Korea Trip Part II

Continuing my Korea trip story...

Part of the tour included a 2-day trip to Jeju island. Heard about this place quite a fair bit before the Korea trip, but did not really know much about it. :p

So... Jeju island is around the southern east of the mainland Korea. It is also a popular place for the Korean as well. Feels similar to Sentosa in Singapore's context. There are places of interests and casinos on Jeju. No chance to try my luck at any casino though... :(

If not, I may just win the cost of the trip back! Or lose more...?? :p

Seongsan Ilchulbong

Great scenario!We went for a submarine tour near Seongsan Ilchulbong. Interesting...

Care for an abalone caught by the famous Jeju women divers?

We did! My wife and I tried it (raw)! Yummy!

Had my first ever horse riding experience! Best! Riding freely without any trainer holding the horse!

Bear Museum. Guess the girls are more crazy about these. Apparently the teddy bears in the pictures were made between 1901 ~ 1910... Older than me lor...
The mystery road... whereby the cars rolled uphill when the engines were off. Gravity does not applied in this part of Korea?!?

After 2 days in Jeju, we flew to Gimpo where we visited the shooting site for the famous Korean drama show 大长今.

The site was erected purely for the show. Now it has turned into a tourist attraction. People can rent costumes to take pictures.

We also visited the Gyeonbokgung Palace; it's real not for filming! :p It is still under major re-construction. Heard it was burnt down twice before by invaders... There are time slots when customary performance is on display!

We were arranged to watch the "Nanta" show. Heard it is a very good show, won some awards and it's from Korea...! True enough! Very entertaining!

What is Korea famous for...? Korean Ginseng! -_-'''

Yes... and I spent near to S$2k on them... Wife wanted to buy this and that... -_-'''

More shopping... Faceshop! Cheaper in Korea since it's local product...

The package tour included a visit to the "Kimchi School" where we learnt more about the Korean favorite vegetable. Learnt how to make one as well! Wonder who dares to eat the ones made by us (tourist)?! Ha...

Lotto World - Another amusement park

If you think that Singapore's MRT lines are complicated... Just look at Korea's... :)

One week holiday always seem to be too short... But we did have fun! :)

Korea Trip Part I

I'm back from Korea! Actually I'm back for a week liao.
A week (14th ~ 20th April) away from work... Shiok :)

It's been a relaxing trip in term of mental relaxing but at times it's rather physically tiring. Have to climb hills and wake up early lor... :p

Incheon International Airport, Korea Our first meal in Korea... MacDonald?!?
Visiting strawberry farm

Hmm... I did not know that strawberry are grew this way... Mountain tortise?! :p

Arh... cannot remember whether I saw this at Cameron Highland, Malaysia last time.

We went to the indoor swimming complex (Blue Canyon) at Phoniex Park. They do have outdoor facilities as well, just that it was closed during this season. Should be very crowded during summer I guess.

Shock finding of the trip!!! My weight... -_-'''

Yes... I was never 70kg in my whole life... Not even when I'm carrying my fullpack and rifle during my NS time! (fainted...)

Nearby was a shooting scene for a favorite Korean drama

I know nothing about the Korean drama... so spare me... :p

Everland Theme Park

View from ferry wheel. Birdeye view of part of theme park.

Safari within Everland. Close encounter with bears, tigers and lions.

Wine Tunnel. Wine here are made from persimmon.

It used to be a railway tunnel. Special huh?

Bulguksa Temple @ Gyeongju

Lot of Chinese infuence on building?

More Korea trip photos to come... :)

Count Down to... Korea Trip

One more day to Korea trip...

Our 2nd oversea trip in 4+ months... The first was Taiwan trip back in Jan this year. If that's the honeymoon, this should be considered the 2nd honeymoon lor... -_-'''

My wife had long wanted to go Korea. She mentioned a couple of time but plan was scrapped (by me). The last time she said that when I rejected the proposal, we ended up with a more expensive Japan tour. But I thoroughly enjoyed the Hokkaido and Tokyo trip. :p

Everyone is saying that Korea stuffs are cheap at this moment as Won (Korean currency) is low. We exchanged in the region of 880~900won per S$1. Well... not the best rate as it was 1000won at one time.

Hmmm... Though I'm not big fan of Korean drama, hope the package tour will be fun! ;p

Kimchi, here we come!

