Seoul, Korea

Flight=Korean Air; Departure=KLIA @ 0105, 25 Oct 2006; Arrival=Incheon International Airport @ 0835, 25 Oct2006.

This is a recuperating tour for me as I've been sick for the past 2+ months. Korea, is a stopover country. Our destination is Qingdao, China. Killing two birds with one stone, we stopover this splendid country for 7D6N. We, are Papa + Mama + Lulu.

Actual Expenditure=RM800 pp. Don't be mistaken, it's not a shoe-string backpack tour. We're staying in a hotel, a small one, which costs KRW 30k per nite. The small hotel, is indeed a hotel, which is equipped with everything (Samsung-air-con, attached-bathroom with hot water, Samsung-TV with remote control, VCR, hair-dryer, fridge). I love the room so much that we stayed there for 6 nites! I felt so at home, coz the room is without beds but only mattreses on the floor (FYI, I don't sleep on beds at home). It's called ondol. There's a floor-heating system. So, don't worry of getting rheumatism by sleeping on the floor.

On the 7th day, we departed to Qingdao, China. It was an early morning flight, at 0845 on 31 Oct 2006. As we're reaching the destination at 0955, I didn't expect any meal onboard. Surprise, surprise... We're served a proper lunch (seaweed rice with fish + banana).

Day 1

The public transportion in Korea is very systematic and convenient. For KRW 8k pp, we hopped on a bus that ferried us to the vicinity of Sungkyukwan University. We checked into a small hotel there and went out to jalan-jalan cari makan. The time zone in Korea is 1 hour ahead of M'sia.

The Korean Won exchange rate is steeper than US Dollar. At that time, USD 1 = MYR 3.80; but KRW 1k = MYR 4. For the ease of mental arithmetic to do currency conversion back to MYR, just omit the 3 trailing zeros of the notes and multiply by 4. I believe the 3 trailing zeros are the decimals. We browsed thru the price tag of the menu, wow... like in M'sia, a bowl of plain, white rice costs KRW 1k; a bowl of noodles costs at least KRW 2k. If you don't convert the price back to MYR, it's ok, still can be considered as 'reasonable'. If you convert the price back to MYR, wah-lau-eh, I'm paying 4 times the money for the same quantity. Anyhow, still have to eat.


This is the cheapest rice meal we can find: KRW 1.5k. Rice with tau-geh. Unlike the tau-geh we used to eat in M'sia, the tau-geh there is of the t'ua cheng type, i.e. big seed type.


I call this 'Korean Chee Cheong Fan'. Huh... can cry eating this. The red sauce is very spicy.

The special thing is, only the tongue feels the hotness, you won't have stomach unease after taking this.

Luckily the 老板娘 of this shop is a chinese, from Shenyang 沈阳 Province, China. She introduced us to the 小食 of the local people. Besides the chee cheong fan, this is one kind of seafood, which only costs KRW 700 per piece. The soup is peppered with lots of ajinomoto. In fact, all the soups are prepared with ajinomoto, that made me very thirsty.

This is a red-bean dumpling. You can't find this in M'sia but u can make it on ur own: cook red-bean soup, drink the soup and take the red-bean residue as the filling of a dumpling.

Just now it's jalan-jalan cari makan. Now, it's makan-makan cari jalan. Without any itinerary on-hand, just kept on walking and ended up in a nearby palace.

This is Changyeonggung. It's a small palace. A small miniature of the palaces in China.

This reminds me of Stephen Chow's 九品芝麻官. There're 9 rankings for the ministers. The 9th, being the lousiest. During an assembly to see the king, the ministers have to line up and stand at the specific position.

The architecture of the palace seems very familiar: the palace is surrounded by a moat; upon entering the main entrance, you'd come to the king's 'offices'; then, you'd come to the king's 'living buildings'; then you'd come to a backyard garden. The green leaves are called 桑叶, in which the silkworms are fed on.

In case u miss me, this is me! A thinner me. Still not fully regain my strengh and appetite.

This is a sun-clock. Noticed that ancient Koreans used Chinese characters. They invented the 'mathematical symbols' characters (+, -, o) on the ?? century. Aiyoh, read it on an explanation board, but have forgotten. Sigh...

Probably I got the student's look, a university's lecturer talked to me while I was sitting in the backyard garden. He teaches Taxation in a college. English is not widely used in Korea. I sensed that he spoke in English with difficulty. Yet, he was very eager to talk.

Times fly and it was time to eat again. We had a BBQ dinner. Finally, I get to taste soju, the Korean beer. It tastes weird to me. The bottle of soju costs KRW 3 in a restuarant. Later, I found out that it only costs KRW 1.25 in a mini market. Overall, the dainty BBQ dinner costs KRW 13 for 3 people. Still cheaper than any Korean restaurants in KL.

There're roadside hawkers selling all sorts of seafood. Yuk, I didn't try them.

I found Jacky Chan in Korea!

Guess what? This is a fortune-teller booth.

A yawning-and-lying-man statue in a busy street caught my attention. Later, I was shocked to see a gigantic LOTR statue in front of a cinema.

Before we retired to our cute little small hotel, we bought some fruits. The steep exchange rate posed no treat to our appetite for food. I thought this is a grape, but it's not. Is it a blueberry, blackberry or raspberry? I can't tell the difference.

Day 2

Due to the oily BBQ food we took last nite, my father suffered from sore-throat today. We dropped by a pharmacy to buy some medicine and herbal sweets. There're many people buying medicine in the pharmacy. All of them brought along presciption letters from the doctors.

