Merry X’mas !!!!!!
Morning call at 7am again and breakfast at 8am.
We had such a good view from our room’s balcony.
Seven was so sweet that he wrote each family’s a X’mas card. See, isn’t it cute? He don’t really know English and he actually went to the internet to copy down the greetings word by word. Despite his poor gasp of the language, it was indeed very thoughtful of him.
Breakfast was so much better as compared to the day before. Still the same stuff but much more variety. They still served porridge and Korean veg and kim chi. According to Rosa, Koreans must have rice for every meal. Even it is breakfast, it has to have rice.
1st sightseeing stop. Yong Pyong Ski Resort
We left on time for Yong Pyong Ski Resort at 9am. It was a 20 minutes ride. Those who did not ski were on ‘free & easy’ for the next 3 hours or so. This was the ski resort where the Korean drama, Winter Sonata was filmed. We took a gondola (cable car) ride to the highest peak where there is a ski slope for the professionals only. Once arriving on the peak, posters were plastered around the resting house where the exact locations of the drama scenes that were taken were spelt out in Korean, English and Mandarin. As I didn’t watch the drama at all, I didn’t bother and began exploring the summit. Everywhere was covered with snow and the scenery was superb. It gave a very relaxing and calming feeling up there. We spent about 2 hours there and took the gondola back to join the group at 1pm.
By then, everyone was hungry and we had hot pot lunch at a little town at the base of the mountain. The view at this town was nice.
2nd sightseeing stop. JeongDongJin Train Station
Our tour includes a train ride. It’s the only train station that is located at a seaside. This beach is the most eastern point of Korea. This is also the most popular beach that Korean drama used to filmed all the seaside scenes because it is the nearest to Seoul. The coach dropped us off at the park near the entrance of the beach and we strolled along the sandy beach to the train station. Rested atop a hill is a pair of hotels that was built into ships. It was so pretty that I couldn’t stop admiring it.
We are waiting to take the 4.05pm train and it’s for 1 stop only. It is commuter train and we are taking it for an experience only. The train was late and by the time we board, it was almost 4.30pm. The interior of the train looks old but it is clean and the train ride took 15 minutes.
Our coach was already at the next station when we arrived and we were picked up to go for dinner and check in to another hotel at the base of Mount Sorak. The drive was about 1 hour and 30 minutes.
It was a sit down dinner….I mean sit on the floor…. All of us had to take off our shoes. I was so uncomfortable that I knelt down instead. I can’t sit cross – legged for long as I get ‘needles & pins’ very easily. It’s hot pot again but it was the most suffering meal.
As we travel, kim chi started to get more spicy. This is because different region will use different methods to make kim chi. There are altogether 280 different methods and different ingredients to make each type of kim chi.
It was an early night as we reached the hotel, ODaeSan Hotel, at about 7.30pm. It was an apartment – style hotel which cooking facilities. Alvin was having a stomachache and we took the keys from Rosa immediately without listening to her nightly briefing. I was taken by surprise when we entered the room and found no beds. I open the cupboard and saw some mattress. In order to ensure we are not given the wrong room, we checked with some of the tour members who gradually came up to their rooms. And yes ! We are having a Tatami room for the night !
The floor was supposed to be heated but it’s still icy cold so not barefoot tonight ! It was spacious and we actually quite like the room.
There was a 24 – hour supermarket and we dropped by to have a look. Koreans don’t drink tea and so tea in supermarkets or anywhere is so expensive. We had an ice-cream for W500 (approx. S$.0.85) and it was so delicious and Alvin had 2.
No comments:
Post a Comment