Trip to South Korea: Busan - Ulsan - Pyeongchang - Seoul Part 2

By Kirah - April 04, 2018

Hi readers! If you are first time on my blog, I will warn you that you gonna be back to my blog after this! jk jk :) This is the entry for Part 2 of my previous trip to South Korea. If you want to catch up my old post, you just need to scroll down a bit. I was wondering whether to continue my journey on new post or remain in Part 1. But I think you might feel Part 1 is too long, so here we go! While you are reading this, if you had any questions you can hit me up through any of my soc-med, I will list it out at the very end of this entry. Cheers!

Day 3: DONG-GU, ULSAN

After a long and tiring day, we had really good sleep. We woke up early and had our breakfast. Luckily, the convenience store was just in front of our nose. So we could go there anytime to top up anything needed. Please be aware there are only 2 brand maggi or ramyun which you can consider eating while in Korea. If you feel hesitant, I will suggest you to bring your own food from Malaysia. I will show you how it looks like:

You need to find this brand with ajusshi Seok Cheol on it, good luck. It's not common tho. Sadly, I had deleted the other picture of other one.

Let's continue with our day in Ulsan. The reason why we stayed at Tirol motel because the location was situated just 300m from the entrance to Daewangam Park. You need to pronounce it like this - Dae-Wang-Am. Why I chose this park as one of our retreat while in Korea? Firstly, because this park offer you everything you need to calm your heart and mind. It is a resting place. This park might not one of the tourist attraction but surely the locals love it. You can read this article, to know better. From our hotel , we headed to the beach which located 100m walking distance and from there we could see the scary-stairs. There are few tracks available. You can refer below map:

The map was located at the starting point before reaching A. If you spot the lighthouse, that is the observatory deck and the last check point. It did not consume to much time. You can take light walk and climb the stairs slowly. It will take at least 2 hours to reach the lighthouse or the main bridge.

This is the starting point. Bare with the endless stairs that you need to climb to reach point A.

This is point A before you find few checkpoints and more stairs.

From the starting point, it was a bit tough because we had to climb approximately 200 steep stairs. Then we climed the stairs up and down and it required our energy. However, as long as you have fun, you will reach the peak in no time. For this trip, I was in charged for the itinerary and activities we should covered. I had apologized to my fellow travel mates beforehand due to the activities which need their spirit and stamina to be tested. This is my kind of travel, so nature-healing. I was satisfied and feeling so grateful towards them because they agreed to do this together. We felt even special that day because it was Una's birthday. We celebrated her birthday at the top of the park which surrounded by astonish scenery. I bet it meant a lot to Una. We followed the route and it was quite simple. If you see the red path, it was the path that we chose to reach the peak. It took us 3 hours to reach the highlighted bridge which connect two big rocks. We had it leisure and stopped for few times to take pictures and enjoyed the view to the fullest. It was so so so amazing which we could not resisted to put our camera up and took tons of selfies and pictures. We even approached random people to help us capturing the moment. If you do not believe what I just said, you just need to scroll down for evidences as picture speaks louder than words!

What else you would ask for? While you hike, you are accompanied by this kind of view. It was an amazing experience, indeed! More photos to share below:

I want to talk about the bridge. We came here because of this bridge, it was not overrated after all. It was worth the hike. Once you see the light house, it signifies that you have reached the end, at least for this journey. As above, this bridge is the connector in order for you to climb another stairs to the peak. I will not say more, you can view below picture to imagine how beautiful it is.

Please understand that we took as many photos as we want. And I wanted to show you how happy we were from the start till we climb the hill down. More group photos and excuse myself. haha

Do not to forget that it was Una's birthday. We had chance to throw a small party with packet of biscuit.

Before we got back to the hotel for quite a long rest, we found a cute cafe and bought ice cream. Yes I know, it was 3-4 Celsius that day but who cares? Once arrived at the motel, all of us could not stand the tiredness. We slept for 3-4 hours and had our not-so-proper dinner. Then we headed out for night walk. Actually we wanted to witness the most scenic view at night in Ulsan. So I had Ulsan Bridge in itinerary. However we did not purchased any internet subscription and only depended on public wifi which only have persistent connection, so we got lost.

