South Korea Winter Trip : Day 6 (Namsangol Hanok Village, Namsan Tower,otw to Busan)

Hey guys...

How y'all doing? Better than me, i hope. I've been feeling under the weather the last few days, in fact... The whole household's been feeling kinda low *sigh*, just at the long weekend! How perfect. I just brought Baby Boy to the doc and thankfully he managed to wait until we arrived back home to puke his guts out hehe. I've been super nauseated, bloated (yes, sounding so preggy-but i am not because i'm having my *very heavy* period at the mo #TMI) and even managed to pulled a muscle and too. Sniff. What's with the weather :(...? (Note : I wrote this yesterday, today we all feel 10x better!)

Anyway, better get on with the Korea trip post, not only writing about fun times traveling makes me feel better, i also desperately hoping to be able to finish the entire series before we go to our next trip! It's less than a month away though >.<.

We only stayed with the tour group until lunch time because then the rest of the members went back to Indonesia while we stayed for a few more days. Went to Hanok Village and Namsan Tower first.

Tom helped us snap this pic at Namsan Tower, while the view's pretty scenic... You can hardly see the tower itself, can't you???

Namsangol Hanok Village was the first location we went.

Au's never one to miss on any silly photo op

Neither does hunny. He sure makes one really ugly Korean girl *LOL*

There's just something about snow covered rocks...

Hunny and Sonny being cray cray

Erm, i hid my face under my fake glasses that day. Probably no time to do proper eye makeup *LOL*

I looked like i belong to this group of kids, eh? LOL

The temperature was very bearable, although there were still some snow all around

Obviously, the point of this village is to see the authentic Joseon houses and way of living. But honestly, i guess i'm too used with highly elaborate historical sites, i kept on hoping they'd put some wax figurine or something to illustrate the people haha.

Let's get in!

Didn't even know hunny snapped this!

Once we stepped into the actual houses area, we realized that there was some kind of festival going on (not full blown yet, sadly. It was too early or something) so we're lucky enough to be able to experience some traditional activities.

Like writing out wish letter for the new year

I wrote a pretty long list #kiasu with my fugly handwriting and my cray hunny's modelling it hahaha

Looking very happy hahaha

You can see how red and chapped the back of his hand in this pic, it was really scary-both hunny and KC experienced the scarily tense skin irritation caused by the cold weather #tropicalcreatures

Pastel papers carrying our wishes ^^

Meanwhile KC was busy observing the booths in the yard

The rest of us were still busy at the same activity booth

Trust me, using such a huge stamp's not as easy as you'd think -___-, i failed miserably that the attendant felt bad for me and let me try to do it again *and failed again FML*

Hunny's doing better than me haha

There are several houses in this village, but you can pick any one of them to get a closer look since they all kinda similar to each other

I don't watch a lot of Korean movies/drama especially the ones with older background but i felt immediately transported to the bygone era ^^

If you have more time, you can actually attend some craft workshops there

I always wonder how people from these era get comfortable with that kind of pillow? I get a stiff neck even with fluffy pillows if they're too big!

Totally unrelated, but i seriously love wooden flooring

Wanna try to cook here, anyone?

Pretty sure those clay jars are for kimchi..

Found a wishing (?) well

I begin to feel ashamed of our kiasuness *sigh* very Chinese of us. Wherever, whenever something offers the chance of upping your fortune, we'd crowd and do whatever asked to do hahaha

Didn't i look very preppy chic that day? LOL. FYI, love that woolen jacket i got Baby Boy at Uniqlo! We stumbled into a little girl wearing the exact jacket and he was not happy about it though *LOL*. Tell ya a secret, i can actually borrow his tops/jackets now... And yeah, i plan to borrow this jacket too...

Pigeons... Whatever country we go to, there'd be pigeons cluttering around... except Singapore. I see more crows cluttering around Singapore than pigeons WTH

LOLOLOL. What an ugly pair *got slapped immediately* LOLOLOL

We're done at the Hanok Village and head to Namsan Tower afterwards.

We had to hike a little bit up to the tower and the view's breath taking!

Wogh, looking extra long-legged here hahaha

Haii!

I got shamelessly excited when i saw the Etude Pink Wish Tree #becausepink

The Locks of Love

Like i said many times (repeatedly in this post as well), we're very kiasu. So kiasu that we actually went and buy cheap locks at a mini market earlier to avoid having to buy crazily overpriced locks in the tower itself-but alas... We left them at the bus *LOLOLOL FOL*. 

I have to be honest here and tell you that i am not a very romantic person (or at all *sigh*. I like the idea of romance, but my skeptical and easily-creeped out nature prevent me to actually enjoy it in real life. I like to see/read about it in movies and books but not carrying it in my own life) so i don't actually care much about things like this. Hunny-on the other hand, is actually a hopeless romantic *LOL*. He kept on saying how we had to place our own locks there and i kept on saying i'm not paying hundred bucks (Indonesian rupiah, i mean) for something so silly.

I was more than satisfied of just taking pics there

Selfie, of course

Cheeky wink from Baby Boy hahaha

But being married with someone for 8 years taught you a lot about the other person and also the importance of compromises. I can sense that it was pretty important to hunny and didn't want him to leave feeling disappointed because he has such a non-romantic waifu *LOL*, so at the very last minute i told him to go on and buy one-we had to run around like a mad person because it was actually 10 minutes to the appointed time to go back (yea, that's how stingy i am...)!

