Sloppy Chic

Gosh it’s been almost 2 months and I am still blogging about my Korea trip. Tell me that late is better than never.

Our trip was supposed to be a spring trip, but the weather was crazy and spring came really late.  We were really excited thinking that we could see cherry blossoms (sakura) in Seoul. Sadly we could not wait longer.

So, we decided to hunt for sakura on our own – traveling to another town – Jinhae. Just a little background, Jinhae is a city in South Gyeongsang in South Korea. It is about 4 hours away from Seoul by bus.

This was an impromptu trip as we bumped into another couple friends from our wedding photos shooting trip in Everland. The 4 of us had no fear and decided to adventure.

The bus terminal was clean and neat. And definitely no foul smell!

It is a shame that everything in Korea is in Korean. We had trouble understanding the details, we could only count on the counter lady to give us the right bus to our destination.

Our bus tickets. Also in Korean!

Armed with only 2 buns from the Family Mart, we were on our way.

Our coach was quite comfy and almost brand new.  We took a midnight bus to save our time.

What greeted us was trees and trees of sakura!

And to our horror, when we reached at about 3.30 am in the morning, it was dead cold and windy! I was not expecting this and hence I was only wearing a thin jacket. It was blistering cold and wind was strong. And the bus station was closed!!!

The roads were so quiet, and 4 of us wandering on the road like lost souls in the middle of night.

We walked for more than an hour in the cold wind, and when we finally saw a MacDonalds, we thought God has come to our rescue!

I seriously could not have loved MacD’s more then.

Bliss! Hot coffee and bacon breakfast set.

We waited in MacDonald’s till the day turned bright at about 6.30am.

Thank goodness the day in Korea started earlier than in Malaysia.  All along the streets we could see sakura!

Ahhh bliss! We totally forgot about the hardship of wandering in the cold wind.  Unfortunately they were not in full bloom yet, but good enough!

We walked up to a park hoping to find more sakuras. Climbing the staircase was harder than hell as I was already worn out from the midnight wind. We did not know how many steps were ahead of us.

Taking a photo at the staircase to heaven.  My nightmare then started.

IT WAS NEVER ENDING T__T

I was still counting at step 304 and some uncles overtook me! T_T

Finally it came to an end at step 365.

“Good Job!” I told myself.

At the top of the park, there were not many sakura trees and I somehow felt cheated by myself.

Of course I had to pose a bit before rolling down again.

I almost fainted at this point.

Nonetheless, I made it and we continued to walk to another famous spot for Sakura.

The Jinhae river.

Imagine how would this place look like when the flowers are in full bloom?

Yahoo! I couldn’t believe I walked SO MUCH in a single morning.

More trees from another street.

Our bus tickets return to Seoul was at 11am.

Some random flowers before we took a cab back to the bus station.

When we finally reached Seoul it was about 4pm. We hung out a while and decided to give ourselves a treat to all the hard work.

We headed to a BBQ dinner in Dong Dae Mun.

Several types of sauces were served.

Say hello to the fatty belly!

More veg to go with the meat.

Cut them into small pieces and wrapped it in the lettuce provided.

Blissful!

The BBQ dinner ended our adventure. I am proud to say that we did it despite the language barrier and without any guidance! Yeay!