Trip to Korea Part 1

I have decided to use RM1035 as my spending budget for this Korea trip.

And exchanged it to USD300. Ohmigosh..sakit hati, yea...

Which after that, I used a small part of it to exchange to a few hundred thousand Won. I have no idea exactly how much Korean won I have exchanged because of the different currency I have. It is also the first time I actually I have five different currency in my purse: Malaysian Ringgit, Singapore Dollars, Brunei Dollars, US Dollars and Korean Won.

Day 1 05.09.2008

Because the flight is from Brunei to KL and then From KL to Korea, I had to travel to Brunei first. Upon arrival, we had Excapade for lunch. Ah I miss Excapade. Then... we went for a bit of window shopping at Hua Ho and then headed to airport.

And so, we flew from Brunei to KL using MAS. I haven't use MAS for quite some time. Always use Airasia so I have forgotten how is it like to use MAS. It is gooodd... MAS airplane doesn't have this awful leathery smell that Airasia has. It has the smell of ... nothing. Unlike Airasia, you will have the smell of its leather seat in your hair after you use Airasia. Me like MAS.

The in-flight meal

Arrived at KLIA (ahemm... KLIA, not LCCT. Also havent been here for a few years already. I am so pathetic) at 4 something pm. All 15 of us had to wait at KLIA until 12.30 am for our flight to Korea. So, Mum, her two friends and I decided to give JWei a visit but canceled it because it is too expensive. The damn driver tried to slaughter us by chartering us a rm250 return trip to Jwei's condominium. So, we stayed at KLIA and had KFC for dinner.

And then we waited...

and waited...

and finally we boarded.

The in-flight snack and meal

As our flight is from 12.30am to 8 something am, we were greeted with the sunrise...

The pink horizon with the fluffly clouds

Btw, the flight to Korea is a co-op with Korean Air., which means that Korean Air steward and stewardess donned MAS uniform and served under MAS (I think this is what it means). This way, they can communicate with the Korean passengers and made the Korean passengers feel at home 'cause I think most Koreans can't communicate in English. Another thing... one of the Korean air stewardess (i think is from Korean Air) is rather rude to the non-Korean passengers, namely me and my other traveling companions. She is however being quite nice to the Korean passengers. All smiles to Koreans. Wahlau! Damn biased.

Anyways...We arrived safely at Incheon International Airport at about 8 something am and we had a bit of dissatisfaction with the punctuality of some of the tour mates. We met up with the Korean tour guide and got on our way to our first travel destination...

Hold on! Our first destination is supposed to be Jewel in the Palace's shooting place but that is not where we are heading. In fact, the Korean tour guide didn't even mentioned about this place at all. Instead, we were heading to our lunch destination. Along the way, we stopped for toilet break and I bought this.

Honeydew Ice Cream

Our first Korean cuisine is Chicken with Rice Cake and Veggie on Hot Pot. Don't know the Korean name. The weak point of this Korean tour guide, Mr. Chang, is that he doesn't tell the tour group the name of the dishes in Korean unless you ask him. He also doesn't teach us a few simple Korean words unless we ask him.

The dish is served with a few side dishes as well as seaweed soup. Rice was added to the hot pot later after we consumed some of the chicken and veggie.

Then, we headed towards Name Island, where Winter Sonata was filmed. There are a lot of people, including tourist and locals.

I have never watched Winter Sonata before. So... I don't have much ...feeling of the place. After Nami Island, we headed to our next destination...which is dinner. Pork and Squid HotPot.

We stayed at Saint Hiyan Hotel for our first night. It is a ski lodge during winter time and since it is autumn, there is no snow at all. But the air is very cooling and nice.

The next morning, we have American Breakfast. Little do we know, this would be our breakfast for every single morning. American Breakfast every morning.

Sherp, I asked the Saint Hiyan Hotel reception guy what does 'busurimalia' means. He said it is not 'busurimalia', it is 'busungmaria' (please pronounce with using BM) which means 'what are you saying' I later confirmed it when watching Korean Drama. The pronunciation is 'busungmaria' instead of 'busurimalia'

My initial plan to pick up dead autumn leaves, laminate it and give it as souvenirs is ruined because it is still early autumn. The leaves aren't dead yet. Darn....

Currently, I am at JWei's condominium unit. Mum has basically cleaned his unit from last night till this morning. From super dirty and messy to quite clean. Hehe...

Till next time.