Touch Korea Tour 2012- Experience Korea; Be Amazed

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What inspires me about Korea?

From West to East Malaysia, from baby to elderly, from Malay to Orang Asli, we all know about Korea. Korea is such a spectacular place that many people want to visit it at least once in their life. All of us were inspired about Korea by various reasons. The charm of Korea has totally impressed every single of my sensory organs; sight.smell.taste.hear.touch

So, what actually inspires me about Korea?
My answer is: K.O.R.E.A


KSEASON WITH SPECIAL DESTINATIONS
Scenery of heaven in my sight

In Malaysia, we do not go through the 4 seasons like other countries. We always wanted to experience the breathtaking sceneries during 4 different seasons. In my opinion, sceneries in Korea in different seasons stand out among the rest of the countries, they show best for the true colors of Korea! But the main thing that attracts me the most is, Korea has special destinations to visit during all different seasons, not to forget their unique festivals.

Green Blooming spring
Warm weather chases away the cold breeze and brings in glorious blossoming flowers. Imagine, you walk along the street while stepping on the flowery road, blossoms falling off the trees with colourful flowers bloom all over the country. These will become reality when you visit beautiful Gwangyang-Si.

For the blooming spring, Gwangyang-Si is a rather special place to visit. During spring time, Gwangyang-Si has glamorous blossoms all around the trees, pavement, everywhere. It is famous for having the largest amount of plum blossom trees in Korea. It will be perfect to have a picnic there. Foods always taste better while you enjoy the beautiful view with the nice scent of blossoms.

Every year, Gwangyang International Maehwa Festival attracts people from all around the world to witness the blooms throughout Maehwa Village. Besides of the beautiful blossoms trees, visitors enjoy purchasing the Maehwa (apricot) produced in Gwangyang, and also delecious plum juice which fits the best for the festival.

There is another unique festival that impresses me a lot. It is the Jindo Miracle Sea Festival takes place in Jindo Jeollanamdo-Province. Once a year, during spring, the sea mysteriously form a road and visitors can walk through the sea from the land to the nearby island. This is really incredible!

Yellow Summer Splash
Summer is meant to have fun! Enjoy the refreshing summer splashing and fun of the ocean at Everland Caribbean Bay!

credit: cut from Cabi Song Music Video

Caribbean Bay is the largest water park in the world. Caribbean Water Park is very popular with the Wave Pool, where the strong waves is specially designed similar to the waves in Caribbean Sea. We can even enjoy the spas, saunas and amazing slides! It is a must-go place in Korea especially during Summer time.

During the refreshing summer, there will be a Haeundae Sand Festival held at Busan's beautiful Haeundae Beach. It is an extremely famous summer vacation destination. It's really interesting that the visitors can experience being buried in the sand from head to toe, and the Hot Sand Bath which is beneficial for health. This is a really unique festival that we can't experience it in our country.

Orange Breezy Autumn
During the breezy autumn, one of the most popular attractions of Korea is mountain hiking. Autumn is best for enjoying the natural sceneries in Korea especially mountains. And of course, experience it at Mountain Umyeonsan!

Mountain Umyeonsan is one of the best hiking locations in Gangnam. We can climb up to Daeseongsa Temple then go down to Seoul Arts Center to relax. Nevertheless, we can exercise and enjoy the wonderful scenery at the same time. There is also an Ecological Park where we can enjoy seeing the butterflies and listen to the bird or insects, relax and enjoy the sound of nature at the same time.

Instead of traditional festivals, autumn has interesting festival like Everland's "Happy Halloween" to make the fall season more interesting. In a total of 60 days, we can experience the excitement in Everland with the theme- Halloween. Everyone will dress up in popular monsters' and ghosts' costumes to enjoy the adventures in Everland together. This is really tempting especially for us that rarely celebrate Halloween in our country.

Blue Merry Winter

We are especially excited to experience the winter time as it's never gonna happen in our country. The most attractive activity during winter would be skiing. Alpensia Ski Resort is the best tourist attraction in Korea during winter time.

We can try out skiing and snowboarding at the 6 slopes in Alpensia, which is good for both beginners and advanced skiers. Alpensia Ski Resort is really incredible as it will be the skiing location for 2018 Winter Olympic. This will be the best place to experience the cool air blowing on face while skiing down the slope.

There's also special winter festivals for example Gangwon-do Winter Festivals. The ice sculpture exhibition is the biggest attraction of this festival.

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KSEASON really inspires me to visit Korea, they showed me well about the true colors of Korea with their very own charm, made Korea an unique country.

OUTSTANDING FASHION

I smell the scent of fashion

“ Fashion is not something that exists in dresses only; fashion is something in the air. It's the wind that blows in the new fashion; you feel it coming, you smell it. Fashion is in the sky, in the street, fashion has to do with ideas, the way we live, what is happening. ” -COCO CHANEL

The Koreans have strong sense of fashion that lead the fashion trend. They make creative and outstanding designs for clothes, shoes, bags, accessories, hairstyles, etc, or we can summarize it by saying it covers from head to toe. Their own unique style of Korea fashion has caught the eyes of people all around the world. Nevertheless, the fashion scent of Korea had spread to Malaysia too. The people here, especially teens, started to dress by referring the Korean way of dressing up. Their styles of outfits always show the best parts of the body. Their outfits highlights beautiful longs legs like Miss A and also the nice body line.

My friend Amanda (picture above) is one of the top model on LOOKBOOK as well as a famous blogger at the same time. She had once tried some Korean outfits on LOOKBOOK and great responses are coming all around the world. This shows that how amazed the people are and how they favor the Korean fashion styles.

To the shopaholics out there! Take note about Hongdae and Myeongdong streets. They're the must-go streets in Korea that sell gorgeous stuffs like clothes, bags, accessories and many more interesting things with reasonable price.

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I am really fascinated by the Korean fashion. It makes us look great and confident. Thus, the OUTSTANDING FASHION inspires me to dress like Korean.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN KOREAN & CHINESE

The relatives with similar taste

Korean and Chinese are like relatives. We share a lot of similarities in many aspects. For instance, foods, language and traditions.

Foods and Dining Etiquette

For both Korean and Chinese, rice is our main staple of food. Both Korea and Chinese are good in preparing rice dishes.

We have rice in most of the meals. Koreans and Chinese have various yet similar way to prepare dishes with rice, for example fried rice and porridge. For Koreans, they have famous rice dishes like Kimchi Bokkeumbap (Kimchi Fried Rice), Dolsot Bibimbap (Mixed Vegetables on Rice) and Kimbap (Rice Wrapped in Seaweed). On the other hand, Chinese have famous rice dishes like Hokkien Fried Rice, Dan Bao Fan (Omelet Rice) and Chicken Rice.

Jajangmyeon 炸酱面 is a type of Korean-Chinese Cuisine. It is steamed noodles with lightly flavored black bean sauce. Jajangmyeon is served widely in both countries, which is strongly favored by Koreans and Chinese.

Besides that, both Korean and Chinese use chopsticks as eating utensils. Koreans and Chinese are alert that chopsticks should not be left standing vertically in a bowl of rice or other foods. Any pair of stick-like objects pointed upward resembles the incense sticks that some Asians use as offerings to deceased family members; certain funerary rites also designate offerings of food to the dead using standing chopsticks.

Language

Chinese and Korean words share the same Chinese Etymology. Thousand years ago, Korean was written with adapted Chinese characters called hanja. In 15th-20th century, hangul was created and widely spread. But due to it's Chinese language background, there's still a lot of Korean letters sounds almost the same with Chinese.

Male
남자- pronounces as nam ja
男子- pronounces as nan zi

Their pronunciations are so alike, this is one of the reason why I like Korean language, as a Chinese, as it is way easier to understand them.

Cultures and Traditions

Both Korean and Chinese are very traditional people. We have similarities in having traditional dresses and festival celebrations. Koreans have Hanbok while Chinese have Cheongsam; Koreans celebrate Korean Chusok while Chinese celebrates Chinese Moon Festival. To warp things up, Koreans and Chinese are really close linked family.

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Koreans and Chinese have really strong RELATIONSHIP in all foods, language, cultures and traditions. Such situation made me feel so close to Korea and hence inspired me about Korea deeply.


ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRIES
I can hear the rhythm of art

The entertainment industry is one of the most important route to promote Korea, and this is also the main reason why Korea is such a famous country. The entertainment industry covers artists like singer, actor/actress, host and DJ.

K-pop; Singing Industry
K-pop stands for Korean pop as in musical genre originating in South Korea. K-pop style of music is very catchy and addictive. One can easily follow the flow of the song and wallow in their rhythm, just after you listened to them once or 2 maybe twice. The lyrics are also very easy to remember, peoples can simply sing the songs just by looking at their titles. Here's some examples, I bet you can sing most of them:

Touch- Miss A

you touched my heart, baby touch touch...

Hands up- 2PM

put your hands up, put your hands up, put put put put put...

Nobody- Wonder Girls

I want nobody nobody but you...

Sorry Sorry- Super Junior

sorry sorry sorry sorry...

Gee- Girls' Generation

gee gee gee gee baby baby baby...

Besides the catchy rhythm and lyrics, choreography of the performance and great physical appearance of Hallyu Stars (Kpop Stars) are also capturing the hearts of the teenagers and young adults around the world.

Most of them are trained very hard since they're young. Entertainment companies like JYP Entertainment, SM Entertainment and YG Entertainment train artists with great talents for years, making their debut only after they are well prepared to be professional singers. They actually inspired me to be more hardworking because of their effort and the commitment in trying hard under company training even in young ages.

K-drama; Acting Industry
Korean dramas attract viewers of all ages around the world, from youngsters to elders, from Philippines to Americans. The plots are very relaxing and captivating, without obvious sexual references often found in Western dramas. People often fall for the romance in drama and hence enjoy watching it.

Most importantly, K-dramas introduced me lots of beautiful and fantastic places in Korea. Action speaks louder than words, while in my opinion, dramas speak louder than pictures.

"Secret Garden", a famous drama starring Hyunbin and Ha Ji-won had introduced me some beautiful places as their filming location.

credit: google

The house of Hyunbin in Secret Garden is an expensive garden in Maiim Vision Village, which is the training institute of a cosmetics and health food products company, Maiim Group. The artificial large interior with large windows, big pond and nicely-planted flower garden had really caught my attention.

credit google

The scenes of the winter workshop of Ha Ji-won took place in Resom Forest which is a nice place for hiking. Facilities in the forest include 406 rooms, Resom Spa Center, Hanbang (Chinese medicine) Wellus Center and an outdoor meditation center.

credit: google

Resom Spa Castle is the background setting of Hyunbin's mother (in Secret Garden) and Kim Sa-rang having a talk while doing the spa. It is a very relaxing leisure place.

"Dream High", a youthful drama starring Suzy (Miss A), Taecyeon (2PM) and Kim Soohyun also features places like Incheon Art Platform and Western Dom.

credit: google

Incheon Art Platform is the background setting for Kirin Art School in the drama. It preserves the city’s unique cultural attributes while combing the ideas of recycling, rebirth, and efficiency. Meanwhile, the unforgettable flash mob scene by majority of Kirin Art School students took place at the most representative commercial establishments in the Ilsan area, Western Dom.

credit: cut from Heartstrings video on YouTube

"Heartstrings", a drama starred by Jung Yonghwa and Park Shinhye introduced me a special place call Trick Art Museum. Trick Art Museum is the first art museum in Korea that displays optical illusion art. Trick Art renders two dimensional paintings in three dimensions by creating illusion. The illusions created look real especially in photos, looks like you're doing the action for real. This museum is really amazing, especially for teenagers whom full of curiosity.

K-variety shows; Hosting Industry

The variety shows of Korea, other than fun and relaxing, they are also very educative. The shows came out with very special ideas that we never seen before. Also, variety shows in Korea bring up lots of captivating destinations.

"Running Man" is a variety show hosts by Yoo Jaesuk with 6 other permanent members. The MCs and guests required to complete the missions in a landmark to win the game at the end. They hosted the games in different landmarks every episode, and therefore constantly presenting different impressive places in Korea.

credit: google

Running Man showed me places like Seoul Arts Center, National Museum of Korea, Jeju Island, Lotte World, Museum Comics, Alpensia Ocean 700 Water Park, Petite France and a lot more. I was totally impressed to know this much amusing places in Korea while I'm actually relaxing watching variety shows.

"We Got Married" is a reality show that pairs up celebrities to show how life would be if they're married. They showed many romantic places especially suitable for couples to go.

For instance, Namsan Seoul Tower is a must-go place for couples. Locks of love in Namsan Seoul Tower symbolizes the promise made by lovers that they will stay together, just like the locks.

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ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRIES in Korea plays very important role in promoting Korea, and they did very good job in showing charismatic performances that were admired by fans all over the world. And I'm just one of them, fully inspired by the entertainment industry.

ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

View the world in a TOUCH

Technology in Korea grows rapidly and remain stably as the Top Ten Technology Orientated Countries. Korea has became well-recognized in recent years as a global technology hub. Technology companies in Korea have successfully developed and exported a wide range of innovative products. Samsung, LG, Hyundai and several more Korean companies are playing an important role in the technology world, improving and inventing original technologies every single day.

The smartphones created by Samsung are the best partner of people nowadays. It's part of our daily life, it plays the role as camera, messenger, web browser, media player, GPS, etc. Internet can be accessed easily in just one touch on the screen of smartphone.

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The ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY in Korea made Korea a very modern and highly developed country. I can't help but amazed by the technologies in Korea and thus inspired to visit this high-tech country one day.

EXTRA!

What Korea inspired me?

I shared a lot on what inspires me about Korea. Now, I would like to share a little about how Korea inspires me in my daily life.

I've joined cheer-leading for 3 years during my high school time. And the year after I graduate (2010), I went back to high school to help out with the juniors in preparing of the upcoming cheer-leading competition. I suggested to put in K-pop songs in dance in a way to draw attention from the audience. I learnt the choreography of Sorry Sorry (Super Junior) and Oh! (Girls' Generation) then applied them in the dance, the picture above shows the outcome of the performance.

We made it at last! Audiences were extremely excited and moved by their stunning performance. My juniors were honored as the champion of Cheer-leading 2010 in our high school. Since that, the audiences and also my juniors themselves, began to discover more about Korea. Words just can't describe my feeling of joy and satisfaction of the success.

To summarize, I was inspired about Korea simply by KOREA itself;

KSEASON DESTINATIONS
OUTSTANDING FASHION
RELATIONSHIP OF KOREAN & CHINESE
ENTERTAINMENT
ADVANCED TECHNOLOGY

Since I've never been to Korea, I took the above Korea photos from my friends that had visited there before. Pictures above are safely taken with credit after owner's permission, those with celebrities are excluded. 

Credits labeled in picture,

Pictures in Korea- Renee Ho (including the background picture in header banner), Esther Chen

Fashion pictures- Amanda Liu

Cheer-leading picture- Ann Ni

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KOREABEINSPIRED.TOUCHKOREATOUR.2PM.MISSA.KOREATOURISMORGANIZATION.MISSA.2PM.TOUCHKOREATOUR.KOREABEINSPIRED

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Reasons I should be selected as the one to join Touch Korea Tour

I really appreciate this unique tour that organizers spent time organizing. Hence, I will show you how much I hope I can be chosen by showing my passion and desire to join this tour. There are 10 reasons you won't regret to select me:

❶ I never get the chance to visit Korea

Korea is always the country I want to go the most, I had this mindset since 7 years ago. I always want to try out the Korea local foods, Hanbok and amazing places I've been seeing from TV and internet. Unfortunately, due to certain circumstances, I couldn't afford it so it just continue to live in my dream. But here it is, the once-in-the-lifetime chance is right in front of me. Furthermore it's a trip with 2PM and Miss A, companies that one never gonna have in any other tour trips. This will be the best of the best ways to travel EVER!

❷ I can introduce Korea well to the tourists

I work as travel agency in my aunt's travel agency company during study breaks. I get to introduce amazing places to for the customers to visit. If I have the chance to visit Korea, I can share my own experience with them, and also personal information and tips that couldn't get online. In this case, it is more convincing that would cause the customers to be interested to experience Korea trip themselves too.

❸ I have large K-pop friend base

I started as an active K-pop lover since 2005, since then I'm very active in several K-pop forums and made a lot of K-pop friends. Therefore, I have a large friend base to share the experience of this trip, and together we can spread more about Korea.

❹ I learnt Korean language because I love Korea!

Korean language courses in ICLS

I have been watching K-dramas and variety shows years ago, and they inspired me to learn Korea language. One of the reasons would be my determination to understand the conversations in Korean language and wanting to get closer with Korea. Hence, I attended Korean classes in ICLS (Inter-Cultural Language School) during 2008 and 2009. But I forced to stop the classes due to the important examination SPM I faced during that year.

Korean language courses in Korea Plaza KL

However, I'm back to the Korean class in joining Korea Plaza KL for free classes since beginning of this year! This shows my passion towards Korea that never ends.

➎ I know more than 7 languages and dialects

I can speak Chinese, Malay, English, Cantonese, Fuzhou, Hokkien, Hakka and also Korean. Due to the races and cultures in Malaysia, we get to know more languages. In addition, I have learnt Korean language for more than 1 year, I may not be a fluent speaker, but it's enough to handle simple conversations with the Koreans. There are members in 2PM and Miss A who speaks English and Chinese, which I can also communicate with them very well.

➏ Besides of adapting Korea's culture, I can also spread Malaysia's culture!

Another advantage of this tour is that we can share a little about our own countries. Cultures and traditions of Korea will be introduce throughout the trip, I'm confident that I can adapt it very quickly. At the same time, I can share with them about Malaysia's cultures. This will be one of the fun part during the trip, we get to exchange thoughts and understand each other more.

❼ I try my very best to get closer with Korea

Hallyu stars often hold concerts in Malaysia, but to me, the tickets are basically not cheap. Instead of giving up due to financial problem, I tried to find my own ways to achieve it. For instance, I worked as concerts and events crew! So far I've worked for Super Junior's concert, JYJ's showcase, Beast's showcase and some other concerts. 

It's blur because we took the picture in a rush, since we weren't suppose to take picture while working.

I get paid while watching my idols' concert, this is a win-win situation. On the other hand, I found free Korean language classes in Korea Plaza KL instead of my previous courses that cost hundreds per level, this is one of the greatest thing I discover!

Finally, here I am, joining this blog contest. It is like something I can only achieve it in my dream, but it's actually happening in reality, where there is a chance to travel around Korea with 2PM AND MISS A! I really treasure this chance, that wouldn't happen again in my life.

❽ I make good things even better

Instead of writing plain points, I like to put in creative ideas to make it more interesting to read, and easier to remember at the same time! In particular, I used the letters play of word KOREA in explaining my ideas for the title above, to make the interesting ideas even better. The winner of this contest would have the chance to share their travel diary blog as stated, I can compose creative and informative travel diary throughout the trip. Readers can enjoy the fun contents and getting important information at the same time.

❾ I can hold a sticky note messages event

Fans always want to pass their messages to their idols, especially foreign fans. If I have the chance, I can hold an event for Hottest (2PM fans) and Say A (Miss A fans) to write down their messages in a sticky note. I will paste them in a folio and bring it to 2PM and Miss A! This is also a golden chance for the fans to pass their message to their favourite idols.

❿ I missed THE ONLY CHANCE so far to meet 2PM in Malaysia

I was having a very important examination- STPM during the concert of 2PM in Malaysia (25-11-2011). I was very upset when I get to know the concert is in the middle of my exam. It was very torturing to study at home while my mind was thinking the concert. How can I actually missed the only chance to meet 2PM in my country?!

Thus, please give me the chance to travel my dream country- Korea, and getting the chance to meet both 2PM and Miss A! It is like combining my 2 dreams in 1! You won't regret choosing me. :) It would be really wonderful if I can really achieve the slogan of koreAmaze:

"Experience Korea; Be Amazed"

To the organizers, thank you for giving me this chance, to feel that I'm just one step away to achieve my dream!

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