We set off from school very early in the morning with our buddies (mine wasn't there because she had a job interview) with everyone in a confused state between being half asleep and raring to get going.
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| My name tag for the two days. |
The interior of the bus was really colourful and looked like one of those tacky 80s nightclub, which was kind of amusing. It was a four hour bus ride to our destination, Suncheon, which is located in between Seoul and Busan. Around two hours into the ride, we had a rest stop where we could spend half an hour exploring or taking selcas in the washroom.
I feel as though I'm back in Singapore with my family again and we're going on a road trip to KL. We probably should again when I get back.
There were many shops selling local delicacies and I couldn't resist buying a packet of 호두과자 (walnut cakes). I wasn't hungry, I ate lots of breakfast but since we're on a trip I figured I should cut myself some slack. My mission here was to try every single thing at least once anyway. Since it was almost noon, there were already lots of walnut cakes ready for sale so the machine that churns out the cakes was at rest. I wished I could have seen the shopkeeper prepare the cakes though.
I bought a small packet of cakes for 3,000W and there were at least ten huge cakes inside. Even after I shared them with my friends, I still had plenty left. The cakes were soft and warm, and the walnut paste was smooth with tiny cubes of walnut that honestly didn't add much bite to the cake. On the whole it had a delicious traditional flavour but I recommend sharing it with friends and family as you probably won't want to finish the entire bag by yourself. It's too filling and keeping it for later would make it cold and too soft.
If I knew that we were having lunch immediately after this, I would not have bought the walnut cakes. Throughout this entire trip, we were being fed like pigs and considering we only paid 20,000W for the entire trip, I wonder how much did the trip really cost and how on Earth did the organisers pay for everything. It remains a mystery to me till now.
For lunch, we went to a restaurant in a mushroom farm for beef and mushroom shabu shabu. We sat four people to a table, but the restaurant accepts parties of twos and threes as well. Other than beef, they also had other kinds of meat but mushrooms are a staple in their menu. I'm not too sure about the others but for the food we had, it was about 45,000W for four and take 10,000W off for every person less.
Since the restaurant was housed in a mushroom farm, we were served five different kinds of mushroom, freshly picked from the farm and we also tried their specialty mushroom tea. The manager told us that other than having various health benefits, the tea is good for cleansing our palates in between courses and also aids digestion of the oily food. Game for trying any kind of food, I savoured the entire cup although some of my friends bailed after one sip. The mushroom tea smelt like chicken essence but tasted...funny. I don't know how else to describe it. It was quite an experience as all the tea I've had previously were nothing compared to this.
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| Beside the salad bowl is the mushroom tea and in between the salad and the hotpot is freshly ground wasabi sauce! |
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| This wasabi coleslaw salad tasted so refreshing and appetising I could have a pot of it! |
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| (top) Spinach and spicy cuttlefish. (middle) Cold pickled radish slices. (bottom) Cabbage kimchi and coleslaw. |
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| Sorry for the bad picture but look at all that mushroom! |
The meal was split into three different courses - beef and mushroom, noodles and fried rice - and my table skipped the second course because we were simply too full. But we did try strands of noodle from our neighbouring table. The noodles were soft and tasty but I'm glad we gave it a pass.
As the staff had already prepared the ingredients for the fried rice, we gave it a shot and it turned out to be a delicious choice. You get to have the fried rice cooked in front of you, which was an interesting experience and the fragrance of the fried rice really tempts you to dig in. Just like us, my Korean friends say that the best part of the pot is the burnt rice at the bottom!
After the very satisfying lunch, we went to the Garden Expo at Suncheon Bay. Starting from this year, the Garden Expo would become an annual affair, which will be held for six months from April to October. We stayed there for around three hours, but the place is really huge so tourists who want to explore every single inch of the place should at least be there for an entire day.
The expo starts early in the morning at 9 and closes in the evening around 6 but visitors are free to visit the ecological park, which remains open until the sun sets around an hour later. Admission isn't free and you have to get a ticket, which costs below 5,000W (I can't remember the exact figure). Getting there might be a problem if you don't drive but I think there shuttle buses to the expo ground from the neighbouring cities such as Seoul and Busan.
