After Seoraksan, we made our way to Sundubu Halmeoni Restaurant by Taxi for lunch. The taxi ride costs 8,800₩ by meter. Found this restaurant at korean tourism website under halal food section. Apparently, the area is famous for its Tofu and there's even a KBS filming place at the back of it. Sadly, we didnt have much time left as we had to meet Sookyeong in Chuncheon at night, so we gave the place a miss.

Tofu

The restaurant only specialises in tofu and thats the only menu as you can see in the picture above. One tofu set costs 8,000₩. The portion is huge but I think the tofu is too bland for my liking. It suppose to be the main meal so its not sweet. But not so salty either. So I just kept mixing it with rice and other side dishes. I was trying to look at how others eat it cos I kept thinking there must be a way to mix all of this into a nice mixture. Funny thing was I was basically trying to follow this elderly couple who mixed the chilli paste with the tofu. I thought they were koreans so I was following their actions. Later while waiting for the bus after lunch, we met them at the bus stop and found out that they were actually Singaporeans as well! So I've been following the wrong actions -.-'''

Chatted with the couple since the bus was taking quite a while. Apparently they have retired and are travelling around Korea. They hiked Seoraksan the day before and it took them the whole day. O.o Both of them were super cute as well. The lady just kept talking what she wanted, while her husband kept refuting her. Although they were like semi arguing each other, I think it was cute. =P The lady told us that we were very fortunate to be travelling around at our age. At our age, they were working very hard and retired when all their children are working. They told us all the places they have been since they retired. Its amazing! I want to be like that as well. Like how my parents are randomly taking trips as well now. >.<

Anyway, took the same bus (1,100₩) back to the 'city' area while the couple alighted to see the glass museum. I imagine Mama would want to visit that as well. Lol. Went to hunt for Abai Village and arrived at the same boat area. Decided that it was correct and hopped on to cross the river. It costs 200₩ and you pay after you cross at the entrance. There is a person there collecting the money.

 
Boat Area

Abai Village is really very small and their most famous product is sundu sausage which is not halal obviously. So we just went round the island. It took us less than an hour I think. Most of the time was spent taking pictures. =P

Some background information... Abai Village is made up of mostly North Korean Refuges and in the korean drama Autumn in my heart, the lead actress, Eun xi used to take the boat to visit her mum.

Rows and rows selling the same thing.

On our way back, we got the chance to pull the boat. The boat is actually manually operated. So to get across to the other side, there is one person who have to 'pull' the boat. Not really sure on the mechanism of the boat. Basically, there's this rope in the middle, and you have to hook the metal rod onto it and just pull to the other end of the boat and start over again. So you would in a sense be walking to and fro the length of the boat.

The metal rod

Using my strength...

The ideal pose =D

After that we walked back to the hostel to collect our luggages and made our way to the bus stop. The bus ride from Sokcho to ChunCheon costs 12,500₩ per pax. Oh one tip would be to find out the timing of the buses so that there won't be much time wasted waiting. We managed to snap a picture of the timing of the bus to Chun Cheon the night before while waiting for the owner to come and get us. Smart us after forgetting to print the directions to the hostel. >.<

Chun Cheon Bus Timing

 Sokcho's Rodeo Street

& off to Chun Cheon to meet SooKyeong~~

Korea Day 2 - Sokcho (Seoraksan)

Woke up early in the morning at 8am so that we could fully explore Sokcho. After washing up and packing, we went down to eat breakfast. Breakfast was free and it consisted of basics like bread, coffee and tea. 

Breakfast

The atmosphere and decoration in the hostel was really nice. Really recommended if you are to visit Sokcho. After breakfast, we checked out of the room and they were nice enough to allow us to put our big fat luggages along the corridor while we went to explore Sokcho. Was close to 11am when we set foot out. So much for being early -.-'''

According to the itinerary we planned the night before, we were supposed to visit Abai Village first. Abai Village is the filming location for Korean drama Autumn in my heart. The show that made me cry my eyes out. Remembered watching it during Secondary School days and going to school with puffed out eyes. >.< Liked the show so much, I even bought the DVD for it.