Of course i picked the pinkiest one la

Isn't the heart shaped key adorbsss?? I had to stop myself from shoving them in my bag and refuse to leave them there zzzz. Look at the wound in hunny's thumb, his fingers were all cracked and bloody the whole time we were in Korea-gross hahaha

Showing you my uber ugly hand writing

It seriously pained my heart ruining the perfectly cute padlock with my horrible hand writing

Placing our lock of love ^^

Hunny said we need to remember the location of the lock so that we can check if it's still there next time we go there

I almost refused to throw the key away, too cute!

Then we rushed back to the bus

And went for lunch-the last meal with the rest of the group

That day's lunch's star were fishes

And we seriously attacked the fried fish. I guess we're getting sick of Korean food and miss Indonesian food terribly-anything familiar's making us super happy. We kept on making comments about how some sambal terasi would be perfect hahaha

Then it was time to say goodbye to the rest of the tour group! Now the adventure begins ^^!

Starting with getting some subway cards for ourselves

And ride on the busy subway

Do touristy thing as we go

Then scrambling around trying to get train tickets to Busan, it was on a weekend and very very full-so full that in the end KC and hunny got separated far away in other wagons

Seol Station

The next train wouldn't depart in another few hours and everywhere was soooo FULL. Plus it was FREEZING so we were a little miserable hahaha. Finally snagged a seat at Dunkin Donut's!

Why don't we have seasonal cutesy donuts in Indonesia?

They're not only cute but yummy too!

CL came after wandering by herself bringing a shockingly huge bagel hahaha

We moved to the foodcourt later on because it was warmer, and finally time to board the train!

Unfortunately, Baby Boy and i had to seat facing some strangers -___-. The ahjumma sitting in front of me stretched her legs to my feet area when i fell asleep, i then realized that i couldn't move my feet thanks to her! Thankfully she then moved to another seat after some of the other passengers got off.

It was pretty late when we arrived in Busan so we decided to get something to eat at the station. The others went for Japanese food, but if you've been following my foodie posts then you'd probably know that i don't like Japanese food other than sushi-so we went for Korean food again hahaha. I thought something hot and brothy would be good since we're so tired.

I went for this plain beef soup because i thought i'd share it with Baby Boy

While hunny opted for a bibimbap

Then without any warning, Baby Boy puked all over the table! OMG. Wonder how much longer would i have to deal with that? He's such a puke machine, the only thing i worry about whenever we travel is him puking-he hardly ever get sick other than that during travels! But there's always a 90% chance of puking *sigh*. Hunny had to clean up the table himself (while scolding Baby Boy for not telling us that he was feeling nauseated *sigh*. He's almost 8, shouldn't he be able to tell when he's about to puke?) because it's a self-service kind of place and there was just two ahjummas manning the place-we all know how famously scary those ahjummas can be!

Our misery's not ended there. I had to throw away Baby Boy's gloves because he puked all over them-it's made of wool so it was super gross!  CL lost her brand new branded leather glove that she just bought a day earlier #deep sigh (hunny also lost the teddy bear from Hana, but at least we still got mine and Baby Boy's)-then no taxi would take us for some reason-and none of the taxi drivers can speak English.They just refused when we showed them the address of the guest house we're staying at for the night and got angry (probably because they didn't know how to explain) when CL asked why. That's the first time we're treated to the famously harsh Koreans *LOL*.

Thankfully we stumbled into a pair of young Koreans who spoke basic English (thank you, dear strangers! Your kindness will not be forgotten and we'll definitely pass in on! Pay it forward, people. Always try to help desperate foreigners *well, except if they're asking for money of course* because we'll never know when we'd be in that exact position!) and helped us begged the taxi drivers to take us. The guy who helped us even had to endure being scolded many times by our taxi driver (the one Baby Boy, hunny and i ended with was super rude OMG)-i felt so bad!

Once we're safely on the way (the station's apparently super far away from the city OMG), i thought our problem's all gone already. No such luck. The stupid uncle driver dropped us at the TOTALLY WRONG place and told us to go down anyway because he couldn't find the guest house! 

It was COLD, late and Baby Boy puked again while we were asking for directions (we had to ask like, 5x. Even with the kind hotel receptionists' instruction and one even printed us a map-again we're super grateful for those super kind and polite receptionists-nothing like the crazy cab driver) and i was getting more and more agitated. If it were just hunny and i, i wouldn't mind in the slightest-we'd probably had a good laugh about it instead-but i freaked out because i had my young son *who's not feeling so well* with us (FYI, i am a paranoid mother) so i was pretty much on the verge of tears.

We got lost for an hour or so, in the right neighborhood! There were just too many similar alleys-it's apparently the guest house area? Thankfully we then stumbled into yet another kind hearted Korean (i heard so much horror stories about Korean being unfriendly and wouldn't help foreigners-i gotta say that's very judgmental because there would always be good and bad people in every nation! And we stumbled into more nice and kind Koreans than otherwise!) who's not even from Busan (he's from Seoul and was also staying at a hotel at the area). He was talking on the phone and hunny approached him out of desperation, the guy actually used Waze and WALKED us to the guest house! Again, i am so grateful for all the help we got that night!

I almost wept from relief when we finally stepped into the cute, warm, cozy, clean and welcoming guest house! Because i absolutely love the guest house and the host, i would dedicate an entire post to review it! 

I'm going to wrap up this post here, and please look forward to our jimjilbang experience in Busan-right after the hostel review!

Toodles!

#Pink