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South Koreans often say “Kimchi” when taking photos, just like we say “cheese” to get this face -> :)

The most popular type of kimchi is the chinese cabbage type, fermented with seasonings. The taste is spicy and sour. Many non-Koreans (like me!) like kimchi, but some just don’t like it.

In the past, women of high social backgrounds and Kisaeng female entertainers (like Japan Geisha) wore gache - a big wig. A gache with its decorations can weigh about 4 kg! No wonder this babe here looks a little sulky.

Making a new gache wig for a new daughter-in-law may take up several years for some families. According to a record, there is a sad incident where a young 13 year old bride wearing a heavy gache wig broke her neck as she was getting up to greet her father-in-law.

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ATV stands for All Terrain Vehicle, and yes, like what it stands for, you can ride on ATV through rough terrain and slopes. The best thing is, to all babies out there, you don’t need a motor license to ride on ATV *blink* *blink*… at least that applies on Jeju island… circuit.

You just need to apply the accelerator and brake on the ATV for a joyride. Not particularly exciting, but is a good experience for the kids. They don’t have a motor license yet, remember? Neither do these cool babes here…

On your mark, get set, GO! GO! GO! Get Wild n Dusty!

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Situated in JeJu island in South Korea, this is an exhibition style village that displayed the living environment of Korean folks in the past. The Korea drama “ Da Chang Jin” (Dae Jang Geum / 大長今) had featured JeJu island as one of its famous filming sites.

What happened? What happened?!!

The Pungmul (or Nongak) performers performing Korean folk music tradition.

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Wee Lai recounted her island trip in Korea during Spring 2007.

Nami island is an offshore island in Korea. To reach there, I had to take a ferry that lasted about 20 minutes. The beauty of this island was finally unearthed when a popular Korea drama “Winter Sonata” had its filming there, where such scenic and extremely romantic settings had resulted the main actors to fall in love in the show. The stretch of path shown below is left for your imagination on how Nami Island looks like during wintertime.

Now, this quiet place has become a rather blooming tourist attraction, not mentioning a must-go for couples. In Nami Island, love is really in the air.

Korean serial fans tend to go berserk whenever they visit Nami island as the trails of Winter Sonata are everywhere. From the positions they stood in the drama to the location of their first kiss, fans just can’t get enough of such thrills.

During my visit, I was instigated by my travel mate (who is a crazy fan of this drama) to burgle into the male toilet where the male actor, Bae Yong Joon, had previously used. Of course, I kept a very safe distance from her until we left the island.

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How often do you get to see so many colours in your food? Wee Lai shares her experience on eating fresh flowers… Yes! Fresh flowers with ants still crawling on them:

I had tremendous excitement before trying such dish in Sangoo Herb land. Yet, no preservatives, no food dyes, just plain’o creation of Mother Nature!

As you can see, flowers are part of the ingredients in this Korea cuisine - Flower Bibimbap, added for taste and decorations. Before eating, stir and mix the bowl, so as to allow the fragrance of ingredients to compliment each other. I was very reluctant though, feeling that I shouldn’t have messed up with such beautiful creation! Inevitably, hunger took over - the aftermath of mixing had resulted in this delicacy to resemble scrambles of leftover food!

I attempted to chew the flower petals slowly and deliberately, there was no taste of nectar of course, and I even spotted an ant crawling feebly on the petal in my bowl.

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