Singapore Day 1: Financial/Colonial District, Boat Quay

Happy New Year (although most people seem to already have written off 2009 for 2010...)

Continuing from the Seoul series of posts, on May 6, 08 we arrived in Singapore from Seoul.

This was my second time visiting Singapore. I first visited Singapore way back in 1995 when our family stayed for 1 month in the hot humid month of August.

Because we were staying at my cousin's place, we had to wake them up at 3 am in the morning to let us into their apartment.

After a short rest we woke up and took the train (or as they call it in Singapore, the MRT, Mass Rapid Transit) to the airport to buy the Singapore Tourist Pass which is a set price unlimited travel transit smart card for tourist use. We had to go to the airport because that was the closest MRT station near my cousin's apartment which sold the pass (my cousin lives every close to the airport, maybe 15 minutes away by taxi).

Arrival at the airport again to buy the transit pass.

White Chrismas 2008 in Vancouver

Merry Christmas.

For the first time since 1971, every region in Canada has a White Christmas. I think the last time Vancouver got so much snow was in 1996. Yesterday on Christmas Eve, the snow kept falling all day and I had to plow the snow three times or else it would have been unmanageable. In the afternoon alone, more than 6 inches fell. It had been snowing for almost a week here, which is pretty rare since it almost always rains in December.

The result is the following:

Received My Official 2010 Winter Olympics Lanyard

It's the 24th of December and it is still snowing. So much snow that I had to shovel the snow two times already today. But the main reason for this post is to show the Official 2010 Winter Olympics lanyard that I received via the mail today.



I am quite disappointed in the quality of the lanyard, especially when VANOC (Vancouver Olympic Organizing Committee) charged $23 for it. It didn't even come with any standard packaging. It just came in one of those cheap plastic sleeves which street market DVD vendors use to sell pirated DVDs in. From looking at the plastic holder, I am also surprised at how big the size of the tickets will be.

Seoul Day 4: Incheon International Airport

3 months have passed since my last posting, and its time to continue where I left off.

During the past 3 months, two of which were spent intensely studying for the Japanese Language Proficiency Exam Level 2. I completely underestimated the test and whether I passed or not, I learned a lot of new things during those months of study.

Now back to the original topic of this post. I took these pictures on May 5, 08 on our last day in Seoul. Despite the large size of the airport, there was almost nothing to do while waiting for our flight at the airport.

Regarding the shops in the airport, every single one of them was a duty free shop which sold luxury goods priced in U.S. dollars, not Korean Won, even though we were in Korea. I found this quite strange, but I guess the duty free shops can make more money from the exchange rates. Also what few shops that weren't selling luxury goods were selling merchandise that only targeted the Korean people. I thought this was kind of weird that for an international airport that they didn't have any other types of shops which offered amenities to the international traveler like newspapers, snack food, etc.

The departure hall:

Seoul Day 4: Namdaemun Market

This was our last day in Seoul (on May 5, 08). We stopped over for 4 days en route to our final destination of Singapore. Our flight to Singapore was at 7 pm on that day so we had the entire morning and afternoon to finish our sightseeing.

We had visited most of the usual tourist attractions with the exception of the Namdaemun area so we went there on our final day in Seoul.

Some pictures of the Myeongdong area from our hotel. We stayed at the Ibis Myeongdong hotel. We picked that hotel because it was highly rated on the TripAdvisor.com travel website. It had a pretty reasonable price of $100 per night and was located in a very good location. The only bad thing about it was that the air conditioning was centrally controlled and for one day in our 4 day stopover, it got really hot and we had to ask them to bring in portable air conditioners because they wouldn't lower the temperature of the central air conditioner.

Some pictures of the Myeongdong area from the hotel lobby. The way the hotel was set up was pretty weird. The lobby was on floor above the rooms.

Seoul Day 3: Myeongdong at Night, Cheonggyecheon Stream

Continuing from my previous posts from May 4, 08, this is the final part of "Seoul Day 3".

As night approached, we went walking around the Myeongdong shopping areas. We didn't buy anything as there was nothing that suited us.

Seoul Day 3: Insadong, Seoul Skyline from Han River

Continuing from my previous post from May 4, 08.

Seoul Day 3: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Namsangol Traditional Folk Village

After visiting the Gyeongbokgung Palace, we walked to the nearby neighbourhood of Insadong.

Seoul Day 3: Gyeongbokgung Palace, Namsangol Traditional Folk Village

On May 4, 08 our last full day in Seoul, we decided to see the remaining stuff to see on our "things to do" list. This included visiting the Gyeongbokgung Palace so we started off at the end of the long boulevard that stretches to the palace's front gate.

Seoul Day 2: Seoul Station, Deoksugung Palace, N Seoul Tower

Continuing from my previous post, on May 3, 08 after the DMZ tour ended at around 3 pm in the afternoon we decided to walk back to our hotel in the Myeongdong area because we figured it would be really close since the taxi ride in the morning took only about 10 minutes.

On the road by to the hotel, we passed by Seoul Station, which is the main railway station in Seoul. It serves as the terminus for high-speed railway services to Busan and other cities in Korea. From our experiences with railway stations in Japan, there are usually a lot of shops and restaurants inside the station so we decided to go inside to take a look.

From the station plaza.

The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on the USO Korea Tour

On May 3, 08 my family and I participated in a tour of the Demilitarized Zone, a.k.a DMZ (the border that separates North and South Korea) organized by the USO in Korea.

The USO or United Services Organization is a private, nonprofit organization that provides morale and recreational services to members of the U.S. military worldwide.

It has a base near the city centre of Seoul called "Camp Kim". I read through many reviews on the web that only the tours organized by the USO gives you access to tour the conference row area (the blue coloured huts where representatives from the two Koreas hold meetings) inside the DMZ.

In order to join the tours organized by the USO in Korea, I had to email them and book in advance. Their website is not very good and not updated so I had to email them to get the most current schedule. In addition on their website, it says that you have to pay them in advance in order for you to reserve your seats. It doesn't really help that they have no online payment and after I phoned them, they said that I could pay by credit card but that I would get no receipt of the transaction or that I could come in early and pay on the day of the tour. Being wary of giving out my credit card number over the phone with no receipt in return, I opted to choose to pay on the day of the tour. The civilian price was $44 USD per person.

The tour starts quite early and we had to get to the USO Korea "Camp Kim" by 7:30 am.

The USO offices (in reality, these pictures were taken on our way back to Seoul)