Monday, January 14, 2008

AnnYeonHaseyo from Korea!

Well looks like I haven't been around for sometime. Owing to bad temper due to sickening duty schedules that took away my Christmas, and is going to take away my Chinese New Year too. Simply cannot wait to be free of this bondage. I'm not sayin that its bad or anything, its just that the duty cycle is somewhat demanding, burning holidays along with it just isnt helping.

But on a lighter note, I did have some fun in the 8 days Korea trip (which i better have because its all expenses paid by me!) We (as in me and 5 friends) visited loads of places, did tons of sightseeing and of course being total cam-whores. HA. Chief of those sightseeing locations were notably Jeju Island, home of many natural wonders, also our first very exciting contact with snow, ice, wadever. Which degraded our intellect to that of 10 year olds, playing around like fools. We visited an extinct volcano overlooking the sea, rushing up to the summit to take in the breathaking view of the vegetated caldera and the open ocean where stray sunrays blazed through the thin cloud cover. (I'll try to post the pictures online.) Dropped by the teddy bear museum where everything possible is 'bearified'.

Of course, the food was wonderous. BBQ pork, beef, chicken. Bibimbap. Seaweed. Ginseng Chicken and all. Visited Everland and Lotte World amusement parks. Took the craziest rides of my life. Aka the Gyro Drop and the Gyro Swing. Gosh. I couldnt even scream in time. Those are things you only take once. And i mean ONCE.

I seem to realise that the Koreans have wonderful skin and perfect eyesight, other than the fact that they have small eyes, but wow perfect skin! You could say its the Face Shop that they have, maybe its their healthy foodie culture, or perhaps its the ginseng overdose they have. I don't know but they have skin to die for, if you are looking for a skin graft, appeal for Korean Skin.

I also noticed that they are very environmentally friendly at heart. They try their best to limit the damage tourists do to natural attractions, so that even fragile environments like corals are maintained well (that was in our submarine ride underwater.) They use metal utensils and chopsticks. They charge for every bag you use when you buy stuff, and offer boxing services with large purchases where you can stuff your stuff into used cartons. Very interesting culture.

Did you know that their history is so wrought with war and more war that their greeting 'AnnYeonHaseyo' literally means 'How are you faring?' (Did your husband die in war? Was your wife taken focibly? Are your children well?) It's now used as a blanket greeting for Good morning, afternoon, evening and farewells.

Now if you would leave me to do my photo collating. Check out facebook for more photos =)

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