This is supposed to be the bridge we wanted to go at first.

According to the waze, we walked about 1-2km away and reached at parking area. We thought it was the entrance to go to bridge. Forgot to mentioned, you need to hike a bit, maybe for 10 minutes to find the parking area. We asked the guard "is it the right way to the bridge?", and he said yes! We found relief. He said it took another 10 minutes hike to reach the destination. So we thanked him and yeah finally we will definitely at the right place. But we were so wrong! It took us probably another 40 minutes hike and we reached at Ulsan Observatory Tower! It was completely different place.

Ulsan Observatory Tower

Fret not, it was all worth it! Despite the fact we lost and the unexpected 1 hour night hike (again for today!), it was all worth the drama. Firstly, we entered the tower for free without any charge. Secondly, we could still see the bridge from the top tower. Thirdly, I will tell you in a bit.

Once we got there, the first thing was to ask how much it cost to go up to the deck. Luckily, it was free. We went up by the elevator and observed the bridge from up there. It was similar if you had experience going to KL Tower or KLCC before where you could see the whole city. You can choose either to look up from inside or outside. But we prefer to look up from the inside because of the cold weather. It was freaking cold. We barely stepped out more than 10 minutes except for Una. I did not know what she was thinking. The coldness penetrated even you have triple layers of clothes. Time to go back. Farahin and I decided to use stairs instead of elevator to warm our body. It took us 10 minutes to go down. On the first floor, they had mini exhibition and displayed the bridge replica and Ulsan's history building. We took some time to play with the photo booth there. The best part was they decorated the area with so many lights and hang it on a trees. So we took photos there.

You can see in the video, how struggle we were in order to take a perfect picture with the lights on. I was the photographer, Farahin was the model and thanks to our lighting women, Una and Miera. Please be noted, the fairy light was brought by me all the way from Malaysia. End of our hectic yet productive day 3.

Day 4: ULSAN - SEOUL

Our brand new day began. We checked out as early as 8am after a light breakfast. We asked the ajusshi to call us for taxis, do not worry they were metered. It costed us around KRW14,000 per taxi to go to the Ulsan Bus Terminal. We bought bus ticket to Seoul at 3pm. It was still early in the morning, so we decided to have morning stroll around the area. We walked at least 2-3km and went to Taehwa-gang Bamboo Forest to take some picture and had our lunch at nearest McD. Then we went to Ulsan Lotte Mart. I bought a brand new affordable long winter jacket. The price was marked down till KRW39,000 (approximately MYR140). At 3pm sharp, the bus was there to pick up the passengers. It was pretty similar with the previous bus to Busan. The bus ticket costed us KRW23,500 (approximately MYR85). Let the pictures speak for that reasons.

This was open stall near the Lotte mart.

The park was so lovely and many elders were exercising and had light walk. It was so huge. It looked like autumn when it was just the end of winter.

Thanks to my unwilling photographer, Syimir. He took my photos as instructed. The bus to Seoul from Ulsan took us around 4 hours. We arrived on time at 7pm plus. Then we headed back to our hostel by train. The nearest subway from Dong Seoul Bus terminal is Gangbyeon station. So from Gabyeon station we went to Tukseom where our hostel located. No transfer needed. It was just 4 stations away. We stayed at Seoul Forest Gueshouse. As we checked in late around 8pm, the host was kind enough to wait us and showed us around. It was nice budgeted-guesthouse. The host could speak in English well. We allowed to cook and store our food in the refrigerator. This guesthouse also had rooftop where you can hang out. Unfortunately, it was too cold for us to go up.

This was our room (for female). We put down our luggage and headed out for dinner. Yes we were so tired yet so hungry. In fact, my long lost friend was in Korea too, we decided to meet up that night before she flew back home. We went to MyeongDong that night. We had street food and went for window shopping. After that, we finally back to our hostel and rested before continuing our most anticipated journey the next day. Please stay tune for Part 3.

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