Places to go when visiting Busan - Part 2

We were all five altogether. And we would require 2 normal taxi or 1 jumbo taxi to travel around. We did not book car rent with driver in Busan as when my sister inquired, it cost quite a lot (about KRW 300,000 per day). Therefore, the next day, we decided to just go to one place - Haedong Yonggung Temple - which was located quite inconvenient if we had to take public transport and carry hand carry luggage.

My sister asked the front office staff to book a jumbo taxi to all of us to this place. He said it would cost KRW 40,000 for one way. Be it!! We agreed and the driver came. It was quite a huge car he was driving and we all sat down conveniently. As the car drove through, the driver offered us a day tour using his car, which beforehand, my sister and I had already thought of requesting him and discussed on the price we were willing to pay.

Seemed like the Universe really heard us and we were granted the good driver, good car and good fee as well!!! He charged us KRW 180,000 from 9.30am to 6pm and he promised to bring us to 6 places. Wow!!! Could you believe it??? It was lower fee that we imagined and we did not have to bargain through. He was even offering us to visit more places that we initially could think of!!! Above all, we were granted with a beautiful weather!!! Sun, wind, what else??? :)

1. Haedong Yonggung Temple - probably the most beautiful temple in Korea! :)

First place to go and must visit in Busan - Haedong Yonggung Temple :)

The temple was built back in 1376 and was originally known as Bomun Temple. It was destroyed during the Japanese invasion to Korea and was rebuilt in 1930s and renamed as Haedong Yonggung Temple in 1974. (Source: wikipedia.org). The temple complex is large and one of few in Korea to be set on the seaside. Personally I felt that this place was really worth visiting! :)

Selling local delicacies on the way towards the Haedong Yonggung Temple - Busan, South Korea

From the entrance we passed by many roadside shops selling local delicacies. From dried seafood stuffs to fried sweet dough. Korean snacks like Odeng (boiled fish cakes) were available too.

Selling fresh vegetables - Haedong Yonggung Temple in Busan, South Korea

Local farmers were selling their fresh vegetable produce there too, reminding me of my Bhutanese friends who were doing the same :)

Haedong Yonggung Temple - Busan, South Korea

Tadaaa... - Haedong Yonggung Temple - Busan, South Korea

Beautiful view of Haedong Yonggung Temple in Busan, South Korea

I loved the beautiful view surrounding this temple. As said earlier, it was located along the seaside and many beautiful rocks beautified this place.

The main temple to pray - Haedong Yonggung Temple, Busan - South Korea

Underground water - holy water to drink :) at Haedong Yonggung Temple in Busan, South Korea

Goddess of Mercy, Laughing Buddha, Turtle rock at Haedong Yonggung Temple in Busan, South Korea

Beautiful view from the top and front view from seaside - Haedong Yonggung Temple in Busan, South Korea

The view at the other side. The stacked stones are beautiful! :)

We spent some time inside the temple to pray, to enjoy their beauty, to express our gratitude for being there, to freeze some beautiful pictures, and finally continued our next destination :)

2. Oryukdo Skywalk

Oryukdo Skywalk - Busan, South Korea

"The old regional name for the area of Oryukdo Skywalk was Seungdumal, as the shape resembles a saddle, and it was originally called Seungduma as well as Jallokgae by residents and women divers.

The construction of Oryukdo Skywalk finished on September 12, 2012 at the Seungdumal area, which is regarded as the dividing point between the East Sea and the South Sea, and started operating on October 18, 2013, with the theme of "Walking over the sky.”

View surrounding the Oryukdo Skywalk

Iron columns were set up over a 35-meter-high coastal cliff, and a 15-meter glass bridge comprised of 24 glass plates and shaped like a horse’s hoof connect the iron columns. The bottom of the glass was specially produced with four attached 12-millimeter glass pieces coated with a bulletproof film that has a thickness of 55.49 millimeters, making the structure quite safe.

Hazy view from Oryukdo Skywalk - Busan, South Korea

Visitors will be thrilled with the view of the waves while looking down through the transparent floor. The sea stretches out ahead of the skywalk, perfect for a photo op, as well as the best spot to see Daemado Island on sunny days." - Source: visitkorea.or.kr

And too bad that the skywalk was undergoing repair when we were there. Anyway, it did not look big too and personally, I think you can skip this place if you do not have enough time to browse Busan.

3. Seafood lunch at Jagalchi Market

Busandaegyo Bridge - Busan, South Korea

Busan is very famous for its fresh seafood due to its location. And when the driver was asking us on what we would like to eat for lunch, no doubt we requested for having delicious local fresh seafood and he brought us to one of the restaurant at the Jagalchi Market. The place is worldly famous for its fresh fish and seafood.

