Saturday, May 27, 2017

Day 3: Gangneung Cherry Blossom Festival and Globin Shooting Location: Jumunjin

It's Day 3 in Seoul for this Spring Trip 2017. Few days before our departure to Seoul, I happen to come across this promotion on Facebook for the Gangneung Cherry Blossom Festival advertisement by
Seoulpass 首爾旅遊通. With a 80% discount, the day tour is now only 19,000KRW per person. Without hesitation, I took the offer and booked the tickets online. 

Here's the itinerary for the Gangneung Cherry Blossom Festival 2017 or also known as Gangneung Cherry Blossom Romantic Tour: 

07:30 Meet at Hongdae Station, Exit. No. 8
08:00 Meet at Myeongdong Station, Exit. No. 4
11:30 Arrival at Gangreung Cherry Blossom Festival
14:30 Depart for Anmok Beach
14:40 Arrival at Anmok Beach
15:30 Depart forJumunjin Beach
16:00 Arrival at Jumunjin Beach 
16:30 Back to Seoul
19:30 Arrive at Seoul


Woke up at about 6 something in the early morning to get ready for the day tour. Since it was still early, we managed to grab some hot and mouth-watering sandwiches from Issac Toast nearby the hotel in Myeongdong (Issac Toast opens at 7am). Then, proceed to wait for the bus at Myeongdong MRT Station Exit 4 as per itinerary. There was a group of ladies from Taiwan who were also waiting at the Exit No.4 and there was some minor confusion on which is the correct exit that we should wait at when the bus did not arrived at sharp 8am ~ oh well, it did arrived at 8.15am. Lesson to learn: Always wait at the exit stated in your itinerary and wait till your transportation arrived.

We were greeted by our tour guide named Hee; yes! he can speak English. No worries if you can't speak Korean like me . The journey from Myeongdong to Gangneung took about 2hours and 30 minutes or about 3 hours depending on the traffic condition. The bus also took a 15 minutes break at the highway rest area for toilet breaks. p.s. the toilets are clean and passable under PS toilet check. haha. and you can grab a coffee or light breakfast too - their rest area has a mini market and food stalls.


Arrived at Gyeongpo Lake for the Cherry Blossom Festival. You will be greeted by a calm lake surrounded by pale Cherry Blossom trees. The bus parks quite a distance from the main entrance of the festival; thus you can enjoy the cherry blossom by the lake while you walk to the main entrance. 
 





You can also rent a bicycle to cycle around the lake and enjoy the scenery. Priced from 10,000KRW and above for an hour of rental; price varies from the type of bicycle you rent. We rented this 2 seats bicycle fit for 2 pax at 20,000KRW per hour. Suitable for someone who can't cycle like me ~ but still want to get on the bicycle. haha.




The Cherry Blossom Festival at Gangneung is not a large scale event like the one in downtown Seoul or Jinhae but it's more cater to the locals. There's some food and souvenir booths with a stage for performances. Well, it's a unique experience for me to check out what's the locals do during the cherry blossom festival. And some of the booth do sells local products such as dried seafood items, nuts, herbs and so on.



You can also check out the nearby Gyeongpodae Pavilion overseeing the lake. It is said that this pavilion is famous for moon viewing on the 15th of the lunar month.The blooming cherry blossom trees make it a even better scenery to look at. A traditional architecture structure surrounded by pale pink trees; and when the win blows, it's raining pink petals!
 











We stopped for 2 hours at this place and we spent the remaining time enjoying our lunch at a nearby cafe/restaurant. Well, there's this building right next to the pavilion and cherry blossom festival booths which sells coffee I assumed that's famous for their coffee - as everyone seems to come in for a takeaway coffee. This shop aka cafe also serves food; which I think is quite popular among the locals (it was full when we were there). I must say that the owner and staff at this restaurant/cafe is extremely kind and helpful. We had trouble ordering at first as they can't speak english and there's no english menu available. They actually brought us to other customer's table to point at the food they were eating and then point back at the menu - to explain to us what the menu is all about! And when the food arrived, we noticed that there's beef on the dish (which we do not consume); we told them to remove the meat using sign language (oh well, it took a while to communicate what kind of meat is that on the dish too) and they actually brought it back to the kitchen and cooked a new one for us!! They were so kind and patient to the max for taking the time to explain and communicate to us. You gonna visit this place if you're coming to this place!




Delicious lunch!

Next stop was Anmok Beach Coffee Street aka Anmok Beach. It's known as Anmok Coffee Street because there's a row of cafes serving ultimate coffee facing the beach.


Clean and sandy beach with seagulls flying over you!





We actually took a lot of photographs here but opps.. they were gone together with the smartphone! I'm gonna be back here to capture those images AGAIN! It's worth a visit.

Stopped by the Kikrus Coffee Cafe along the coffee street. Had an awesome purple sweet potato latte and a piece of awesome cake. I only had this pic on Instagram as a memory now.


Finally, our last stop for that day was the infamous Goblin K-drama shooting location; the Jumunjin Beach aka Jumunjin Breakwater. Lucky for us; we were the only soul stopped there that very fine day,thus there's no one to photobomb you or lining up to snap your memorable pictures.

There were a few of these breakwaters made of stones at that beach. The correct one used for the filming is actually the piece with views below.






There's a few pieces of them looking alike standing there side by side. They looks almost identical; thus it doesn't matter which piece you stand on to take your pictures.



Our lovely tour guide; Hee prepared a black coloured paper cutting of a Goblin so that we had something to take pic with. Yes, we didn't brought along the flower props or red scarf with us. hehe. Should plan for the props if you intend to do some photoshoot here.

Instead of the paper cutting, we made our tour guide the model for the picture instead! haha. So, presenting you my lovely handsome tour guide! Took a lot of pictures here but gone together with the smartphone. 'sob'.



That was the end of my journey here this time! Thanks to our friendly tour guide,  bus driver and the red bus that we sat on for this whole journey!


Reached Myeongdong around 8pm or 8 something pm and slept soundly along the journey back! Gangneung is wonderful place to visit! And I'll be back to snap back the pictures which I had lost! hehe. This tour can also be booked through KKDay here.


Bye!


No comments: