Korea 2024 - Yeong-Ju Breakfast and Stretching Session

 

Our last morning at the Forest Therapy Center. A lovely day. We were hoping the cherry blossom around our lodging area would all bloom before we leave, but all we could see were just flower buds. 

Packing up and headed out. Checking out today. I love the view here.

Breakfast! Me loading up on the eggs, one of my favourite food!

After that we head to the cafe as some of us need our coffee fix.

Since it was our last day here, I decided to order the strawberry milkshake. It was made of fresh strawberries! Actually, all the strawberries dessert I had in Korea was delicious cause they were made of the real thing. I had one of the loveliest Strawberry Bingsu there too. But once back in Singapore or Malaysia, these little treats are kinda out of reach, cause strawberries are expensive here. The best I could do was Cameron Highlight's strawberry milkshake, which was awesome too! Recommended to me by my vegetarian friend. He kept telling me I have to drink the strawberry milkshake at the strawberry farm there :P

Our last session, stretching exercise, using a kind of stick that helped elevate the pain point :P

Korea 2024 - Yeong-Ju Lunch and Forrest Therapy

 

Above, lunch! The black sauce is actually jajiangmian sauce. I never knew you could eat it like a rice sauce before! It was super delicious! 100% would eat again! I love places where all my meals are arranged for me, like a cruise ship. Cause not having to think what to eat on a daily basis is quite a relaxing thing for me! Even though I love cooking, but having someone catering to me daily, is such a luxury!

After lunch, the session I've been waiting for! Forrest Therapy! It started with us hiking into the forest. For this session, a few instructor actually guided us. I love the walk there, even though I am always afraid of slipping during hikes. I have a super fear of falling down wherever I go!

At the delegated area, an instructor showing us how to tie our hammock to the trees.

Each of us have a hammock which we were told to get before the hike.

After the briefing, we were free to go select our tree to tie our hammock. Most people pick the higher ground. Me and my husband decided to take the lower ground since there were less people there, and frankly, I pick it because it was close to the river and I wanted to listen to the sound of flowing water. 

Me singing on my hammock with my husband next to me. It was pretty cold, so we were also given a blanket. 

It was super relaxing!!!! 100% would do it again. We only got 30mins on our own. I wish the session was half a day! I could hear the birds, the wind, the leaves, and the water flowing. Lovely. Looking up, you could also see the tall trees surrounding you. 

Peeping at the rest of the group. Everyone was just so quiet enjoying the moment.

Once the session was over, we packed up and hike back to the center. Some of the beautiful sights along the way. Above path looked like something out of a halloween show :P  After returning our hammock, it was free and easy time again, so I decided to go hike around the ground area. 

What a lovely walk. It almost looked like a range here.

It was quite a nice hike, but I specifically wanted to hike up to a big tree that we always walked pass daily on our way down.

Here is the tree! Again, a k-drama moment for me! Some spots just speaks to you!

We also explore the stream area, walking along it down back to the canteen for dinner. There are swings planted at random spots, so sometimes we would sit down and chit chat. Mainly it was just me, my husband, and sometimes my friend's daughter who was surprisingly wandering the place on her own too! Good for her! A strong and independent woman! 

Dinner before hiking back to our chalet. You get the drill by now.

Sunset view :)

Korea 2024 - Yeong-Ju Breakfast and Singing Bowl Meditation

 

Next morning, a lovely morning walk down to the center for breakfast!

Above is what the canteen looked like. There are other groups beside us, as well as small family. Everything is self service like a buffet concept. And you have to clear your own plate away once done.

Every meal was served on this tray. I recently when to a Korean restaurant in Penang and ordered a fried chicken set, and it was served to me on a similar tray, and for some reason I smiled at the nostalgic memories of it. Above my breakfast. I am so happy that I am a vegetable person. Interestingly fruits are not served at the center.

Before our first session, we had some time after breakfast to run around the ground. Above my friend's daughter exploring the group. It kinda reminded me of those camp sites. 

The river that flow through the place looks lovely but rather unnatural.

There was a cafe at the main building where you could get cakes, bread and coffee. It was the only sinful place in the center. I think we went almost daily to have a snack here. 

All the bread look lovely, but rather expensive. 

I don't recall eating anything on the first day. I was happy with my daily rice serving!

The room where we had our first session of the day.

It was a singing bowl meditation session! This was the first time I am learning about this. We were split into groups, and each group got their own collection of singing bowl! We were taught how to use them and took turns playing with them. For a guided meditation, the instructor told us to lie down, and she played the bowl for us. It was sooooooo relaxing! You could hear people starting to snore. I also dozed off. Interestingly, after coming home, I decided to try the meditation using a Youtube clip. Sadly, it wasn't the same. The sound of the bowl just doesn't feel as relaxing. I do have one singing bowl in my home in Penang. I kinda used it as my key bowl :P  But every time I drop my key in, it does sing!

Korea 2024 - Yeong-Ju Forrest Therapy Center and Dinner

 

Our next destination was in the hill area of Yeong-Ju! It was called Forrest Therapy Center, and it was easily my favourite place of the whole trip. The place was founded so that work stressed Korean people has a place to go and relax and find their balance.

The area of the center was pretty huge! With a river (man-made I think) running through it. There are different facilities dotted all over the hills and forest, and it was meant for Koreans who drove here for a getaway. That meant that they could drive from one center to another to get their therapy. Not so for us! Our bus dropped us at the reception, and after checking in and doing our first therapy session, we actually had to hike uphill (with our luggage) to reach our accommodations! The housing area was all the way to the top cause our teacher got us individual chalet to stay in.

