Korea Day 3: Mural Village, Isadong, Namsangol Hanok Village, Cheonggyecheon Stream

Day 3 to 5 would be spent with the tour guide from This is KOREA. I found them online and saw good reviews. They aren't cheap but promised to deliver value for money services. They were responsive when I communicated with them via email too. They promised that their uniqueness is the ability to amend the prearranged itinerary on the spot to suit our needs. Sound really promising. 

The agency sent us our guide picture a couple of days before the trip. This is Kay. Lil Shauna exclaimed delightfully that Kay is handsome when she 1st lay eyes on his picture. Haha.

We were to meet Kay at 9.30am at the hotel lobby. The plan was to wake up at 7am and we had the alarm set. This time, we used Daddy Lim's hp instead. Unfortunately, I didn't hear anything again this time but I had a nightmare and woke up at 7.20am. I should really thank the nightmare. Lol. The plan to have bfast at some cafe or Mac Donalds failed again bcos everyone else was dead asleep. I figured out that it would cost me more than an arm to successfully drag everybody out of the bed for bfast. So yours truely sacrifice, braved the cold to buy bfast.

Not many shops were opened at 8am. I also didn't dare venture too far for fear of getting lost. After a few turns, I found Dunkin Donut and was so happy to find that they have bfast menu. It was more than just donuts but hot muffin with cheese, egg and ham. With the bfast in hand, I quickened my steps and rushed back, worrying about hot bfast turning cold. Ah, a mothers' love! I almost lost my way but got back safely eventually. 

Only Daddy Lim got to enjoy the hot bfast. Bcos the kids went to bed really late the night before, they couldnt wake up. I had to feed a sleepy Lil Shauna and Lil Isaac almost couldnt open his eyes. After some bfast, there was so much of lazing on the bed but we were still on time to meet Kay. I think he looks better in picture. Oopsy daisy.

The day's itinerary was very scenic actually. Our kids are not scenic kids and I was worried that they would give trouble. I kept reminding them that they had done children stuff the day before and it was now the adults' turn. The 1st stop was the Mural Village. It is a residential area, famous for the paintings on its buildings' wall. It is on a hilly area and there are plenty of steps to climb. While climbing the 268 steps and panting and huffing, I joking said that Singaporeans would have built in the escalator.. no wonder the Koreans are so slim. Lame joke. Lol.

The view at the top was breath taking though.  Lil Shauna said that it was totally worth the climb. Most of the pictures are in the camera or Kay took the pictures for us using his camera so nothing to upload now. When we were about to leave, the kids found ice that had frozen on the beach and had fun writing on the ice. Such little joys.

As we walked, we saw beautiful snow flakes formed on cars that had been parked overnight. Beautiful!

There were other beautiful and interesting things to look at. The kids got distracted and didn't complain about being bored anymore; in fact, there were many interesting things to see.

We finally stopped at a coffee place to have a coffee and use toilet. Kay kindly offered to pick up the car at I-duno-where and fetched us from the coffee place. So nice of him. 

Next, we headed to Isadong, which is a sort-of arty farty place. There is this building with many handicraft shops. 

At the roof top, they adopted this love locks concept, just that it is in some plastic coaster like thing that we had to purchase. The kids wrote their message and found the perfect spot to hang their message. 

There were like thousands of this coaster.

I think we went to the Seoul fortress wall next. It wasn't in the itinerary but Kay suggested it as it was along the way. It is another place to look at some traditional houses. It is again a residential area stormed by many other tourists. I really do pity the people who live there - imagine having hundreds of people walking in front of your door every weekend and posing in front of your main door. These are the only pictures that I took. I found it amusing to have such advance locking system on such a tradition door. But if I have hoards of people walking on my corridor, I would need such a system too. 

We didnt stay long bcos Lil Isaac grew bored and started fussing. I had to give him a stern warning to behave. We were packed into the car and headed off to Namsangol Hanok Village. It housed 5 huge old Korea houses that were preserved. These houses were originally in different parts of Seoul and were shifted wholesale to the "village". 

Finally, we went to the Cheonggyecheon Stream. It was really popular and crowded. There were also plenty of lights set up. 

At the end of the light exhibits was a children viking ride. The kids had a go given missing it at Lotte World the day before. They had a blast.

Then, we were lured by hot fishcake and bbq chicken. How to say no to hot food in this freezing night?

There was still some food street place in our itinerary but we skipped it as we were way too tired. Kay sent us back to the hotel and we went for dinner. Thought we already filled our tummies with so much snacks, we still had an amazing huge appetite for dinner. We went to An Dong, which was recommended by my colleague. It was basically similar to the 1st day lunch. Kids ate good portion and the adults ate even more!

