Whilst going through some of my postings and doing some tidying up, I realised that I didn’t go beyond Day 1 of my 2005 Korea trip. Tonight seems like a good night to continue with it (actually, I’m just too tired to do a new post, so I’m cheating… a little. ^^). As I mentioned in my earlier post on Day 1, I think many of the places and information may have changed by now, after all, it was a good 7 years ago…
Korea trip 2005- Off to see some snow in April
Day 2 (21st Apr, Thu)
Day 2 was our “Oe Chul”. We were off to Samcheok. It takes about 4 hours to travel there so set off early especially if you do not intend to saty there for the night. There is a public transport to Samcheok. I think a one way journey costs about 20,000won. Thanks to Koala, a Korean fan, we managed to rent a bus at a very cheap rate. We were joined by Sophia and her friend, who both flew over from the US and Donna, from Indonesia.
I think we all felt like school girls going on an excusion. hehehe!
Palace Tourist Hotel
The first stop- Palace Tourist Hotel. This is where Bae Yong Joon and Son Ye Joon stay during their filming in Samcheok. It is the only 5 star hotel in Samcheok, with breathtaking scenery.
(the banner for the press conference has been left hanging on the hotel, no doubt for the many Bae Yong Joon fans to take photos)
View from the front of the hotel
Inside the hotel… very grand. Many Japanese fans had left little notes for BYJ, which were pinned up on a notice board next to the reception counter. With all the grandeur within the hotel, the only thing that drew our interest was the Taster’s Choice sets that the hotel were selling. I bet these were the fastest. hottest selling items. hehehe!
The Wishing Tower near the hotel
And I have no idea what this is…but it’s big!
The view of the sea from just round the corner..breathtaking!
The side entrance of the hotel. Oh how we wish Bae Yong Joon would drop by then. Oh well, we can always dream. : )
By then, we were all hungry, so it was off to ‘his’ restaurant to try the cod fish set. The hotel is about 15 minutes away from the town centre.
Samcheok is really a quiet town. Unlike ChunCheon, this really feels like a local town, with none of the touristy bits. But I’m sure this will change eventually as fans will probably make this another must visit place like Nami Island, ChunCheon etc.
Just before turning into the restaurant, outside a convenience store, we saw something that made us scream and whip out our cameras in a frenzy.
Hehe, now this is what I call an appetizer….
The Restaurant- 은혜식당
This is the restaurant that BYJ normally eats at. It’s really a non-descript, ordinary eating place. Nothing fancy or grand. And I hope it stays that way.
Pots of kmichi just outside the restaurant….
In side the restaurant, there were a few rooms, but I guess most of the fans ate in the big room (or is it the biggest room). The 18 of us already filled 3 quarters of the room. Not sure how the place is going to cope with a bigger crowd.
The big room was filled with drawings, messages, signatures from all the fans. They have even conveniently left pens and crayons on the tables for you to doodle away.
Of course, Joon’s Family has to leave our mark too.. And so, it was left to our designer to make sure that it was an eye-catching one, hehe!
The final work:
The menu. However, I’m a little puzzled why it was in Japanese and not Korean????
Needless to say, we were busy taking photos of the menu as well. The one that BYJ normally orders is the first one on the menu.
But he really normally eats in this room:
The staff behind the wonderful meal. Don’t they look beautiful and happy? I think that’s why the meal tasted so good.
At the end of the meal, the lady boss took a photo of us. She was going to put it up together with the many photos in the room. You can tell from the smile on our faces that we had a wonderful meal. Yum! Yum!
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