Korea - 2nd day, part 1

26th October 2006

WOKE UP, for a moment i forgot i was already in Korea... next thing i noticed was my 2 legs were numb... and my whole body was so cold, freezing cold... i tried to touch my legs, they were as cold as ice i can hardly feel the warmth of the blood at all... then i suddenly realized, gosh i AM in Korea, and i remembered very well the night before the room was as hot as an oven!! must be the bloody ajumma and ajoshi switched off the heater already, so damn cold.

checked the clock, it's 4.30am... damn, still a long time to dawn... i quickly took out my long john and put them on, took another blanket and covered myself... still too cold... i took out 2 sets of socks and put them on too... now i felt my bladers were full too... couldn't help i have to make that trip... i quickly put on my jeans (i still have the long john on)... i walked out and felt myself has become so clumsy... i entered the not-so-clean toilet, couldn't help... quickly squat down, GOSH my butt could feel the cold air... but it has to be done...

*here skip 2 paragraphs of details* haha

after about 15 minutes finally i got all my business done coz the day before i have never "done" it, i probably fell sick for that, that's why i have to get it all out... ok, too much details i guess, haha! then i tried to flush... it's a very old-school flush system... once... flaaaaa.... didn't really work... i stood there and wait for another 3 minutes for it to refill... then flushed again.... flaaaaa.... didn't work too... another 3 minutes... flaaaaa.... still not working... i got fed up, so i went to the bathroom next door, took the pile and filled it up with water and manually flushed the **** down... hahaha... finally...

when i got back to the room, it must be about 5.15am already... my sister was sitting up looking at me... i thought she must have felt too cold too... hahaha... i went in our bathroom to check... damn, no hot water too... i quickly washed my face with the icy tap water, changed into my winter clothing, haha, and cursed the bloody ajumma... hahaha... i should not curse... i didn't , i just exaggerating...

after just a short while, the sun come out and it's all shiny and everything, i looked out the window, mmm... there's actually river and brigde just opposite our homestay and it's actually quite pretty... i could see a few maple trees from the room already... me and my sis decided that no point we stayed in the room. it's so cold, we might as well just walk out and look around and perhaps find some breakfast to eat.

so around 6am, we walked down the stair and to the street... here in the photos, the red arrow is pointing to the room we were staying. and this street is the only street in this small town, or so we thought...



and this is the river that i talked about... pretty or not??


then i saw this big signboard which illustrates the whole Jirisan...

when i took a closer look, it is not really helpful at all because... you guess it right again! - NO ENGLISH... sigh... the only 5 English words are "information of Chiri National Park". Don't worry, we were not in the wrong park, Chiri and Jiri are the same... unlike Cheongju and Jeonju they are different!!! so damn confusing!! sometimes "ch" can replace "j", sometimes it can't!!! gosh... hahaha! so since it's not really of any use to us, we walked down the street hoping to find breakfast... i got too hungry and decided we just go back to the ajumma's place for breakfast...

when we walked in the restaurant, the ajumma was still sleeping on the heated floor... reminded me of how i was waken up by the coldness... damn... the ajoshi was smoking with another ajoshi, either a friend or a guest and he quickly woke up the ajumma... we walked up the wooden floor... awwww... so warm... (bloody hell)... we sat down, the ajumma just did her eating gesture, we nodded... and she didn't even bother to ask us what we want to eat and walked straight into the kitchen... haha, i guess she has figured out that we couldn't communicate anyway, so she just made her own decision of what we should eat. hahaha...

and tada, you can all see the picture above... that's our breakfast... the truth is the beansprout soup was super nice because it's hot!! just nice for my empty cold stomach!! but the kimchi... hahaha, again they were too hot for me! i didn't finish all, i don't really eat breakfast... somemore it's 6am so early... and Malaysia time was only 5am!

we took our time to eat, coz it's really cold outside... after we have finished, we paid, if i'm not wrong, won10000 or RM40... and then, we started our first travel itinerary - Baemsagol Valley, Jirisan Park...

just a teaser, so that you stay tune... this is one of the picture we snapped there...

from now on, there will be a lot of photos... so many that you will beg me to stop... hahaha... so, stay tune!!! coming soon...

