Christmas in Korea [ Part 1 ]

It's winter in Korea!

I was in Korea from 22nd of Dec until 28 Dec. Therefore, for the preparation I brought a trench coat, winter boots, leggings and gloves to go there. In our itinerary, it was stated there as the temperature is at -6 and we were advised to prepared a windbreaker jacket. After a survey, I found out that a trench coat can only keep you warm until 0 celcius (something like this la I've been told by the salesgirl at the shop)

When I look at those windbreaker jackets, 1st thing came up in my mind was,

"Confirm gambar saya bida ni boss, bikin nampak gemuk ni jacket2 stail gini"

So, I decided not to buy windbreaker jacket, to be specific, yes I don't want to look fat in pictures. Turns out that it was the MOST STUPID DECISION I'VE EVER MADE. Superficial damage. *boo me*

Apa bole buat ba org kampung mana la tau mcm mana keadaan tempat salji2 :(

The first day in Korea, I only wore a legging, off shoulder tops with trench coat, gloves, socks and winter boots. Since we were all arrived at 5AM something so we didn't have much time to change the outfits so basically I just wearing my coat and gloves that I brought hand-carried from Malaysia.

I thought the trench coat can keep me warm for the rest of 8 days in Korea, but the moment we stepped out of the airport with our luggage and heading off to the bus early morning at 6AM++ , it was soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo cold at outside and I can see the white cloud of condensation whenever I exhale!

Something that we rarely.. eh wait, NEVER see in Malaysia.

*orang kampung kebaruan lagi*

Not only the trench coat, even the gloves I bought from Malaysia seems doesn't work at all. Only the boots and wool socks works perfectly. I have no problems with my foots during the whole 8 days in Korea.

1st day was a disaster, seriously. For the rest of the week in Korea, I took the 1st day experience as a lesson..

Never ever underestimate the power of mothernature.

Anyway, one thing I like about Korea was their food. I kind of like the idea of how the Koreans are very concern about their health especially kim-chi, that was rated as one of the World's healthiest food.

Refer here :

http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20410300,00.html

You can never run away from kim-chi in Korea, its their essential food to be eaten everyday. I don't have problems with kim-chi, I can munch on them despite the taste is quite weird when the 1st time I ate it but overall.. hey not bad! *kudos to the Koreans for the healthy food*

Ok, lets see the picture!

The first meal in Korea, I'm not really sure what's the exact name of it. I think it should be like Ramen or something.

Too bad our tour guide doesn't know how to speak English, so we have to wait for the other members or the tour leader to translate almost everything. Mom has tried to look for a guide who spoke English, I meant was, she requested to the tour company but I think they couldn't find one.

But still, the tour leader is a very nice person! Indeed :D

This was our first destination, the Gyeongbokgung palace, actually I have lots of picture in this palace but I forgot to set the shutter of my camera so it was all white and blank.

First day lunch, what they called this was something like Shabu-Shabu.

I was so surprised about the Korean food, hey not bad! I mean, I'm familiar with the Japanese foods but not Korea and I've never been to any Korean restaurant in KK so basically my first concern when coming to this country was the food.

My point of view about their foods - AWESOME .

This picture was taken at the Nami Island, place where they shoot the Winter Sonata drama that was so famous quite long time ago.

I'm not a big fan of Korean dramas but I do know about Winter Sonata, so went to a place that has a quite remarkable history of how it became famous, it's actually fascinating.

The place is nice. Seriously.

As the above picture, my arsenals!

You know you can't let go of technologies, so iPad , phone and chargers are essential. I also brought a book just in case I need something to read to kill the boredom in the flight.

So here, as you can see there were lots of snow almost everywhere.

This was the 2nd day in Korea. At first, I actually don't know where was this place as the tour guide spoke in Chinese. I made an effort by googling the name of it and it is actually 02 Resort at Taebaek City, somewhere in Gangwon Province. It took like 3 hours from Seoul to here. Btw, thanks to google for all these informations!

In my point of view, people came here during the winter season is mainly for 1 purpose - to skiing. So the 2nd day was only to play ski the whole day from morning till evening.

Anyway, Korea is fantastic because.. they provide free wifi spot almost EVERYWHERE.

Foods and fresh fruits from the local mart. Oh 1 thing I noticed about the Korean foods were the amount of calories they will state out in front of the packaging. So those who are in diet can think twice before purchasing.

Definitely because we can see the number of the calories is BIGGER than usual. Hahahahahaha

Here in Malaysia, we have to refer at the back of the packaging with the tiny numbers. I am watching my calories so when I was in Korea, those "numbers" they labelled has the significant psychological effect on me. HAHAHAHA

But for sure, I LOVE KOREAN FOODS! :D 15 over 10 !

This place is the Seoraksan Mountain, seriously you're going to see a breathtaking view!

It's actually a food, made from glutinous flour (each color has their own taste and flavour) and inside got something like yam or potato, I'm not sure but what I know I only munch on them and its yummy!

Took this picture because I think the name is fantastic.

I bet all the Sabahans will understand whenever they saw this tiny house at the Teddy Bear Farm. HAHA

I don't know if the owner of this cafe is Malaysian or Indonesian, interesting!

Above are the two pictures I took when we were having our lunch, it's actually a GINSENG CHICKEN!

Suuuuppperrrrr yummy and I can feel my saliva is bursting out in my mouth right now, they even put rice inside the chicken and cooked together inside the soup. Such a wonderful food!

Anyway that brown paste as you can see from the picture is something like their side dish or "sambal" in Malaysia. I swear, it tasted EXACTLY like bosou! *excitedness*. Ok what's bosou? It's our traditional food for the kadazan dusun race in Sabah, has quite strong smell and a bit sour. Btw, this Korean bosou I think is made from the yellow soy bean paste.

Since I'm a big fan of bosou, having this kind of food somewhere thousand kilometers away from the land below the wind makes me feel like.....

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HEAVEN! :D

You can see that face, you know! Heaven heaven!

This is the CHURROS!! I googled what is churros and found out that it is the Spanish doughnut. Seriously yummy, I can't stop eating it whenever I saw any stalls with churros!

The thing is, it's expensive. The cheapest churros I've ever bought in Korea is around 2500 Won, the most expensive is 3000 Won.

That's RM9 in Malaysian money. But WORTH IT!

Y U NO SELL IN KK???? :(

Ok, that's the end of my post for part 1. Too many photos, I don't think I can post all photos in one single blog post.

That would be a pretty long post.

Anyway, may continue the part 2 in few days later. More foodies picture will be uploaded, save some of your saliva for the next post! :D