korea holiday trip

finally getting down to this. here’s a backlog of our holiday trip! 

we came to korea most unprepared. with my schedule packed every minute since the end of exams till the day i set off, i was highly stressed and all i wanted was a good night’s sleep. fortunately i managed to catch that on the 6+2 hrs flight and later on the bus ride to gyeongju from incheon.

so a few friends sent us off at changi and the check-in queue was so long we queued for 1+ hour. sorry guys for not entertaining ya’ll and for the long trip you guys made. ):  will get you guys sth specially from korea

so how unprepared were we? we had zero command of korean; the only 2 words we knew were “annyong haseyo” and “sarang heyo”. we had only our first night of accommodation confirmed. and that was it. hahaha. as soon as we touched down, we got our gyeongju bound bus ticket and flight tickets (busan-jeju and jeju-gimpo). it was then another 5 hr bus ride to gyeongju and the moment we reached gyeongju inter-city bus terminal, we all had smiles on our faces. finally reached our destination. but that was also where the adventure began.

 

GYEONGJU

we wanted to check into our guesthouse to drop off our luggage before exploring the town. we had the address in english but most (90%) drivers can only read korean characters. he dropped us off at this pretty area called Sa Rang Chae Restaurant. we didn’t realise we were at the wrong place until we tried to enter the “house”. we laughed it off but thank God the owner managed to help us or we would have been stranded there. there goes our first midadventure. please, if you wanna come to Korea, learn some Korean characters or have your destination written in Korean characters cos people here largely don’t understand English.

Sa Rang Chae Guesthouse lifted up to our expectations from the positive reviews. it gave us a true korean feel.

big compound with things that can easily count as antiques. the kitchen was fully equipped and the rooms though simple was cosy. korean houses all have underfloor heating system so it was pretty warm inside (: definitely recommend this place to anyone who drops by gyeongju.

 

Gyeongju Day 1

 

 

at night, we walked in the vicinity of the town. only to realise that gyeongju is a really small town where almost everyone knows everyone. the streets are filled with shops, mainly “restaurants” with 2 or 3 tables, hair saloons and minimarts. we came across dodgy shops too where the lighting was red and girls could be seen through half open doors. hmm. shopping at the supermarket was fun. had my favorite green tea ice-cream (: gonna try all the ice-cream flavours and types before i leave