Korea - the 1st day - 2nd part

25th October 2006 late afternoon

Ok, i woke up around 3.10pm, the bus was still on the road. i was getting a bit sick of the scenery outside, and thinking to myself why the hell i'm here? then, the bus slowly approaching a ... temple... err... yeah it looks like a temple to me... oh no, it's actually a toll!! goodness...

i checked my watch again, mmm... 3.15pm... we might just make it to the 3.30pm bus to Baemsagol. i was so hopeful. but very fast, the bus caught up in the traffic, stopped by a few places, i kept on looking around if those were the places i supposed to stop... but i supposed i shall only leave the bus when it TOTALLY stop... so i still waited... 3.20pm... 3.25... 3.28... up til this point, i know my chance has gone. buses in korea are very punctual one.

true enough, we reached Jeonju bus terminal 3.35pm, ran straight to the counter and was informed that 3.30pm already left. the counter lady was very helpful... mmm... too helpful that she suggested us instead of waiting for the 5.05pm last direct bus to Baemsagol, we could consider taking a bus to Inwol (引月) and there will have more buses going to Baemsagol... okay, i GUESSED that's what she meant!!! i don't think i will understand any of them fully with 1% English 50% Korean & 49% body language...

At this stage, me and my sister exchanged eye contact, and we just purchased the tickets to Inwol without thinking. i think we both were really tired and whatever will be will be lah... you said so we trust you... hahaha... and by the way, i like the name of the city very much, very poetic! well, is it even a CITY?? we shall find out soon... haha...

3.50pm, we were on the bus again!! and i don't think i've ever changed so many buses before in my life. worse still, in a foreign country to an unknown destination... the bus went into more rural area now, the roads became narrower, the sceneries became browner, houses became smaller and simpler... passengers got on the bus would talk and joke with the bus driver. at this point of time, we knew, we were going into some village area.


the bus stopped for a few more times, then it reached a small station around 5.10pm. everyone on the bus left. the bus driver stepped out from his seat, talked to us in Korean, which of course i don't understand a single word except "Baemsagol, Baemsagol". he signalled us to follow him with his hand, but we were not sure whether we shall go down or wait, moreover we have big heavy bags with us, we were not sure whether to leave the bags and follow him down or what? we slowly lifted our bags, the driver got impatient, walked up the bus and talked to us louder this time, so we were pretty sure we WERE supposed to follow him. we quickly moved our butts and followed his lead to yet ANOTHER bus... sigh... i asked the driver don't we need to buy tickets, he just shaked his head and pushed us up the bus... gosh... i felt so insecure.

we walked up the other bus, i asked the other driver how much... he didn't seem to understand me, he just pointed to the seats and hurried us in. apparently he has to leave already. before we could even sit down, the bus has started to leave the small small station, which we suspected is not Imwol... where were we?? i felt so damn lost...

here are a couple of photos my sister took on that journey...


Pretty they are, but i was not in the mood to appreciate them that time. i was too busy feeling insecure, as you all can see, it was getting dark and the place was getting more and more "ulu" now... and we were not sure whether we got on THE correct bus or not...

more students came up the bus, making noise, shouting to each other... the bus stopped by the side of the road, the driver shouted at the few kids at the back, those kids walked down and waved goodbye to the driver and some of their friends still on the bus... few aunties hopped on the bus... and it was completely dark outside just few minutes shy of 6pm... we went deeper and deeper in...

until about 6.10pm i think, the bus stopped by a gate/entrance, which suddenly i felt relief coz i was pretty sure it was the entrance for the Jirisan National Park. an uncle came up the bus, walked to us and uttered more Korean words, but by tearing 2 tickets in front of us, I think i know what to do. i checked the price stated on the ticket and gave him Won3200 (RM12.8) for 2 tickets. the bus continued into the darkness again... after 10 more minutes or shorter i was not sure anymore, we stopped at I-don't-know-where-the-hell street and we walked to the front of the bus (only left 2 of us), and the driver said "3 thousand won"... i knew we were there already. to double check i asked "here is Baemsagol", the driver answered "yeah yeah".