QingMing Festival 清明節

It's QingMing again... Time to pray our ancestors and the lost loved ones.

The festival is a week event but it does stretched a week before and after. Though it is 3-weeks, it is still always jammed packed when it comes to visiting the cemetery or columbarium during weekends. The area was crowded with people and the road filled with trapped cars. The wait to move and find a parking lot is comparable to going Malaysia on the Causeway...

It's let me wondered... does it really needs to be on this 3-weeks only that we remember our ancestors...? For example, we dun need to wait till Valentine's Day to give our lovers/GF/wife a bouquet of flowers? Well... on the other hand, I can understand if everyone does it on the special occasion and you dun, how would your loved one feel...? Left out?

Maybe should try going on weekdays the next time. Not crowded (or rather no other people?!) and peaceful...?

This year I rented a car to fetch my family and in-laws around. Went to pray my late father on Saturday while my wife's grandfather and ancestors on Sunday. On both occasion, they were at Mandai Crematorium and Columbarium Complex.

Paying respect to my late Father

Every year, my bro and I are responsible to burn the incense papers for my late father. My mum usually dun buy too fancy stuffs; just the normal incense papers and joss sticks in reasonable amount. But I do see lot of people burning tons of incense papers, in the form of cars, houses... etc. With due respect... does it mean more filial or love if you burnt more incense papers? Well... I felt it's more from the "heart" or the sincerity that counts...

My point is... all we need is our sincerity towards the ancestors or lost ones, dun need to burn so many trees. It's not very environmental friendly, you know. Some token should do the trick? Now, can you see where am I coming from? Well... it's been a long history of tradition, so I guess it needs some time to change or for people to realize it...Hmmm... meanwhile, I shall play my part... Paying respects...

Day Off (I'm Loving it!)

It was (last) Friday. My first scheduled leave out of the 10+ forced leave we need to clear in the coming months due to the downturn. But I am actually looking forward for the breaks.

I was planning for a swim ever since. On Friday morning, I was rushing to finish up the house chores instructed by my wife [she always "abuse" me when I'm on leave :( ], before I headed down to the swimming pool. I went during my favorite timing... 11am~2pm! Yes, sun is strongest (for tanning) and the least crowd. Best!
End of the session, I was a satisfied man... Got my swim and my tan! Best!

Up next... what is a swim without a bowl of mee siam?!? Ha...
I (almost) always have mee siam after a swimming session when I was young. My parents would buy fishballs and mee siam for my bro and I. So swimming always associated with mee siam! They are a perfect match!

Sadly, the mee siam was sold out... The only disappointment of the day... :(

I was lazing around at home before I headed to LengKeng to collect a rental car. We were planning to go pray the ancestors over the weekend so will need transport to fetch my in-laws and family around.

My first rental car was Honda... This time round was a Mazda3.
I still prefer Honda... :p

The "busy" day had not ended yet... My wife and I were meeting our old university classmates at Chinatown. One of them introduced a Indian Vegetarian resturant at Chinatown Point. Very interesting... It's buffet and you decide yourself how much you want to pay. The money goes to Charity! Heard the chefs and waiters are volunteers as well. Interesing concept... Check it out!

www.annalakshmi.com.sg

At night, we were driving in "our" car to Geylang to grab some supper!
Good day! ;)

Sex and Nude

Sexy Singapore girls... Beautiful women... Nudity... Pretty and Cute ladies... Bikini...

That's about what "title" and "liner" I can think of to attract some hits on this post... :p

My brother recently was thinking of setting up a Internet business. The main basic concept is to utilize the Internet traffic on his website to generate advertisement revenue. Well, this is the way some of the blogger are earning their income now.

It's definitely a challenge to pull crowd to your website. Just imagine there are tens of thousands (or rather million??) of website in the WWW, what makes your one so special that people is clicking to go to your link?! What's your unique value? Differentiators?

Porn... sex... seem to be the ones attracting most of the people. Thousand of years... something just dun change...

But hopefully his idea (non-porn of course!) will take off. I am supporting him! ;)

Lastly... Let's see how this post fare and whether my guess is correct...

I was tempted to put more revealing pics here so that I wouldn't get scolded for misleading people with the title... -_-'''

Forgive me... It's April's Fool day anyway! :p