yhk-bugz: Day 6: Seoul far so good

Breakfast buffet at Seorak Hanwha hotel. It was not as good as the other two hotel buffet and we were rushing for time. It may be a breakfast buffet but not sure why are the rest of the tour group eating so fast. I barely had time to finish my food.

Our first stop, Mount Seorak, or SeorakSan, offered a magnificent view of the surrounding. The wind is super chilly and strong, almost blowing me away. We took the cable car (it can fit around 40 people) to almost the summit and proceeded on foot. The route was a little winding and steep, and with the strong gust of wind, made the travel a little risky. However, the view was worth it.

Up we go

Before we end the trip of Mount Seorak, we went to a temple hiding in the vicinity and saw a huge bronze buddha statue along the way.

Pray to me

Before long, it's time for lunch. For lunch, we had dumpling steamboat. For the few days in Korea, it has become quite common to be having steamboat for meals. For that lunch though, the dumpling was a little special: it had kimchi as fillings. Personally, it was not a very special meal. After lunch, it's back to the coach and a long three and a half hours ride back to Seoul, to Lotte World.

Once we checked in the wonderfully elegant hotel (we were a little early and the cleaners had not finished tidying the rooms), we went to Lotte World.

Lotte World, everyone seemed to be looking for it (who don't), is an indoor and also an outdoor amusement park set in the city. It has a lake and a bridge linking the indoor to the outdoor. Once we enterred to the fantasy world, we were initially excited by the prospect of sitting the amazing thrill rides. However, the place was super crowded (perhaps because it was a Saturday), and looking at the queues for the rides, it really dampened the mood a little. For a start, we took a monorail ride (highly recommended by Chris). The queue was almost an hour long while the ride was actually at most five minutes. Well, at least it offered a view of the whole place. Seeking for excitement, we went to the outdoor component, where most of the thrill rides are. As I am not a thrill-ride person, I watched the rest took off in the Gyro drop and Gyro Swing. It was even scary looking at the rides on the ground level, can't imagine sitting them. Anyway, was glad that they had fun. After all the thrill rides, we went back to the indoor park as the event show was about to begin. The show was very grand and exciting, like Chingay. Everyone was jostling to catch the even and kids were climbing onto the adults' shoulders. Really exciting. After that, we went in search for the mural and carousel featured in hit drama 'Stairway to heaven'. As a fan of the show, I was really looking forward to it. However, after searching high and low for them, we could only find a scaled down version of the mural (what!). Luckily the carousel was still there. Sitting on the carousel would be impossible since the queue is again an hour long and our stomachs were grumbling. Thus, we just took a couple of photos. It was really sad that the place did not capture the essense of the show.

Carousel

What's for dinner

For dinner, we went to the food court. That's right, the food court. As none of us were fluent in Korean, we ordered the menu using pen and paper and picture to words matching (a little improvement from our previous experience). It was a little embarrasing but fun. After dinner, we went back to our comfy hotel to plan for our next escapade (by Jay, of course) since Lotte World was too crowded to our liking.

Armed with our essentials (ray with his many layered turtles), we took the subway station. For all of us, that was our virgin experience of Korea's transport system. With our transport specialist (Jay), we bought the correct tickets to our destination. In Korea, you have to purchase an exact amount ticket and the entrance machine will 'stamp' it. It was very exciting. With Jay, we managed to arrive at Coex Mall.

Coex Mall

It's roughly ten, but most of the shops have closed. Regardless, it was fun to explore the place, especially since we were without tour guides. Coex Mall is like Suntec. It even have a aquarium in the mall, very unique.