The journey to the center of Seoul took about 1 hour. Not so scenic along the way. Well, not yet. Maybe in spring or autumn it will be better. Once arrived at Seoul Station, we head straight to the subway. We need to check in to the hotel the soonest in order to follow my itinerary. Seoul station reminded me of our KL Central. Pretty similar in term of the size and the bustling. We saw a lot of military service guys crowding a big LCD TV. It is baseball season. Baseball should be the 2nd popular sport after football in Korea. Thanks to the ample signboard, we managed to get ourselves subway to the Myeongdong since the hotel name is Myeongdong Hotel. Well, I was wrong. Once arrived at the station, I checked on the map, yet to found anything that indicates our hotel. I asked direction to the info booth guy, but he also not sure of the place. I then noticed a malay girl. should be obvious since she was wearing a tudung. I asked my wife to stay there and have a chat a bit with her while I look for the Hotel. Her name is Siti and she was on her last day in Seoul. She's been there twice already driven by the obsession to the Korean celebs. My search was to no avail. Lucky us, Siti offered to look for the hotel. Just outside of the subway station, we met a group of fan. High schooler maybe. I'm not sure on what is their agenda by hanging out there and handing passerby with momento of their fav celeb. However, those girls are friendly and they went all the way looking for it from their phone Internet. But found nothing. We returned to Siti's hotel which was around 50 meters from the subway and asked the hotel guy.
Finally we found it. But it was all the way on the opposite direction to that hotel. Sigh. Meaning that we need to walk further across the Myeongdong district with large luggages at hand. It was Saturday, meaning that we need to navigate across hundreds of people. On the positive side, at least we get to know the place we're going later. The hotel was quite easy to find. It was pointed by the tourist guide located within the Myeongdong district. These guys usually walking in pair and wearing a full red attire will offer help to any lost or looking-like-lost tourist. Furthermore, they can speak english better. Once we confirms the hotel, we bid farewell to Siti and exchanged contact info. After unpacked, we rested a bit. The room was way on the 5th floor, while the pantry, Internet room and lobby are on 1st floor. No elevator. It's hard for my wife since she is 2 months pregnant. I very much tried not to strain her, but what to do..
We went to check on the Cheoyanggi Stream first. It was well renovated for tourism purposes. The stream length is about 1 km. There is a wall marked with history on past kings. Some speaker with annoying sound which turned to be their traditional instrument. And at the end of the stream is a monument that looks like a snail. A big colorful snail. We crossed over the huge junction next to the snail and bought us tickets for Night bus tour. While waiting for the bus, we head over to snap couple of pictures in front of the Admiral's statue and got ourselves a hot choco. Starve starts to kick-in. Afterall, we only had roti cecah rendang ayam before went out. Cold weather do cause tummy to hungry faster. My wife called home and asked if we can have fries on the nearest KFC. She remembered when she was in UK, they had fries at McD. It is halal since they use separate oil to cook. So, i ordered a fries, coleslaw and a hot tea. That kept us kenyang a bit. The bus tour is a snore. Literally snore. I slept 3/4 of the tour. So did my wife. We were obviously tired and we didn't sign-up the tour just to see bridges on Han River. I slept after the 3rd bridge. Hahaha.. The bus stopped just next to the snail and we walked back to the hotel. It is just a 5-10 minutes walking from there.
Time to sleep.
TBC.
Monday, May 09, 2011
Sunday, May 01, 2011
Chapter 258 - Fly to Seoul Part I
What a wonderful trip. South Korea is magnificent! I wish to visit it again some other time. Maybe next time, I'll be going with my wife and kid ^o^
But Im not sure whether the wife want to visit there again. It was a slight nightmare for her as Seoul is an adventurous terrain. A lot of hills, subway stairs and scarcity of Halal food. I've been there for 7 days and throughout it, no meat consumed. It weakens the body a bit. Apart from that, it is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, I was there during the season shift. So it was neither spring nor winter. Flowers still in their buds. Slight chill from the winter still lingering in the air.
My flight is at 1355. Going from Kota Damansara to the LCCT is so much easier these days as there is a shuttle service from OU. Tickets were purchased somewhere in last August, and I booked for the economic seat. Well, it is either economic or premium for AirAsia, right? Lucky for us, the flight was good. Bit of airpocket, but not too serious. Arrived in Incheon at 2115, and as per mentioned by the captain, "the weather is good with temperature of 3 degree celcius". It is a 3 friggin celcius!! Upon arrival, we fetched our luggage and head straight to the Info booth. I showed the hotel booking slip, and the info lady called the hotel for us. I spoke to the hotel dude and we arranged to meet somewhere in the airport within 10 minutes. Though these people speaks english, but it is still hard for us to understand them. Their slangs and grammar pretty much need to be deciphered. Well, it didnt went well. We waited at arrival floor, while he was at departure. It is pretty a common sense that we were at arrival, since we just arrived. No harm done, we still excited just being there.. waiting. Haha. The dude was actually nice and friendly. The drive took about 5 minutes and while on it, we chatted. He told us that it was snowing the day before and it is very rare to snow past winter. We stayed at Incheon Airport Guest House. The guest house is an apartment actually. It was a pleasant stay indeed. View of Incheon Airport from the room, complete amenities provided and so much clean. I went down to buy some juice as we only took out mineral water from the plane. There were frozen icicles on the streets from the snow yesterday and better to watch where Im stepping on.
Arriving at the Airport
Pasangan Nike
Thirst quencher
Remains of the snow
Me looking for WiFi at the Guest House
But Im not sure whether the wife want to visit there again. It was a slight nightmare for her as Seoul is an adventurous terrain. A lot of hills, subway stairs and scarcity of Halal food. I've been there for 7 days and throughout it, no meat consumed. It weakens the body a bit. Apart from that, it is a beautiful place. Unfortunately, I was there during the season shift. So it was neither spring nor winter. Flowers still in their buds. Slight chill from the winter still lingering in the air.
My flight is at 1355. Going from Kota Damansara to the LCCT is so much easier these days as there is a shuttle service from OU. Tickets were purchased somewhere in last August, and I booked for the economic seat. Well, it is either economic or premium for AirAsia, right? Lucky for us, the flight was good. Bit of airpocket, but not too serious. Arrived in Incheon at 2115, and as per mentioned by the captain, "the weather is good with temperature of 3 degree celcius". It is a 3 friggin celcius!! Upon arrival, we fetched our luggage and head straight to the Info booth. I showed the hotel booking slip, and the info lady called the hotel for us. I spoke to the hotel dude and we arranged to meet somewhere in the airport within 10 minutes. Though these people speaks english, but it is still hard for us to understand them. Their slangs and grammar pretty much need to be deciphered. Well, it didnt went well. We waited at arrival floor, while he was at departure. It is pretty a common sense that we were at arrival, since we just arrived. No harm done, we still excited just being there.. waiting. Haha. The dude was actually nice and friendly. The drive took about 5 minutes and while on it, we chatted. He told us that it was snowing the day before and it is very rare to snow past winter. We stayed at Incheon Airport Guest House. The guest house is an apartment actually. It was a pleasant stay indeed. View of Incheon Airport from the room, complete amenities provided and so much clean. I went down to buy some juice as we only took out mineral water from the plane. There were frozen icicles on the streets from the snow yesterday and better to watch where Im stepping on.
Arriving at the Airport
Pasangan Nike
Thirst quencher
Remains of the snow
Me looking for WiFi at the Guest HouseWe had a good night sleep and woke early. Anxious to meet Seoul, but our shuttle to the airport is scheduled at 1045. So, me and wife went to strolled on the streets. The sun and the chill just hit the spot. There is actually nothing to see and visit around the guest house. We just walked for about 15-20 minutes and went back to the room after we bought a bread loaf and Nestle Choco 3 in 1. Breakfast was roti cecah choco. We packed our bag and head to the parking lot for the shuttle. We shared the MPV with 2 other local tourists. Arriving at the airport, we straight went to the Airport Railroad. We got 2 free T-Money card from the Info booth and just reloaded some money in it at the 7E. T-Money serves just like Touch n' Go or Octopus Card. There are 2 kind of trains to pick for. 1st is a direct train to Seoul Station, and 2nd making couple of stops until Seoul Station. The 1st one is more expensive than the latter. No rush needed, so we took the latter train.
TBC~
TBC~
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