Korea 2011 - Day 1: Seoul (서울)

Am free now so thought, what the heck, let's finally get this travelblog sorted out.

There're many trips that are not updated here:

1. HK 2011

2. UK, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris 2010

3. HK 2010

4. HK & Taiwan 2008 (Incomplete)

Yes, I am extremely backlogged. Shall update it as much as possible over the next few weeks before I start work in end-July.

And still to come (if the volcanic ash clouds works out): Melbourne and Sydney 2011!

~

Anyhoo, I'm here to talk about the recent Korea trip. The trip was from 3rd-10th June 2011.

Honestly, it wasn't exactly my first destination choice when we visited the NATAS Fair back in March (or was it Feb). But on hindsight, it was a pretty good trip!

We assembled at Changi International Airport, Terminal 2 around 11PM, 3rd June 2011. After sorting out the boarding passes and checking in our luggage, we had about an hour or so before boarding time.

I even had the time to meet Scott! He was on his way to Sweden, flying out of T3, for his 3-month work attachment. His flight was just 10 minutes after mine. Small world, I'd say.

I decided to bring along my DSLR camera for this trip. Thought it'll be a good opportunity for me to pick up some photography skills. You folks would've to get used to seeing this little guy in my photos. He'll be taking my place in photos.

The flight was pretty uneventful, mainly because it was a 1AM flight and I slept most of the way.

We arrived at Incheon International Airport around 9AM local time (8AM Singapore time).

There, we were greeted with our friendly, knowledgeable and a little too talkative local guide. He goes by the name of, wait for it... Mr. Kim! Haha!

The weather in Seoul is rather unpredictable. It was a little hot on the first day.

Our first activity for the day was lunch. We had our lunch at this humble looking restaurant at the outskirts of Seoul.

We had Hot Plate pork with all the Korean side dishes thrown in.

Uncooked

Step 1: Cook the meat.

Step 2: Cut into small bite-size pieces.

Step 3: Wrap in one of these lettuce and eat!

We even had a 'fat pile' set aside because it was too darn unhealthy!

After lunch, we continued our journey to Daegu. En route to Daegu, we had two activities. The first was Strawberry picking. It was the end of the strawberry season, so the berries are a little tiny.

View of the strawberry farm from the outside.

View from inside.

Tiny berries.

We could only take around 5 berries in the plastic bags handed to us. So our guide advised us to eat them as we were picking. Lol! I didn't pick or eat any as I was quite full from lunch. There isn't much of a point picking too many as berries can't be kept for more than 2-3 days.

On route to Daegu, we had a stop over at the Yeoju Premium Outlets, a place where all the branded factory outlets are located.

Pretty impressive infrastructure, I must say.

A display area made entirely out of lego blocks!

After spending 90 minutes or so around the place, we continued our (long) journey towards Daegu.

One of the many toll booths around the highways.

We arrived at the Phoenix Park Hotel around 5:30PM local time.

Our room was decent and had super fast (free) wifi connection! Korea has got to be one of the most connected countries with wifi connection practically everywhere we went! Some times at the most unexpected locations!

About 2 hours was allocated for those who wanted to visit the water themepark across the street. I didn't bring any swimwear as I did not intend to participate in any water activities. So I stayed behind and tweeted a few updates.

My travel mates came back pretty early as they said there wasn't much to do there. We had time to walk around the back of the hotel while waiting for dinner.

The ski resort at the back of the hotel. But it's summer, so no snow.

We took a 5 minute bus ride to our dinner restaurant.

We had steamboat for dinner.

And so begins the (seemingly) endless steamboat meals throughout the trip.

Naturally, all the standard Korean side dishes were thrown in for good measure!

After dinner, we walked around the resort a little more but there wasn't much to do. So we turned in pretty early as we will be visiting Everland the following day.