Row of fresh seafood restaurants at Jagalchi Market area - Busan, South Korea

The driver must have like the food so much from this restaurant as he pointed us directly to this particular seafood restaurant (perhaps he was getting discount or who knew, even free meal for bringing us there :P). No matter what it was, we were very happy with all the food we ordered.

Seafood restaurant at Jagalchi Market - Busan, South Korea

We decided to order a small portion of seafood soup (KRW 40,000), a small portion of grilled abalone (KRW 50,000) that contained 5 small pieces - just nice a piece for each of us, Abalone rice porridge (KRW 15,000) - must try food!!!, and a small portion of grilled fish (KRW 30,000). We also ordered one bottle of Soju and 2 bottles of Terra beer to complete our meal :)

Delicious fresh seafood dishes from Jagalchi Market - Busan, South Korea

And despite what we ordered were all small portions, it fed us just enough. The taste was simple yet the ingredients were all fresh and good.

4. Busan Taejongdae Park

I heard it first time about this place. Since it was included in the 6 places promised by the driver, we just followed through with his plan. Taejongdae is a natural park with magnificent cliffs facing the open sea on the southernmost tip of Yeongdo-gu island.

Maps and directions of Busan Taejongdae Park and Danubi Train that transported us around - Busan, South Korea

The whole park was really big. If I had plenty of time there, I think I would spend a day browsing around the park, having a good refreshing walk surrounded by the beautiful nature. But since we had many more places to visit within the rest of the day, the driver told us to just drop by at the stop where we could walk the staircases towards the Yeongdo Lighthouse and Structure of Light Beyond Limitation.

Busan Taejongdae Park - Yeongdo Lighthouse and Structure of Light Beyond Limitation - Busan, South Korea

We only had to pay KRW 3,000 for the Danubi train that transported us to the nearest location of Yeongdo Lighthouse and many other stops that we did not cover. Again, if you do not have much time in Busan, I will not recommend you to visit this place :D

5. Songdo Skywalk

Songdo Beach - Busan, South Korea

Songdo Skywalk was a place where you could see a beautiful sea view, located near Songdo Beach.

Songdo Skywalk - Busan, South Korea

And if the Skywalk was not enough, you could even ride the cable car from Song Marine Cable Car to see the view from the top. We chose not to take the cable car since the sky was not clear enough (hazy kind).

Song Marine Cable Car - Busan, South Korea

Half an hour would be enough to walk through the skywalk and take some photos.

6. Gamcheon Cultural Village - A must visit in Busan!!!

Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

Yes, I said that this was a must visit place if you visit Busan!!!

Mural art at Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

Mural art at Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

More mural arts at Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

And more.... - Gamcheon Cultural Village in Busan, South Korea

This place showed a picturesque view of a village that contained colorful houses, painted murals, shops, and cafes. I saw it many times from TV (Korean shows) and my friends' posting photos in social media. I was very happy that I finally had a chance to go there!! :)

The colorful houses at Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

The most sought after taking photo place - beside the Little Prince at Gamcheon Cultural Village - Busan, South Korea

And the above was the most sought after taking photo place at the Gamcheon Cultural Village. Everyone - be it boys and girls - wanted to sit beside the Little Prince, overlooking the beautiful colorful houses of Gamcheon village. I did not have enough patience to join the queue though and better using my time licking the delicious ice cream from the shop nearby :P

So much selections of sweet desserts and souvenir - Gamcheon Cultural Village

We did a bit shopping too - socks and souvenir from the shops nearby :D

7. Busan Tower at Yongdusan Park

Busan Tower at Yongdusan Park - Busan, South Korea

And last but not least, our last destination of the day was Busan Tower, which was located at Yongdusan Park. With that, we ended our journey with our driver and he sent us back to our hotel.

8. Pork soup dinner with rice at Bonjeon Dwaeji Gugbap (not far from Busan Station)

As for dinner, we asked the hotel staff the recommended local food located not far from our hotel and she asked us to go to Bonjeon Dwaeji Gugbap for having the delicious pork soup!!! She gave us her hand-drawn map and once we reached, we recalled of the long-queued restaurant we passed just the day before.

Delicious local pork soup at Bonjeon Dwaeji Gugbap near Busan Station - Busan, South Korea

Luckily there were not such long queue when we reached. We just had to wait for a while before our turn. We ordered the pork soup and sliced pork with soup. They provided side dishes of spicy chives, kimchi, raw garlic and chili to accompany the soup.

Wow!!! I did not expect that the soup was really tasty!!! The milky broth must have been boiled over hours to produce such a simple yet nutritious and delicious taste!! Fell in love with it almost immediately. We even added one more portion of sliced pork as it turned out to be soft, tender and no frozen pork smell!!! I really recommend you to visit this restaurant too!!! From Busan Station, you just have to walk in less than 5 minutes. Must visit lah!!!

