Saturday, July 3, 2010

Back in Changwon

One of the must-see for this trip was the "House of Changwon", where I got married 5 years ago on a cold, rainy day. I had always wanted to go back to take a look and see whether the place "evolved" or not, and most importantly, eat at the restaurant where we served the wedding lunch. Yum!

It really felt like a much-needed excursion for my girls to be brought to see the place where Appa and Omma got married so that they would, hopefully, be able to relate to it when I showed them our wedding photos.
House of Changwon

Garden in House of Changwon

Here we are, the spread, and this is not all! We stuffed our guts full by just paying KRW10,000 per person! That's why I wanted to go back there so much. But the kids, gosh, they were a handful without the high chair to strap them in. (Basically, most eating places we liked to go to in Korea was quite difficult because the children tend to run around the place when they are not strapped in their high chair.)

Herb Garden in Changwon

We drove about another 20 minutes to Changwon "City 7", a lodging and shopping complex that is situated next to the Changwon Exhibition Convention Centre (CECO). While we were there, we wanted to check out SHREK 3D, unfortunately, seats for the next available showing were not very ideal. So, we had to take a rain check and took a break in "Angel In Us", a new coffee chain.


Friday, July 2, 2010

KTX

Tata Seoul! A last shot at the lobby while PapaKim was checking out.


We arrived at the Seoul Station very much in time despite the helter-skelter between checking out and arriving at the station! This allowed me to take a few shots of the girls before catching a quick meal to line the stomach.


PapaKim really wanted the girls to try riding on the high-speed train, so, he booked KTX tickets for our journey to Changwon. KTX is to Korea what Shinkansen is to Japan. We were to take the KTX from Seoul station to Miryang station at Gyeongsan-do. That would take us about 2.5 hours for the train ride. Can you find Miryang station in the route map below? (Hint: Orange words near the bottom)


A trip from Seoul to Busan used to take about 4h 10min on the old "Saemaeul". With the introduction of KTX in 2004, the duration of the journey is now almost halved. The table below shows the "then" and "now" time needed to travel  from Seoul to Busan and Mok-Po with the existence of KTX.

We sat in the train enjoying the scenery and the snacks that were sold on the snack trolley. PapaKim bought us braised quail eggs for our snack. The thought of having quail eggs as a snack seemed mind boggling initially, but it  was really tasty. Convenient as well because I didn't have to peel off the egg shells!

We arrived at GrandparentsKim home at 8ish in the evening. Luckily, UncleKim picked us up from the train station. The drive from the station to home took about an hour. Boy! Were GrandparentsKim happy to see the kids again!