Anyway, based on the map and advice the owner gave us, we decided to walk to there. It was supposed to be a short distance, but we couldn't find the alley to get us to the Boat area. We would have to sit the boat to get to Abai Village. We actually found the boat area but we didn't realised it was supposed to be THE ONE. Anyway, we decided we shouldnt waste time finding and decided to go vist Seoraksan first as we can always come back to find Abai Village since it is so near our hostel.
 

 Journey up to Seoraksan

Took the bus number 7 or 7-1 (Forgot which one) up to Seoraksan for 1,100₩ each. Seoraksan is highest mountain in the Taebaek mountain range in the Gangwon Province in eastern South Korea (Wikipedia). Entrance into Seoraksan was 2,000₩.

 

Seoraksan Mascot... I think 

Amazing scenery

Took a cable car up to Seoraksan. I think there is an option to go hiking, but the main attraction for me was the cable car anyway. =D

In the cable car

We were all like squashed in the cable car, as in there is no place to walk around, but luckily we were near the window, so we just started snapping photos like crazy. =)

The cable car tickets costs 9,000₩ per pax for both trips up and down the mountain. Tickets are bought separately from the entrance tickets. The cable car tickets are on the first floor of the cable car entrance itself. When I was buying the tickets for the cable car, PH was beside me and when she turned around, she saw this huge poster of 2pm. -.-''

 PH 2pm

The moment we stepped out of the cable car when we reached the top, we were welcomed to another poster of 2pm. PH was like 'Taecyeon!!' and just ran to the poster. -.-''' They sure do some good advertising....

PH 2pm 2

Decided to walk up to the peak of Seoraksan. Its about an hour walk up to the peak. I'll let the pictures do the talking.... 

 

We started photo spamming once we reached the peak
 

I would say its not very steep but have to careful in case you slip as its not exactly a smooth surface. PH was having a bit of difficulty though. So I guess it depends. I wanted to try and test my limits since I was already there. So I left PH below as she wasn’t very willing to climb up and went off to see how I could climb to the top.

This is the furthest I got. =D

Photo courtesy of PH

Spot Little PH

Above me, this Ahjumma was superb funny. She just kept commenting ‘Aigoo mu soh wo’ repeatedly, with her hands and legs stuck to the ground and butt sticking out. and she was slowly inching upwards. Basically I was just amused with her butt sticking out. LOLs.

It got really really steep after a while and I sort of gave up and started taking pictures on my own.

 

After playing by myself on top, made my way down and seriously the way down is much much scarier. I was just sitting n moving downwards. Met up with PH to take more pictures before we headed down.

Bought ice cream while we waited for the cable car to bring us back down to earth. =D

Korea Day 1 - Sokcho

Needed to escape from work. Depressing when so many of my colleagues are leaving the company. Doesn't help that our staff strength is not very big to begin with. Even worse when their work are assigned to be piled onto yours. As if I don't have more than enough on my plate. -.-'''

PH, ZT and me have been talking about going back to Korea since ages ago. Finally put that into action. It was really an impromptu decision on my side, as I felt I needed to run away from all that I was facing at the moment. Thus, I just asked them if they were available and managed to plan the trip with PH but sadly ZT couldn't make it. =(

Thurday 13 Sep 12 (First Day - Sokcho)

Airport 2D 3D Art

 

Arrived at airport in the morning. Slept for only like 2 hours and was still packing right till the last minute. >.<

Korea here we come

 

As I said before, this trip was planned super last minute. Its like we booked our flights, sort of decided the places we wanna go and find hostels to stay. The rest is just to go with the flow and all plans are subject to changes. LOL.

 

The giant baby with her buys on the plane. This was the reason why we had to sit SQ - to use her vouchers which she received for her flight delay (& a lot of drama) in Turkey.
 

