A Magnificent Trip to Korea /02

It's always fun when you travel with your friends. We were in Seoul for 6 days and in Busan for only 2 days. All the accommodations were pretty awesome. We got a very nonsense of large room hotel, I mean a huge room. It's like more than fifty square meters for only 2 persons! The tour guides were local people, and they were all nice and friendly.  There's a lot of places that we went to. 

In my last post, I told you a little bit about Seoul. I'll tell you about Busan to make it even haha. Busan was beautiful, it has more beaches. The sun was more friendly in Busan. We went there by bus and it took more or less 5 hours to Busan. Before the night came, we stopped by the beach of Haeundae Beach. The next day was super great, we went to Gamcheon Culture Village and BIFF - Jagalchi Market. They were rich of cultures and I was overwhelmed by it! When I arrived in Jagalchi Market, they sold a lot of many kind of fresh fish, my mom would've loved this place. 

You know, when you join the tour - you'll have anything (places, photos, souvenirs) but one thing you don't get - the experience of the space. But, thankfully we had a free day to stroll around Seoul. This was like the big part of all, strolling around the city without the rules from the tour. 

I couldn't describe the spaces while I was with the tour. But when I was hanged with my friends at night through subways and the free day we had - it was beyond fine. My friends and I, who are in the same batch (2014), always had something at night from the very first day we arrived in Seoul. We got random plans to go somewhere and we were just seeing around the city, trying traditional food and taking so many pictures and videos! It was great experiencing such a good thing like that, the exploration of this trip was more than my expectations, so I was glad and grateful.

Last two days before we left Seoul (it's our free day), some of my friends separated and decided to go different places. Six of my friends and I decided to go to more traditional places, like Gyeongbokgung Palace and Namsangol Hanok Village - because the whole trip seemed to concentrate more to modern buildings than the traditional ones (we only went to two palaces and we didn't go in to the one of them). So we went there by subways. The Gyeongbokgung is located in the middle of Soeul City and apart from all those modern things, this palace stands strong and that's what I love about this city, even the country, because they look after 'the past' so well and let it stand and blend in with present's culture.

I know it's a little bit annoying, knowing that I didn't tell you my trip completely, but what I want to share about this trip is that we should respect our own country, like most Korean do that I, so far, witnessed. We should accept the globalization yet we should keep our ancient history and the core of being a good citizen. 

Sunset in Busan was the greatest feeling so far in Busan.

Waveon Coffee Shop at its best spot.

Dorothea, my dear roommate who kindly accompany me wherever I went during the trip.

Beautiful colours of Gamcheon Culture Village.

There's a long queue that happened suddenly (still in Gamcheon Village), and strangely it's because of people wanted to take a picture with a statue that was facing the view.

Local Seller at Jagalchi Market.

It's my friend, Arvisista, and her exchange program friend, Youngmi - she's originally from Busan.

My friend Haura tried to negotiate a sweater's price to this old lady and I said "Hey, to make it not too intense, let's take a picture first!" Ha ha ha.

Ornament in a house of Bukchon Hanok Village.

There were my tour guides. The left one was very kind, the right was very funny.

It's the Gyeongbokgung Palace, y'all!

xx
All photos were taken by Yashica fx3 super 2000 and films: Hillvale Sunny 16 400 and Kodak 400.

A Magnificent Trip to South Korea /01

Hi, you!

It's already the beginning of the second month in 2018 and I'm so glad for everything that happened in this year (well, it's been only a month). I was traveling to South Korea with my friends and lecturers, it's a program from my campus. We were having a trip for architecture students, so the itinerary and the objects should be relevant with architecture. We saw not only the cultures, but how the culture itself influences the architecture of South Korea.

I was amazed by South Korea: the people's persistence of conserving and loving their own country, it's truly amazing seeing them still respect their own people, their own cultures and even their country. I won't compare it to my people in Indonesia because I'm sure there's a lot of people who still fight for Indonesia and purely love it. I went to only two big cities of South Korea: Seoul and Busan. It's just...amazing! You know the feeling when you went somewhere new and it has totally different  in everything from your place, and you started to realize how wonderful our planet is - filled with all beautiful things. What I always amaze when I travel is the atmosphere when you got out from the airport for the first time (only if you use the airplane for your traveling).

Seoul is a pretty city, especially when it's winter. It's somehow really futuristic, with all the crazy structures of the high rise buildings and the technology itself that happens in every corner of the city. It's like Jakarta City I suppose, the cultures are very variant and I bet the people are from everywhere in the country. I could handle these great stuffs you know, ha ha, but the only thing I couldn't handle was the cold! I always love to stay at the stores or restaurants instead of waiting outside. Snow didn't happen in both Seoul and Busan, but I felt much colder already.

Local people are awesome. They are simply fashionable in their clothes. I mean, they don't have to try to look great, but they're just being them - simply cool with their coats on, ha ha. I went to both traditional and modern places, it's one of the purpose of this program - to make us know how South Korea unites both traditional and modern architecture in one place and let it be together, you know what I mean, right? I hope you know, lol.

I think people there don't mind if there's a huge change in their architecture world, such as there's a lot of high rise buildings and people start to live in a vertical buildings. They are already adapted by all of those modern stuffs. They are so much capable to adapt their lives in this modern era. But one thing that I salute them is that they don't erase the core of being Korean. They respect their ancients in every way and it's seen, even tough most of the people were totally obsessed with their gadgets while they're on streets, subways, and it scared me a little bit.

Anyway, when I was in South Korea, I brought six films! I was so excited to take some pictures. But I only used five and one of them was BW film. It's totally worth to bring films when you travel, and I didn't regret bringing it even it's quite heavy. The result was always become a mystery, but overall I fall for every frame - it was beautifully captured, moreover there's always soft sunlight in most of the pictures I took.

This was in Seoul Memorial Park and honestly, I didn't know what these words are for (probably the meaningful words for the people who passed away?). Pardon me if I'm wrong.

He's the Head Committee of this South Korea trip program, Alston.

I present to you, Arvisista - one of my friends that always doesn't like to shop, lol.

Those signs with Hangul alphabets, I just loved this kind of place!

These are my friends Exa and Steffi, we stopped by Sulwhasoo Spa in Seoul.

This is one of the plants that grow in winter, I guess. It's really beautiful and cool seeing these giant basins full of plants that were in the edge of building area, or public spaces.

People read books quietly in Starfield COEX Mall Library. It's really respectful yet weird seeing all the books were in Hangul, I couldn't find any English books honestly!

She's a Yonsei College Student that happened to be our tour guide when we were in Yonsei University. She's perfectly fluent in English, I was amazed though.

Dreams do come true. I was standing in front of this crazy-beautiful building of EWHA University.

Dongdaemun Plaza by Zaha Hadid y'all.

I couldn't take good pictures at night when I used the analog camera. But, I love this one, and I appreciate it. I took it in Seoullo 7017 (Seoul Skygarden).

Even the parking lot of Sejong Library looked so pretty.

My friend, Haura, smiled when I asked her to. It's taken when we took a rest in one of the rest area (were going to Busan).

Funny story: there's a lot of young males who were in the deck of the Haeundae Beach, Busan. And one of my friends asked them to take some pictures with our group.

All photos were taken by Yashica fx3 super 2000 and films: Agfa Vista 200 and Fujicolor Superia 200.
- to be continued to the part 2.