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| Green bean ice cream to get us started! |
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| This rock is actually a disguised stereo box. |
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| We explored the maze garden and came out alive! |
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| For those who don't like to walk much, don't worry, there's a guided bus service available at the price of 2,000W. |
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| We decided to explore the hill right in front, where everyone was walking around in circles to reach the top. |
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| I feel like I'm in Teletubby Land for some reason. |
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| Almost to the top of the hill! The slopes are really steep and the path is really small, so extra caution needs to be taken or not you'll implicate those on the lower grounds as well. |
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| Many little children come here for their field trip, which they'll end off by having a picnic by the streams. |
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| Can you see the words? The tiny dots are actually tiny pots of colourful cacti neatly arranged to form pictures! |
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| We stopped by at a traditional house for drinks and rest. |
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| I got shikye, a traditional rice drink. |
The cafe that we went to for a short rest was located in the Korean Traditional Garden section, where there were traditional houses being put up for exhibit and also traditional games held in the square for visitors to try their hand at.
After our break, we went into an indoor exhibition (partly to avoid the Sun) that showcased many different types of plants and also how people from various parts of the world decorate their gardens. There were so many Asian gardens on display but none of them were from Singapore, which was a pity.
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| Koreans believe that if you make a wish upon a stone stack, the wish will come true if the stone stack doesn't topple. |
We went into another indoor exhibit which turned out to be a huge bazaar selling potted plants and souvenirs from the different countries that participated in the expo. I wished I had the foresight to bring my wallet down from the bus, instead of having to scrimp on the few miserable notes and coins when buying presents back.
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| Presents for the pesky two kids at home! |
I was so proud of myself for daring to ask the imo for a discount on the two ocarinas and she agreed, although a little annoyed. :') Now they can have one each instead of having to share a huge one. Sharing is weird when it comes to this, but these two ocarinas are kind of small to be played comfortably come to think of it.
Everyone was really exhausted by now so we headed to our accommodation for the night, which is a pension near Suncheon Bay. Pensions are the korean equivalent of chalets back home. The place was really spacious (enough to live five comfortably) and even had a toilet and small kitchen en-suite. This thrill and excitement would soon dissipate later in the night as I realised how hard the floor was and how freezing cold the natural air-conditioning was.
We had an hour of rest time before dinner so I went for a walk with my friend to explore the area. It wasn't much of an exploration as we ended up chilling too long in the room.
The area where we lived at was famous for its shellfish, so dinner was a seafood feast with lots of yummy side dishes. Although I was still stuffed from lunch, I couldn't help but devour the shellfish as I rarely find seafood in Korea and they were so delicious! The shellfish looked a little like cockles except when I opened it, I got a pleasant surprise for the shellfish meat was at least twice the size of cockles.
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| The fiery red mess in the middle is a spicy shellfish salad, which reeked of spice leaves but I still happily gorged on. |
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| (left) Grilled squid, chewy sweet potato noodles, chives pancake. (middle) Grilled fish, fresh shellfish. (right) Kelp, radish kimchi, cabbage kimchi. |
It was cute how our Korean buddies prepared games and prizes for us after dinner, but it ended earlier as the crowd wasn't that responsive due to the after-meal syndrome. My friends and I went out for a walk again, which also ended prematurely as the weather was too cold and we gave in to the temptations of having 빙수 (shaved ice dessert). The irony.
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| Although it was freezing, we ate ice and sat outside. The cold fried our brains. (the triple irony) |
We settled for a mango bingsu and it was the best mango dessert I have ever had in my entire life. Totally worth the expensive 11,000W. The bowl was frozen so that the shaved ice will remain solid till the very last bite and the mango cubes were frozen too, which made them taste like sherbet instead of the soft fruit. Very refreshing! I don't know how, but the shaved ice was infused with a faint scent of milk that gets stronger as you plough into the bowl. My favourite part was the bottom layer of ice, which had the strongest taste of milk and was really creamy. The red bean paste was a little too sweet and the rice cake was unnecessary but on the whole, I would give this bingsu three thumbs up if I had one extra.
I was really tired and I can't drink so I didn't join my Singaporean friends who continued the party with their Korean buddies in the other room. I stayed in my room with the Japanese students and I made a new friend! She's the Korean buddy to the Japanese students and she speaks Japanese so well I thought she was an exchange student. Her name is Nayo and she studies Fashion Design in Dong A. Other than Japanese, she can speak a little French and English too, which is so cool.
Our poor aching backs.
xoxo, ❀
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