Last day in Seoul

Update on **11 June 2014**

We checked out on 7am from Seoul Backpackers and then headed to Incheon Airport.

Departure hall of the Incheon airport 

I like:

1. Efficient services. Incheon Airport reduced the queuing line by speeding up the passport checking process.

2. Super clean. I found that the floors were waxed and hardly to find any rubbishes on the floor.

3. Friendly staff. Smiles were displayed on their faces. They spoke good English too.

4. Spacious, cold and bright. Such environment brought comforts for the travellers. 

For my Korean trip, it was very fun and excited when exploring the attractions and experiencing the local Korean foods and culture. It was also very stressful and frustrated with my travel companion. Now I realized travelling can ruin the friendship. I even talked to my travel companions in Facebook after trip ended. 

However, this Korean trip absolutely reduced the likelihood to travel with them and might consider properly when travelling with friends for next time. Let me shared few important things that was necessary to consider when travelling with group of friends 

1. Travel companions' personality.

My travel companions were overbearing and uptight. Overbearing one loved to control the actions of others and dominate the group decisions without asking the others opinions. Meanwhile, uptight one easy lose her temper and often defensive even for the small matters along the trip. Their personality really annoyed me (x 10000) after spending more than a week with them. 

2. Small group

My Korea trip group considered big for me although 4 persons (included me).  I used to travel with one friend except with my family members. 3 persons can create trouble and made politics. Further, 3 person has different opinions, ideas and perceptions. Conflicts grew and developed very faster and it was super difficult to satisfy everyone’s demand. It ended up everyone suffered. 

3. Different interest

Everyone had different expectations when travelling. I like to spend lots of time visiting museum, temples, city, coffee shop and shopping. Others might not liked it and found that very boring. It happened to my travel companions and directly influenced their travel speed. I can’t match their fast speed in exploring historical places as I prefer enjoying and viewing the history artworks slowly.   

4. Travelling destinations 

Although we agreed on the attractions we wished to visit ahead of time, we still had disagreement when we reached the particular attractions. The other travel companions commented the particular attractions supposed not included in the itinerary due to similarities could found in previous attractions. 

In order to keep myself alive and happy along the trip, I isolated with them sometimes. Reducing the times with them will reduce the conflicts and dissatisfaction. I didn’t bother the conflicts that happened between 3 of them. Besides that, communicate can reduce the tensions resulted travelling with others. In my case, I’m pissed off to talk and advice travel companions because they were quite hypersensitive to any advice.

Seoul Tower (Part 2)

After that, we had fun at Alive Museum that was located in the lobby of the Seoul Tower.

 The unique railway tracks entrance of Alive museum

 I admitted I didn't had sense of fun in this pieces of artwork

 Nah, I improved a bit for the second piece of artwork

 See, for the third pieces looked so professional

 There was another

 This one too

 Emmm, no idea on how to pose for the Giant Baby artwork

 Similiar went to this Orang Utan artwork

 Enjoying the curry bath

 It provided most fun for me compared other artworks. Both of us sat on the boat that faced a huge black mirror and suddenly the right side of the boat turn into white skeleton plus with laughing sound after few seconds.

 

 My body was disappear

 NBA basketball

 gigantic shark's mouth

 Fulfilling our dream in trying the Korean BBQ in Myeondeong. Exclude 1 travel companion since she was a Muslim.

This waiter looked like a Hong Kong singer, Khalil Fong (方大同). 

I like:

1. He served us very well by cooking the porks.

2. I'm quite satisfied with the foods quality. The porks were tender, juicy and aromatic. The side dishes were appetizing too. 

I dislike:

1. Restaurant ambiance and environment. It was so narrow and even accommodate 5 or 6 tables. Moreover, one female customer smoked inside the restaurant and it was so smelly. Not only that, one table with all guys talked and laughed loudly. It was so irritated.  

I'm quite impressed with Koreans that BBQ was one of their favorites especially on Summer season. Big possibility Koreans body system had get used to the high heat of the BBQ. BBQ foods will increase my body heat and then suffered throat-ache, stomach-ache and so on. It's true because in the following day I had throat-ache. However, Original Korean BBQ was worth a visit although I was sick. I must try it at least one time before I left Korea.  

Seoul Tower (Part 1)

Update on **10 June 2014**

We kicked up the new day by exploring Seoul Tower. It's mandatory to visit Seoul Tower since it's the landmark of Seoul. Not visited Seoul Tower seemed like visiting China without seeing great walls of China. Since it's near to our guesthouse, we walked by foot and reached there within 15 minutes.

 We headed to Namshan cable car station

 Entrance

Less crowd at there

The cable car was spacious in order to accommodate more visitors.

Wowww, beautiful, nice, wonderful view !!!

and this one too

  

 obligatory photo

 

1 more in the first floor of Seoul Tower

So many love locks in there. However, I was not interested in putting love lock to mark my love for someone.

sparkling view also

 

Yuin and mine

 

All together

If you're the fans of K drama, My Love From The Star definitely recognized this place. There were lots of tourists fighted with each others in order to shoot photo at that chair.

Sadly, the love locks being cleared few minutes ago

 

Can't resist ourselves in taking photo in the love locks scene

 

Cutee post. Thankful to the older age couple tourists from China helped us shoot photo

Inside the second floor of Seoul Tower

Not going to buy it

Kuala Lumpur was very far away from Seoul based on above description

 

Never expect it was wishing pond. Super surprise and shocked when seeing it. We all can't stop laughing too

Twosome place coffee was there. Needless to say, standee of Lee Min Ho could be seen there too

Shooting as much as I can with Lee Min Ho

 

3D Lee Min Ho standee for Twosome Coffee

 

 Palace guard performance. Watched it short times only since we had enjoyed guard performance in Geongbokgong Palace

Pretty flowers as my "front-drop"

Everland, Seoul

Update on **9 June 2014**

We went to Everland, Seoul in the early morning. Everland was the well-known amusement park in Seoul. I'm not the person that liked to visit amusement or theme park. I was afraid in playing roller coaster, pirate ships and other huge amusement park rides. Anyway, I had to consider the wants of other travel companion too because tolerance will avoid conflicts.

Let the pictures below explained my Everland visit.

 We waited in front of WHOAU for the bus no 5002

Here it's to Everland

 Loved the Korean bus services that came with clear signboards and even the bus officer in duty guided the bus traffic   

 After 1 hour, we reached the front bus stop of Everland and then boarded the free shuttle bus to Everland theme park

 Everland, I was coming...

 

As the tourist, we got the discounted prices based on the discounted coupons obtained from magazine of Korea Tourism Organization. However, at the ticket counter, we needed to show our passport as the evidence too.

Everland had 5 sections: 1) American adventure, 2) Magic land, 3) European adventure, 4) Zoo tapia, 5) Global fair (I failed to capture whole sections)

Global Fair

There were lots of castles from Frances, Middle East, Indian, Russian and so on.  

 Middle East look like castle

 European countries castle

 Happy, Happy, Happy

Zoo Tapia

Safari World and Lost of Valley could be found there. Safari World has polar bear, Siberian tiger, lions and penguins. Meanwhile, in the Lost of Valley, the visitors can close up look at the animals. 

 

The white polar bear was so cute. If it is tame and not being caged, I wished to hug it. 

 No expect the tiger able to sleep under such hot sun

 Lion ar Lion, you looked so lonely.

 Penguins needed the freedom actually

 Bird show

 It looked very real

 I was not the flower person but sensed that those flowers were pretty

 

The signboard said it was black crowne crane. They perform a special dance that involved head shaking, jumping and wind uttering to attract mate 

 Domestic rabbits

 Red crawned crane

 The main highlight of the Lost of Valley was able to enjoy the Safari journey by using the convert vehicle like above picture. The vehicle will convert into different functions and pattern when moving from land to water

 The good-looking audio guide. When I visited Seoul, I came across lots of good looking Korean guys

 

Dragon sound 

 So pity with this skinny elephant.

 blue colours birds

 Zebra

 Giraffes

 Yes, the head of Giraffe touched our convert vehicles. I even felt its tameness.

 

 Four seasons garden was filled with beautiful flowers

 

 Parade show

 Absolutely agree

Caricature service. I wished to have one but my love and family were not there. 

I was quite satisfied with the facilities being provided in Everland. It was so tourist friendly because clear signbords and directions. The ultimate thing was in English. It brought conveniences for the tourists and enhance their revisit. 

Besides that, the Everland staff were helpful and friendly. Smiles were always on their faces. They were willing to give direction in case the tourists were lost. 

 Moreover, the queue for each themepark were not long. We didn't had to wait for few hours for each attraction. It really saved our precious times. 

Everland was worth visit and highly recommended.