So, let me wrap up the day here and more places in Busan will come out soon. Stay tune!!! :)

State Library of Victoria

State Library of Victoria in Melbourne

I always fond of visiting library since I love reading books. But fifteen years ago, when I first visited this city, I'd never been aware about its existence. Therefore, I'd never stepped into this place before.

This time round, I had a greater interest to visit this place since Running Man members were shooting in Episode 191 to find the historical books that would transport them to the past, as part of the show. They were filming in the Dome reading area, which I found significantly beautiful.

If you see the photo above, that's the outside part of the library. I think it looks more like a museum rather than a library. Don't you agree? Therefore, this time round I tried my best to spare some of my time to visit this place.

So, despite the hectic schedule that I had, I finally managed to go and browse around some of the area.

It's such a huge place. If you walked into the library straight, you would see the above place (Level 2 - Ground). The library provided free wireless Internet access plus the power points so that people were able to work on their things using laptop conveniently.  Many students were seen doing their school's project, assignment, etc.

Redmond Barry reading room

At level 2A you would find the Redmond Barry reading room. It's big and bright. Many books could be found over there.

Once upon a time

At the same level, you could find a Cowen gallery with lots of paintings. On this day, there was a 'Once upon a time: a world of children's picture book art' exhibition, also at a Cowen gallery.

And the above photo was taken at Level 3, the Dome reading area. The green lamp gave an unique feature and more contrast color to this structure.

Various racks full of books collection filled the room. Oh my! It's such a pamper for everyone lived there! Especially those students who studied or lived nearby the area. Hope they could make use the facility to the fullest and enjoy reading many of their favorite books, or even finding some knowledge for their research study, project, assignments, and so on.

Dome at State Library of Victoria

But anyway, I was grateful enough to live in Singapore where there were so many libraries available, even in neighborhood area so that we didn't have to travel far just to borrow the books. It might not as big and as grand as in Melbourne, but the most important thing was that the book collections were up to date and available enough for people to borrow.

Now here, in this case, I'm very grateful too bring able to visit this marvelous place. It's such an eye opener to see how other country's library looked like. Click here if you want to get more information about the library above.

Blog readers, you may want to share too how the library looks like in your own country and hope you enjoyed reading this post! :)

First blog post in 2014 :)

Happy New Year 2014 -  (Source: dreamstime.com)

I was too concentrated with my blog post last night until I didn't realize that the clock ticked away towards year 2014. I could hear my neighbor's sound from the windows beside me, shouting and counting down excitingly - 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, and Happy New Year!!!! Yalama!!! I was surprised, thought that I heard it wrongly. Thought that they counted down falsely hahaha.. I really didn't realize that the time passed so fast!!!

I came out from Baobei's room, heading to the living room where my hubby and sis-in-law were watching the local TV show. Fireworks were blown up in the middle of the Singapore city. People was partying, dancing, drinking and made themselves drunk. And yet, I was alone, writing, and contemplating. Hehe... Suddenly I was thinking with myself, "Am I too old for that?" Lolx!!! I faster adapted into the situation and wished everyone in the house a very happy new year, kissed and hugged my dear hubby and son.

I returned back to the room, continued writing, until it's done. No wonder I heard my hand phone beeped few times before the counting down happened. My besty reminded me to start counting down hahaha.... and wished me happy new year too. I was too busy with myself, didn't even have time yet to wish them back. So when my writing was over, I started to write my wishes to them one by one. I had to make sure that I conveyed my deep wishes for them to have a blessed and happy new year, all the best in everything that they do, and be happy :)

I kept typing until my fingers were paining. It was around 2am ba! My hubby and son started to sleep. I was still sober since I had my sleep in evening time from 4.30 to 9pm. Instead of joining them sleeping, I decided to try my luck, see if I could watch the Running Man from my iPad mini. Hohoho.... It was working! Sometimes it wasn't. Therefore, I decided to watch their latest series, episode 178, New Year edition. I used my earpiece so that it wouldn't disturb my hubby sleeping. I watched it for about two hours, let myself laugh with all the funny scenes that they showed. In this episode, it was Running Man members versus their Production team.

Screenshot of Running Man Ep. 178 (Source: Lelaba.org)

 
Seven of them worked together as a team very well in this series. No betrayal at all among the member like they usually did. They were so positive as well, especially when they used the carton boxes, folded into a boat, sat on it, and they had to crossed the Han river within 25 minutes by one of the boats. (Since there were 7 members, they were divided into 2 boats with 4 and 3 pax in each boat). The boat that consisted of 3 pax really worked hard and did their best to cross over the big river. Although it consisted of one woman, one older man (the oldest in the team), and only one young man acted as a captain, with team work and lots of motivation from the captain, they could overcome it and reached the finish line, even earlier than the given time. It was amazing to see how they could do it. Watch the show here if your computer could access into it. As for the other boat, their boat was capsized but they gave it another try so that they could earn more running ball as a team. Although they were wet, wind was cold, and what was left from the boat was only the below part, they still did their very best to finish the race. Amazing!!!

