South Korea Trip Day 4

Itinerary : Petite France - Nami Island - Hongdae

How to go to Petite France : From Hongdae Station take line 2 (green line) to Wangsimni Station, then transfer to Jungang Line and get off at Cheongnyangni Station. In Cheongnyangni Station transfer to another train (still in Jungang Line) and get off at Mangu Station, then transfer to Gyeongchun Line and get off at Cheongpyeong Station. Take Gapyeong circle tour bus from exit 2 and get off at Petite France.

Yes it was a long journey to reach Petite France from Seoul. We did some research in the internet, some said the shuttle bus service was terminated on September 2011, some said go to Gapyeong station and take taxi, etc. We did our own research and found the easiest way without ride any taxi which is expensive. If we see in the map, Jungang line connected Wangshimni to Mangu, but when we rode the train, the announcement said that Cheongnyangni was the last station. We were confused! We were supposed to reach Mangu Station. Apparently we have to transfer to another train in Cheongnyangni Station to continue the journey to Mangu Station.

Arrived at Cheongpyeong Station, we should take a bus to Petite France. The thing is we didn't know what bus and where to take. A blog said to walk 10 minutes away from subway station to reach bus terminal then catch bus from there but we didn't see any direction sign to bus terminal. Cheongpyeong Station was empty when we reached there. There was tourist information booth near exit 1 but it was closed. There was a bus timetable at the road side but we didn't know what bus was that. There was no places' name, only time.

Took picture while waiting for someone passed by :p

We waited for quite a long time alone until someone passed by. We asked him. He was really nice and helped us search for it. Unfortunately he also couldn't find it. We tried to ask an uncle who also passed by. He talked a lot in Korean but the point was he didn't know -.-" We went to exit 2 and tried to look for any bus terminal sign, but there was nothing. We went back to exit 1 and found some girls so we asked them. They said there's a bus in exit 2, it would arrive at 11.30 and it was still couple minutes pass 10.00. We weren't so sure so we headed back to exit 2 and tried to look for any bus sign. Again there was a timetable the same with the one in exit 1. We were clueless!

We went back to exit 1 and the tourist information was already opened! YAY! We asked the officer there. She gave us brochure about the shuttle bus timetable and explain to us about it. We only need to pay one time then we're free to take the bus as many times as we want for a whole day.

Bus ticket and brochure

Bus timetable

She's so kind, she offered us to wait inside the booth since it was cold outside. We went inside and wait there. There was an aunt who was the shuttle bus tour guide. She said she will ride the bus we were about to ride so we just need to follow her. Thank God! We spent about 1 hour inside the booth chit chating with 2 nice aunties. They gave us a cup of warm tea and a boiled egg.  At 11.30 we rode the bus going to Petite France. We paid the ticket to the bus driver. He gave us a ticket which we should keep and showed it everytime we want to take the tour bus.

Bus tour guide and tourist information center officer

It took about 30 minutes to reach Petite France from Cheongpyeong Station. Petite France located up in a mountain. The road was twist and turns. The auntie gave all the bus passengers 25% discount coupon to enter Petite France. I don't know is it for all year long or not. Finally we reached Petite France! Total time we spent was about 3.5 hours *fyuh*

Petite France was famous for the filming location of Beethoven Virus drama and Running Man. It's a small area built with France theme. The Little Prince is the main character in there.

The Little Prince Statue

Some of the buildings were used for galery. There were antiques, dolls, instruments, paintings and Little Prince findings. Some others are used for guesthouse.

There were also some performances held. There were puppet, a magic show, etc.

There were small stamps booth in some certain location. 10 in total, if you can collect them all, you'll get some kind of souvenir. We only got 7 of them. At the ticket booth, they provide a white linen for the stamps. We didn't know at first. We found about it later but too lazy to went back to ticket booth, so we collected the stamps on our note book.

We had lunch in restaurant there. I had beef omurice which was really expensive!

Shrimp Omurice and Beef Omurice

We spent 2 hours in Petite France because the next tour bus arrived at 14.10. We had to rode on the bus and went to Nami Island.

It was only about 10-15 minutes journey from Petite France to Nami Island ferry terminal. We bought the ferry ticket at the "immigration" and got on the ferry.

It took 5 minutes to reach Nami Island. Nami Island is beautiful romantic place to go with boy/girlfriend, husband/wife. It's a quite big island and we only had 2 hours to explore. The lake and some fountains were still frozen. They were beautiful.

Nami Island is famous for Winter Sonata filming location starred by Bae Yong Jun and Choi Ji Woo. There's a statue of them in the filming location and also a bridge of the first kiss location.

First kiss bridge

Bicycles used in Winter Sonata filming

Choi Ji Woo and Bae Yong Jun statue

After took some photos everywhere, we headed back to ferry terminal and went back to Seoul. Next stop is Hongdae.

Ferry queue

How to go to Hongdae : from ferry terminal take tour bus and get off at Gapyeong Station, then transfer to Gyeongchun Line and get off at Sangbong Station. At Sangbong Station transfer to Jungang Line and take off at Wangshimni Station. At Wangshimni Station transfer to line 2 (green line) and get off at Hongdae Station.

We back to Hongdae area again that night because we wanted to explore the area more and try more street foods. I stopped by convenience store and bought cold Banana Milk. I've been curious about it for a quite long time since I watched the CF. It was really good. I loved it!

We walked along Hongdae streets towards clothes and accessories section. We stopped by an accessories store and bought 3 pairs of earring which were cheap! Only KRW 2000 per pair. Believe it or not, even Korean can be lost too. A Korean boy asked us Uniqlo direction. Maybe he thought we were Korean. Luckily we knew because we passed it everyday since it's located right across the street of Hongdae Station. I found it quite amazing actually. Foreigners told local about the direction. LOL! That wasn't our only experience. Some people asked us for direction on the streets and in subway station but of course we didn't know since we depended on subway map to travel around.

We had ddeokbokki (rice cake), kim, octopus and 2 odeng for dinner. The portion was quite big. We shared those 4 and still couldn't eat them all. I've tried ddeokbokki in Singapore before and I hated it, but the one in Hongdae was actually delicious! The octopus was chewy but not hard at all and yes, yummy!

Gapyeong circle tour bus - KRW 5000/day
Petite France - KRW 6000
Beef omurice - KRW 10.000
Nami Island ferry + entrance - KRW 8000
Ddeokbokki - KRW 2500/serve
Kim - KRW 500/piece
Octopus - KRW 500/piece
Odeng - KRW 500/piece