We left Myeongdong and took an overnight trip to Phoenix Park Ski Resort in Pyeongchang area. We sourced our shuttle bus from Phoenix Park website where you can choose to pick up/drop off from Seoul or Hongik University station. For those who are interested to make a direct booking, you can click here. We didn’t want to bring our entire luggage back and forth and so we decided to keep them in the automated lockers in Hongik University station and collect them when we returned

These lockers are very common in train stations. Even though reviews from the past has mentioned many had problems with the lockers as the instructions are only given in Korean, you will be glad to know, there is an English option now 🙂

Rate is dependent on the size of locker chosen and we took the largest at ₩4,000 every 12 hours

Breakfast; kimbap and coffee from 7-11 since there was time constraint. The coffee was surprisingly not bad

Pick up was at Hana Tours office near Hongik University station and we were surprised that we were driven in a private car (and it’s just us!). The trip took about 3 hours with smooth traffic and we stopped at a highway rest-stop along the way before dropping at one of the ski rental shops to get our ski attire and gloves

On a side note, the lady who picked us up was an authorised tour guide. So for anyone who wants a personal guide in Seoul or nearby cities, you can call/email her to check rates. She charged about SGD200-300 for 9 hours for Seoul

Entertaining myself on the way

This reminds me one of those Running Man episodes where they have to play games at a highway rest-stop

Their foodcourt

We reached Phoenix Park at about 1230pm and this is the view from our condo! Okay, I know not much view since we are facing the front and not the ski mountains

Anyway, here’s peektures of the condo

It’s apartment-style complete with mini kitchen and traditional bedding (aka you sleep on the floor), but the comforters make it very comfortable to sleep on

Central Plaza, where most F&B and retail shops are located

One bad thing of going ski resort during off-peak season is you have limited options to dine at, and if you miss the lunch hour, it makes things even worse. After walking back forth between the central plaza and the hotel, we were down to Domino’s Pizza and BBQ chicken which we have very little interest in

So this calls for an all-out unhealthy lunch, complete with ramen, chips and icecream from the convenience store

Decided to check out the resort and we bought tickets to take the Gondola up to the mountain

You buy your tickets here for anything – Gondola, ski lift, equipment rental, etc

Gondola ₩9,000 per pax

Whee! Snow!

And pretty sights up on top

It is surprisingly not that cold up there, as compared in Seoul

Coming back down

Look who we found at the bottom of the mountain

mehhhh

And we were faced with the same situation when dinner comes. And cos the picky me refused to have another serving of instant ramen, we bought ingredients from the convenience store and brought them back to the apartment to cook. For once, I’m glad there were ingredients at the convenience store and we were staying in an apartment

Making something out of nothing

With spring onion, mushrooms, tofu, dumplings and luncheon meat

Complete with kimchi and hard boiled eggs

Not bad right, when you are faced with such little resources and to make a meal for 3

So we decided to hit the snow after dinner since the lil cousin couldn’t wait. And she wanted to play the sleigh which to our horror, the resort has sold out for that and the above shop apparently is the only shop in the resort that sells that. So in the end we wandered across the street and found a shop that rents it for ₩5,000 for 12 hours

And I decided to give it a try as well. Psst, it was really fun, though I’m a little too old for that. ha

So I retired for the night. Next morning, we decided to rent the ski boots for the cousin so that she can play without constraints

Lockers on the left

 

Rental on the right. You have to give them some form of identification to assure them you won’t run away with the (heavy) equipment. And apparently we found out, locker keys will do

So you measure your feet size before writing it down the paper given

And the joke came when we realised we cannot just rent the boots, they gave us the full set of ski equipment instead

Breakfast was Issac Toast again, just cos they could try

Not much English menu here, just point and order

Chicken ₩3,000

And so, I decided to get something different. But my opinion still remains. Try if you must, but it is not a must to try

So while the cousin was having fun with her sleigh, I decided to pretend I’m skiing, or trying to ski

Look the part right?

Well when you don’t really know how to ski, you just pretend you know how to ski 😉

So we spent the next part of the day up in the mountain building snowman

Building the base

Taking shape

Ta-da!

MY SNOWMAN IS SO CUTE!!

And soon it was lunch (headache) again. And I decided to have churros after smelling the fragrance of the cooked dough in the resort (they have like more than 1 churro stall) so I picked a random one

Devil Choco and Original ₩5,000

And it’s sooo good! Like this is even better than Everland. The chocolate has the right consistency, sweetness and thickness and evenly spread through the dough

Dusted with cinnamon and sugar, deep fried to perfection with the inside dry and hollow

Honestly, sometimes random churros are the best

So it is a short stay at the ski resort. Even though I didn’t really try to ski, but it was still fun watching people ski and snowboard and you definitely need more than 1 day to get the hang of skiing

Address: 174 Taegi-ro, Bongpyeong-myeon, Pyeongchang-gun, Gangwon-do, South Korea

The shuttle bus came to pick us up at 3pm at the hotel lobby and this time round, it’s a proper bus. I spent most of the time sleeping and by the time we reached Hongdae, it was close to 7pm. Picked up our luggages and dragged them back to our guesthouse in Hongdae, which was 7 minutes walk away

We were so famished we ordered Kyochon Fried Chicken to be delivered to our doorsteps!