we walked down the bus, freeziing cold and dark street, just 1 row of shops and NO ONE is around... it's like a DEAD town... we were so so so so so lost... then out of the sudden, an aunty walked out from the 1st restaurant and started talking to us in Korean... &@%$^*!%#$*^@!#!*%... which we waved our hands and said "we are not Koreans"... the aunty then mimed a sleeping gesture by putting her hands to her canted head and said "min-bak? min-bak?" thanks to my sister who watched Korean dramas faithfully she understand min-bak means "homestay"... too tired to think, and desperately need a rest and a place to put down our bags that were getting HEAVIER, we agreed to go upstair with her.


we walked up the stair, walked passed a dimly lit and wet (dirty) corridor, and reached a room. the ajumma (aunty) opened the door. my sister said okay, i guess she was just to tired to think anymore. we asked for the price, ajumma said "yee-man-wu-qian-won"... which i thought it means 15000 won (RM60) which is quite cheap for a room with TV and attached bathroom... but looking at her finger, she pointed 2 fingers up, only i realized in Korean, "yee" means "two"... so it is actually won25000 (RM100)... well i was tired too, so i took out the money and paid her. she smiled at us and left...

wait a minute, isn't she supposed to give us a key or something?? then only later i found out that no key will be given and it's actually SAFE to leave the room unlocked.

so here you go, my accomodation for the first night in Korea. it's called a "ondol". lay maitress on the heated floor, and you can go to sleep already. not bad an experience.

after putting down the bags and tidy tidy a bit, we decided to go down take a look at the street and perhaps ask some information about hiking Jirisan. we walked to the nearest convenient shop, which we came to realize owned by the same ajumma renting us the room... so using our not so useful English, and her not so useful Korean, i think we got a faint idea of what we should do tomorrow morning. and suddenly we felt hungry and decided to go look for dinner. and we ended up having our first dinner in the restaurant owned by the ajumma too... hahahaha.... ok ok we were hopelessly tired and lost all our adventurous spirit. hahahah... but the dinner was actually pretty good.


We had bimbap (which means mixed rice with vegetables in soya paste or something) and kimchi tofu soup or something... okay, you guess correctly, we didn't even know what we ordered because again, communication breakdown. so we just simply point point here and point poin there, have our fingers crossed and hope for the best. wuahahaha.

so, not bad hor by the look of it... the turth is, only the bimbap is nice... the rest are either too salty or too hot. YES, you heard me right, too hot!! i don't mean the temperature, i mean the "spicy-ness"... we MALAYSIAN kalah lah if compare the hotness of the food there! the kimchi soup and most of the kimchi side dishes were so hot that we couldn't finished them. then the ajumma and her husband and family were having their dinner too on the next table. we took a peek of the uncle (ajoshi) eating whole green chili with red chilli paste just like that!!! pengsan terus... when the ajoshi noticed us looking at him, he offered us those green chillies, which we quickly rejected... then he offered us "shou-ju" (rice liquor), which we also quickly rejected... wa lao wei, these people really enjoy life hor!!! wuahahaha!!!

after dinner, we paid (won12000 or RM48) and went up to our room to take bath... my sister then realized there's no HOT water to bath... so i went down to the ajumma to ask... now i again mimed like a crazy charlie chaplin, repeat "hot hot? water water? bath bath?" like a million times... the family looks puzzled, the younger daughter broke into laughters, the ajumma brought out a pile, i shaked my head, tried harder to explain, the ajumma brought out another ladle... i gave up. i thanked them and walked up. my sister was very upset coz there's no way we could take the bath with the icy water in a freezing weather.

