Thuys Journey Blog

Day 11&12 Off to Busan~ Arriving in Busan was quite a refreshing experience, as it is situated at the sea. It was much more pleasant to wander around there, but prolly the most memorable thing is our accommodation. This time's airbnb was a guest house on the top floor of a tall apartment building. You can see the night view of Busan from our room on the 36th floor~. (fyi, the escalator takes abt 51 seconds from the ground floor to the top) Next day was spent at the most famous beach in Korea, Haeundae beach. the water is kinda salty, but not as disgusting as you'd think it is. We rented a tube for 4k won (~3.5€) to ride on the waves ㅋㅋㅋ.

Day 10 Daegu trip pt. 2 Went to an artificial island which was supposed to have a lot of beautifully blooming cosmos flowers... the only ones we saw are the ones I took on the pic lol. We came a month too early, as the summer heat is still too much for the flowers to bloom. Instead we found a tunnel with various kinds of vegetables growing on and around it. Sunflowers accompanied it from both sides. In the evening we went to a park containing an amusement park called Eworld with Daegus 83 tower right next to it. Our intention was to watch the sunset from the top of the tower but we couldn't make it on time~ Beautiful view nonetheless.

Day 8&9 Trip to Daegu pt 1 After travelling to Daegu from Seoul by an express train for 2h time, we had a lot of struggles finding the airbnb we were going to stay at. Especially the climate there was very hard to bear. It's not only very hot but humid as well! Locals call Daegu 대프리카 (Daefrica = Daegu+Africa) for a reason lol. In the end we somehow managed to find our way to the promised place. Just to find the stairs of hell awaiting us. Those were steep and scary as heck mate! ㅠㅠ By recommendation of our host, we visited the Seomun market 서문시장 close by and tried a lot of different snacks/dishes~ We stuffed ourselves by spending roughly 13k₩ (~ bit more than 10€) each~ There were quite a few performers to watch as well hoho. Since we didn't really do much the first days in Daegu, I'll just put the picture of our DIY dinner here as well. Lol.

Night 6 & Day 7 Soooo we decided to spend our last evening -for now- in Seoul with our guesthouse host~ As I said before, we partied until sunrise in a Noraebang (Korean karaoke) lololol. Shout out to A for that awesome night! The downside of that was that we had to wake up at 10am to go visit friends in Wonju, a city in the eastern part of South Korea ~2h away by bus.... wasted. 😂😅 Anw the food was good and so was the coffee~

Day 6 Spent the day walking around the Gangnam district~ I hoped to see some plastic people, but got utterly disappointed as there was no one to be seen on the streets~ So as you can see, most of the pics contain things related to kpop ya~ Ending: chilling at the Han river and going partying with our guesthouse host until sunrise \o/

Day 5 pt 3 We finished that day by going shopping in myeongdong haha. Found some kpop standees and pictures at the Young plaza of the Lotte department store and I couldn't help it hahaha The Namsan tower seems to shine in a green light every night~

Day 5 pt 2 This is the part where shet got real... you got warned and prohibited from doing a tons of stuff by the tour guide and the supervising soldier in order to ensure everyone's security. Even your clothing had to be checked for a decent appearance. Our passports got checked twice too. Once we got to Camp Bonifas, we had to leave our tour bus and ride the military bus instead. Camp Bonifas (hope I'm remembering it correctly) is located abt 400m from the actual DMZ border. Both South and North Korean military have to keep 2km on each side towards the border line free of any possible aggressive utensils and soldiers. Therefore the soldiers stationed there aren't called soldiers per se, but Border police. By the moment when our distance towards the border line reached 0, we found ourselves in those blue conference houses you can see. We were allowed to take pictures to the North Korean side ONLY. Any pics towards the South or to the sides had to be deleted immediately. The soldiers are very eagle eyed. (We heard some scary stories from our dorm mate after the tour). And by soldiers, I meant soldiers of both sides. Whereas the South Korean soldiers were stationed there to ensure our security, the North Koreans were keeping an eye on us, to see whether they can find any propaganda material to shame the South Koreans. On the 2nd pic you can see the blue houses and the big white building belonging to North Korea. A single man can be seen standing at the gate (if you zoom in and the quality isn't too bad, that is). Inside the blue houses, we happened to see some North Korean soldiers posing infront of the border on their side for a pic. The tour guide said we were lucky that day, since you'd only be able to see the single North Korean at that door only. Overall a very intense and memorable experience.

