Korea family trip 2011

I am back. I am not just got back, but came back a week ago.

Once i am back here, right the next day morning i had a bad purging for three days, that explain i still on my blog break. Now, i am all well and back on blogging track again and i will blog about my recent family trip to Korea. Don't feel bored ya. :)

We arranged this trip quite "rush" and quite last minute, it just a month before we fly off. It's me and my hub third time going to Korea, we went there before we had kids. Since this trip was travelling with kids, we decide to go on our own instead of joining tour, knowing the "rushing" timing, so i name this trip as our "adventure" tour to Korea, since the communication in Korea is a barrier.

We took Cathay Pacific because they are having some promotion, but one thing we need to stop by Hong Kong for transit. Our flight on the 21/2 late afternoon at 5.45pm, reached HK at 9.30pm, we have already in mind, what we want to do with the 3 hours transit. Once flight touch down, we went to transit hall, then we walked "super fast" from Gate 60+ to the eatries near immigration.



Althought this is not their first time flying, but they are still very excited. Look at the picture, they are not looking at the cartoon on the screen, they are paying full attention on the safety instruction given by the stewardess. LOL!!


reached HKIA, hub and the boys walked so fast...i am at the back try to catch up with them.



reached this place, i remember this is the eateries that we bought our roast goose back last two year, but this time, they have change name. No wonder some of my friends cannot find it. For those who go to HK and want to pack the roast goose back, this is the place for the roast goose rice.


the name of the eatery "Zhen Dou" in Cantonese.


we are the last two customer...it is already 10.30pm.


this is our supper - roast goose rice. Two bowl of roast goose rice - RM60+!!


we order porridge for my boys, but they seems they prefer our rice more than their porridge. :S

After our satisfy and yummy late supper, we rush ourselves to the departure hall again. Flight from HK to Korea took about 3 hours + , four of us sleep through the journey and ignore the in flight meal.



Reached Incheon International Airport at 4.45am (Korea time), their time are an hour earlier than MY. That explain the airport was quite quiet at that hour. We find our way to take the train to transfer to another terminal to get our baggage and also immigration.


look at my two boys, they are still have tons of energy at this hour.


as for me, i am dead tired, i just want to sleep.

We spent some time at the airport and hub go around and get some brouchers, map and transport info and asking around where and how to take aiport bus to the hotel. While he walking around, me and the boys waiting and i had my cuppa of coffee from the convenient store.



monkeying and get dress up and wait for our bus to come and bring us to the hotel.


Bus ticket for adults around RM40+ per way per adult
Bus ticket for kids around RM30 per way per kid.

It took about 1 hour+ to reach our hotel, Grand Ambassador Seoul.


time schdule for the Korea Airport Limousine (KAL) from the hotel to airport and also the route.



We reached hotel before 9am, knowing it is a bit too early for us to check in and this hotel is always running full. When i made my room booking i did put on request saying we are early arrival, but since the hotel was running full, they also can't do much. No room for us, so we told them we walked around first and have breakfast.


The view of the hotel we stayed.

We walked and maybe it is still early, a lot shop and restaurant still not open. We saw this, a very small shop in the centre of the road, we went in and had our first breakfast here. Inside the shop was small, it only had 4 tables, but the food was nice, we even go back again on our forth day.


this is the shop


the menu on the wall, lucky got picture and with english word.

my korean instant noodles. Nothing beat a bowl of hot and spicy noodles soup in the cold cold morning.


hub order some sushi, not exactly sushi, taste a bit different, suppose this for my boys, but they just eat one.