i decided to give it another try. this time i brought along a travel guide which it teaches how to pronounce "hot water" but of course they mean to order hot water to drink lah... but it's worth a try... so i asked the ajumma with my half past six Korean "mul? mul?" she thought i want water to drink... then i did my famous taking bath gesture again... still she didn't get me... i then pointed to the water filter and pointed to the red button (indicating hot water), then repeated the bathing gesture again... then finally the ajoshi understood... he also mimed the gesture of turning the water tap to left hand side... (of course we have tried turning the tap to left, we are not idiots, but it didn't work)... well, i very malas to explain any further, just thanked them and went upstair to tell my sis the bad news...

ok, so we decided to do as they said, but left the water running for longer time. after about 3 minutes, the water turned to hot... yahoooo!! bathing time!!! it got so hot i nearly got burnt!! hehehe... and the floor was very well-heated too... i changed to my singlet and short pants... and quickly fell asleep....

to be continued... the next morning when i became the iced-leg-man... :P

Korea - the 1st day - 1st part

24th October 2006

KLIA, me and my sister are taking Cathay Pacific flight from KL to HK. we were there around 3.30pm to catch the 5.55pm flight. Reached HK airport by 10pm to transit to Incheon by 12.20am.

so for 3 hours there, we wandered around the magazine shop where i bumped into some porn magazine that displayed shamelessly (haha), this amazed me! then we rest at the food court area... didn't buy any food, my sis slept for a while, and i was busy preparing my powerpoint presentation with my laptop there. it was so quiet, 90% of the stalls have already stopped their business for the day, the cleaning ladies came out to work. so we left that area and proceed to the departure gate 25 for our flight.

25th October 2006

The flight was on time. we had our supper on plane and i was hoping to catch "the lake house", but was too tired and dozed off. later about 3am i was awake by this severe headache, more like a migraine or electric shocks, that maybe due to the pressure change... didn't know i have that problem. but luckily we were about to arrive at Incheon in less than half an hour time... so i rubbed my head.

We arrived 3.40am or Korea time 4.40am, and in this early morning, me and my sister were stopped by the imigration officers and were detained for interrogation. i was so blurred i didn't know what happen but just follow the direction given by the officer and went into the room. later i saw my sister walked in too. the female officer hold a small microscopic lens and inspected every single page of my passport, same thing to my sister's too. the male officer who's infront of my sis kept on asking her what's her purpose of going into Korea. i found the whole thing funny though. after about 10 minutes i finally realized i could be held here for a long time... so i asked the lady what seems to be the problem?... then only she threw me a smile and explain that Malaysian passports are easy to forge. mmm... so by then i was a suspected "jump aeroplane" person. then finally she asked me the million dollars question of why i went to Korea, so i answered her for conference. her eyes sparked a bit and asked for any documentation to prove, for that i passed her the invitation letter of the conference. then another officer (of higher rank) was called in and after a while we were released.
about 5.30 in the morning, nothing was opened, we wandered the airport to familiarize ourselves and to look for any information booth. the first thing we did is to rent a handphone of GSM system and insert my sis's sim card in. Tada it works wonderfully, it was so easy.

Then we found a spot and sat down, can't sleep at all... i guess we were too shaken by the imigration drama. haha. we waited until 6.30am when most of the counters and shops started business. we approached a few airlines like Korean Air and Asiana Air for tickets from Gwangju to Jejudo after my conference, but to my surprise they were ALL FULL... which made us panicked cause it would ruin and totally change our traveling plan...

Here is our original plan:
25/10 - morning take bus to Cheongju, reach there by afternoon for Hotspring and flower rice. evening take bus to Namwon to stay a night.
26/10 - morning going to Jirisan national park to hike and to experience autumn red maple forest. afternoon take bus to Gwangju and i'll be able to attend the welcoming dinner.
27-29/10 - my conference. then by 29/10 evening we take plane to Jeju
30-31/10 - tour around Jejudo and shall take the earliest flight on 31/10 back to Seoul/Gimpo airport, then the rest of the day until 1/11 will be at Seoul before our flight back to Malaysia on 11am.

but now, if there's no ticket from Gwangju to Jejudo, we sorta wanna change our plan to go Jejudo first then take a reverse plan to tour all the way up north... so we checked with airline and it seems that all flights to Jejudo from Incheon was also FULL until late evening.... OMG!!

