KoRea Day 7/8 - 8th/9th November 2007

Into the last 2 days of our Korea trip, we visited places within Seoul city.1st stop was the Blue House (Cheong Wa Dae ). At present, Cheong Wa Dae consists of the main office building, the official Presidential residence, Yeongbin-gwan (영빈관) or the guest house, the Chunchugwan (춘추관) press hall, and the secretariat buildings. The entire complex covers about 250,000m²).

To the north of Cheong Wa Dae is the mountain Bukhansan, flanked by two mountains, Naksan, symbolizing the Blue Dragon, on the left and Inwangsan, symbolizing the White Tiger, on the right. To the south is Namsan, the protective mountain of the capital. In front flow the Cheonggyecheon stream and Han River.

Next, we visited the Ginseng shop. From here, understand that to buy ginseng, we should at least buy a 6 year old ginseng as the beneficial components of ginseng to the human body are at its optimum when the roots are 6 year old.

After a wait of 2 hrs stuck at the ginseng shop, we finally moved on to Namdaemum Myeongdong for some serious shopping.

Me and Fang finally gotten ourselves each a pair of nice boots in one of the shops along the underpass leading to Myeongdong. I enjoyed the shopping experience @ Myeongdong.

Too bad, was not given more time to look around. Only manage to cover part of Myeongdong, no time for Namdaemum...

We ended our day watching the JUMP show. It was a must watch show, I must say. It was entertaining, and there's no need for one to speak Korean to enjoy this show as the actors and actresses in this show does not speak a single dialogue.

The story was told through their spectacular martial arts and acrobatics.Their comical elements were also good. Want to know more about JUMP show, here the official website -http://www.jumpjump.jp/en/.

Our last night hotel stay was at the 6 star Sheraton Walker Hill Casino Hotel. Though 6 stars but it wasnt comparable to Koreana Hotel a 5 star hotel. The room was cramped, not much of room space to walk.

The best part, I could climb through our window and walked over to our tour mates room. Never tried that before.

We spend our nite at the 6th floor bar that have the view of hangang river. It was beautiful. We sat at one of the table and chit chatted with 4 tour mates till around 2am before going back to our room to pack and rest.

Last day at Korea, we visited the Amethyst factory/shop, there we found replica of the necklace that was featured in the K-drama Winter Sonata. Fang was excited cause we had earlier saw this necklace at Yongpyong Resort, and she was wondering whether replica of this necklace is being sold.

Next, we were whisked to the supermarket to do last minute shopping before going to the airport. Before leaving, we took a picture with the hardworking photographer - Billy whom had helped to carry our baggages for each changed hotel as well as serving us at all meals.

Definitely enjoyed myself @ Korea, with 2 of my good friends. The only part I do not like was that I felt the whole trip was pretty rush. Everyday was like rushing to meet the timeline. Hope the next trip will be a free and easy one instead of tour package.

Definitely will want to revisit Korea , as there are several other cities worth visiting.