Day 5 Went to the Demilitarised Zone (DMZ), which is called Panmujeom in Korean.

Day 4 4th day is Seoulland day \o/ As always, the sunlight was quite harsh. Since Seoulland is a theme park designed for young people, most of the rides weren't that intense but we still had our fun with the rental water guns ㅋㅋㅋ. I also spontaneously got a haircut \o/ The length was kinda annoying in many ways, so why not~ ㅎㅎ We also went to the Kakaotalk Character shop and to 노래방 (Noraebang, Karaoke) etc etc

Anw, met up with the friend and ordered 짜장면 (Jjajjamyeon, noodles with black sauce, originally from China but modified by Koreans) and we hung out at the Riverside, enjoying the view and the blowing wind (it was srsly so hot).

Day 2 We went with 아저씨 that day as well, towards Namsan tower and the very busy streets of Myungdong and Namdaemun market. Afterwards, we took a quick stop at the traditional Hanok village~ Feat. Pictures of Rice cake and me with my bae's standee ㅋㅋㅋ

Day 1 Wow that had been a loooooong day. We stayed up all night and departed with the flight to London at 7am, waited for 4h for the transfer flight and sat another endless 11h on the plane to seoul... and finally arrived at 7am the 12th Aug local time. which means we couldn't get any decent sleep since Aug 10th 😲 We were picked up by a close Korean uncle (아저씨) that I met last year on my travels. He was very cute and open minded, driving us around the area and inviting us for devlish Korean food afterwards. We arrived at our dorm at 3pm and had no time to rest, since we still needed to fetch a wifi egg in the city and met up with the 아저씨 at 6 to eat 삼겹살, grilled pork belly. Seriously, the restaurants at home can't even compare to real Korean ones ! We walked to the YG building afterwards... lol. We were planning on going out in the evening too, but yeah. We've been running around for 2 days straight without sleeping. We were endlessly tired ㅋㅋㅋ. In general, everything was quite overwhelming to me. At first I couldn't even process it, being in the country that I've been watching so much via screen for 7 years.... I didn't realize until this day, that my dream had become true! *single tear of happiness falling*

Gerade rechtzeitig, denn dieses Mal geht es nach…. Südkorea für einen Monat inklusive ein paar Tage in Tokio! 🎉🎉🎉

Last pic: fried chicken feet. Sounds disgusting or unusual alright, but in China and Vietnam (dunno abt other Asian countries), they’re well-eaten. Tasted quite good actually :D

Another food update \o/ One word. D E L I S H !!!

[Central VN trip 3/3] For the last day of the trip, we were driven to Bà Nà Hills (Resort), abt 40km away from Da Nang. Well, apparently the most noteworthy thing abt this place seems to be the cable cars, which happened to be the world's longest railway as well. You'd be sitting inside that thing for 10-15 minutes, watching all those huge trees and rivers pass below you. Again, due to the storm prior to my visit, I've seen quite a lot of trees that were tilted or simply broken... What a mess 😅 On top of the resort, there's quite a view to behold. The ppl there have built a huge garden with lotsa flowers. Selfie-paradise for the Asians haha. Afterwards, we took another cable car, taking us to some kind of amusement park, where they've rebuilt a French medieval town. It looked more like Hogwarts from afar tho 😂! Funny thing is that in midst of all those French buildings, there was an Asian pagoda popping out of nowhere 😂😂😂

[Central VN trip 2/3] The next day, we took a cab passing Hoi An, a town abt 30km away from Da Nang. We visited a shop specializing in sculpturing and gems... Lotsa pretty stuff but too expensive for meh~ We boarded a speed boat next to transit to the Cu Lao Cham isles (felt like I was a dolphin jumping in and out of the water 😂) after a short tour through the small passages of the houses and a visit to the local shrine/pagoda, we went to another isle of Cu Lao Cham to eat lunch, swim and do some quick snorkeling. Unfortunately, there had been a storm raging in Central and South VN a few days before I flew down, so the water was all blurry when you looked down. One was still able to see some corals and tropical fish if one had enough patience tho. Another unfortunate thing: my phone tasted some salt water >_<! Couldn't use my home button after that, which is the most important button of all... Luckily it got fixed when we returned to Da Nang, only having to pay 250k~10€. Anyway, returning to Hoi An, we did some touristy stuff like visiting some house that's been an important part of the trade in Hoi An for generations, another pagoda, taking pics of the bridge seen on the 20k note and shopping alot of souvenirs and clothes 😎.