Original and Honey, complete with beer and radish ₩31,000

Looks so delicious

I preferred the original to honey as the former tastes a mixture of sweet and salty. Well, honestly, they tasted like fried chicken lah but the portion was huge. It was more than enough to feed 4 pax. It would be ideal if they have come in smaller portion, and we could order more flavours to try. There’s an outlet in Hongdae area so here goes

Address: 362-15, Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Introducing our guesthouse in Hongdae, Seoul Sweet Style Guesthouse. I like the location of the guesthouse being we were at the quieter part of Hongdae, yet still surrounded by plenty of cafes. Like honestly, no matter which route we take to walk to the subway, there is always one cafe you feel like trying each day, even without the need to google for one. Even though it’s a 7 minutes leisure walk away, sometimes you feel so cold under the weather you might reach the guesthouse in under 5 minutes

The common area where breakfast is served. I didn’t have their breakfast cos there wasn’t time for one to try. And anyway, the breakfast spread wasn’t great to start with

In Christmas spirit

Those who are watching recent K-dramas will immediately know who is this! It’s ‘You Bastard’ from Oh My Venus!

Second Floor Common Area

Their bath towels are those hand-towels size. So if you prefer a bigger towel, bring your own

And our room

One complain I have is they only have one mirror and it is located inside the bathroom. So it is very inconvenient

A mini booklet of complimentary food vouchers

And complimentary face masks from the guesthouse

The owner of this guesthouse is Korean but mainly run by these girls from Taiwan and Hongkong so they pretty much converse in chinese. I think the guesthouse is generally okay but they do have lots of rules to adhere to

Address: 15 World Cup buk-ro 6-gil, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea

Next morning was a outskirt trip to Everland, which began a painful 2 hours journey. Seriously, commuting has never been so tiring. We left early in the morning and bumped into rush hour madness. Honestly, people who always complain about Singapore rush hour is bad, Korea’s rush hour is a whole new level =/ You really should give it a try. We took subway all the way and had to change at many stations to take us to Yongin Everland station

And then you take a free shuttle bus to take you to Everland. There is a recorded operator on board who will inform you of the park’s and shuttle bus’s operating hours that day

But we still feel excited about coming

Going to the foreigner’s ticketing booth where I had printed the discount voucher online to get our discounted ticket

Adult ticket ₩34,000

Pretty Christmas deco!

And of course our first stop is to get the express ticket for T-express. Looking at this makes me so excited already

The booth is just located outside T-express. The time there tells you the waiting time right now for the ride, which in my opinion is pretty short

And the ticket looks like this. It tells you the time to come back for the ride. Show it to the attendant and he will lead you to a separate queue. So we proceeded to take on other rides and by the time we went back, it was really express we just whizzed past the entire queue to first in line

So freaking awesome. I can do this all over again

It was a gloomy and cloudy day at Everland with slight rain so we decided to take shelter with lunch at Magic Time restaurant, near T-express

Curry Don with Chicken Chop ₩12,300

The chicken chop was pretty delicious. The outer layer was deep fried to a beautiful golden brown and the meat was juicy and tender

Curry Don with Pork Chop ₩12,300

The pork chop on the other hand wasn’t as good. I recommend the chicken chop anytime

The set comes with a complimentary soup which tasted not too bad

And cos we needed to digest our food before we could take any more rides, it was a trip to Zootopia where we paid a visit to all the animals

The bear is ugily cute

It was then I realised I cannot take spinning rides, major motion sickness seriously

So I’m down to Merry-Go-Round. Whee!

Walked to the other side of the park to meet with more pretty Christmas decorations

Dinner was settled with churros and fries

Choco Churro ₩3,800

It didn’t taste half as good at Phoenix Park and it is more expensive. The chocolate did not have the right consistency and the churro was a little too wet

We wanted to catch the Moonlight parade so we hid from the cold at Burger Cafe. Parade time was a little different cos.. we have never seen so little people watching a parade. It’s a far cry from Disneyland where people actually sit down to chope seats. Here, you can just leisurely walk to any spot and you can still have a great view

The characters are super cute. They dance and cheer with you

We skipped the fireworks cos the thought of a 2-hour journey back is tiring enough

And so this concludes our Everland adventure. One thing strange was they actually closed most indoor rides when it is raining. So strange, I don’t understand. Shouldn’t it be the other way round? So please check weather forecast before you go, else you’ll miss some of the attractions you want to visit

Address: 199 Everland-ro, Pogog-eup, Cheoin-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, South Korea

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