Since beginning of the game, they were also very positive that their team would be able to win the game that their production team prepared for them. They created their own "cheer" to motivate themselves. And at the end, from their collected running man ball, the balls would be inserted into the machine and the name in the ball that came out from the machine would be the winner. The loser would be splashed with water from the top. Imagined that they were outside during winter time and wore limited clothes. Guess what the result was? The ball that came out was the production team's ball and they were supposed to be the winner. However, there was a technical error that caused the water to splash on the production team and not on the running man team. Hahahaha.... I just thought that all good spirits, all good thinking, all good motivation, would attract the good thing to come. Even if they were supposed to be the loser, but since they had gone through so much, trying their best to overcome all the games hurdles and challenges, at the end, they managed to avoid the bad thing and had a happy ending.

That what made me wonder how amazing the power of positive spirit, thinking and motivation that people have. If we do like that, it will attract positive things back to us. A very good thing that we can learn from this variety show. So, let's start the year with that and continue doing it until the very end. Be consistent with it, make it a habit, so that you can see changes into your life :)

I woke up at 11.40am this morning, oopss.. almost afternoon time hahaha... I got up from bed after 12pm. Took a bath, then went out to have lunch outside. We needed energy to start the year!! Yeah!! On the way to Punggol Plaza, my son already told me, "I want to eat dumpling noodle." I had already expected that he would order that when he knew that he was going to that coffee shop. As for my hubby, "I am going to have a kopi, no eating." Like usual, I would force him to buy some food since it's already afternoon time and coffee would not be enough for big size human like him. As for me, "I want to eat Vegetarian food this time as today is the 1st day of the month in lunar calendar." Therefore, three of us had our first wish coming true hehehe... We ate until very full and headed to the supermarket.

There, we walked around the fresh fruit and vegetable side. I picked carrots and celery up and put it into our basket. I wanted to make juice from it - for first time trying to have vegetable juice :) We walked into the refrigerator side and suddenly he got a mood to cook wanton noodle. He took pork fat, minced pork, noodles, wanton skin, chye sim, spring onion, and he's done with his shopping. Lately I told him that there wasn't any delicious wanton noodle around our area. That's why he wanted to cook it himself so that I could eat the nice one, made only by him hehehe... Thank you hubby!

So after reaching home, he started busy preparing the wanton. He did it all alone. I was inside my room, writing my journal. I just realized that I had abandoned my journal for almost one month, due to busy period at work and holiday season. I wrote three pages about what I wanted to do in year 2014. My hopes and wishes for this year :)

Delicious wanton noodle - made by hubby :)

At 6pm, I started getting hungry. He prepared the noodle and the wanton as per my wish. No chilli, just pork fat oil and soya sauce for my noodle with lots of vegetables. As for wanton, I wanted it dry, no soup, and mixed it with pork fat oil, sweet soya sauce (Indonesia's style), chopped spring onion and fried red onion. He put some fish balls into it as well. Nyummy!!!! I love it so much!! Thank you so much dear! With your standard, I think you can open the wanton noodle shop. Hehehe...

The weather was cooling outside, and no rain. I decided to go cycling. The park was unexpectedly so crowded this evening. So many people running, cycling, walking with their family members, exercising, walking with their girlfriend/ boyfriend, or among friends, etc. Today is 1st January and yet people spend their time in this park. I was wondering for so long. On the way return then I realized why. Since it's 1st January, many people couldn't wait to start their New Year's resolution. There must be many people out there wish to exercise more, to start running, to start cycling, to start spending more time with their family, or with friends, etc. Ahhhh... no wonder la... So, if you have those resolutions in your mind, please start it asap ok? Don't wait until this or that like the usual excuse hehehe....

After coming back home, I made the celery, carrot plus orange juice, mixed them together and shared it with everyone. A healthy drink, a healthy mind, ready to start the challenging year ahead. OH ya, forgot to mention, last night, I was refraining myself from opening the sparkling red wine or touching any beer. Hahaha... I will try my best not to make drinking as a habit. Just drink when traveling abroad, or socializing outside with friends, but not an everyday event at home. Hahaha... I was talking with myself. :P

Oklah, I will stop here. Tomorrow it will be a very busy day at work. I need enough sleep to start my day well. So, good luck everyone with your resolution for this year. Keep up your spirit, thinking positively as the Running Man members in that episode, sure it will attract the positivity back into your life. Have a great 2014 ahead everyone!! Jia you!!!