Had a really good sleep the night before at Seonbichon Village's accommodation even though it wasn't like a proper room with air con, bed, toilet etc but still, the mattress was rather comfortable and even though it was cold at night, the floor was heated. Woke up quite early the next day, packed my bag and we are ready for Day 3 in Korea! ✈
Morning selfie before "checking out" of my room. Plan for Day 3 would be to go over to take the O-train to Buncheon where i will be taking the "V" train the first time to explore the mountainous areas of Gangwon-do Province and Gyeondgsangbuk-do province, will be ending up at Yeongwol 영월군 where i will be staying overnight there.
Called for a cab to bring us back to Punggi station and while waiting for the cab, we managed to ask for hot water to cook our cup noodles that we bought the night before! At least we can have noodles (and apples, lol) for breakfast :D
Was right in the middle of the tracks when i took this picturesque photo. What a pretty sight.
Colourful train! Had to take a train from Punggi to Buncheon to board the V train! #korail
The kind of "i'm taking a photo of myself but don't want to look like i took it myself" shot, LOL
Journey from Punggi to Buncheon takes about an hour and 15 mins. If you notice, we spent quite a lot of time on the train in order to travel from places to places (if i remember correctly, the longest train ride we took was about 3 hours.) Even though the long hours, the journey would have been much more tedious and longer without the O/V train.
Journey from Punggi to Buncheon takes about an hour and 15 mins. If you notice, we spent quite a lot of time on the train in order to travel from places to places (if i remember correctly, the longest train ride we took was about 3 hours.) Even though the long hours, the journey would have been much more tedious and longer without the O/V train.
Arrived at Buncheon where we had a few hours to spare before the V train arrives...
You have to got to see it with your own eyes to appreciate how beautiful the scenery is.
At the train station, there is this huge white tiger soft toy under a tree (which i have no idea why is it there) but everyone/ tourists would take a photo with it. So i waited till everyone was gone and camwhore with it, LOL
Chanced upon this cafe near the station (which is probably the only cafe in the area) and decided to have our lunch in there since they offer Doshirak 도시락 (lunch box) meal and drinks. Cute little cafe decorated with vintage toys :D
Our simple Doshirak meal that comes with Kimchi, fried egg, spam (luncheon meat), ikan bilis with seasoning and rice, it was served in this old school metal lunch box. I was about to dig in when Elizabeth explained that there is a way to have doshirak. We had to put the lid over and shut the lunchbox tightly and shake the box to mix the contents of the box together. My first reaction was, "Seriously must like that?" and we went ahead to shake our tin boxes. LOL
This is an idea of how the end result should be like. Actually it's supposed to look much worse than this because in the above photo, the different side dishes are still recognizable. We were to supposed to shake until everything is mashed up and mixed nicely with the rice so that all the flavors are mixed together and every mouth will be flavorful ☺
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Camwhore with the natural lens flare while the girls are in the toilet. The effect not bad hor *flicks hair*
HERE COMES THE V TRAIN!
In the previous post, i introduced the O train. Now it's time to share with you guys about the V train. The "V" in V-train actually stands for "Valley" and this train travels through the remote mountainous areas of Gangwon-do Province and Gyeondgsangbuk-do province. It's also know as the "Baby Baekho" (white tiger) train due to it's exterior motif.
On the V train, you realised you are able to get clear views of cliffs and valleys along the way because a large portion of the train walls excluding the ceiling have been made into glass windows. You can choose to open the windows too!
The V-train has 3 cars that can accommodate up to 158 people, and includes a observatory space and cafe.
Nobody really notice the motif prints on the ceiling until... we entered a tunnel and everyone started going like "Woahhhhh" because the prints were glow in the dark and it was a rather pretty sight in the tunnel. #cheapthrill
One way trip on the V train takes about an hour and 10 mins and unlike the O train, the V-train is non stop and makes a 5 to 10 mins stops at only 2 stations - Yangwon station, the smallest train station in Korea and Seungbu Station that offers beautiful scenery for passengers to alight and take pictures and the last stop would be Cheoram station.
I realised we are taking photos with the twist sign in a lot of our photos. ONLY IN KOREA. Lol
Arrived in Cheoram. Our objective here was to look for the Sambang Wall Mural Village - an abandoned residential village that has been repainted and transformed into one of the many mural villages in Korea. What are murals?
If you are wondering what are murals, "A mural is any piece of artwork painted or applied directly on a wall, ceiling or other large permanent surface." so we are expecting to find random drawings on the walls of the abandoned village.
A view of the mining facility at Cheoram that was built in the 1930s and has been running for over 70 years.
Finally found the village after asking for directions from the locals.
Chanced upon several murals and in my head i was thinking - "who are the people who drew these?"
Some like the above were drawn really well and there's like a meaning/ story behind each mural.
When i saw this tree mural i was like, "Wah, this will definitely make a nice background for a selfie shot!" LOL
Went to their convenient store to grab some food while waiting for the O train to our next destination.
Throughout my 6 days in Korea, i was always on a look out for interesting snacks or food which i can never find or hard to find in Singapore. Just want to see how it taste like so you can see me always eating random food items :|
One of the interesting food that i tried was this cookies and cream sandwich ice cream! I know we can get the almost the same thing from those ice cream motor cart in SG but this is pre-packed and the bread is so soft and every mouth was so delightful! I wish this was sold in SG. The only ice cream i saw that SG has would be the green melon one...
Boarded the O train to Yeongwol 영월군 where i'll be staying there overnight!
This time we were at another car on the O train and the design/layout of the train is different!
Went to checkout the "cafe" on board the train to see what they offer. Mainly snacks and drinks...
On the way to Yeongwol, the trains stops for about 10 mins at Chujeon station, which is the highest station in Korea. For that 10 mins, you get to get of the train to look down the magnificent scenery but do take note of the time limit!
Chujeon Station, Korea’s highest train station at 855m above sea level.
You can pay 500 won to use their binoculars to look further into the scenery. Erm, who really does that?
The skies were already dark when we arrived at Yeongwol. Even though the skies may be already dark, it might just be 7pm in Korea, which is only 6pm in Singapore... It makes you feel as if it's really late already -_-
Accommodation for the night at Donggang Cistar, a golf resort-spa-
Totally wasn't expecting to have a one bedroom apartment for myself. It has a mini full equipped kitchenette, dining area, a living room, huge toilet and one bedroom - for myself. You could literally a party in such an apartment!
Ordered Fried Chicken delivery for dinner. - Endorsed by FT island.
Apparently Koreans like to have fried chicken for their supper and in Korea, there is a lot of fried chicken delivery franchises, each with their own secret recipe and menus and they deliver almost anywhere in Korea, even outdoors! I heard from Elizabeth that delivery in Korea even includes providing you with plates, cutlery and such which they will come back to collect after you are done! If only there is such service in Singapore, we could order this for example at a picnic in Marina Barrage! Anyway, we ordered 1 whole fried chicken and had a good dinner over drinks and chat for the rest of the night before the girls proceed back to their own room. Wait, or i should say apartment? LOL
That's it for Day 3 in Korea. Next day, i will be exploring the areas of Yeongwol for the whole day before heading back to Seoul! Special mention to Korea Tourism Organization Singapore for this sponsored trip:
