Korea Go Trip Day 2 – Outing

On the 8th November 2008 is my 3rd day away from Brunei, 2nd day in Korea.

// our breakfast at the Cafe Suryeon, sadly, more delicious food is gone because we woke up late.

// Dedicated players woke up early and began to enjoy their game of ‘GO’.

At 11am, there is an orientation for all the members. There’s is a video presentation on the information, history and culture of the city. The name of the city is Paju and lies near the boundary line dividing the North and South Korea into two. It is formed in 1997 and the city came a warzone in 2002 in defending Seoul from the North Korean. Now, the South Korea is trying to promote the area by introducing many high tech building and is encouraging publication, multimedia company and immigrants. Remember most of the uncommon but outstanding architectural building in the last post? Most of them are publication company. The reason for the lack of people because not many people like to stay near to the north. Things are changing now with the implementation and idea of ‘Pajubook City’.

// Orientation hall.

// In the same building where we had our orientation, (and where Nouel Lounge is), A wedding celebration is taking place. We went into the room and requested for some pictures of the Bridge and Groom, (from left: Handy, Xinwen, Me, the groom, Sharen and the bride in front)

// Kimchi, is served at almost every Korea restaurant as teaser / starter / appetizer. I’m still trying to get use to the taste.

// Lunch @ Noeul Lounge. Me, Xinwen and Handy. Check out Xinwen’s blog for informations that I’ve missed out.

// Working crew for the 3rd Korea Prime Minister Cup inside the Noeul Lounge. All of them come from Korea with different skills, ranging from recorder and interpreter of different languages.

After the lunch, our ‘DMZ’ tour commences. We travel to the Imjingsak where the ‘freedom bridge’ is located. In the past, the Korean War in 1950 has separated around 7 millions of families by the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). When the Korean War ended in 1953, this ‘freedom bridge’ is built to allow unification of families, friends and loved one. However, this “freedom bridge” was not a tourist attraction until 4th October 2007 where agreement of Relations, Peace and Prosperity is signed between the North and South Korea.

// Imjingsak Station. There is also a memorial and altar that honor ancestors. Nearby this station with a walking distance of roughly ten minutes, there is an moderate amusement park too.

It is situated on the top of “Mount Dora”. With a binocular, costing 500 won (roughly B$ 0.70 for a few minute, we can observe and have a closer view of the wired fence of the DMZ and the Gaesung City, the second largest city of North Korea.

// The Dora Observatory. (from left, Miss Vanthanee, Vice president of Thailand Go Association, Me, Army officer, Handy and Sharen)

// Outside the ‘3rd Tunnel’ station. Photos are restricted inside the historical tunnel, for more info and photo, please click here.

// This is the Dorasan Station (Train Station). It is the only train station that connected the South and the North, starting December 11, 2007. In the future, it is hoped that this station can extend and connent the whole railway of North Korea and the rest of China.

// The entrance of the Dorasan Station.By the way, does this image remind you of something similar in the previous blog post? Click here and check the second picture.

// The huge wall over here is the donations of various people totaling an amount of USD40million. The second picture shows the names of the donaters for the Dora Station.

We went to visit the 93 Museum, Gallery Focus at the Heyri Village (Art Gallery). There are galleries of oil paintings, arts, portraits and of course, stuffs like this one below..

// This seem like it is the real infamous kama sutra! haha.I have more of these erotic figures and images taken at the museum. Just gonna show this.

This museum is the last stop of the ‘DMZ & the 3rd Tunnel’ tour. It ended at roughly 5:30pm and our next destination is the KINTEX (Korea International Exhibition Center) building, to have our dinner and to celebrate the eve of the 2008, Goyang World Baduk Festival. Before the dinner, there’s a video presentation on the introduction of the city again, a different one. Next, there’s Korean Culture performance. It started with…

//A spectacular percussion opening done by this girl.

// The lady on the left joined in and dance around.

// (left image) All lightings is turned off and the only luminous object is the percussion beater on fire! She played the instrument with the fire-lit percussion mallet.

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// This is the ULTIMATE! This guy played the drum with his bare hand and water is filled on the drum’s surface. This creates a fantastic splashes of water, like water dance in accordance to the music, the effect is enhanced by the white light placed at the back.

// He changed his tools from hand to the percussion stick, this produce a better drum music and impressive splashes.

// At this instance, everything paused and he shouted “WELCOME TO KOREA!!”. This last performance is very enthusiasc and shows great eagerness and power! I enjoyed this performance to the max and it sure is adreanline pumping. felt just like when Tohoi cut his opponent’s car in Initial D, with the trance music setting in.

// Our dinner is served by this company, google them up and you’ll know that they are of quality~

// Our table number 2, a mix of Brunei, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand.

The day’s event does not come to an end yet after the dinner. We went to the nearby park to watch the ‘musical fountain’ nearby KINTEX.

// Mr. Kim from Korea, Sharen from Brunei and Handy from Indonesia.

// All taken hand-held. The first one is overexposed. Lazy to adjust, again, all of these pictures are straight from the camera without any editing. lol.

SATA (something about the author): I don’t have enough sleep every night, busy uploading and is trying to blog daily. Despite this, I don’t feel sleepy quickly. I’m missing one day lag in terms of blogging. I love the weather here, one can avoid bathing at all in a day because you don’t get smelly from sweats. Sock stinks faster than anything else. I’m now feeling very hungry but there’s no food at the moment. Until today, I only spent US$1.00 here in Korea for buying a drink. I see more Canon users here than Nikon here in Korea. There is actually some shopping centre and stores nearby our hotel, I want to check it out but it is too far by walking distance, it is roughly a car ride of 15 minutes. Sigh. I’ll try to go there tomorrow, if there’s ample free time between events. Till then, see you all. Take care. =]