My Blog Invasion

Cruising-Itaewon

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 23:56:00 +0000

Itaewon (accessible via the subway system; alternatively, take a taxi or Bus No. 0014 from Seoul Railway Station) is an urban area that runs down from the southern flank of Namsan and eastwood from the fenced edge of Yongsan Garison, the site of the headquarters of the 8th US Army and the huge War Memorial. The main thoroughfare that bisects the army base into north-south posts similarly bisects Itaewon into an uphill-Namsan side and a downhill side toward the Han River.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://www.flickr.com/photos/awe2020/2306720757/

Contact Me

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 08:45:00 +0000

Blogging is another part of my daily routine. In this way, I can document the lives of my family and special people around me and also write about any topic under the heat of the sun through blogging and other creative endeavors.

If you have any questions or would like to post your Ads on my blog please fill up the form below.

Walker Hill Resort

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:24:00 +0000

A lovely spot from which to view Seoul over a proper martini is the Walker Hill Resort complex (subway line 5 to Gwangnaru Station, then take a taxi). This nightlife area of Las Vegas-style revues (dinner shows at 4:30pm and 7:30pm), gambling (in the Sheraton Walker Hill Casino), and resort amenities is located above Seoul's eastern suburbs and overlooks a picturesque bend in the Han River. From Walker Hill's glittering lounges and gardens, you can see Seoul's city lights twinkling in the urban west. Walker Hill was named after General Walton H. Walker, former Commanding General of the US Eighth Army, who was killed in a traffic mishap during the Korean War.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: Click Here

Now, you can buy items related to Korea. Just click the photo/links below.

Wedding Street

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 01:19:00 +0000

If you are planning on getting married, Wedding Street (shops open daily 10am-8pm) might be the the place for you. Rows of shops display fanciful wedding gowns in their windows hoping to entice well-heeled 20-year-olds. Weddings are a serious business in Korea - a wedding gown, make-up, and hairstyle (all these services are offered a the wedding shops), will set Daddy back thousands of dollars. Then there is the wedding hall, the dinner for all the guests, a photographer and wedding gifts (from the parents); a Korean wedding runs into the tens of thousands of dollars.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/cms/resource/32/225532_image2_1.jpg

Nightlife in Seoul, Korea

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 12:58:00 +0000

Seoul has several entertainment centers that cater to the young, but one of the most popular and interesting is Daeheungno, which caters to students from nearby universities. The streets in this district (Sinchon) have such a profusion of restaurants, bars (some with live entertainment, video arcades, clothing stores and coffee shops that young people from all over Seoul come here on evenings and weekends.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo credits: Click Here

Janghanpyeong Antique Market

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 01:16:00 +0000

A little more conventional is the Janghanpyeong Antique Market (subway line 5; Janghanpyeong Station; closed Sunday). Dozens of small shops are located in several two-story buildings; kind of mini-antique malls. Most of the dealers here do not handle top-of-the-line antiques (you need to go to Insadong for these), but since there are regulations concerning the export of valued Korean antiquities anyway, Janghanpyeong is the perfect place to find a funky piece to decorate your living room. How about a large wooden bowl that was once used to clean rice? Or a handmade farmers wood plow? And a Korean ceramic pillow makes a great conversation piece.

Visit Korea: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto

Photo Credits: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Korea/Hotels/Pics/1590mape.gif

The Gyeongdong Oriental Medicine Market

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 00:31:00 +0000

Not far away from the Hwanghakdong Flea Market is the equally unusual Gyeongdong Oriental Medicine Market (subway line; Jegidong Station; open daily 9am-6.30pm except 1st and 3rd Sunday of each month). This is a great place to buy fresh ginseng, or dozens of other odd-looking roots and fungi that are said to be good for a myriad of ailments. There are also a few dealers of dog meat, which is considered a health food in the Orient.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3162/3070166505_2f9fb9a288.jpg

Market For All Tastes

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 00:13:00 +0000

Just outside the old city center lies a threesome of interesting specialty markets. Two subways stops east from Dongdaemun (subway lines 2 or 6; Sindang Station) is a sprawling Hwanghakdong Flea Market (open daily 8 am-6.30pm). If you're looking for a life-size statue of an American Indian, reproduction antique furniture, used ice skates or an old TV, you stand a good chance of finding it here. For the truly bizarre, there is the snake salesman with microphone in hand. He dips his free hand into a bag and brings our a handful of snakes, tossing them into a plastic tub. A few turtles are added for good measure. Somehow he manages to sell this writhing basket of reptiles to one of the middle-aged men crowding around. While the salesman sets up another sale, his assistants boil the basket of turtles and snakes, and quickly bottle them in soju. Minutes later, the lucky customer leaves with a big smile, knowing that it will be a long time before he will be suffering from virility problems.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hwanghak-dong_Flea_Market

It Pays To Visit Korea

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 13:38:00 +0000

Following on the heels of urban expansion, and in tune with a rapidly rising standard of living, many of the outer areas of Seoul have become shopping and entertainment centers that rival those found in the downtown area. With the notable exception of Itaewon, however, they do not attract a lot of foreigners. Part of the reason is that, even though any given point in Seoul seems to be only minutes from a subway station, it can still take an hour or more to travel across town. The subways are quick enough (allow about two minutes between each subway stop); it's just that you can seldom get your destination without one or two subway transfers, and a taxi ride. Still, there are some interesting places across the Han River that deserve a visit. The thing to do is to make a day of it, and check out several places of interest. And really, there is no better way to get to know modern Korea than by exploring the fringes of Seoul.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: Click Here

Outer Seoul

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 23:59:00 +0000

Outside Seoul's historic heart is the modern part of the city, where you'll find huge department stores and markets, ultra-modern entertainment complexes and cultural centers.

Welcome 2010. To officially start the year, my blog will feature another attraction of Korea. We will discover the beauty of the outer areas of Seoul.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://img74.imageshack.us/i/dsc0084.jpg/

View From The Top

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 14:23:00 +0000

Once you reach the exact Panmunjeom talks site, you will be escorted around a heavily guarded sector formally known as the Joint Security Area. In the Conference Room your American military guide will explain another propaganda "war", concerning the question of who had the bigger flag. This "battle" ended in a truce when the flags of the two sides were too large to bring into the meeting room.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:070401_Panmunjeom3.jpg

Propaganda Village

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 12:57:00 +0000

In the distance, across the dividing line in the North Korean half of the demilitarized no-man's-land, is another village. It boasts bigger flag (so large, in fact, that it flops listlessly against its giant flagpole in anything less than a Force Eight gale). The village is said to be the biggest in the world, but no-one appears to live there. Curiously, even the windows on the buildings appear to be nothing more than black paint. American soldiers are in the habit of calling the North Korea village "Propaganda Village". However, it goes under the official name of Gwijeongdong.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://www.koreadmztour.com/english/jsa/jsa_16.htm

Freedom Village

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 06:29:00 +0000

Past the checkpoints and into the DMZ is an enormous South Korean flag. This marks the village of Daeseongdong (which means "Attaining Success Town"), a community of ex-refugees allowed to resettle in their native habitat. Called "Freedom Village" by the US military, Daeseongdong is about a mile from Panmunjeom. Villagers - and soldiers - have to endure propaganda blasted over from the North Korean side by loudspeakers, but for their pains they enjoy certain benefits; among them exemption from military service and taxation. In fact the residents here are extremely wealthy in comparison with other Korean farmers. Otherwise, life generally goes on here in much the same way it does in other pasts of South Korea.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://alexrtravels.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/dsc03907.jpg

National Highway 1

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 29 Dec 2009 00:50:00 +0000

National Highway 1 is green and lush during the summer months, but when the winter chill sets in its beauty turns bleak and brittle. The late author James Wade describes this region best in his book West Meets East: "North of Seoul the Korean landscape is austerely beautiful in late winter. A light dusting of snow sets off the dark dots of rice stubble in frozen paddies and the lonely clumps of thatch-roofed farm houses. The steel-gray horizon, rimmed with jagged, ice-streaked mountains, recedes before the jeep as it rumbles past the rail terminal city of Munsanni and approcahes the Imjin River, with its symbolically narrow and precarious Freedom Bridge." Suddenly you realize that the bleak new chain of mountains looming up ahead is North Korean territory.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://clip2net.com/clip/m18172/1262049048-clip-42kb.png

