It was a really really early morning, we woke up at 6.30am which is 5.30am local time. We flew back to Gimpo and was heading for Mt Sorak. It was a 3 hour journey from the airport. Lunch was pork and shabu shabu again. There was seaweed soup too. Luckily we ate something at the rest area before lunch. So however bad lunch was, we will survive. And pork with shabu shabu was becoming an icon for Korea as every meal was just pork + shabu shabu. ><
On the way up to the mountain, we stopped by the temple, more like a Buddha status, the biggest in Korea. After the long walk to see a statue, we ended up at a teddy bear farm. It was a rather small museum of teddy bears, but it was nicely done. I was amazed with the decoration. They explain every scene with just teddy's, but it was like Teddy's Land.
Dinner was great. It was seafood shabu shabu with fried fish. No pork, yippee. Even the side dishes was delicious. They even served sweet potato, not to my liking, but everyone enjoyed it. The waiter was really friendly and he understood what we were talking or asking for. Another culture shock from this trip was that a minority of Koreans do not understand English at all, while a majority knows just a little. We met some whom spoke Canto and Mandarin but those are like duty free area, where they were to sell duty free products. Otherwise, normal places, there were hardly a handful whom could speak fluent English, Chinese or Cantonese. But they are learning, as they know how to speak certain words. According to the guide, he mentioned that only the younger generations learn English, while the Elderly are less exposed. He even told us, there were some Elderly that was born when the Japanese conquered Korea, could only speak Japanese, as they were forced to learn Japanese only. Then we reached Kensington Hotel. It was really special was the rooms were the Old Era Rooms. There were tatami's plus a bed, and the heater was actually from the floor. It was like living in those Old Korean houses. Nice place, but the only bad part was they didnt provide a bath towel, but only face towel. So we were stranded with just two face towel each for bathing. It was a trend in Korea, where they only provide face towel in hotels instead of bath towel - those older hotels.
Day 6 - 23 Dec 2009
Ski Time. The whole day was just ski ski and ski. I had a bruise from the fall. Ski-ing aint hard, but walking up the slope with your ski equipment was. You have to talk sideways like a crab. If you try walking straight up the slope with your equipments - Skis, you will only end up ski-ing down the slope. But I managed to learn how to ski, brake and turn. Lunch was on our own, thank godness. I had instant noodle for lunch, but it was really nice. I'm not much of a fan of instant noodle, but i needed some change from the usual menu. Lunch had dessert this time - ice cream. It was cold outside, but eating ice cream during winters is really nice. I actually ate ice cream 4 times in this trip, more than my usual diet. Dinner was the best. We went to this restaurant where we were required to sit on the floor, the Korean way, and we had BBQ pork. The food was tasty, but it was pork again. For the night we stayed in a ski apartment. My mom and aunty stole the bed, so we 'kids' were on the couch and floor with tatami.
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