Day 4 in Korea: Nami Island, Petite France, The Garden of Morning Calm

October 12th, 2016. This forth day in Korea was a long long day and the most exhausted day for us, besides on this day I was getting surprised by the shock incident that was happened to me. Well actually it’s more convenient to take local tour, but at that time we didn’t even think to use a local tour.

Today’s journey, as usual, start from Hongik Univ Station around 8.30am local time. Below are the details of our journey from Hongik Univ to Nami Island.

• Hongik Univ – Mangu, by Subway (44 minutes)
• Mangu – Gapyeong, by Train (43 minutes)

From Mangu to Gapyeong can be reach by train, or by ITX. If you want to take ITX, you have to pay for ticket that costs 5,700 won at ITX Ticketing Machine. At first we wanted to take ITX, but because we’re confused and already missed the ITX, so we decided to take train according to the suggestions of shopkeeper at Mangu Station. And besides, we can use T-Money to take the train, so it’s more convenient.

• Gapyeong – Nami Island Pier, by Public Bus (15 minutes)

Actually we’re on the wrong bus. We should take Gapyeong City Tour Bus, not the Public Bus. Because one ticket of city tour bus can be used for one day in Gapyeong area, include Nami, Petite France, and Garden of Morning Calm. The ticket fee of Gapyeong Tour Bus is 6,000 won for 1 day, while the public bus’ fee is 1,300 won for one way only.

• Nami Island Pier- Nami Island, by Zipwire (5 minutes)

There are 2 ways to get to Nami Island: by Ferry or Zipwire. At that time we’re separated on 2 groups, 1 group 3 persons took Zipwire, and the other group 2 persons took Ferry. I took the Zipwire one 😀

Ride a Zipwire actually has its own sensation, excited and nervous, that’s how I felt. It’s really enjoyable we can see the view of Nami Island from the above. But what I didn’t like is we waited our departure time for so a long time. Plus, we should wait in line for quite long time. It was 10.30am, and the next departure was 11.50am. Then we had to wait around 1 hour to go upstairs. I thought when we’re in upstairs, we can directly ride Zipwire. But unfortunately we had to wait in line first for about 1 hour. So, it took 2 hours for waiting to ride Zipwire. It costs 38,000 won (Round Trip). But when I look back, I think it’s not worth it. Wait for 2 hours, Ride for 5 minutes, and price is 38,000 won.

In my opinion, it’s better to take Ferry which cost 8,000 won (round trip), the departure time is fast, and can accommodate so many people. My friends who took Ferry, only need 30 minutes to get to Nami Island. I think around 1.5 hours they’re waiting for us. LOL

Anyway for your information, The Round Trip Nami Island – Nami Island Pier, using Zipwire can be merged with Ferry. So, if you use Zipwire to go to Nami Island, then you can also go back by using Ferry to go to Nami Island Pier. So, you don’t need to ride Zipwire twice. As long as you keep the ticket with you.

Finally around 1pm local time, three of us who ride Zipwire finally arrived at Nami Island! Nami Island is famous because it’s a filming location of K-Drama, Winter Sonata. Romance nuances are in the air.

Once entered Nami Island, we directly went to the famous Korean BBQ restaurant named Seomhyanggi, which is our meeting point for the five of us. I ordered Spicy Marinated Chicken BBQ that costs 12,000 won. And I also added rice that costs 1,500 won. Yummm.. this is really yummy! Probably the best Korean BBQ I’ve ever tried.

It was 2pm local time, that means we didn’t have enough time to explore Nami Island so much, because we had to go to 2 other places – Petite France and Garden of Morning Calm. Finally we only explored Nami Island for 1 hour :(( Even though still wanna explore Nami, around 3pm we left Nami to the Pier by Ferry.

From Nami Island pier, we went to Petite France by using Gapyeong City Tour Bus. This is the bus that we should take from the first time we arrived. The journey to Petite France took around 25 minutes. And finally around 4pm local time, we arrived at Petite France. The admission ticket if its normal price: 8,000 won, but because we had the voucher discount for Petite France, so the price was 6,000 won. Petite France is like a mini France village.

Petite France is really small and nothing much to explore. In my opinion, nothing special here. We can spent only 30 minutes to explore Petite France. But because five of us were separated and miss communication, so we missed the Gapyeong City  Tour Bus from Petite France to Garden of Morning Calm. Then we have to wait for the next bus for about 1 hour. Finally at 5.50pm we left Petite France to Garden of Morning Calm by using Gapyeong City Tour Bus.

When we arrived at the last stop of the bus, Morning Calm Arboretum, at 6.35pm, we just found out that Garden of Morning Calm had closed already. If its on October, it closed at 6.30pm. Damn it! Only if we didn’t miss the bus when in Petite France, I’m sure we can still go inside the garden.

At first we already imagine, we will see the Lighting Festival at Garden of Morning Calm. And actually the lighting festival is only available in winter, December – March. No wonder why when we’re there, it’s so dark, no lamps at all.

At that time, the weather was really cold at Garden of Morning Calm area. Finally we decided to go back to the bus with disappointed feeling. Fortunately we’re fast to get to the bus, because when we got to the bus around 7pm, the bus was about to leave. Then we stopped at Cheongpyeong Station and back to Hongdae. From Cheongpyeong Station, we stopped at Mangu Station, then continued by Mangu subway to Hongik Univ.

Anyway, the story hasn’t finished yet. As I said on the first paragraph, I had a “shocking incident” in Korea.

So the story is, when in the subway from Mangu to Hongik Univ, in front of me, there’s a Korean old man maybe around 40-50 years old. He started the conversation with me first. At first, he asked me where do I come from (he thought I’m a Chinese or Taiwan girl, lol), but then he also asked about “relationship status”, and finally asked me to get married with his son. He was letting me to look at his family photo album, the moment when his son was graduated, then his wife’s picture, etc. And even he also gave me his name card. He said he wanted to meet me again on the next day somewhere that I also didn’t know where. At first I refused his name card, but because he forced me to do that, so finally I accepted his name card. But in the end, of course I throw it away when arrived at the guesthouse. LOL.

I didn’t know what’s the main purpose of it. Is he really want to find a wife for his son? Or is it a scam? Or what I don’t know. But one thing for sure, girlsss.. we still have to protect ourselves everywhere we are.

After arrived at Hongik Univ area, we started to find something to eat. Because tired already, my friends bought W Hand Steak which located near Hongik Univ station exit 3. W Hand Steak is usually full of local people, so we thought this must be so delicious. And it’s true, it’s so yummy. But unfortunately there’s no chicken, only beef or pork. Since I can only eat chicken or seafood, so I only ate the potatoes. In the end I also bought Tteokbokki and some other street foods, and ate it at Uwa Guesthouse.

That’s all for our forth day in Korea. There are so many silly stories for that day, and we still had 6 days left in Korea. Didn’t know what will happened again on the next day. We planned to go to Mt.Seoraksan which located very far from Seoul.

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