Highway to History

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 09:42:00 +0000

Your Panmunjeom-bound tour bus courses due north of Seoul on the national Highway 1 and follows wartime history through plains and valleys. Not so long ago, these peaceful surroundings were the heavily bunkered scenes of massive military advances and retreats during the Korean War and even during a Mongol invasion a few centuries ago.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MilitaryDemarcationLine.jpg

Panmunjeom

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 04:26:00 +0000

Geographically, Panmunjeom sits in a wide valley just northwest of the broad Imjin River and about 56 km (35 miles) northwest of Seoul. Cartographically, and therefore politically, Panmunjeom also straddles the stretch of land near the western end of Korea's Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), a demarcation line about 4km (2 1/2 miles) wide which winds its way for 250 km (150 miles) across the waist of Korean peninsula. This truce camp is the point of official contact between North Korea and the free world. This is also a heavily mined, barricaded and patrolled "no-man's land" only for well-armed soldiers, a few hundred formers, and, ironically, several formerly endangered species of birds (such as the spectacular Manchurian crane). These species have flourished within the confines of the DMZ since it was declared off-limits to most of humanity in 1953.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo credits: http://dmz-korea.net/images/maps/Panmunjeom_1.jpg

Panmunjeom and the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:28:00 +0000

The danger is still there, and to acquaint overly-optimistic tourists about this potentially volatile situation, the Korean government and the United Nations representatives have sanctioned one of the the world's most unusual tourist outings. This unique visitor attraction is a day trip to Panmunjeom, the site of a small farming village which was obliterated during the Korean War. Panmunjeom (accessible only through an organized tour) is the historic site on Korea's 38th parallel where American and South Korean representatives of a special United Nations Military Armistice Commission have been holding periodic talks with North Korean and Chinese negotiators. Their goal: to mutually supervise a ceasefire truce that was signed here on July 27, 1953. That truce agreement formally divided Korea into North and South political sectors and put an uneasy end to the bloody Korean War.

Visit Korea: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto

Photo credits: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ed/Panmunjeom_DMZ.png

The Life in Korea

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 07:09:00 +0000

The economic boom of the past two decades and the apparent tranquility of life in suburban Seoul and rural Korea make the possibility of war inconceivable for most visitors. Indeed, it's hard to believe that - after almost 50 years of ceasefire and a Korean War truce agreement - the threat of an all-out war still exists, although tensions have decreased with the recent thaw in North-South relations.

The Wonders of Bomun-sa

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:31:00 +0000

Bomun-sa is a nearby restored 1,400-year-old temple, behind which, carved into the mountain, is a stone chamber with 22 small stone Buddhas enshrined in individual wall niches behind an altar. The Buddha statues are said to have been caught by a fisherman who dreamt he was instructed by a monk to enshrine them here. Steps lead further above this stone chamber through junipers: at the end of a steep, heart-thumping hike is the massive concave Ma-ae Seakbuljwasang ("Eyebrow Rock" Buddha), sculpted into the granite mountainside. He blissfully overlooks the rice fields, the pale blue Yellow Sea, the setting sun and strangely shaped islands that dissolve into the horizon.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/6986713.jpg

Seongmo-do Island

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 09:05:00 +0000

One last significant full-day excursion is a trip to the "Eyebrow Rock" Buddha at Bomun-sa on the neighboring island of Seongmo-do. This pilgrimage starts with a bus ride to Uipo, a fishing village on the West Coast. Foreigners may be asked to show their passports before taking the 10-minute ferry ride to te westward island. The bus ride from the landing on the opposite side to Bomun-sa takes about 45-minutes on a bumpy dirt road, but island destination provides a serene contrast with its endless carpet of rice paddies, punctuated by pointed church steeples.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://www.lifeinkorea.com/Images/Incheon/SMD1776.jpg

