Palace & Museum

I just love to visit museums, palaces, fortresses and so on. Some might not be top highlights on travel brochure, some might hardly make it on the brochure. I have done 4 out of 5 palaces in Seoul. Too bad that I missed one on my previous trip, and maybe I will complete my fifth in near future. So where did I go? I'll show entrance ticket as proof.

Entrance fees for these palaces are rather reasonable, except probably for Changdeok Palance, which you must really plan ahead, as the entrance fee and time varies depending on which section of the palace you want to go and when are you going. Confused? Guided tour is cheaper than self tour. Go figure. In order to help minimise any reader from this surprise, you can refer to the following picture taken at the counter for reference.

There are other palaces scattered around Korea, some of them are free, like the palace in Jeonju (전주 全州). Jeonju is really a nice place, and has nice bibimbap as well. The fortress gate nearby is open to public and you can go up as well. I'm not too sure whether they still allowed that now, after the incident of Sungnyemun.

Also, I have visited a couple of museums in Korea as well. Seoul National Museum is ok, since it is at the capital, but I think the best museum in Korea so far is Jinju Museum, which I think is rather cool that it is inside an old fortress. Gyeongju Museum is not too bad as well. So here's some of the museum I have visited.

Fast Food in Korea

I used to have a classmate in my Korean class stated that she didn't like Korean food that much. If you are someone like her, you can always opt for fast food, which is quite universal, except that it would have more localisation in menu. I'll show some popular franchise store found in Korea. Do note that Korea fast food outlet just like those found in Europe, you need to clean up after eating, plus you would need to pay for the bag if you plan to take away.

KFC 케이에프시

One thing good I found about Korea is that, they have very tasty and crispy fried chicken. Also in KFC, do try out the burgers, as their burgers are bigger than those we have in Malaysia, and quite popular among youngsters compared to just the regular fried chicken. Probably due to the fact that they have more fried chicken outlet in Korea compared to burger outlets.

How much does the meal above cost? Have a look at the receipt below. It's a set of ₩10,000 (with tax included), which was approximately RM37!!

McDonald's 맥도날드

Korea McDonald's include the popular Bulgogi burger as the main local offering. You have the chance to taste burger with more choice of meat, such as pork or shrimp as well.

Most importantly, how much does it cost? Slightly cheaper at ₩9,000 including tax, which was approximately RM33.

Burger King 버거킹

This time around, I didn't eat inside the restaurant but I decided to take away. As you can see from the picture above, once you order, there is another line on the right to wait for your order.

I have also taken a picture of the menu placed outside the restaurant. This particular outlet is just right outside the subway station.

I had ordered only one set instead of two, since my sister didn't want any. And in the receipt you can see a ₩100 surcharge for the bag. So all in was ₩5,900, approximately RM21.

Lotteria 롯데리아

On a first glance, it looks similiar to McDonald's, with similar colour scheme, similiar food options. It was Japanese in origin but somehow has a Korean feel to it. More surprisingly, this outlet at Seoul Station is just next to McDonald's, which was hardly separated, i.e. no wall or glass in between the two outlets. No photos to show it unfortunately, you have to go and see it for yourself. Food portion was not as much as illustrated. Notice the paper spoon on the bottom right of the tray. Not really nice to scoop especially food with sauce.

Now, was it worth the money? You be the judge. Due to my limited Korean comprehension, I agreed without knowing exactly what the cashier told me to add on the corn salad for ₩100. So all in with tax was ₩7,600, approximately RM27.

Krispy Kreme 크리스피 크림

Since we do not have Krispy Kreme here yet in Malaysia, so it was rather a new experience, which I think was tastier than the other doughnut franchise we have in Malaysia. The outlet I have patronised was just a stone throw away from Busan Tower, which you can clearly see it in the picture.

The selection of doughnut was rather huge, thus when we stood for quite sometimes deciding what to take, I had a feeling we were blocking the other customers. Another thing about Krispy Kreme in Korea is that they gave a "service" of one original flavour doughnut for a single receipt purchase. "Service" in Korea means complimentary item, in which is given for free. Thus if you are the kiasu type, you can split your order into different receipt to receive as many "service" as you wish. But how was it? Let's have a look at my sister.

