TOUCH KOREA TOUR -Day 5: buzz KOREA Awards Day (Seoul)

The final leg of our Touch Korea Tour sponsored fully by buzz Korea and Korea Tourism Organization brought us to the Lotte World. Anyone can enjoy Korea by signing up with buzz Korea or Korea Tourism Organization and can become part of their awesome campaigns. Hurry up and sign up!
 

buzz KOREA (http://www.ibuzzkorea.com/eng/) is an online community platform that allows users to share and upload content about Korea and its tourism. buzz KOREA members share their blog posts, photos and videos about their stories and experiences to help others discover the hidden attractions of Korea.

The “Touch Korea Tour” campaign (http://www.ibuzzkorea.com/touchkoreatour/eng) provides participants with the opportunity to tangibly experience Korea in person. Participants of this tour travel throughout Korea, exploring the various attractions and sights of the country. In turn, they help spread other travelers find unique destinations and activities to try. 

kicked off by visiting Lotte World - world's largest indoor amusement park in Seoul, had fun on roller coaster and other rides and after having lunch -  Samgaethang - ( I'll do a seperate post on this) left for 2012 buzz KOREA Awards at "Beyond Museum".

They were covered by "allpop dot com" and Korea dot net among others.

It was an  important day for us since we were heading for 2012 buzz Korea Awards to receive our awards. The venue was “Beyond Museum”. 

Excellent arrangements were made by Korea Tourism Organization. 

Performance by the honorary ambassadors of KTO: miss A and 2PM was electrifying. We also enjoyed the performance by PSY (junior) too on the famous song: Gangnam Style. 

This program was hosted by Ricky Kim – actor/model. 

Part of these awards was hosted by a famous comedian...(pic. above)..
Blogs and other SNS winners also got awards. I won the award for “Communicator of the Year”. 

We were interviewed by media personnel and journalists from Korea and abroad. 

2PM and miss A made guest appearance and also performed some of their famous singles....... 

A Malaysian and an Indonesian blogger were both part of the Touch Korea Tour : Fun Team and during dinner, I got to know Erry Andriyati - she gave me a very pretty gift too- a souvenir from Indonesia. Hey Erry ...thanks (pics. of Eerie are below second from left). She told me that she couldn’t believe this to be real.

The prize money was huge and she would like to save it for her kids education and btw. she has a son and a daughter.

We left for dinner and were later joined by Ricky Kim. He is a very down to earth and modest person….a guy next door. I love the way, Korean K-Pop actors, singers or stars in general are so sweet with their fans.

One of our friends Naoko from Japan - brought this fan's FAN to cheer Thaekyon of 2PM.

PSY junior was so cute, he appeared in the song with PSY and when I called him to come near us, he actually did and even posed for me...^^ (pic. below).

By the way, I found out that miss A's SUZY (수지) is super popular from boys to men...:-) She is actually very cute.

 Overall, we got to meet some really wonderful people from around the world and this was the biggest reward and award to be a part of buzz Korea and KTO. When I started blogging a little over a year ago – I never had thought that I’ll experience any such thing through blogging and that too about my life in Korea. Recognition of our work feels really food..

I started this blog for a break from studies or research. I’m so thankful to Korea Tourism Organization and buzz Korea for appreciating the SNS community and the bloggers in particular.. 

There is no other country like KOREA and I’m thankful to them from the bottom of my heart for taking so good care of us for an entire week, giving us a chance to stay in Five-Star hotels and experience some of the most fantastic food and tourist spots which I would have missed out otherwise. 

I’m really thankful to the staff of KTO and buzz Korea who were very thoughtful of every single detail as well as individual needs of the participants. THANK YOU buzz KOREA and Korea Tourism Organization – Love YOU!

Touch Korea Tour- Gangnam Style:Hyeri Village

12 people won 'Touch Korea Tour: Gangnam Style' organized by buzz KOREA and Korea Tourism Organization (KTO). All 12 winners were invited to Korea (from as far away as Brazil) - to experience Korea - travel expenses and luxury accommodation at 5 Star hotels were fully covered by KTO..

 Anybody who is into SNS or who blogs or vlogs can become a part of "Touch Korea" campaign. All one has to do is to sign up for buzz Korea and have fun. buzz KOREA is the official site of Korea Tourism Organization and through this global online communication platform numerous events and promotions are launched all the year round and so was this one: "Touch Korea Tour: Gangnam Style" - that I was part of for almost a whole week. In this post I'll further talk of Paju and especially Hyeri Village.

 Paju is very close to DMZ - we were taken at this really nice place in Paju called: Hyeri Art Valley- home to clusters of galleries, artist studios and cafes. The architecture here is very progressive and artsy considering its proximity to such a heavily militarized border area.This place has often been featured in newspapers for having one of the most unique places to stay, to experience arts, crafts and literature - all at a close range.

We kicked off our trip by making a hand-made silver necklace, Korea Tourism Organization and buzz KOREA team chose a very specialized place and for that I’m extremely grateful to both KTO and buzz Korea. 

Workshop on making a silver necklace was an awesome experience to say the least. 

Our teacher told us how to do it – step by step, the process looked very simple and easy but once we started working on it- gosh, it was so difficult however, super fun! 

At least, I’d be very, very respectful of the people in the job – it is a tough one. 

 Some photos at Ttalgi Workshop at Hyeri are below:

and...finally attching the hook to a pendant..

 some pendants....

 ...the Strawberry or Ttalgi Workshop is across from this animation character Ttalgi...

After making necklace we headed straight to TRICK ART Museum located in Hyeri Village, which I heard is one of the biggest Trick Art Museums thus far. 

 The trick art museum features paintings that are extremely realistic and seem as if they are in 3D.

 By posing next to the painting in a certain way, you can take a picture and look like you’re part of the painting! We have 3 Trick Art museums in Korea, it first opened in Jeju and became an instant success afterwards, a couple of Trick Art Museums opened. 

There is one in Mapo-gu so if you are interested then do visit it – it is a fun place!!!  

Source: google/pic. not allowed!

We also visited ‘White Block Gallery’ – an Avant Garde place displaying the work of a famous artist who got recognition in America and Europe and much later in Korea, I loved his pen and ink drawing of landscapes and even some of his work highlighting women and anatomy was unique.He is now in his late 70s.

In the last leg we went to Tongildongsan (Paju) to experience KART – this is definitely a MUST visit .

After Korea’s hosting of Formula1 Grand Prix , held in Yeongam-gun (Jeollanam –do) – this mini track of Formula 1 at Paju is a famous attraction. Really had fun  to experience F1. It rocks!!

Later we moved to Ggotguee at Paju – it is a specialized restaurant for everything made with CRABS named "CRABIAN"...

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a very elaborate and expensive dinner was served that included:  Ganjang gejang (간장게장)). a couple of dozen side dishes and steamed/fried crabs in hot sauce.

Some of the tour members couldn’t eat the main dish Ganjang gejang (간장게장) including myself, I tried it but unfortunately, I couldn’t handle the strong flavor of raw crab marinated in Soya Sauce. I ate steam-fried crab in spicy sauce with bean sprouts and it was excellent. 

 

Finally we moved to the guest house “Jijihyang” in Paju – it was a special themed guest that does NOT have any TV etc.

What they have is: stack of books, original art work signed by the painters adorned walls. It is located in Paju Book City, a cultural industrial complex dedicated to the publishing industry, hosting dozens of publishing companies as well as book stores, book cafes, and art galleries. 

Jijihyang means “birthplace of paper,” is an ideal place to stay when visiting the area. 

Jijihyang's adjacent buildings!

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