We then bought big juicy strawberries to eat in the hotel and finished the night with a 32 cm tall ice cream in winter. At this rate that we were eating, I am quite sure we have to roll back to Singapore.

Mummy Lim

Korea Day 2: Lotte World

Lottery World opens at 9.30 am and closes at 10 pm. I had even looked through the park's map before the trip, briefly planning the route. The plan was to wake up at 7am and make our way to Lotte World at 9am, so that we will be at the door when it opens. We will spend the entire day in Lotte World until the park closes. Sound fantastic, right? Yes, I had set my go alarm to sound at 7am. All ready to go, go, go!

Unfortunately, my hp still follows Singapore time, which is 1 hr behind Korea. I wasn't even sure if the alarm sounded but we woke up only at 8.30am Korea time. Zzzzz. We even had to drag Lil Isaac out of bed. Lil Shauna looked so demure when she is half awake.

The hotel doesn't provide bfast and we were too lazy to find food and ended up having instant noodles that we had bought the night before. By the time we finally got out of the hotel, it was 11am!

We are experts of the mrt by the 2nd day and didn't had an issue finding our way. Upon arriving at Jamsil, we simply had to follow the sign! Such commuter friendly stations.

Then Daddy Lim got lured by donuts and coffee. I thought we were never going to make it to Lotte World. I am amazed at the cups of hot coffee that Daddy Lim and I drank. The coffees were simply irresistible in the cold weather.

I was super glad to find short q at the ticketing, hoping that it translated to small crowd in Lotte World. I also printed a coupon from the website beforehand that entitled us to 20% discount, which saved us quite some $$, given how expensive Lotte World is. Our family picture in Lotte World.

Then came the second hindrance to my perfect plan - Lotte World was freaking crowded. Maybe bcos it was a Friday. There were super long Qs everywhere. We saw viking and we all love viking but the Q for viking was snaking and the wait was 100 mins! So we took the Sinbad ride instead, which is just next to Viking. We took the same ride with Popo 3 years back. It was empty then and even went for the ride 2x in a row. Now, the Q was for 40 mins. Zzzz. We still waited... what to do?

Next, we headed outdoor to Magic Island. The plan was to go outdoor while the sun was up so that we wouldnt freeze to death. If you realised, none of the plan had worked so far and neither did this one. It was freezing cold and the heat from the sun was non-existent yet people were willing to q in the cold for at least 30 mins for each of the ride. I don't know how they managed the cold.

We only took a mini train ride that had no q. Lil Shauna said that the ride was for babies. Thinking that maybe only teenagers and adults visited the park. We headed back and kept jackets in locker bcos the park's indoor was heated. We went to the children corner, thinking that if the park is visited by mostly teenagers and adults, the children rides must be empty, right? Wrong! There were hoards of kids swamping the kiddy corner! There were even school excursions! What the... The kids did still take some kiddy rides though. Cannot be we come Lotte World to only look at the crowd mah.

Overall, we took about 10 rides. The longest one was a freaking hr of wait and it was nothing compared to the Transformer ride back home. There was so much queuing until the kids were all tired and grumpy. We had the Sinbad ride fast pass and went back for it simply bcos we could skip the q, thinking that we would head home after that. Daddy Lim went with the kids while I stoned one corner.

The corner happened to be where the parade would be passing by. I persisted in camping in my corner, hoping that the kids would made it back in time to watch the parade together. Too bad they didn't and so I watched the parade in peace. Haha. There were plenty of lights. Very nice!

Daddy Lim and the kids did make it back at the end of the parade. I found them with Lil Isaac on Daddy Lim's shoulder and he was able to catch the end of the parade.

Lil Shauna was totally blocked by the crowd and didn't see anything. Just when I was feeling so bad for her, the parade turned back! So the kids caught the entire returning parade and that made the rest of their day.

We headed to the exit and saw the same figurine that Lil Shauna posed with 3 years back. So tadah! This time with Lil Isaac joining in the fun.

The ride back to the hotel took about 30 mins and what happened to the boy? Of course he had to fall asleep but this time I didn't carry him too much bcos Daddy Lim ran off with Lil Shauna 1st - she needed the toilet badly and I have no strength to carry the boy all the way back.

Back at Myeongdong, we had traditional Korea food.

The kids were allowed to each buy max of 3 things in Korea and Lil Isaac had his eyes on this very expensive transformer remote control car. I am quite sure we were ripped off but there was no way to talk sense to a tired boy. So, he won.

Despite the long day, the kids still found energy to soak in the bathtub. Sleep was definitely easy. Good night world.

Mummy Lim

Korea Day 1: Arrival, Trick Eye Museum and Dog Cafe

I had thought that T3 is the best terminal but I am wrong. The playground is mini and there are limited seating near to the playground.  The kids got bored after a while. Nevertheless, it wasn't too hard to pass time when we were that excited to go on a holiday.