Looks like a satisfied customer, yeah? Probably that was the first time, it was really tasty and fresh from the oven really made the difference. We returned moments later to purchase a dozen to share it with friends. How much was it? ₩7,750, approximately RM28. Here's the receipt to illustrate the pricing. Notice that they charge the cup for beverages, as they encourage you to reuse the cup in future order. Cup of 16oz costed ₩50.

For those of you interested to know the menu and the price, here's a list I took when I was there.

Taxi in Korea

Taxi is very common in Korea. Relatively, it is rather inexpensive. Unlike here where you have to ask first before boarding, or worse still, reject your destination due to weather condition or traffic jam. It is rather a relief that they don't practice such annoying taxi-driver-has-final-decision. The meter installed inside taxi calculates the price based on two factors. First, distance based, if the taxi is moving at normal speed. Second, if the taxi is moving slowly, i.e. traffic jam, it will switch to time based calculation. Basic fare varies between taxi company and city.

Taxis in Korea are rather efficient, i.e. they are darn fast. Once when I was in Busan, we took a taxi and on normal road with traffic lights, the driver can speed on an average of 120km/h. Also, most taxis in Korea have in-vehicle GPS Navigation System, which I think is rather cool.

Some taxis use older GPS Navigation System, with simple 2D map, just like the one above, while newer device has more of a console game interface, and also a total car entertainment control panel in one device, which will control the radio, MP3 player, CD player, Television and so on. You can see the difference from the following picture.

Also, one thing that taxi in Malaysia should have is the complain card. In Korea, taxi will need to have a complain card inside, which any passenger can get hold of it. Taxis in Korea are usually running on compressed natural gas, in which the gas tank is installed in the boot, thus making less storage space for luggage and so on.

Kimchi

Is there anything to eat other than Kimchi? Yes, although it is hard not to notice the presence of Kimchi everywhere. Korean just love their Kimchi, so it is not surprising to see people sun dry their chillies everywhere, Kimchi jar, or even Kimchi refrigerator. Korea National Museum also has a section dedicated to Kimchi.

This is how a Kimchi refrigerator looks like (right). On the left is the regular refrigerator. The rice cooker next to it, is a free gift when my friend bought his Kimchi refrigerator. There are a lot of free gift thrown in when purchasing goods in Korea.

But how to use such machine? Just put in the ingredients into the given container, throw in some chilies as required, put the container back into the refrigerator. Here is a pictorial guide on how to use it.

Pre-Departure Introduction

After a hiatus for so long, it is time for me to give my blog a fresh start, starting with a new name and also new content. What the heck is 身土不二? It is actually a Korean four character idiom, or 사자성어 (四字成語). And in case you are wondering, no, there is no such idiom in Chinese, only in Korean. According to Korea most popular website Naver, 신토불이(身土不二) The domestic farm products are the best. I guess such expression is made famous by National Agricultural Cooperative Federation aka NongHyup (농업협동조합 農業協同組合 aka 농협 農協), since it is their slogan. Probably that explains why Korean prefers Korean goods.

I'm going to Korea again this year to pursue my master degree. So before arriving in Korea, there are so many things to settle. This has started since October 2007 when I first saw the announcement at MMU's bulletin board. Since then it is a constant running around from university, embassy, income tax department, immigration department, post office, bank and so on. I really need to thank Horng Jau for his help in getting documents and entertaining me while I'm in campus. Guess I owe him big time. So, for anyone like me who was still working while going through it, my advice is to buffer extra time and gather as many information as possible.

Before I leave, I will do a quick recap on my previous Korea trip, and provide some information about the place I'm going to study. Here is some information on the city I'm going, Busan. Picture above shown the Busan Station, the main train station and the terminal for high speed KTX train from Seoul. Busan is a southern port city of Korea. It was featured on the Amazing Race Asia Season 2 lately, in which one of the pit stop is at Beomeosa Temple. Since you get better photographs of the tourist attraction on the net, I will provide something else instead for you to see.

There is a separate old Buddhist painting gallery near to the entrance of Beomeosa, which I think is a tourist trap. You need to pay separately to view the gallery. Since no photograph taking was allowed within the gallery, the best I can show you, is the ticket with some explanation.

Another place which I think worthwhile going is Taejongdae, which is at the south of Yeongdo, south of mainland Busan. Entrance to Taejongdae is free, but if walking is not your thing, you can take a ride.