From a small alley, we walked, walked, walked. We came to the main road. We walked, walked, walked. Then, we turned into streets and kept on walking. We enjoyed the stroll. It's something you can't enjoy in M'sia coz you'll sweat like a cow if you do so.

There's a clean recreation park by the main road. With benches, with water dispenser and with a clean public toilet too.

All taxis on the road are Hyundai Sonata, the latest model. We had our lunch at a petrol station. We bought sandwiches, milk and instant noodles from the store at a petrol station and enjoyed our simple lunch at the table provided, under a big umbrella. A petrol station is called an "Oil Bank". Look at the following photos, observe the 2 pipes hanging from the ceiling.

This is something interesting. The petrol nozzles are hanging in the air. When you wanna pump petrol, you pull down the nozzle. It's like performing a type of gymnastic in the Olympic. In fact, a TV commercial boasts the skill of a petrol station attendant by showing the attendant performing gymnastic with the pipes!

We're taking a subway to our destination of the day. Huh... there're 8 subway lines. Kepala pusing tengok the subway map. The fare starts from KRW 900. As we didn't venture far, no matter how we took the subway, it's always KRW 900. You can hop off at the interchange station and hop on to another line conveniently. Unlike in KL, here in Seoul, you don't have to pay a single cent for hopping off and hopping on. The KRW 900 journey is counted from the start point to the end point. Cukup fun. My father said we're like tikus tanah, travelling down the intertwined lubang-lubang tanah. Hm... good logic. Human beings are imitating the animals.

This is the biggest palace in South Korea. Hah...hah... my mom was yawning. If you've visited the Forbidded City in Beijing, China, this is "peanuts". "Nothing to see". So, don't compare the palaces in Korea with the ones in China. Like usual, I tumpang tour guides of tourist groups to get valuable explanation of the tourist spots. I mingled myself amongst a group of Taiwanese tourists. The tour guide showed her frustration about comments made by tourists from mainland China. According to her, some tourists from mainland China criticized palaces in Korea, saying there's "nothing to see" in Korea as the palaces were so negligibly small, compared to China. On the moment she finished her sentence, she was shock to find an outsider among the group, i.e. me! She asked me in Mandarin, "你是大陆来的吗"? I just made a hand gesture, implying no. Aiyoh, by right, I should have sung the 1st sentence of 齐豫's song: 不要问我从哪里来. Hah...hah...

My mom took this shot. It looks like I had a PhD hat on my head.

Everyday, there are a few sessions of guard-changing ceremony. We were at the right time to catch this moment. The guards are very tall. In fact, I find the Korean people are tall.

The Geongbokgung Palace is situated right in the middle of the busy city. Big TVs scatter around the city. I guess, in the near future, there'll be no TV but projections of lights up to the sky to create virtual images.

The traditional culture of Korea is quite similar to the Chinese. First of all, they used the Chinese Han characters until they invented their own + - O alphabets. They also have 12 animals in their calendar years.

Lacking interest about Korean history, we didn't go into the muzium. I'm more interested in the persimmon tree. I lagi interested in cari makan.

Day 3

Originaly, we planned to go to the Seoraksan mountain to catch the beautiful scenery of the autumn season. Tapi, tak jadi coz heavy rain on the previous week caused landslide and the place was closed. So, we joined a 1/2-day tour to the DMZ - DeMilitarized Zone. DMZ refers to the border between the North and the South Korea. Koreans are working towards reunification, as depicted by the photo below, where people are trying to seal up the broken globe. The 1/2-day tour costs KRW 44k pp.

We're visiting the Paju City where the 3rd tunnel is found. What is the 3rd tunnel? The story goes: North and South Korea has ceased fire. But the North Koreans secretly built tunnel to cross the border in order to reach Seoul and consequently to conquer the country. There are n numbers of tunnel being built. No one knows how many. So far, a few tunnels have been discovered. The 3rd tunnel being the nearest one to Seoul. It's merely < 55 km away from Seoul. A spy revealed this secret to the South Koreans in 1978.

The tunnel is 1635m long, 2m high and 2m wide. No camera is allowed, so, I can't show you how 'user-friendly' the place is. There're 2 ways to get in and out of the tunnel. We took a "roller-coaster" down to the tunnel and walked our way up thru another path. The tunnel is well-lit (no need to bring ur own torchlight), the ceiling is well-covered (no seeping water will drench u) and the floor is well-paved with rubber sheets (no slippery floor).

Along the border, there is a barb wire separating the 2 countries. 2 km north and 2 km south of the fence is the DMZ. After that, we visited the Freedom Bridge. It's said that 13000 prisoners of war crossed the bridge to freedom in the South.

Then, we visited the last train station in South Korea. Though the countries haven't been reunited, construction plans have already been carried out to link the 2 countries.

The tour ended at noon. From countryside, we came back to the civilised and busy city. We visited Namdaemun Market. It's a shopping heaven, just like our Petaling Street. In the photo below, my mom was standing with a line of money changers. Fun leh? If you ran out of money while shopping and couldn't find a bank, look for the gang of ah-ma. They are the unlicensed money changers.

Have I told u that I bumped into HSBC bank all the time when I go overseas? Next to the Namdaemun fort, I saw HSBC again. Namdaemun, the "mun" refers to "door"; the "nam" refers to "south", the "dae" refers to "big"; literally, it means South-Big-Door. The fort is supposed to be the south door. Coincidentally, there's a parade going on. It's as if some kind of time-zone crash was happening right before my very eyes that the ancient people were walking in line with the modern people.

This big zip building caught my attention.