characters, Bae Yong-Joon and Choi Ji-Woo. Many couples were there to take photos. Can see the love signs everywhere; very romantic feel. Guys, if you want to show true endless love, got to be in this place.
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| Looks unreal, but it is real! I just use a simple point-to-shoot camera, Canon Ixus to capture these beautiful scenery |
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| Nice feel and relaxing...enjoying every seconds here... |
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| See, we just go near to it to snap some photos, don't dare to step on it even it looks nice! Can smell something weird all the way... |
Time flies, and at 4.30pm, we have to gather again to wait for the ferry, leaving this beautiful island. Time to stop dreaming and get back to the reality. Glad that the tour organised our visit to this island on Thursday, not so crowded.I think if we come to this island ourself, we can spend half a day here, to really enjoy the experience here. We don't have sufficient time to visits all the shops and explore the entire island, but it was good enough to have been here, at least once in a lifetime experience.
With that, we then proceed to our next destination, Mount Sorak. It was a 2 hours journey after departed from Namiseom Island, until we reach our dinner destination. We stopped at a restaurant for dinner, on our way to our resort at Mount Sorak. Everyone was so tired after posing for many shots, and slept all the way. So, the 2 hours journey was not felt. Some were so reluctant to get down from the bus because it was really cold in the evening. At 6.30pm, its already dark, like 8.00pm in Kuala Lumpur.
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| Left: the choices we had | Middle: Variety of dessert, but not included, need to pay yourself Right: Spotted something interesting for men |
After dinner, we proceed to the Sorak Daemyung Resort (known as Del Pino Resort) for a night stay. The hotel looks nice and really like a up market resort. Never thought the package we bought got such nice place to stay, kind of meeting my expectation at this point of time.
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| The Interior of the resort. We got a 2-rooms apartment. 1 room is a normal double bed room and the other room is the tatami bedroom. The living is spacious, with LCD TV. We got a kitchen too, which no reason for us to use it. Toilet was clean and the water pressure for shower was great. The flooring was heated so it is warm in the entire apartment. Thumb up! |
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| From the balcony, we had a very nice view of the entire resort. The walkway was elegant and there was a garden outside our resort. Nice landscape with that blue light beam, awesome! |
I have never experience such a productive day in my life before. It was fun and exciting, seeing something different from one place to another. I don't even feel tired at all because the beauty of nature landscaping and the historical infrastructure drives me all the way from morning until night. The cold weather was fantastic.
That's the end of Day 2. Will be posting Day 3 adventure to Mount Sorak National Park soon. More eye opening experience to share, not just 'something'! Follow my blog to get the latest update :P Good night for now.
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