Away on a weekend: The Garden of Morning Calm

We left Petite France early the next day and headed to The Garden of Morning Calm. It's a flower garden conceptualized by a korean professor and inspired by a poem describing Korea during the Yi Dynasty as "The Land of the Morning Calm" by an Indian poet.

April is already peak season (which is until October) but we were there at the beginning of the month, so they were just starting to grow the flowers. The ones below were from the flower shop near the garden's entrance.


And like in Nami Seom and Petite France, the fee is 8000KRW,too~

Wondering what these are?

they're stacked stones for prayers~ shamanism according to asul :) here's ours~

Wish we could visit this place again before the peak season ends. It would be hard though cos it's not very accessible (at least with public transportation). We don't have a car by the way!haha We traveled by SIl's car. Wish we had one though,hehe AND I MUST learn how to drive! (i want to, anyway) cos never in a million years will Asul drive for me, he hates driving.kkk

Well, this was our last stop. Dunno when the next one would be. But I wish it would be just Asul and me next time *fingers crossed* :)

Away on a weekend: Petite France

It has always been my dream to see France. But since it's still in a very distant future (or should say far from reality?!kk) South Korea's Little France will do :)

It was a shooting location of Beethoven Virus (2008) and Lee Min Ho's Personal Taste which I mentioned in my previous post. It was also the location of Kim Hyun Joong's chicken commercial last year (is it so obvious that i still can't get over f4??!!haha)

Petite France is in Gapyeong, Gyeonggi-do. It's open from 9am-6pm and admission is 8,000 KRW. We didn't have to pay for it though, cos we reserved a room for the night~

Antoine de Saint-Exupery Memorial Hall~

a 30-minute jazz performance we watched after exploring the area~

taken early the next day so we were the only ones around... (hmmm... i mean other than the guy in blue over there~ kkk)

The four of us stayed in J-322 and we paid 110,000 KRW for an overnight stay~

We finally met him!hehe isn't he cute?!

The place was adorable and I felt that for awhile I wasn't in Korea (nor in my home country) well...almost! How could I forget that we were just somewhere in Gyeonggido if koreans were all over the place?!hehe

Away on a weekend: Nami Island

Traveling is the last thing on my mind during Holy Week (which was weeks ago). It's probably because I grew up in a family strictly observing the lenten season. I remember my grandmother actually scolding us (just a little:) when my aunts, cousins and I were hysterically laughing out loud while practicing some production number for our family reunion (yeah, we do stuffs like that,haha) and so we had to kinda shift to a somber mode again (but still stifling our giggles!lol)

ANYWAY! SIL and her hubby invited us, out of the blue, for a weekend trip to Gyeonggi province during the holy week (they were not aware though of the lenten season cos they're buddhists:) so it was just really a random trip.

First stop was Nami Island, now known as Naminara Republic. It's 1 1/2 hours away from Seoul. And as many of you probably know already, it's the main filming location of Bae Yong Joon and Choi Ji Woo's korean drama Winter Sonata (2002). I honestly was not able to watch the drama and though I like BYJ, not as much as some of my friends do. But might as well take tons of pictures for them to drool over.hehe

Going in to ride the ferry.

Admission fee was 8000 KRW per person which included the roundtrip ferry fare to and from the island.


Here we are in Nami Seom (Island)! ~


the Central White Pine Tree Lane~ Wouldn't it be awesome if Asul gave me a piggyback ride as we walk along?kkk


We saw heart shapes like this while walking along the pine tree lane. It would have looked nicer if it were autumn, right?



We dropped by The Song Museum,too which was just near the island's entrance. They exhibited traditional musical instruments and... take a look! It's Rain!hehe (ang angas noh?!) along with those of Lee Hyori and some other korean singers.



Taken at the back of the coffee shop where we stayed for a while~



The UNICEF Charity Train, one way costs 2000KRW~



A gigantic bear in the UNICEF hall where you can see nice rag dolls as well~

mga feeler ever~ hehe

love the Metasequoia lane! really nice~

err.. just to clarify, we were taking a picture WITH the statue... they were not covering the background or something,kkk:)

We were not able to walk all around the island cos we still had to go somewhere else. But we will definitely be back here :)

...

I missed my blog's first birthday which was 3 weeks ago! (I remembered it just 6 days after the actual date and it took me ages to write about it!) How could I?! kkk It was not like I was busy 24/7. I was just really preoccupied these days :)


Well, what can I say?


I used to be so anxious of having someone actually read what I wrote, especially the ones in English. I was not so confident you know. The only people who had probably read my writings were my English teachers who required me to do them in the first place.kk And being part of our school paper in high school didn't count since it was in my native language. Even now, I must admit, and as you may have noticed, my writing is far from brilliant and hardly exceptional.haha


But what the heck! I started blogging anyway. LOL (it must have been through age that I was able to overcome my fear of showing who I am as a writer... in short, getting older made me thick-skinned.haha :)


I like writing but it's the thought that through this blog, I'd be able to look back to my experiences living here in my second home that matters to me most. And apart from that, being able to make friends is a huge plus (since I consider myself as a not so sociable person!kkk)


And so I wanna thank everyone... those who keep on visiting my site and enduring reading my nonsensical posts (why?! lol); those who look at my pictures (i mean, pictures i've TAKEN,hehe kapal ko naman); those who leave comments (which i'm always looking forward to reading, really. super thank you. keep them coming.haha); to the silent lurkers (i feel you people!kk) and even those who just accidentally drop in and leave after a second! LOL



It's not like I have tons of readers or something,lol but knowing that someONE's actually reading inspires me to keep on writing. (wow, i feel like i'm making some speech for a 10-year-old blog or something.haha exagg!:)


Anyway,here's to more years of blogging to come:)


Cheers!:)

LSS

Can I just get this over and done with?! haha I've been humming this song the whole day today and now, I'm still listening to it! (kalurkei!) It's called "Can't Believe It" by Younha. It's the OST of Personal Taste, Lee Min Ho and Sohn Ye-jin's new drama in MBC. You can watch the drama here.

Yay!

It's been a month since my last post! What's wrong with me?! And what's wrong with the time? Why is it too damn fast? LOL



I'll be posting again soon! (hopefully!haha) :)