It was heart warming that when we first arrived, we were all given a program of our 3 days stay here. It was a nice small touch. It may look pretty packed, but there was a lot of time for us to actually explore the group on our own. We spend a lot of the time eating and waiting around for sessions actually. 3 meals were provided a day, and a lot of us was happy to hear that it wasn't vegetarian! 

Our first therapy consist of 3 types of massages. All the massages were done by machines, and you could book for more session if you want. It wasn't expensive since it's done by machine. I found it interesting, but personally felt that human touch is still the best. I think I need a human that can react to my body during a massage and know where all my sore points are so that they can zoom in on them. Machine, however, are just too routine for my liking. And you can't really tell the machine to please zoom in on a certain zone or to press harder. 

The wide road which was mostly empty near our lodging area. We could walk up and down to the center using the tar road, or through the hill slopes. As the slopes was quite steep and slippery, most of us prefer to walk on the road. 

Some of the chalet. There are small and big chalet. We were mostly group into 4 to 5 person per group. 

Here's a look at the chalet inside. Pretty minimalistic. Love it! There are two bedrooms upstairs and toilet. I volunteered to sleep on the group floor so that I can have my own room. The table above was where we would sit nightly to chit chat, sing songs and get to know each other. It is times like these that I often find out how different my lifestyle is like compared to the other more 'normal' ladies....

Bird eye view of the place. 

My tiny room with my futon. I open the window when I sleep cause I love the fresh mountain air, even though it was pretty cold. But get this, the floor is heated! So the bed is actually very cosy to sleep in! I kept my bedroom door open as there is a huge fan in the living room that helps ventilate the air. And for some reason, everyone prefer to use the toilet on the ground floor. So I get up super early so that I can use it first before the other wakes up. I hate waiting around to use the bathroom, especially when some people can spend hours inside!

My lovely comfortable bed. For some reason, I love sleeping on futon. 

Above is our first meal here, dinner. We had to walk all the way downhill to eat it, and then hike up again! What an exercise! I love all the meal served at the center cause they always have super nice korean rice, soup, kimchi, and lot's of other type of side dishes! I ate so much rice here. It was practically rice for breakfast, lunch and dinner!

Korea 2024 - Gyeong-Ju Expo and Lunch

There are a lot of things that I don't know about South Korea, mainly because it wasn't a country that I like to visit much. But whenever I go there with my friend and her Korean Teacher, I tend to learn a lot about it, and tend to appreciate the people, the culture and the place more. So on this trip to Gyeong-Ju, I also discovered that there is an EXPO there. I've heard a lot about this world EXPO, but I've never really understood what it meant. Was it just a place to showcase what a place has to offer? Example Expo Osaka 2025? Does it stand for "Exhibition"  in short? Who knows. All I knew was, we ended up here in Gyeong-Ju.

It was pretty close to the pagoda structure we saw earlier. And the thing about Expo ground was, it always looked artificial, cause it was designed and built for a reason. I guess that's why it made me feel uncomfortable. The last Expo I visited was in Aichi, Japan, cause it was where the Ghibli Warehouse was at....

An official map of the place. The cut-out pagoda shaped building was the place we were going to visit. However, the ticket price you pay to enter the Expo covers everything else. So it was kind of a shame we could stay longer there.

The building from afar.

 

Front view. It was an interesting looking building. But someone asked me what did I thought of it, I told them that it reminded me of those cardboard 3D-DIY kit buildings where you have to assembled it yourself. Only, this one was life size! almost 8 storeys high! Lol. 

Information of the architect that designed it. Apparently it was designed by a Japanese. I do like Japanese designed building, specifically Tadao Ando's buildings. I would travel to an outskirt location just to view his buildings, cause it's always just so simple, so clean, and powerful. So far I've only visited one, in Nagasaki where the victim's memorial building is. I know of one in Aomori which is a museum. And there is a Church of Light which was almost magical looking! Maybe I can do a trip just on his buildings itself! What would be fun!

Standing just beneath the building. We get to go all the way up to the observatory floor.

A modern looking light display upstairs. 

You could view a history of the Shilla Empire at the observatory floor. You could also view the real life view all around. Above we spotted a themed park nearby.

Here is a zoom in view. 

The pagoda across the street, and nearby hotels. 

I was interested in this garden which I saw. It looked like a maze! And surrounded by cherry blossoms!

Next to the mazed like garden, there was also some water features and more pink trees! I wish we had the time to go explore. Such a pity to pay full price only to see all these from the top.... I think you should at least spend half a day here.

We were leaving Gyeong-Ju after visiting the Expo. Once we got back to the bus, it head off into the country side again. Relaxing view as we drove to our next destination. 

We didn't have time for a sit down meal, so our teacher ordered for us gimbap, a rice roll with fillings inside, covered in seaweed. I was surprised it even came with a side dish of radish and soup! We ate our lunch inside the bus itself. Above I'm using my luggage as a table. My luggage was one of the smallest and lightest among the group, so I'm never allowed to put it inside the luggage holder beneath the bus since they need the space for all the other bigger and heavier luggages.The Kumamon sticker is from Akimura-san when she came over to Singapore for a business trip. I put it there to warn others that I will hit them if they do anything to my luggage! Lol. 

My prawn tempura gimbap :)