Sangbangi and the Dangun's Altar

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:45:00 +0000

About 2 km (1 1/4 miles) southwest of Jeondeung-sa lies the small town of Sangbangni and the site of Dangun's Altar on nearby Manisan It is an arduous climb of almost 500 meters (1650 ft) up to the summit, where one can get a sweeping view of Ganghwa-do and touch the spot where an important Korean legend was born. Some archaeologists claim Dangun's altar is no more than 400 years old, which would date it considerably younger than Dangun who, according to popular myths, descended to earth from heaven in 2333BC.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://san-shin.org/dangun-011.jpg

Some of the attractions in Jeondeung-sa

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 08:24:00 +0000

On the temple grounds is an iron bell about 1.8 meters (6ft) tall. It was cast in 1097 during the Northern Sung dynasty in a typical Chinese style. Despite its foreign origin, the bell has been designated a national treasure. Before departing from Jeondeung-sa, examine the unique ornamentation of human images engraved on the eaves of Daeungjeon Hall. This particular design style was popular during the mid-Jeseon dynasty and is rarely seen anymore.

Visit Korea: Click Here

Photo Credits: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/20010204.jpg

YugaTech Great Gadget Giveaway

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 08:15:00 +0000

Christmas is fast approaching and this time you will be even happier in this holiday season with the YugaTech's Great Gadget Giveaway. The giveaway will be in 3 parts which will run for 3 weeks (1 round per week). This week, Yuga is giving away a total of 62 prizes for people who will Tweet, Blog or Comment on this Gadget Giveaway. Prizes at stake are Modu phones, Globe Tatoo USB, and prepaid load cards worth P500. In the following rounds, Yuga will be giving away a brand new MSI netbook.

Mechanics:

Via Twitter

Follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe on Twitter.
Post a tweet “Just entered to win a Modu Phone. Quick! Go follow @abeolandres and @talk2globe and retweet: http://bit.ly/6e2q7O #thanks2yugatech”

Via Blog

Blog about the “YugaTech Great Gadget Giveaway”. Include the photo I posted here and link to Yuga's contest page.
Don’t forget to include in your post the mechanics for the Twitter contest above.
Leave a comment on Yuga's blog post with the URL of your entry.

Via Comment

Leave a comment on Yuga's blog post with the answer to this question — “If you’re stuck in an island with a phone and only have one call left, who would you call and why?“

View complete promo mechanics

Promo period is from December 14 -to January 2, 2009

3 separate giveaways that will run for 3 weeks (1 per week)

Amazing Prizes:

Via Twitter (31 winners)

1 Modu phone
10 Globe Tattoo
20 prepaid call cards worth P500 each

Via Blog (21 winners)

1 Modu phone
10 Globe Tattoo
10 prepaid load cards worth P500 each

Via Comment

10 prepaid load cards worth P500 each for the most witty comments

For more details, please visit Yugatech.com

The Welcoming Way of the Monks

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 04:32:00 +0000

The friendly monks at Jeondeung-sa Temple may invite you to share a vegetarian meal with them or guide you to some of the remaining Tripitaka Koreana sculptural wood blocks carved during the 13th century. It took 16 years to carve the Buddhist scriptures on these blocks, a monumental task done in hopes of preventing a consuming Mongol invasion.

Photo Credits: http://eng.greatkorea.go.kr/5/images/img_pic1_2_4.jpg

Visit Korea: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto

The Temple of the Inherited Lamp

noreply@blogger.com (churwyn) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 09:17:00 +0000

Now travel back in time to the Three Kingdom Period. On the southern end of Ganghwado (take a bus to Onsuri from town), about 16 km (10 miles) south of Ganghwa town, is one of the oldest temples in Korea, Jeondeung-sa, the "Temple of the Inherited Lamp". A Goryeo queen named Jeondeung-sa after a jade lamp presented to the temple. Formerly called Jinjong-sa, it was built in AD 381 by a famous monk named Ado. Legend has it that the wall surrounding the temple was constructed by three princes to fortify the monastery. Thus the fortress was named Samnangseong, or the castle "Castle of Three Flowers of Youth".

Visit Korea: http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/index.kto

Photo Credits: http://www.into.or.kr/usr/board_upload/0-78950100_1218110196.jpg