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Besides, 24/7 Starcraft, we saw an English-language channel showcasing Korean technology that recycles cooking oil (I think it was Arirang), and one channel is showing latenight Holy Saturday mass.  We are in Korea during the Easter weekend.  You will easily notice, people tend to wear black and white.  Men in black suits.  The women in black also, and white veil.  In contrast, here in the Philippines, people usually wear something casual.

Next morning.  The breakfast foods at La Vie D’or is layed out initially a bit confusing for me.  Perhaps from our vantage point it’s layed vertically, and not presenting the foods available easily in our view.  It’s still divided in sections, a Korean section, salads and typical western fare.  Unlike the previous hotels and resorts, La Vie D’or seems to cater more to business people.  Lots of people in suits.  Tourguide Irene made sure to reserve the tables for us.  Before 7:30 am, the lines easily start to become long.  Food rating, decent if not great but better than Best Western.

Outside the hotel is particularly cold.  Irene is a bit woried as the weather forecast says it could rain.  We all hoped it won’t (it didn’t).  Irene always make sure we are entertained even in the tourbus.  The bus has a videoke player.  She asks if anyone would like to sing.  Wilson, one of the senior members of our group suggest she sing first.  As icebreaker, she does and sings the theme song to the movie My Sassy Girl, "I Believe."  Then we all take turns including James and I.  From Elvis Presley to  Five for Fighiting to even classic Chinese songs.  This goes for two hours.  As ending song, since that day was Easter Sunday, I sang one of the songs I sing at church, Memorial Acclamation.  We arrive to the pier that will take us to Nami Island.

We take a small ferry boat which is about 10-15 minutes to Nami Island.  It’s a very cold morning, but you can see some people wearing and doing activities not normally associated with  springtime.  James saw someone waterskiing.  We see female students wearing short skirts.  A few people are not wearing jackets.  The temperature at the time… bbbrrr!!!

The island is man-made.  Lots of activities to do.  The roads are lined with young sequoias.  There are artworks scattered.  One of the first things you will see once on the island is General Nami’s tomb for whom the island is named.  There is a plaque describing him in four languages.

A UNICEF hall is located near the dock.  There is this bicycle rail construct.  You must pay to pedal your way in this rail.  There is a tent selling teas and cosmetics.  We drank the free samples.  Yummy.  Nami Island is famous as one of the scenic backdrops of the Korean drama, Winter Sonata.  There is a statue of the two leads in the middle of the island.  Plenty of couples have the same idea of standing beside the statue in the same pose.  There’s lots of Winter Sonata posters and pics around the statue. Interestingly, there are ostriches mostly sitting around.  They are not caged, though Irene carefully warns not to get too close.  Since Nami is a small half-moon shaped island, it doesn’t take long to go from one end to the other.  There’s so many things to describe in Nami.  It is more of a cultural park.  There’s UNICEF, the usual souvenir shops, dollar exchange, rides, restaurants that include a Halal committee!

We are on the island till about 12pm, so we have to go to lunch.  By this time the temperature is warmer.  Back on the wharf or dock, there are also souvenir and trinket shops nearby.  Even CDs of Winter Sonata.  We ride  the bus.  Irene it turns out bought some postcards featuring Winter Sonata.  She gives this as gift to everyone.  We then proceed to lunch where we will be having what our guide describes as Korean chicken barbecue.  She didn’t give the Korean name for this, but I think I could just about name this dish.  But that will be a story for my next log.

As mentioned in previous posts, we decided to try other rides first.  We’re a gang with fellow traveler Ryneth.  Personally, I’d like to try the 3D cinema which also has a fairly long queue and then go for the more exciting ones.  but Ryneth prefers to use up the alloted tickets to ride on all the exciting ones.  So, we ride on two types of roller coasters.  One being rock n’ roll themed (Rolling X-Train), the other being Western-themed.  I did not take this other ride where you are rotated in 2 ways.  It turns out it’s a bit tough on the groin, so, hahah, I’m safe.

That’s the rotating rock-guitar themed ride behind us.

All the rides turn out to have long queues.  Typically couples and barkadas take these rides.  There’s even a few conscripts from the ROK Army taking a break and going out with their gf’s.   You can tell, because, well, they’re still wearing their uniforms.

It doesn’t take long and we are done with three rides before taking the Safari ride.  I still have one more ride unused.  There’s this supposedly anti-gravity ride that picqued my interest.  Alas, when we got there, it was closed.  So, we explored just about all of Everland.  As the hours go on, it’s getting to be pretty chilly.  There are lamp posts in some areas where you can stand and temporarily get warm .  Since Everland was built on hills, there are spots where we walk on slopes.  We’ve captured some interesting videoclips and posted them on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0w9TCyKgwc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0It8BxpQJg

We’re supposed to meet our tour guide, Irene, at around 6pm.  And so we did.  Even dinner is specially arranged on a price level with our choice of what dish we’d like.  There’s Asian, Italian and American.  Since we’re in Korea, I say, let’s try the more local fare.  So we chose Udon noodles with Tonkatsu breaded pork.  Yes, it’s not a Korean dish, but we haven’t tried it either.  Some of the members of our travel group failed to come on time.  So, they had to buy their own dinner (again).  I say again because we already paid for this as part of our travel package.

There’s still enough time to ride the Safari.  It’s still a very long queue and so, it still took us quite some time to get to the point of the safari ride.  Soon, finally we got on the Safari bus  and watch some wild animals having sex, sleeping, being fed…  The first wild animal we see are a couple of lion and lioness doing the nasty.  Hahahaha…  The lions/tigers, owls and bears are separated by gates.  There’s supposed to be giraffes, but since it’s very late, we suspect their area is closed by now.  Safari has several buses operating, so, it’s not just one ride going around.  The ride itself must have been about less than 15 minutes (?)…  Aftr the ride, we decide to buy souvenirs at the nearest shop.  We bought a couple of stuffed toys that are hybrids of two animals.  A Siberian Tiger/Bee  and Strawberry/bunny.

It’s running late, and by about 8:30 everyone is back on the tourbus.  We go to the next nearest city, Suwon, where we stay at La Vie D’or (the Golden Life) Hotel.  We’d have loved to walk around Suwon, but the hotel itself is some distance to the nearest commercial district.  The rooms in La Vie D’or is unique.  In terms of size, it’s the biggest from all our stays.  It has a sala set.  The water from the faucet is purified to be drinkable.  It even says "the water from this faucet is safe to drink!".   The only drawback is the lack of a mini-fridge.  So, we ate as much of the box of strawberry while watching Starcraft matches on TV before going to sleep.  Yes, only in Korea.