Was raining slightly when we reached Seoul. But seriously everytime I land in Korea (ok this is only the second time), my heart totally wells up in warmth. Even though its colder here as compared to SG. The irony -.-'''

We took a limousine bus to East Seoul Express Bus Terminal (Dong Seoul Bus Terminal) for 15,000₩ (70-90mins). You can check KAL Limousine schedule here. http://www.kallimousine.com/eng/schedule_en.asp

Then from East Seoul Bus Terminal we were supposed to sit the Intercity Bus to Sokcho. Sounds easy right? It is... Only thing was we had trouble trying to find the location to take the intercity bus to Sokcho when we reached Seoul Express Bus Terminal. This was because the limousine bus we sat alighted us across the road from the metro and the bus terminal was on the other opposite side of the metro. Didn't help that it was slightly drizzling and pulling our luggages =(. But just ask around and most passerbys will help you.... If they can understand =P

Anyhow with the help of a korean lady, we finally managed to locate the intercity bus terminal and get our tickets to Sokcho Each tickets costs 16,100₩. We had about half an hour to spare so we grabbed some food for dinner before going to the bus number stand. I was waiting in front of the bus stand with the luggages while PH went to the toilet and this guy (Later found out he was the bus driver), started talking to me in Korean and putting my bags into a bus compartment. I was like ??? and just showed him my tickets. I think I'm a little too trusting. I mean if its in New Delhi.... CHOI! But there were people getting up the bus, so we felt kind of safe. It takes about 2hr20mins to get to Sokcho. It was drizzling as I mentioned before, and both of us just dozed off after eating. Like seriously. Venturing into the unknown and still being so comfortable. We the best. -.-'''

Woke up at 8pm korean time at the rest stop. The bus just stopped at this restaurant area. Surrounding was super ulu. I mean there are shops around but its like where u have to walk a distance to get to the next shop kind. Went down for a toilet break and back on the road it is =)

                                                        Us on the bus

 

Oh did I mentioned the bus ride was super nice?! The seats are very spacious and we just pushed it all the way back to ZZZ our way through.

Not long later the rest stop, we reached Sokcho intercity bus terminal.

Guess what we forgot? BOTH of us FORGOT to print the directions to the hostel!! Did I mention it was a last minute planned trip? LOL. Anyway, we slight panic-ed as it was dark like 9 plus and we are in the country side. Not like Seoul where the night is still young. We wanted to find a place that has internet connection, so we can retrieve the directions from our mailbox. But as I said we were at the countryside... So in the end we just decided to call the hostel owner and said we lost our way. Superb pai seh. He came all the way to fetch us and even helped with our bags. and seriously the way was not difficult at all.... just that we print out the directions. >< Note to self: ALWAYS PRINT OUT DIRECTIONS!

When we reached the hostel, the owner who brought us in gave us a brief introduction of Sokcho, the more popular places and all the buses and routes we can explore. Sokcho is a small area. There are not many buses but its helps that he recommended the places to visit and the buses available. ^^

 Our Cosy Room
 

After the introduction, we checked into the room. The room itself is small. It just has the basic amenities like bed, table, toilet. But we didn't mind. I mean we treated the hostel as a place for us to sleep at night and put our stuffs during the day. Most of the time should be spent outside exploring. =D But the best thing about this hostel is that the toilet is in the room itself. See the pink door beside the shoes area? That's the toilet. Love it when we have a toilet all to ourselves  and technically the toilet is outside the room, so our room won't smell. =D

 

Oh the room also has wireless so we were able to facebook, wazzapp, etc. There was an aircon but there was no remote. No complaints though as it was cold enough at night. Especially since it had been drizzling the whole day. >.<

We paid for a night, which in my opinion is cheap. More details here:
http://www.thehouse-hostel.com/index.html

http://www.hostels.com/hostels/kangwon-do-sokcho-si/the-house-hostel/30850#anchor=overview

 

 

Planning the itinerary tomorrow. All highly subject to changes. and its ZZZ time =)