Spring At Korea

The last time I visited Korea when it was spring, slightly changed the season back to summer. Not too hot but dry, where I perpetually found the flowers and leaves blossoming everywhere. The autumn forced the leaves to be colorful, but spring forced them to be greenish as well. That should be the right time for us to go to flower parks, but another notion eventually came up against the fact that we must go to the parks with much of plants and flowers everywhere. We didn't know why, we just wanted to wander through any new places. And we have the urge to drift over the river, Han River (Hangang).

It's been many times for us to across Han river when we took subway train from Suwon to Seoul, and conversely. But beneath of it, we realized that some day we must go utterly down to the border of the river, enjoying the air while sniffing the fresh vague odor vapored from the river (don't compare it with Ciliwung :D) The Han River is a major river in South Korea and the fourth longest river on the Korean peninsula, flows through Seoul and ended to the Yellow Sea.

To get there, we used subway metro train. As a matter of fact, we were headed to Namdaemun first to go shopping (Suwon - Geumjeong - Seoul Station), and from Seoul Station we were headed to Han River (Seoul Station - Yongsan). Actually from Yongsan station, it took much time to approach Han River, but it's OK. We were stopped by there to wander around the department store which mostly sell the electronic apparatus. As we were contented enough, we continued the journey walking to Han River, which was gleaming under the shining sun.


The night is the night we spent, by roaming around hotel neighborhood, to the city park, promenade, scanned over the restaurants, gazed people in deep conversation, even if they just talked about tedious stuff.


Next weekend, not much we did, again we just trotted up to the nearest park from the hotel called Hyoseong, then we entered the Wolhwawon Palace, in the back of Gyeonggi Art Center. Wolhwawon is the Chinese traditional garden which is not huge, but offers exotic moods and evergreen trees, with a glimpse of something unique to the garden. Also, the various colors of the trees make visitors feel more comfortable and secure. The spot I liked was a quite large pond in the back of the building. There were goldfishes swimming over and sometimes followed us as if they wanted to chase us for food. Honestly, I enjoyed the Chinese model garden better than the Korean ones.


On the next weekend, we tried to pull up the energy, yeah ... it's time to go on the journey to the farthest destination we had that day, Full House vacation. Do you guys recognize Full House? I'm quite sure all of you just think it is like a card game, but surely it's not. Maybe there are some of you realizing that Full House is a Korean serial drama performed by Song Hye Kyo and Rain? Yeah, that's what I'm talking about :D That day, we were headed to Full House location where the movie took place.

Full House is located in Sido Island, the tiny island closed to Incheon Airport. To get there, first we must go by subway train from Suwon (our residence) to Guro, then from here we must transit to another train headed to Incheon. There was a city tour bus which took us to get arround the Incheon district. But before we wandered around by bus, we visit China town near the Incheon station :D


After getting pulses of joy warmed up, we were ready to go. The city tour bus swept over the road until we reached the harbor. We got on the ferry to accross the sea strait. While onto the ferry, we enjoyed the spring breeze and fed some seagulls flying around us to get sympathetic look which made us threw any food or snack we had to them. When we arrived Yongyudo Island, we continued the tour. An old guy gave a bunch of information to the passengers about Yongyudo in Korean (I just heard the mumbling voice since I don't know Korean at all :D) We got past Incheon airport and the beach called Eurwangni beach, and then we got off in the way of road. At the first, we were confused how to find the next harbor, but we try to use our instinct, so we just walked casually toward the harbor. Fortunately, this is the harbor that we're looking for, Sammok harbor.

From Sammok, we accrosed the sea strait towards Sindo Island. From Sindo we must continued the journey to Sido Island by bus. To get Sido from Sindo, we didn't have to get ferry or canoe, because there's a not-too-long-bridge between them. I wonder why two islands is separated by a sea which resembles a river between them. Yeah, we were fantasized and wondered till we didn't realize that the bus drove us off to Modo Island. We get looooooooossssssttttttttt !!!!!!!!!

"Be calm, lads! We are not that lost!" I think.
Eventhough we have passed different island, but the driver told us to stay in the bus, because the bus would be driven back to Sindo - the departure site, and bus would surely pass the same road as before. Thanks God, eventually we got off from bus in the On Set Full House, Sido Island. But stony face made us stand still a while. Is it true that we were already there? Or is it just hoax? So where's the beach?

Gosh, the Full House was still far far away from where the bus put us off. We decided to walk through the pathway. An old guy offered us a bicycle for rent towards Full House, he said that it is still far from there. But we sturdily believe that it's not that far although some of us want to rent bicycles just to have fun with them. Ignoring and believing, until a black car pulled over to hover us, the driver offered us the car and negotiate about the price. That time, all we do was not ignoring, we were just believing :D So we took a car to get Full House in hand.