Bye-Bye Santa Beach Pension

It's 1 p.m. and time for us to check out from the pension we stayed for one night @ Gyeongpo, Gangneung. We should have checked out at 12, but I already told the owner (주인) asking her as to whether we could check out at 1 pm since we got to pray the afternoon prayer first before going out. Happily she said yes and okayed us to stay one more hour.

Now..it's time to say goodbye to Santa Beach Pension and for the sake of capturing the memory (again...^^) we took some pictures in front of the house.

Freya and Eyra seemed to be so tired, but then...she became enthusiastically happy again when she found out that we're about to take the sea-train trip.^^

(to be continued on our journey on the SEA TRAIN on the east coast of Korea).

Gangneung Trip (part 12)

It's time to go to bed, but still the thought of sleeping at this rather expensive pension seemed to be the least expected thing to do.  

We just wanted to go onto the veranda and enjoy the rest of the night gazing the beach far beyond. But...we slept soundly eventually.

********

THE NEXT MORNING.... 

We woke up at 5 ..hoping to get a glimpse of the sunrise from the east coast. 

The kids, surprisingly, woke up early, too.

and we're ready to see the sunrise.

Gangneung Trip (part 11)

This is our pension where we stayed for one night. Yup, we got to go through the darkness to reach into the place.^^ 

Santa Beach (산타비치) Pension is the name. It's almost 9 and we just got back from the beach^^Freya's still wearing her swimming cap and Eyra's clad in her towel. 

The reason we chose to stay in this place was its warmth atmosphere from the outside, not to mention that it is not from within, though. 

I mean, from the moment we laid our eyes on the pension via its website, we decided to book the place. And yes...in reality it lived up to what we saw on the net. 

Or was it because, we lived in a normal apartment that most people in Korea live in? that as soon as we laid our eyes on some place like this, without hesitation, our mind did the trick of 'wanting' to BE in the place like this? hmm I guess so. 

But..boy..we didn't regret booking this pension for our long-weekend 

getaway @ Gangneung. 

Uncountable clicks from our phones became the testimony of how we liked being there. 

In turn, we took turn to take some pictures. Oh, there's a secret as to how we achieved a rather-somewhat-close to the real atmosphere as seen in this picture. 

Since none of us were using DSLR, we exposed our face with the lights from the smartphone.  

In this picture, we asked Ulfa auntie to expose the lights onto our face so as to brighten up our face which then made us visible in the picture.^^ 

ooops...Freya, you're yawning. I know dear...it's late. 

Now, it's Mama and om Wawan's turn. 

Then, our turn. * We got help from the incoming lights of a car entering the parking lot^^ 

As for this one, this was using a natural light.

All in all, we kept on clicking the camera to 'capture' the moment and the real atmosphere of the pension's front facade.

Gangneung Trip (part 3)

As soon as we arrived at the terminal and....thinking that it'd be better off to take a taxi than a bus....we finally did what we thought best. And thankfully, it was. We could see the outskirt of Gangneung ..leading up to the beach where our pension was located.

*I remembered having this spectacle when we had our last summer trip in Gyeongju. The trees lining up on each side of the roads...and we're lucky to have a kind-spirited taxi ajeossi who all of a sudden 'becoming' a guide during the 30-minute ride. 

*the flowers: nice touch, gisanim. * regardless of them..being the fake ones.

But, it reminded me of our trip in Bali or Thailand.  

Ok..first thing first...we safely arrived at the pension.

It's a 3-story house. As for us, we stayed at the Mangosteen family room. 

This is the attic main bedroom where the kids loved to play. 

It's cute, alright. But, I can't imagine having to sleep in a honey-moon like bedroom and atmosphere on a daily basis^^  

One of the reasons as to why we chose this pension was the fact that it's relatively close to Gyeongpo beach. Yes, it was...we could see the beach from our window. 

Ok...going back up to the 2nd attic room where Eyra and Freya were ready to have fun. 

Oh, yes...we split the bill with Om Wawan's family. Yes, we wouldn't have booked this pension (260,000 Won/night) if we hadn't shared the cost.^^that'd be outrageous and irrational. 

But, we finally made a good decision of staying at this Santa Beach pension. Each room had its own veranda overlooking the (not yet developed) barren land stretching onto the beach. 

Yes...this is the front facade of the Santa Beach pension we stayed in. 

*Again...I was hardly ever on the picture.:( 

Anyway..just to show what the Santa Beach pension looked like: this is it.

It indeed gave us a different feel ..somewhat different nuance from what we usually had in our routines in Seoul.

*Welcome to Gangneung, everyone. Let's start the fun.

Gangneung Trip ( part 1 )

 This is a story about our summer trip to Gangneung. It's all about fun. Okay..not all was fun, though. But, let me start how we ended up deciding going on a trip to Gangneung.

First, it was during the long weekend of Korea's Independence Day Holiday on August 15.

So...long weekend meant that not many pensions (펜션) were available. Even if they were...the prices were soaring. ^^ INDEED.

Finally, I managed to book a pension ( a good one ) with relatively higher price compared to normal days.

It's a family-type that could accommodate up to 6 people.  

The Santa Beach Pension was the one we booked. And after paying an amount of 260,000 Won only for one night!!!  

Then...as soon as we got the place to stay, we rushed to the terminal to reserve the bus ticket that would take us straight to Gangneung. We went to Dong Seoul Terminal (동서울터미널) @ Gangbyeon station, Subway line 2 to reserve the ticket to Gangneung. 

After that, we went straight to the train station (청량리역-Cheongnyangni Station) 

to reserve the ticket home. ^^

Yes..it's a great ride from Seoul-Gangneung-Seoul. 

But..it didn't turn out to be quite what we planned it to be.

(to be continued on part 2).