The kids attempted to watch some flight entertainment but declared that it was bedtime shortly after we took off. It was about 1am. Sleep was tough. My lap was Lil Isaac's personal pillow and on many occasions, I was very sleepy but very uncomfortable and sleep didn't come. Can you imagine that agony??!! Poor Lol Shauna has grown too big to lie down and had to sleep sitting up like us. The kids stirred quite some too but both slept through and skipped bfast. I kept the bun for the kids and Daddy Lim labeled me "aunty". Zzzz.

Finally, we landed after 6.5 antagonising hours. The kids were called back from lala land.

It was a long walk to the immigration and there was a long q. Thankfully, chirpy and cooperation kids helped. We soon made it past the immigration and the kids had their 1st meal in Korea!

Lil Isaac didn't fancy the triangle rice from 7-11 and the bun that I took from the plane saved the day. Still dare call me aunty!? My instinct super powerful ok.

After bfast, we changed into our winter gear to get ready to brave the cold to get the airport bus to Myeongdong, where our hotel was. I read from many blogs to buy tickets at the counter and tracked down the counter. The counter was manned by a very uninterested staff, trying to apply her eyebrow and telling me with her heavily accent English to pay on the bus.

The bus was at the bay when we reached the stop. It saved us from having to stand in the bitter cold. We paid for the fare using T Money that we had just purchased at the 7-11 earlier. Lil Shauna gets a 20% discount of the 10k ticket and Lil Isaac rode for free! Kids below 7 yo generally go free on public transport. I was trying so hard to figure out before the trip if we needed to pay for Lil Isaac for the airport bus. So, here you go for people who needed to find out.

The bus ride took 1.5hr. We set the phone alarm for 1 hr for fear that we would miss our stop. Lil Isaac insisted that we wasn't tired, yah right. All of us knocked out. It wasn't tough to find our stop. There was clear announcement at every stop.

However, the walk to hotel was power! It was literally ass-freezing cold. We were wearing 4 layers on top and 2 layers below, beanie, scarf and gloves. Still we could feel the freeze. Luckily we didn't take too long to find the hotel but long enough to feel pain in our fingers. We wondered if we would get frost bite.

We had intended to drop our luggage off and get back at 2pm for check-in. So it was a pleasant surprise to find our hotel room ready. The room was mini like many other Seoul hotels. It took us some time to settle down bcos we were tired and warmth in the room very much deter the thought to venture out in the cold. We did press on and headed out to the Trick Eye Museum.

We took the mrt to the Hongik University Station. We were initially worried about getting lost in the complicated mrt system. There were so many lines in so many colors intersecting everywhere. The worry was unfounded bcos the system is so easy and clear. There was clear signage, pointing people to the right direction.

The 1st thing after we alighted at the station was to find lunch. This was the 1st proper meal in Korea. We couldn't understand Korean of course and could only chose base on picture and the brief description in English. We were careful to pick non spicy dishes and ended up with 2 chicken dishes. We were hungry and cold and nothing beats hot food. Yummy. The kids had quite some too.

Trick Eye wasn't too different from the ones that we had been to in the past but the we still had fun posing. There were too many pictures taken, showcasing just a few.

There was an mini Ice Museum included in the entrance fees too. It was colddddd... and we didn't last very long.

The trip ended with figurine printing.

We headed back to hotel and saw Lil Isaac dozing off on the train. He is heavy and we already told him that we wouldn't carry him during the trip but given that he was asleep, we gave it. He would be manageable just that he was dead asleep. He wasn't holding on to us and was falling off so many times. We took turns to carry him and it was like carrying a dead weight; a perfect workout in the cold weather. I didnt even need my gloves in the open. Just as we were reached the hotel lobby, he suddenly woke up. What perfect timing! He must have pretended to sleep! Dinner was the expensive munchies that we bought on the street. There wasnt enough to go around and mummy risked the cold and bought more while Daddy Lim and the kids hid in the warm hotel room. There were plenty of street food and eateries but they aren't cheap.

We had thought that we would call it an early night. Then, the kids asked to go to the Dog Cafe. It is really nearby to our hotel. I spotted it while risking my life for more food. Lol.

The kids had so much fun with the doggies. They were warned to avoid some really huge ones that hated kids. I can understand - kids are so irritable. Lol. The dogs are probably trained to snuggle up to humans and found our laps to be perfect beds. They avoided the kids' mini and skinny laps despite the kids' absolute generosity to offer theirs. It wasn't cheap. Each of us get a drink at 8k for each adult and 7k per child.

After playing with the doggies for about an hour, it was really time for sweet dreams. We had a quick rinse and nobody insisted to use the bath tub. Sleep was so super easy. Lotte World next.

Mummy Lim