We got panicked, until 7.30am when the famous travel information booth opened, we quickly ran there to seek for advice... i shall skip all the craps... and go straight to 8.15am... yes, we spent 45 full minutes there asked this and that... there must be 10 different plans, and we finally settled to go to Cheongju by airport limousine bus (original plan). the girl at the counter was very helpful. she phoned to another person and confirmed that there's a direct bus from Cheongju to Jirisan national park and we can stay a night at Baemsagol Valley which is located inside the Jirisan. she pointed us to the correct gate and taught us patiently how to buy ticket from which counter and how much... so we just followed and finally got our tickets 8.30am... then only we realized we were so HUNGRY. my sister quickly ran to a shop to buy roti and milk while i went to find the correct bus and hold it. it was a pain in the a** for there's no English word at all and people there don't speak English at all. so i have to compare the Korean words printed on my ticket to every bus and finally found it... my sister ran in on time and the bus left punctually 8.30am... phew....

the girl at the information booth told us it will take 4 hours to reach Cheongju, so we expected to reach there by 12.30pm. so we slept and slept. i woke up around 11am, and just a while later we arrived at Cheongju...
WAIT A MINUTE... aren't we supposed to only reach here by 12.30pm?? how come now only 11.20am dah sampai pun??

anyway, since we were already here, so nevermind lah, early is better than late mah... we didn't suspect anything wrong. then just when we stepped down the bus, we saw another tourist information center, so we happily went in hoping to get more information. the girls inside the center were so so helpful and friendly. only 1 girl - i think called Minghyang or MingYung or something, their name sounds all the same... - who can speak good English. and shockingly to us, there's NO direct bus from Cheongju to Jirisan as been told to us by the girl in Incheon!!!! *add thunder storm sound here*

So, we showed Minghyang the plan laid down by the Incheon girl, and she told us laughingly that we have come to the WRONG city!! the Incheon girl meant "Jeonju" and not "Cheongju"... pengsan terus...!!! no wonder so fast reached liao lah, kononnya Jeonju is yet another hour away from Cheongju... GOODNESS!

But not to worry, Minghyang said, since you are here might as well visit some of the tourist spots here lor... she recommended some fortress and paper museum, but we were having the hotspring and flower rice in our mind. then she checked checked and come back to us with yet another shocking news - if we want to catch the last bus to Jirisan, we only left a little less than 1&half hours in Cheongju, which means hotspring and flower rice are just too far from us!! so we suggested take taxi there, we rather pay more money than doing nothing there... so this very helpful girl walked us to the taxi stand across the road and checked with the driver, and again we were so disappointed to find out that to take taxi to the flower rice will take us 20 minutes, to and fro 40 minutes, which means we only have less than 40 minutes... sigh...

no choice, Minghyang then suggested us to take bus to the nearby paper museum. we waited at the busstop where i suddenly miraculously know how to read Korean words on the electronic board and found out we have to wait for another 22minutes before the next bus arrived. i confirmed it by miming to the ajumma (aunty) there... so me and sister decided not to go anywhere but to find ourselves some lunch and hop on to the earlier bus to Jeonju then to Jirisan.

We went to the nearest shopping mall, if not mistaken it's LotteMart... and immediately my sister was all hyped up! why? because she found a bakery called "Paris Baguette", not because the bread there are of any special but because the spokeperson for the bakery is Hyun Bin - her idol. she snapped snapped some photos, and the ajumma inside started to giggle and a few of them started to gossip. we left the bakery without buying anything.

then we stopped by a fastfood restaurant because we can't find anything decent to eat. so we decided to have something safe. it's called Lotteria, and we have a rice burger with some cheese roll and mixed salad. quite yummy the rice burger. not bad not bad. for 2 sets of the meal, it costs us Won8500, which is RM34 (expensive also hor). only problem is we went thru hard time explaining what we wanted to order cause again they don't speak English not even a single word... sigh...

