Land of Green Tea: Boseong

After our final exams in PNU (mid december), me, anqi and mabel set off for a 3-4h bus ride to one of the best rural places to visit in Korea: Boseong. Because me and anqi had combed all the areas in Korea, except for Jeollanam-do, so we HAD TO make this trip work!

And because we heard that some other places in Korea had already started snowing, we were thrilled to find that THERE IS SNOW in Boseong!

Lunch time, and we were cold and hungry. So we stopped by this little hut which offered food with green tea elements.

I ordered my fav bibimbap. Yes there is green tea inside but doesn't really make a difference...And the food was expensive. With bad staff service.

So after lunch we had to pay an entrance fee and walk into the green tea plantation.

All covered with snow! U would never know how excited we were.

Route up the green tea plantation.

See the snow in between each level?

YAY! I remember it was REALLY COLD. But despite that we continued to climb up for better view.

Sad to say, these fur boots make your legs look swollen. But luckily they kept me warmer than my other boots. Heck lah. Keeping warm is more important. And of course, there is my mum's trustee cashmere scarf with love. How to not feel warmth? LOL. And thanx to Janice for giving me her winter hat. WOOTS I'm so well prepared for winter.

I've always wanted to do this. Act pretty in a plantation. Stick my head out like as if filming an mtv.

We were waiting for the sun with non-existent warmth to let this picture look good:

AHH. heavenly: 

After some strolling around it was getting dark. So we went into the souvenir shop to buy some green tea products. I bought 2 boxes of green tea for LL and a box for my family. Till now I haven't drank it yet. But LL says its awesome. LOL. of course lah. I braved through the coldness to get them de leh.

Despite the cold weather, we were determined to eat the green tea ice cream:

Well, beforehand, we had researched online and found that the place has a lights festival. And we realised that the lights are at another plantation, not the one we went..zzz. So we walked awhile to get to the other plantation, which is like 15min away. this is the only snapshot I had:

Afterwards, it was really too cold for us to carry on. And we decided to grab a taxi and head back to the bus terminal. And before we hopped onto the cab. I..saw, for the 1st time in my life. SNOWING. Although it was only for a short while, we were ecstatic beyond words. Haiz. If we were in thicker clothings we would have treaded further to the other side to see if there were more lights in the area. ohwells.

 We got back to Busan quite late at night, and most of the restaurants and stalls were closed. So we had to go to this random cafe which serves only mediocre food.

Land of Dinosaurs: Goseong

Rais planned a day trip to Goseong (a few hours bus ride away from Busan) on a particular weekend. Luckily me, Anqi, KL, and Michelle tagged along, whereas the rest just brushed it off as "busy".

It has one of the best sceneries I have ever seen in Korea, despite being just a Dinosaur Museum!

The scenery we saw on the way there!

When I first stepped in, I was greeted by a small area introducing the different types of dinosaur periods.

The board here says the time we can still see the dinosaur tracks at the shore, cos there will be high tide and u wouldn't be able to see it anymore. We were left with not much time, so we decided to skip the museum first and head straight to the coast for our little adventure!

"Watch Crash" LOL

This is what greeted us:

u have to be there in order to feel the sublimity of it. The view was just AWESOME.

btw this is a real dino footprint:

Amazing how nature forms itself over millions of years. I actually love Geography. If not for the fact that studying Geography would get u nowhere else other than being a teacher in sg, I would have taken it...

Yes we were THAT close to the waters!

HERE U GO. REAL DINO FOOTPRINTS.

I'm serious. Those were made by plant-eating dinosaurs!

Continuing our journey along the coastline:

Wherever in sg can u find this? 

More dino footprints! And yes they can be kept for so many millions of years.

Quite the same theory as fossils I guess. 

Ok midway we had to stop for lunch.

YUMMY SASHIMI! my fav. but in Korea, salmon is uncommon, we often eat this:

Ok after lunch KL and Michelle had to go back school for MEETING! oh gosh. so the rest of us continued down another side of the coastline for a very exciting boat ride! The journey there wasn't easy, just look at the steps:

The uncle with his speedboat!

Mind u, the speed of the boat was damn fast ok. my false eyelashes almost got blown off.

But all's worth it after seeing the beautiful scenery, and these amazing works of art by nature:

The uncle said these look like blinds.

btw the boat made a 360degree turn at some point in time, and it was like as if the boat went vertical; meaning we could have fell into the sea if it got any more vertical. Hard to explain here, but I could see a wall of water formed while the uncle was doing the spin, I felt like I would just drop into the waters...ohwells, perhaps ppl who have had rides on a speedboat would understand.

Ok after that we went back to the museum to complete whatever we haven't finish.

Lots of dino statues in the outdoor park. Here are just some of the more interesting ones.

Inside. This T-rex leads to a dark room where there are moving dinosaurs coupled with sound effect.

The main hall with this fake dino fossils.

These are REAL fossils. cos they are housed inside a glass box. Those that arent real aren't given any glass covers.

Lots of fossils too. They all looked very pretty.

Another area with replicas of dino fossils

reminds me of the harsh times where I had to memorize and study for my "Animal Anatomy" module in PNU. ahh memories...

After a long bus ride back to Busan, we decided to dinner at this place with soupy stuffs. I ordered this beef soup. There are actually glass-like noodles in it. Quite awesome I would say, especially in winter!

Another weekend gone by in Korea. But I'm really glad I came to Goseong.