Musings of MissyNandar: A Journey to the K land! Day 2

Saturday, April 6, 2013

A Journey to the K land! Day 2 - 3 Feb 2013

We left our place around 830am as we wanted to reach the boarding point of Nami Island Shuttle bus by 910am. Jongno-3-ga was just 2 stations away from Euljiro-1-ga but Seoul subway stations are so big and we had to walk a lot. That was why we decided to leave early. And luckily, we left early. We reached the bus at 9:10 am on the dot! Well, the bus would leave at 9:30 am but we had not paid for our tickets yet. So if there were a lot of people, the bus driver would give priority to those who had paid for their tickets followed by those who reached first. And that's the reason why we wanted to reach early.

http://www.namisum.com/

After you come out from Exit 1 of the Jongno-3-ga station, just walk straight towards Jonggak. You will see the main entrance of a traditional park on your right. That is Tapgol Park. The shuttle bus to Nami Island will be at the side entrance of the park as indicated by the red star.

Each of us paid 23,000 Won for a round trip including bus fares, ferry fares and entrance fees.

We were pretty psyched about Nami Island as this beautiful place is the filming location of a hit drama Winter Sonata. When I came here during my student exchange program, it was in autumn. So I was interested to see how this island would look like in winter, like in the drama!!!

Back in 2010

Marry Me Mary was also filmed at Nami Island

Plus, both of us were in ACJC Guitar Ensemble and the Winter Sonata theme song had won us Gold with Honors at the bi-annual SYF Guitar Competition! So, the drama holds a special place in our heart (:

At the ferry wharf

We reached there around 11 am. The good thing about coming with shuttle bus is that you do not have to change trains, subway, bus, taxi so many times. You can rest during the 1+ hour ride. Plus, you do not have to queue to buy the entrance tickets since the bus driver already passes it to you!

Before we boarded the ferry

Entrance of the Nami Island

(note the snowman couple)

This kind of fire places were found in several places around Nami as the place was really cold in winter. You can even see the cute snowman couple enjoying the fire! haha :D

You will keep seeing these snowman everywhere in the island. I guess it goes to show how influential a Korean drama can be. This one scene from Winter Sonata makes snowman so popular that it has come to become one of the symbols of the Nami Island!

SNOW!!!

Growing up in Myanmar and Singapore will make you feel so excited to see SNOW! haha

The bad thing about snow is that when the temperatures drop further, snow can turn into ice and it makes walking such a dangerous activity!

See how they recycle their soju bottles? Quite creative yea?

Yummy Yummy Bibimbap for lunch!

See how cold it was? ICICLES!

Taking photos with these statues are a MUST!

Don's kiss her! :D

Won Bin Oppa!

Although there was no leave, somehow these trees still had their own beauty...

Can you see the two bicycles hanging from the tree? They were the bicycles used in the drama Winter Sonata! From 2002!!! They were from 11 years ago!

A hotel in Nami Island

There was a cafe behind me!

Jump-shot in snow

Singapore's Merlion!!!

As we were waiting for ferry to go back, we bought famous banana milk from the convenience store. You should try it when you are in Korea!

We boarded the shuttle bus around 3:40pm as it would leave for Seoul at 4:00pm. As we were waiting for the bus to depart, it started SNOWING!!! See those white things on our hair? They were snow (not dandruff :D). So we excitedly left the bus and took some photos in the snow. We were just so excited and happy like small kids. However, we soon learnt that we should not be happy about snowing as it caused massive traffic jam!!! We should have reached Seoul around 5:30pm but we ended up reaching only around 8pm!!! It was still snowing even more heavily when we reached back at Tapgol Park.

My travel buddy used to have a Korean roommate when she came to Singapore for student exchange program. This nice Korean friend treated us to a very very yummy Korean dinner in Insa Dong! She ordered soooooo many food for us! 감사합니다!

Beef

Pork & Kimchi

Glass Noodle (Japchae)

Octopus

Pancakes

Grilled Fish

We actually planned to explore Insa Dong after dinner. Stores in Insa Dong specialize in a wide variety of goods that can only be purchased or appreciated in Korea: Hanbok (traditional clothing), hanji (traditional paper), traditional tea, pottery and folk crafts. However, it was Sunday and it was snowing quite heavily so almost all the shops were closed by the time we finished dinner :(

But it was only around 9pm and we didn't want to go back yet. So we took a cab to Seoul station to buy Korean snacks such as banana milk, seaweed and ramen at the Lotte Mart. By the way, Korean supermarkets do not provide free plastic bags so if you have those big recycled bags for grocery shopping, do bring them. Otherwise, you will have to pay 1,000 Won for a big plastic bag.