Then we went back to the information center, told Minghyang that we didn't go anywhere, she was so surprised... we took our bags and laptop that we left there earlier and proceed to the bus terminal.

This time we were extra careful when purchasing ticket, cause we didn't want to end up in Seongju or Keongju. so we have already asked Minghyang to write us our destination and plan in Korean on a piece of paper.


We went to the counter and showed them the paper and asked for 2 tickets. and this time we were quite sure we got on the correct bus. i think we must have left Cheongju around 2pm. We should reached Jeonju 3.30pm so that we can catch the 2nd last bus to Baemsagol by 3.30pm too, or else we would have to wait for the last bus which was 5.05pm... and yes, that day must be our unlucky day, we reached Jeonju 3.35pm, and the 2nd last bus has left....

to be continued...

The early morning radio show

It was 19th October, a fine thursday night. i have just finished watching "Open season" on IMAX and have been both amazed and tired of experiencing the 3D effect (again, last time was "Polar Express"). After saying goodbye to my friends in Times Square, i sped my way to Angkasapuri, get lost for a while cause the hidden entrance was so freaking hard to find! finally by 11.20pm, i managed to, after much worried and frustrated, find the glitzing grand entrance of our famous government owned radio and television stations - RTM.

This was not my first time here, last time i was visiting my friend who worked there as news editor, so i was very well awared of the procedure of surrendering my identity card and some interrogation... haha... like visiting palace like that. then i walked my way toward the radio building and looked for AiFM. when i walked pass a whole stretch of radio studios, i can feel the coldness, not only from the centralized air-cond, but also of the clean empty well-lit corridor, which really was lacked of human warmth, and i wonder to myself - who would want to work here? it's the feeling of loneliness that killed me.

Half way through the corridor i found AiFM, i showed myself in to the guest room and i saw JiAn (the DJ) and Ho YuHang (film director) were inside the recording studio doing the 1st 2 hours of the show. I was scheduled for the 2nd half which is very much graveyard 12-2am. it was a torture for old man like me to stay up and awake after 12am nowadays, and of course the DJ noticed this, so this has been some sort of practical joke for the programme that whole morning... sigh...

so, how was the show? i must say... boring... maybe because of the topic we discussed, or maybe because of the mode of delivery, or maybe it's due to the content that lacks depths, or even maybe due to the late hours, i can't help yawning...

2 films we discussed. the 1st hour we talked about "the sound of music", the ever ever classic musical. and the 2nd hour we talked about "dancer in the dark", the ever ever cult musical. i told JiAn that for the classic i will mainly focus on my nostalgic but faint memories of watching it, hence it'll be mainly personal, but for the cult i would really like to discuss the inconventional usage of musics as motif and style. but i have to confess that i was and am still disappointed that we ended up recalling the plots and playing the songs.

i have to admit that i'm not familiar with the show at all... maybe his format is like that - talking about plots... but i'm sure that's not the case with other guests like Tsai MingLiang or Yasmin Ahmad... maybe it's me... i don't know... maybe because of the DJ's lack of interest in musical genre. OK, i was the one who wanted and suggested the topic - musical films, and JiAn already told me that he wasn't too familiar with musicals, and even he is kinda cynical towards musics in films. He believes that if films can touch people without music, why do we need music? and he also expressed his disgust of the "abuse" of music in most Hollywood films. i dare not agree at all.

here's my arguments! i studied music, i played piano, i learned music theory, i have my diploma in pianoforte performance. to me, music is an expressive channel. musicians use music to express their love, hate, passion, anger, without the help of visuals. musics has its own history thousand of years before film. So, i always believe that if use properly, music can be a very effective element in telling film stories. let's not condemn music simply because a few films overload with meaningless music. i can give you tons of examples, but i guess i'll save this for future post.