Day 1 Suwon 수원 水原 (1 Sep 2007)

After approx 1 and a half hour ride of bus from airport, we finally arrived at Suwon. Unfortunately it was still raining, and the airport bus stopped at a place next to Hotel Castle, east of the Hwaseong (화성 華城). We had one and only umbrella but the rain was still going on and on. So I asked a guy was there anywhere I can get an umbrella nearby. He looked around and told me there wasn't any, so he let us has his (As shown on the photograph above). Is very kind of him, unfortunately, we didn't get his name or his contact as his ride had arrived. If this kind person is reading this, please drop me a mail.

Despite the rain, we were hoping to go to our first destination, eating Suwon famous Galbi. Before arrival, 화춘옥 seems to be a perfect choice judging from the location to where our bus stopped. But after walking for so long in the rain, our luggage handle finally decided not to cooperate with us and broke off while we were still searching for the restaurant.

Failed to locate the restaurant, we decided to go straight to Hwaseong tourist information centre to seek for help. We took a taxi to Paldalmun (팔달문 八達門), as shown on the picture above. Lucky for us, the tourist information centre was really helpful, special thanks to Ms. Choi, who had provided us with great assistance on both keeping our luggage while we walked around the fortress and told us where to eat instead.

She recommended a restaurant near Hwahongmun (화홍문 華虹門), called Yeonpo Galbi (연포갈비 淵瀑갈비). There are so many write up in Internet about this restaurant, like this, this and this. Although we were expecting to have Korean beef, but the menu clearly stated it is Australian beef. More importantly, how much did it cost? You can see it from our receipt.

After our meal, we proceeded to our sightseeing, which is conveniently situated right outside the restaurant, the Hwaseong itself. If you wish to explore the whole fortress, make sure you have sufficient time on hand. We just picked a few to view as we had a bus to catch later. More on Hwaseong in the next post.

Incheon International Airport 인천국제공항 仁川國際空港

Yeah! Finally arrived in Incheon International Airport at 8:40am from KLIA. Midnight flight is totally not my thing, hardly had any sleep at all. Looking out the aeroplane window, OMG, raining! It was a long wait at the baggage carousel, probably the LIFO theory of baggage check in. We did ours rather early on the previous day, as we took the ERL to the airport. Luggage appeared almost at the end, where we can witness the carousel belt stop after collecting our luggage. Passport control and custom clearance were a real smooth and fast experience. Custom only require one form to be filled per family.

First thing after all the clearance, we headed straight to SK Telecom (the only option for Celcom subscriber) counter at the arrival hall for mobile phone renting service for my sister. I made the reservation a few days before arriving in Korea, via the Korean Tourism Website. For GSM phone like what we use here, you can opt for renting a phone if you do not have any 3G phone (₩1,300 per day). Take note that SIM compatible phone is not as user friendly as you might have with your regular GSM phone. If you are into the feature-packed Korean CDMA phone, you can rent a phone with a local number, not too expensive I should add.

What is so bad about that SIM compatible phone? Firstly, when you make a call, your phone number displayed on the receiver end is not your number, but the phone number of the phone that you just rented. The receiver might not recognise you directly, and when the receiver try to call you with that local number, it never works. Secondly, + sign that we use it so frequently on GSM phone never work with Korean network. Except for local Korean number, you would always need to use the super long prefix 00700 to dial any non Korean number. That is the prefix for IDD calls. Thirdly, and the most annoying disadvantage, sending SMS NEVER works, even the manual that they provided never show any instruction on that. Probably they know it never works, so why bother printing it. Receiving SMS seemed to be ok, but there will be some random code at the end of message.

Since I do not need a phone to use in Korea, we went straight to the ticket counter to purchase bus ticket heading for Suwon (수원 水原), our first stop in Korea. Ticket costed ₩12,000 and boarded the bus at bus stop 7A. All information about buses can be viewed at Incheon Airport website.

Chinese New Year at Abu Dhabi

I spent the first five days of Chinese New Year of 2007 in Abu Dhabi, something completely. The weather was nice and pleasant, only it was rather dry compared to the humid weather in Malaysia.

Also, when surfing the Internet, something that was shown on my screen when I was searching for information on Abu Dhabi places of interest. I can't remember specifically which website, but if I'm not wrong, it is one of those photo sharing website. Well, when in Rome, do as the Romans do. Or is when in Abu Dhabi?