Modern Cheonggyecheon Stream in Seoul

In early Apr 2016 after visiting the secret garden at Changdeok Palace, my friend and I would like to go to Cheonggyecheon stream, which was renovated in 2003 to its present form today, it's one of the place destination that we must visit as it's quite popular for Korea's people hanging around. We planned to walk from the palace to the place, we passed by many stores and restaurants, even go cross some streets, but it seemed a never ending walk, we're so tired, we called a cab to continue

Most of taxi driver in Korea could not speak English, anyway they are very friendly, I showed him the map where we would like to go, as I also could not pronounce well Cheonggyecheon stream :-) We asked him to stop at the edge of the stream which run through downtown Seoul, it's very obvious near Cheonggye Plaza and you could see the crowd, so you would not get lost. With high spirit as finally we could find it, we took some pictures under the sunshine, we're facing the sun until we could not see our camera screen so just count on our feeling, taking picture for selfie above the stream, before we're going down to the river.

Actually there's a fountain on the beginning of the 11km modern public recreation stream, unfortunately it's not played at that time. A small water fall was quite interesting beside the stairs to go down to the river, it flew from the level of the fountain going down to the river. At the left and right side of the river were pedestrian that people could walk, but we also could sit at the stairs at the edge of the river for chatting, or just enjoying the clear water and mild weather.

We continued strolling the river, till we found some square stones put in the middle of the river for people to cross from one side to another side of the river, we took many pictures there. Then we took a rest and enjoy by sitting on the stairs at the edge of the river. Our feet were soaring as we had walked around Seoul since morning. It's a good place to take a rest and seeing others enjoy the environment with their own activity and style. Creating an environment with clean water and natural habitats was the most significant achievement of the project, it could invite more fishes & birds, also cool down the temperature.

Almost sunset so we decided to continue exploring Seoul, we tried to find toilet, all of a sudden when we went up the stairs, we're just realized that the place was really close to 20,000m2 Gwanghwamun square where we could find two statues of Admiral Yi Sun-Shin and Sejong the Great, who are great and influential people in Korean history. The square was quite huge, I tried to take photos while jumping, unfortunately my friend had difficulty to catch it, lucky finally my friend could get my jump after several jumps. Some tends were available on the square, we didn't visit them, it seemed they were selling something, we're too tired to go there.

My friend was exhausted and feeling cold because it's very windy. She preferred to wait for me below at the basement where there were some shops while I was taking some pictures of beautiful colorful flowers decorating the square. The flower was quite beautiful with many colors and they arranged it well in the ellipse pots. The distance between 2 statues were very far, I walked to the front of the other statue to be able taking both statues with the flower and Bukaksan Mountain as the background. It's very difficult to get the proper angle, I had to be patient to wait for other people finished taking picture. My friend was kind enough waiting for me to finish my desire capturing all of them.

If I'll go to Korea again, definitely I would visit Cheonggyecheon stream, as I haven't explored many sides at that time, such as visiting the coffee shop along the stream.

Read More ..

Beautiful Hallim Park, Jeju Island, South Korea

I joined Jeju daily tour to West course on 28th Apr 2016, one of the visited place was the colorful Hallim Park. The park was divided into 9 sections, unfortunately we didn't have enough time to explore all of them as the tour guide only gave us 70 minutes to explore around 100.000 square meters park. The tour guide shared the park map then he brought us to the entrance of Hyeopjae & SsangYong cave passing through the palm tree avenue. As the time was limited, and we're more interested in flower, my friend and I decided to skip the cave.

On the way to the cave we saw beautiful cherry blossom, so we went back to the path. To take pictures under the white cherry we had to wait for a family finishing the shot. Lucky they were kind enough to help us taking photo with both of us under the tree. We also took our own picture alone for recording the short season of cherry blossom.

To save time we directly went to tulip garden which was located next to the cave in "wild grass & flower garden" section. The path was decorated with colorful tulips on the big pot and some human stone statues with stone benches to take a rest and enjoy the scenery. My friend loved the stone statue and wanna take some pictures. We kept walking until finding overlay white flower unfortunately we didn't know the flower's name.

Continue walking following the path we're happy to find bunch of tulips, the color was very attractive, bright orange combining with yellow while the other was pink combining with white. The red one was quite beautiful, the white color looked like lace decorating the edge of the flower. We took some pictures from different angle to capture its beauty. They're planted in the plastic bag, not directly on the ground.

Crossing through a wooden bridge on the pond, we took picture in front of a woman brought water to fill the big water jar. At the next area we found another bunch of light pink tulips and orange tulips. It's surrounding by some stones for decorating. On the way out from the area we passed through the line of human stone statue again.

We skipped "Jeju stone & bonsai garden", continue to the "Jae-Am folk village" where we could see Korean human stone statues to describe their daily activities such as playing with their children, also some animal stone statues such as horse, pig, etc. The house was also built from stone and wood with thatched roof. The real food seller in the traditional house were available to sell Korean snacks.

We kept trying to find cherry blossom garden, I saw cute kindergarten children enjoyed the bird park. I could see a peacock in the cage spreading its beautiful wings to attract others. An ostrich was walking back and forth near the peacock's cage. Beautiful orange combining with yellow color flowers were arranged next to the bird garden. We tried to use our selfie stick to capture it, unfortunately the selfie stick's button was not working, so I took a video instead of photo.

On the next path beautiful cherry blossom trees became shelter of a family monument. We thought it's the cherry garden, the end of our searching. I still liked to take some more pictures while my friend would like to find souvenirs in the shop near the exit gate, so we were split. 10 minutes before the gathered time, I've just realized that the cherry garden was at the other side, I met one of my friend in the trip from Singapore, she confirmed the direction to the cherry garden. As it's a very short time, I ran to the location. I found many cherry blossom trees there, I took many pictures, lucky that a woman was kind enough to help me taking my pictures on the bench in the garden. The result is very satisfying, she took three times with different layout without me asking for it. Finally I ran to the pink cherry, and did selfie pose :-)

Running to the exit gate was very tiring, actually I passed the "water garden" which must be quite interesting as it became the campaign picture of Hallim park. Unfortunately I didn't have enough time to see it, unless the bus will leave me behind and I had to catch the bus by myself to the next destination. Lucky I could arrive on the bus on time. I think they should provide more time so we could enjoy the park more relax and visit all of the areas in the park.

Don't miss to visit the park, I think it's worthy to stop by there especially in spring or summer. I was lucky that I could experience cherry blossom. Jeju is warmer than Seoul, so the cherry blossom is earlier.

Read More ..