that's the reason why i would like to talk about musical on his show - to argue for the importance of music in movie, and to talk about few films that creatively use music... but we ended up talking craps... i was also deeply disappointed of myself not being able to uphold my intention due to the domination of the DJ, just like i was told by a few friends that the DJ was doing perhaps 80% of talking. it is not easy to cut in an unplanned speech of an agressive DJ. i was known as the most, if not second most, sarcastic lecturer in my university, or even my ex-college... but i was shot down that night - for my age, my job as lecturer in an "university", and my all-so-mainstream taste of films - which i unwillingly laugh it off during the show. it's pointless to argue with a young and talented DJ, which only will make me 'sound' shallow on air.

ok, i'm not here to backfire or anything, if i want to talk bad about this i may go on and on for 2 nights. in fact i'm flattered that an unknown guy like me was invited to a national radio to talk about films, and i admire his (the DJ) passion towards films - i mean how many people will dare to host a radio show about films? more so, with an intention to promote local films and independent and alternative films. but i told JiAn over the phone 2 weeks before the show that radio is just not THE medium to do show like this. i meant to say that radio is mainly an "audio" medium, hence it is weak to convey a "visual" medium like films. Television will be a perfect medium. but i still think the show is necessary looking at the lack of programme of this kind. some TV programmes are targeting movies, but they are just a mere promotional tool to promote mainstream commercial movies, nothing critical. hence, i still think the shows should go on. so, gambatte JiAn.

I'm back!

ok, i "was" back last wednesday night. touched ground 7pm and damn drained out. Korea is okay, i have had so many wonderful experience and have done some soul searching too. so, all-in-all this trip is worth every single cent that i spent. i'll definitely go back again, maybe end of 2007 or 2008.

10 impressions about Korea & Koreans

1. They are driving in the different direction, so Malaysian license holders cannot drive there. and i have a hard time accustom myself to "look left" rather than "look right" when walk across roads! (nearly got banged few times)

2. Koreans are so good looking!! okay, apart from the surgery thing, they go out wearing great attires!! men wear formal tie with suits, girls all make-up and wear fancy dress... the view on the street is nice and eye-feasting.

3. Koreans are nice people. I'm not surprised if it's one of the countries with lowest crime rate. the atmosphere is so peaceful. even if you leave your laptop or handphone on the table, no one is going to steal it! stealing and cheating are just not any part of their lives.

4. Another prove is no one is going sit on the seat for handicaps or senior citizens on subway trains... i mean none!! unlike malaysia. even if the trains are totally full, the young and trendy and hip teenagers will not even sit on those seats!! i'm genuinely impressed!

5. They are really helpful people... ok, although most of them are of no help because they can't speak a word of English, but they are STILL helpful people. even if you have made known to them that you don't know Korean, they will still try to help you by speaking non-stop Korean, as if you somehow will miraculously understand them! hehe...

6. They are really warm people. Most time when we met a group of unlces and aunties, they ill extend their friendship, hand you some food and drinks, give you a ride, bring you personally to the place you ask for eventhough it means walking away from their work for 10 minutes!!!

7. Their food is always red in colour!! hehe... okay, and most of the food are vegetable, they seldom have meat. and Koreans love spicy and hot food!! some are so hot, i as malaysian also have to admit "kalah"... and yes, most of the food are also fermented... my sister on the way back told me that "the whole country has this fermented smell" and too much of the smell makes her sick!

8. cosmetic and facial masks are really cheap there!! no wonder people there have so beautiful and translucent skin texture! okay, i've bought a lot of facial masks too! :P

9. Korea is not a "friendly" place for foreign travellers, especially backpackers... cause it's really really hard to navigate around Korea for there is NO english words at all!! no english on road signs, billboards, notices, public transportation, ticket counters... and to make it worse, most Koreans don't speak English at all!!! so you better bring along your english-korean dictionary, or follow tour where the tour guide will do the job for you.

10. It's FREAKING expensive in Korea... bring a lot of dough or you shall starve to death!! one proper fried rice in Korea is close to RM20 per plate. a bottle of mineral water is about RM2.50. BBQ set for 2 person is close to RM200. youth hostel or even homestay are about RM100 per small room. proper hotel room cost about RM200 or more!!