Jun & the World: 18 Dec 2008 | Korea

Day 5 - 18 December 2008

This is horrible... I wonder when I'll finally be done with ALL my korea pictures... :| anyway, its skiing day~ :D it was freezing cold when we were waiting at the hotel lobby. just one long sleeve shirt inside with the skiing jacket. and minus god-knows-how-many degrees outside. urgh... i wanna go back to my room and hide under the blanket on the heated floors! proceeded to breakfast, had my fav cornflakeS!

us having breakfast at Phoenix Park hotel

used-to-be a well-known brand in SG! FUBU!

lockers for shoes

collection of ski equip

i swear it is most difficult to walk in the shoes. :| good thing our clothes aren't very thick... else we'll probably all look like penguins who can't walk! its a wonder my camera didn't freeze. i have more pictures but they need to be scanned... cos it was taken by the guy from the korea tourism board. he is known as Mr Kang.

uncle trying to make his way to the skiing place. looks cool right? but damn difficult to walk... sho unglam trying to make our way out... it was cold.. for 10 mins... then i think we all (or rather me) started sweating...

me in my gear!

auntie lilian making her way out

beautiful weather!!! too bad it didn't snow... :(

that's our tour guide. teaching us some warm-up exercises before we start on the action

see mummy laughing away o.O

that's my daddy~

my skiis~

somebody fell... guess who?

then laugh at other people... who fell...

this time it's auntie lilian

see my daddy, look so stylo... ended up they left within half an hour. -_-

the main building (taking pictures after skiing/playing around for almost 3 hours!)

taking a break...

walking back to our room~

the advanced "skiing course" (pretty view from the lift lobby on our floor)

our messy but warm and cosy room!

parents while waiting for time to set off... o.O

the room was pretty small. but good enough :)

amazing view from the hotel room~

checked out of the Phoenix Park hotel and off to lunch~ going for this mushroom steamboat/hotpot thingy... didn't sound too appetizing.. but it was nice! drizzling... but no snow... :(

arrived at lunch place!

our mushroom "pot"

after lunch and another not-so-long journey, we arrived at Sorak Hanhwa Resort. Time for spa!!

from the lift to the hotel lobby...

off we go to Waterpia! Uncle davide didn't go cos he was not interested...

Me, mummy, xiao yee and auntie lilian went for the full body scrub. which costs about $60 per pax? can't really remember... quite a interested experience... first we booked the timing for the scrub. mummy was doing it with auntie lilian and i'm doing it with xiao yee~ we all had to change into our swimming costumes and everyone had to wear swimming caps. those without had to buy from the shop inside Waterpia. not very expensive... unlike those tourist attractions who overcharge! after changing, the tour guide brought us to the fish therapy thing... which me n xiao yee weren't interested in... so we went to the ginseng "soup". it was actually the ginseng hot spring. nice!

there were many many different types of hot spring there, for different purposes. all of them had different temperature and each hot spring was decorated with different things. some wood, some stones, some duno what material :| me, xiao yee and daddy went from "spring" to "spring". i think mummy missed out quite a lot cos she went for her scrub first. we had to literally run from each hot spring to another cos once you get out of the water, it was freezing cold! almost -10 degrees outside, and the water is 40 degrees i think? or higher... can't really remember... but it was damn "shiok"!

Went to the website and saw this map of where we were at~ the Spa Valley~

after spending a couple of hours immersed in "healing waters" and a ginseng body scrub, we (me & xiao yee) found mummy, daddy and the tour guide waiting outside for us~ we were the latest... cos our scrub was scheduled at the latest time slot... :\

where they were sitting and waiting...

there's baskin robins!!! but its time for dinner... ice cream would be nice o.O

i'm so missing the winter weather there as i type this.... =( another winter place this year? :D

off we go to our toufu steamboat!!!

that's my mummy outside the dinner place~

the staples...

looks disgustingly nice!!!! its toufu based (is toufu made of soy? then its probably soy based) soup with mashed toufu inside and other ingredients. MY kind of soup~ :D

do you call those mussels? with carrots, some unidentified veges, meat(can't remember if there were any), egg, was there sotong? (yes my memory is failing me...)

that's my soup. of cos the mussel doesn't belong there... its going to mummy/xiao yee's bowl

and.... SURPRISE!!!!!!

its xiao yee's bday!!!

how nice to spend a birthday at a nice cold place with the people you love (who loves u) most~ hehe. we planned to get a cake from the hotel we were staying cos there was a bakery there. asked the tour guide to help us talk to the cake shop person (cos we don't speak korean of cos -_-) before we went for our hot spring... and the tour guide said he already prepared!!! how nice! :D

xiao yee is happy~

it was a NICE chocolate cake :D

i love long candles...

everyone got a slice! or rather, each family had a slice to share.. cos the cake was quite small and there were too many people in the tour group. but the potion is just nice actually.. considering everyone had a huge pot of toufu soup in front of them~

this was how it looked like with chilli added... you wouldn't dream of eating something like this in sg, with this kind of weather, outside... but when its less than -10 degrees outside... this is heaven!

our cake~

its the "walk to where, shop to where" syndrome... there was a van outside the restaurant selling snacks and titbits... it was initially leaving... but it saw us coming for dinner! so it parked outside the restaurant till we finished... and everyone went out to buy some sweets and snacks after dinner while waiting for the tour guide to finish his dinner/for the bus to leave. this tour agency is really highly recommended! the sg agency signed a local korea tour agency called "Golden Dragon" and that's where our tour guide is from. had very good reviews previously, which is why we signed up our korea trip with this agency.

everytime during meal times, the tour guide and the boy (from korea tourism) would go around everyone's tables to ask if they are ok with the food, if they need anything else, if they need help, if they know how to eat this, how to eat that. only until everyone is settled down and eating, then they will go sit in the corner and rush through their dinner... this is really service with a smile!

back to our hotel/resort~

that's mummy + daddy's room~

their room from the living room...

small living area with everything you need~

the cooking/washing corner...

bathe room... i don't recall using the bathroom here at all... o.O prob cos we bathed at the hot spring place and left the next day...

my room was too messy :x that's why no pictures... clothes all over the bed... if i'm not wrong... this was the fateful day my ipod died!!! AGAIN!!! got sick of trying to repair it... am currently using phone + ipod = iphone~ thanks to daddy! :D

map of the entire area o.O we probably only covered like.... 1/10 of it...

guess where we headed after dinner....?

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yes!!!! another supermarket!!!! :D