아침고요수목원

We're in the middle of our winter holidays right now. While most of our friends are spending theirs in warmer climates, we decided to stick around and explore a bit more of Korea.

We set out for the Garden of Morning Calm near Cheongpyeong in Gangwondo. It's a huge, sculpted garden that celebrates a different festival every season. In the winter they have the lighting festival which we decided to go and see, despite the uber-chilly weather. It truly is spectacular. Unfortunately, like all attractions in Korea, it was extremely packed and thus hard to grab a good photo opportunity. There were cues to heaven and back at some places. Stella spent most of the time calling out for Tinkerbell whom, much to her dismay, we never found.

The whole area surrounding Cheongpyeong is exquisite and there are many things to see and do!

On a mission to find the fairies.

We arrived shortly before sunset, when they turn on the lights. This is the best way to do it in my opinion. We got to see a bit of the 'before and after', and the moment when they turn the lights is quite exciting.



We couldn't get away without a picture in the princess pumpkin carriage.

Very, very cold!

Love.

Stella made some friends in the park. These kids loved her and took every opportunity to have a picture taken with her.

Rudolph, the red nose reindeer.

Just for effect, a before and after photo.

Seoul Forest Park

I took Stella to the Seoul Forest Park in November when it was still warm enough to walk around outside. I had heard that it was a great place for kids...and, well, it was! And Autumn is such a great time to go and appreciate the splendour that is Korea in the Fall.

It's a huge park with animals, playgrounds, gardens, ponds, rollerblading/skateboarding rinks, statues, and so much more. A highlight was definitely feeding the bambi deer and birds (birds proving to be more popular with Stella).

We loved it and will surely be back for more...as soon as the weather warms up that is!

 

The miniature animal feeding park ~



*Photo taken by Stella!

* My New Years' resolution is to try and get my blog posts done in order.

Just the two of us...

We really, really missed being home for Christmas this year. So we lit a few candles on our Christmas cake, and watched some home videos. And on Christmas day we went to a Christmas party with some crazy, fun-loving Filipinos and then everything felt alright ;)

But next year we will make sure we're in SA where we belong!