Kimchi, every meal we had, they will give complimentary kimchi. I don't really fancy about kimchi, i prefer their pickles. :)


hub's hot and spicy seafood noodles.


we order something wrong, don't know why it come out another bowl of noodles. It look spicy right? Actually it taste good, not too spicy and the noodles are COLD!!!!! I love this noodles, but i am too full to finish it. Winter eat cold noodles? My teeth cannot take it. LOL

After our breakfast, we walked around and bought some pastries for my boys, since they don't have their breakfast and also check out their subway, since we got lots of time to kill.


this is the small slope and the route we need to walk everyday if we took subway back to hotel.


it is the view once we come out from the subway, another side of the city.


nearby our hotel, there are some exercise "machine" on the road side, we let them play on it. Almost everyday, when we walked back to hotel, we will stop at this place and let them played a while. Did i said, my boys had more energy and they become more hyper in cold weather? Like the energizer bunny, never get tired!!


another exercise equipment.


hotel lobby

After spent about two hours outside, we back to the hotel, but there are still no room available for us. I insist or i ask them to try to get a room for me, i know my boys are tired, they need rest and so do us. The front desk staff are very helpful and they speak very good English too. The staff manage to get me a room, he told me this room is slightly smaller than the actual room i booked. He asked if i don't mind to temporary stay in this room for a night and they will change my room the next day. I agree with it and finally we can take a rest after more than 12 hours travel.

view from our room.

our room, actually it is not small at all
*sorry for the people in the picture, camera man didn't do a good job*


yukata in the drawer


mini bar


they even got iron and iron board, slipper in the room.

After taking shower, yes we all took a shower even it is winter!! We all took a long nap till late afternoon.

Stay tune for the next post what we had for dinner on the first night.

Cyndi Lauper meets married couple Alex Freyre and José Di Bello in Argentina


Two of my favorite blogs out there - Towleroad and Joe.My.God. - picked up on a video that shows the great Cyndi Lauper entertaining a bunch of stranded passengers facing delayed flights out of Buenos Aires by singing "Girls Just Want To Have Fun".

Lauper was flying back to the United States from Argentina after performing in Buenos Aires Friday night.

That night, Lauper and her tour production team had invited two very special guests: José Maria Di Bello and Alex Freyre, the first gay couple to marry in all of Latin America (they are all pictured right, with the husbands wearing red ribbon sashes).

I asked Alex to share his thoughts on meeting Lauper and here is what he wrote:
Cyndi wanted to meet us and we were invited to attend the show and meet her backstage.

We told her how we spent the night before we got married listening to her entire "True Colors" CD since it was the only one we had brought along!  And how we danced to it during our secret stay at the hotel.

She seemed surprised. I don't think she was aware that Argentina had passed a marriage law - at least that's what I understood - and [she was even more surprised] about our story. 
She said: "You are heroes!" and we told her that her inspiration had been very valuable to us; that she was an activist who had left her mark; and that we had always admired her for that and loved her for how she was.
José and Alex were among a number of same-sex couples who jumpstarted the push for marriage equality in Argentina by going to the courts and demanding the right to marry.  In November of 2009, in the first ruling of its kind, a court in Buenos Aires ruled that it was unconstitutional to deny them marriage rights and granted them the permission to marry.

As long-time HIV treatment and prevention advocates, they planned a marriage ceremony for December 1st, 2009, but mere hours before the ceremony a second court ordered a stay.

Realizing that the stay only applied to Buenos Aires - and with the assistance of a few legal advocates and a number of LGBT-rights organizations - the couple found out that the Governor of Tierra del Fuego, Fabiana Rios, was willing to officiate a civil marriage ceremony.

So, in utter secrecy, the couple made their way to the southernmost region in the Americas.  When Alex mentions the couple spent the night before the wedding dancing to "True Colors" during their secret stay at the hotel, it was because they told almost no one about their plan to marry in Tierra Del Fuego and people only found out about it after the ceremony had taken place.

That ceremony took place on December 28th, 2009.

Argentina, of course, would later become the first country in Latin America to pass a law granting all Argentinean gay couples the right to marry.

On Twitter, if you understand Spanish, you can follow the couple as follows: José Maria Di Bello tweets here and Alex Freyre tweets here.

Cyndi Lauper, by the way, tweets here.