TO KIMCHILANDIA WE WENT

Just over a week ago, I embarked on my ‘first vacation abroad’, with two good friends of mine, to the home of electronics-giants Samsung and LG, automobile-giants KIA and Hyundai, and of course, Lotte. The Land of the Morning Calm... SOUTH KOREA, BABY! =)  /*I do not count my HK trip last July as a vacation abroad, as that one’s business-related. Or so I call it.*/

So for a few days, I lived and breathed kimchi. Which is not entirely true as I do not really fancy eating vegetables (and fruits). But anyway, here is what I can tell you now... THE WHOLE TRIP WAS BLISS. It was like experiencing a good fraction of the best moments of my entire life within one week!

And because of that I will spend the next couple of weeks writing entries about our week-long trip. =) I hope the entries will give you a taste of Korea, if you haven’t been there (yet). Or give you tips and ideas in case you are planning to go there.

To start, let me introduce to you to the cast of the trip:

1.       Christian Michael Yee a.k.a. Arigato*

2.       Karen Ida Rempis a.k.a. Shortstride*

And of course...

3.       Lonewulf

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Minor cast:

Dale John Satur – my school mate in college, my high school classmate-dormmate-roommate, and the owner of the pad in Korea where the three of us resided during the trip.

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Now this part here is like a table of contents, which can be used by readers to navigate the entries related to the trip. =) I will be updating this part every time I upload a new, relevant entry. But for now, kindly bear with the incomplete list:

1.       Day 1 - Arrival + Snowboarding + Myeongdong Dinner (updated 3 April 2012)
    1.1 Snowboarding - Jisan Forest Ski Resort (updated 6 April 2012)

2.       Day 2 - Hwaseong Fortress and Namun Market (updated 11 April 2012)

3.  Day 3 - Everland! (updated 24 April 2012)

4.      Day 4 - Changgyeonggung + Trip to Jeju (updated 1 May 2012)

5.       JEJU - Nature (updated 3 June 2012)

6.    JEJU - Jeju Folk Village (updated 11 June 2012)

7.    JEJU - Teddy Bear Museum (updated 6 July 2012)

8.    JEJU - Chocolate Museum (updated 29 July 2012)

9.    JEJU - Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum (updated 27 August 2012)

10.  JEJU - Soingook Miniature Theme Park (updated 7 October 2012)

11. JEJU - Loveland (updated 7 October 2012)

12. ?

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And with that, I would like to end this entry by showing you my (post-trip) passport.

I was STAMPED again! Yay. Wait, shouldn’t there be a fourth stamp indicating I have returned to the country? Waaaghhh... Arigato and Shortstride, do we have the same number of stamps? *worried*

Having street food at Myeongdong

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*Because of the relative length of the trip, and our endless rants and raves against/with each other, we have developed nicknames of sorts. Xan was called Arigato, because he was most of the time mistaken for a Jap guy (more story on this in my succeeding entries). And Ida on the other hand, was nicknamed Shortstride because we noticed she always gets left during our "rush" walks around the city or practically anywhere we went to in the entire trip. She kept on blaming our "long strides", and thus her alias.