Sunday, January 4 ♥ 20:50

i guess it's time to continue before i get too lazy

day 05

like i said earlier, the entire place was white that day.
went on a long bus ride to mount sorak national park. at the park, the snow was even thicker. it was up to my knees!
but thankfully, the park attendants had already shovelled the snow away from the main pathways.


took a cable car up to somewhere where we continued to climb up to the mountain peak where we took more photos. haha.
it was freezing cold up there and we had hot chocolate after.
short day today. dunno if it's my bad memory but it seems like that was the only activity for the day.
checked in SOL Beach resort and we slept on the floor heated by the korean style underfloor heating, ondol.

day 06
the day that we went skiing!
rented our ski equipment and took a gondola all the way to the peak for (you guessed it) photo taking. pity i left my camera in the bus because i thought that we were going to ski already and i didnt want to risk my cam spoiling. we still managed to have one photo taken by the photographer and it was reallly pretty. DSLR ma. haha.
had our lunch before we went back for the real stuff!
brought my cam in the end and no, i didn't fall down. =D
skiied really well too!! really k. hahaha. prolly cuz i know how to iceskate and rollerblade la. it was snowing while we were learning! super happy yet again.
but after the whole time, my nose was running from being in the cold for so long. the skis and boots were amazingly heavy too. =S


after skiing, we went to a water theme park for spa, jacuzzi and all the bubble stuff. water always makes people happy and everyone was high-spirited after the time in the water.
which coincided with christmas eve night where we all had a wonderful dinner toasting each other. (:
later in the bus our tour guide (korea) even sang the 3bears song from fullhouse for us!!

checked in phoenix park condo. went in search for food and found entertainment too! played at the arcade for a while. it was only 500won per game which is like 56cents sing. hurhur.
on the way back to the condo, it snowed again!! =D last time i saw snow in korea...
this is how it looked like the next morning!




day 07
this was the boringest day of all. hahaha.
went to see the president blue house. from outside cant see anything at all, like sg. haha.
went to the ginseng showroom and amethyst factory where the people there "cut vegetable heads" but of course my fam didnt buy anything at all.
then to the face shop specially for tourists. all the things are cheaper than in singapore by more than 50% so everyone just chionged...
made kimchi & donned the hanbok.

at night we went to insa-dong which sold some korean souvenirs. and it was the coldest of all colds!! and i very smartly ate ice cream too. just because i wanted to try the korean street icecream. so after that ice cream, i was shivering like crap.
bought this hot and spicy kebab which made my body go back to normal again. haha.

then, we rushed to check into lotte world hotel again before heading to lotte world (:
lotte world hotel is my fav hotel because it has a toilet seat heater and butt washer. haha.
only managed to get on 2 rides and watch the laser show before the park closed. =(
proceeded to lotte mart for grocery shopping after much hesitation because we still had food left over from the day before.
it was in lotte dept store and yay, i found skinfood! and it was going to close in less than 1h man. so happy that i found it. haha. but regretted not getting anything for myself because the stuff looks so yummy and it is heaps cheaper than in sg.

day 08
we went to gyeongbukgung palace which i went the prev time so i was pretty bored. plus, it was superduper cold so we quickly took a few shots before running back to the bus.
then to sinchon fashion street for my all-time fav: shopping! but only 1hour. erps. i was rushing my mum and bro all the time. managed to find ABC mart but then it seems like they dont sell havis in winter :( managed to get some stuff there too as well...
some people even managed to find a burger king. hahaha!

last stop of the trip was a provision shop where everyone bought lotsa FOOOOOD. my fam bought a carton of potato instant noodles. QQ! haha. and i haven't eaten much of the food before i got my cough :( my pepero!
bought some photos from the photographer too.
headed to the airport, took a photo with the tour guides & the photographer before going in.
and it was the flight back to sg which i'm lazy to elaborate on...

yeap. it was a wonderful itinerary with superb tour guides! really enjoyed my time there. hmm, going korea F&E and on tour is really quite different. going F&E allowed me to meet and communicate with koreans and see how nice or unnice some koreans can be. plus how dirty the streets of seoul can be at times.
we were somewhat protected on the tour but of course, we got to go to places way out that i could have never gone to on a F&E holiday. :)
overall trip rating: 8/10!

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