Wanted to post everything in one shot but i think it'll be too much. The computer will probably load damn slow cause of all the pictures. Haha, so i'm gonna post bit by bit!
Monday (1/07)
Monday (1/07)
Udon for lunch in the SNU's cafeteria!
We just wanted to relax after our first quiz, so we went out to Hongdae after our class ended at 6pm. We had dinner at Haha's restaurant! We went there hoping we would be lucky enough to spot him. But we went at the wrong time...my sister pointed out that it was because it's Monday! He's probably too busy filming Running Man to drop by his restaurant. ):
This is how the place look like from far. His logo is quite prominent. Haha.
Comes with many side dishes.
We reeked of bbq smell after that, but the BBQ pork intestine aka mak chang (막창) and pork belly was super yummy. Of course, you have to be one who appreciates all these yummy goodness and not worry about fats or whatsoever! Shopped for a bit around the area (bought lots of etude house stuff) and headed back because it was getting late.
Tuesday (2/07)
We studied for a bit and end up leaving the dorm later than we expected to, so we ended up going to Hongdae again. Shopped around more, especially at H&M where i finally got clothes for my dad and brother! We experienced the worse weather when heading back to the dorm. It rained and the wind was soooo strong that all our umbrellas couldn't tank. Omg, it was a situation where i don't know whether to laugh or cry. My sandals were super drenched that i was afraid it might spoil (which after getting wet it started having squishing noises). But i couldn't control my laughter when i saw Rachel's umbrella overturned. It was just so funny because a few minutes earlier she was saying her esprit umbrella has never overturn before. Then her umbrella decided to prove her wrong. Hahaha.
Then it was study study study all the way on Wednesday and Thursday since we had classes from 9am-6pm.
Hahaha. Hence the screaming expression in the top right pic. 100% look alike right!
Had pizza for Thursday lunch since there was a pizza party. I crashed that session since Rachel and Yvette were invited to that session but i wasn't. Haha. It doesn't matter anyway since i didn't attend my session...
Friday (5/07)
Finally met my korean penpal, Jessica, face-to-face on this day! One of the most memorable day ever! How surreal is it to make a real penpal via internet and being able to meet her? Haha, told her beforehand that i was going to Korea for summer program and she was so excited and offered to meet me and bring me around. So nice! We met on Friday at Anguk Station Exit 3 stairs. Main places we planned to visit on that day was Changdeokgung Palace, Bukchon Hanok Village and Insadong area.
Although it was my first time meeting her, it wasn't as awkward as i thought it would be. There was plenty of things to talk about actually. :) Rachel's friend, Yvonne, also joined us on that day!
First place we went to was Changdeokgung Palace. It's not the biggest palace in korea, but we just wanted to visit one in that area. Jessie actually paid for all of our entrance fees. We felt so bad and said we should pay our own tickets but she kept insisting on paying since her mother gave her money to bring us around. Aww, see how nice koreans are!
With Jessie!
Jump shot, hahaha
Thanks to Jessie's help, we took many photos!
We took quite a while touring around the palace since we took a lot of photos. Our stomach was grumbling already, so we went to one of the restaurants at Insadong to have lunch!
We paid for lunch since Jessie paid for the palace entrance fees. After that, we walked around the stores where they were selling touristy stuffs. I bought some korean chopsticks and spoons back since mummy wanted me to buy some. Haha. Then we headed to Ssamziegil!
We spotted this neoprint shop at the upper levels which allows you to wear hanbok! Hahaha, so being typical tourists, we decided to try it out!
I don't really know how the pricing works though. For this, each of us paid 3,000krw. But Rachel and Yvette came to take another time, they paid only 3,500krw each, with their neoprints of a bigger size... So idk. But it's best to take when the shop has fewer people. More time to decorate the pictures and decide which to choose too. On that particular day, the shop was quite crowded so everything was quite rush and messy.
@.@
Some message tags?
Since i told Jessie beforehand what i would like to try in Korea, she brought us to Star Cafe Miss Lee for their 냄비팥빙수 (patbingsu)! It's actually the place where Yonghwa and Seohyun filmed their one of their Wgm episodes! :)
While waiting, we doodled on our seats. Hahaha.
After a hearty meal, off we went to explore Bukchon Hanok Village! Because Korea is sooo big, it's Jessie's first time there too, so we kinda got lost. I'm not even sure if the place we ended up at is where we were supposed to explore. If it is, there isn't anything much there.. But the traditional houses were really nice! Being in the faculty of design and environment, i think i've become more appreciative of architecture and building landscape. Haha.
I think Jessie was like, "Pose like models!"
And this was the best we could do. Lol.
It was still early and there we didn't have any new places to explore in the Insadong area so we decided to head to N Seoul Tower. I was quite paiseh having Jessie to travel here and there with us but she seemed okay with it. We wanted to just cab down since we were really tired walking here and there the entire day under the hot sun. But the driver said we have to take a bus there as he can't drive into that place. ): So we ended up taking the subway and then a bus to the Namsan tower.
We reached! Haha, this is Haechi, Seoul's mascot.
Bought our tickets where we pretended to be youths so that we can get tickets for a cheaper rate. Hahaha.
After taking photos and exploring the places outside, we finally went up the observatory.
Lit up N. Seoul Tower.
Hungryyyy. We went to Myeongdong to have our dinner! Wanted to have street food but there weren't a lot to choose from so we ended up in a bbq place!
Bbq meat is super yummy!
Erm, as you can see, i think i'm a lousy drinker. Red face after a cup of the drink. But no, i wasn't drunk. I think my body isn't good at oxidizing the alcohol. Sigh, asian flush. -.-
It was a really awesome day. Doing and experiencing so much of Korea in a day. It would definitely be very different without my penpal, so i'm really grateful for the accompany. Unlike Singapore, Korea is huge, so in order to meet us, she actually have to book the train tickets to travel to Seoul. Yeah, she's not even living in Seoul! Although she assured me she lives nearby, taking only an hour to travel to Seoul, i really appreciate her kindness. I mean, there isn't many people who would be willing to do so much for a penpal whom he/she didn't even meet before. Plus although for koreans they think it's near when the traveling time only takes 1 hour, but for us Singaporeans it's really far. Like how i always complain about having to travel to NUS. Lol. She even paid for the bbq dinner, which i'm pretty sure is super expensive...
:')
Fortunately, my mum and i also prepared gifts for her! Hopefully she can visit Singapore someday and in return for her kindness, we can bring her around! I think both Jessie and her mum really want to see the infinity pool at MBS. Lol.
Oh ya, on the way back via subway was the first time i encountered meeting a creepy guy in korea. He kept giving the tikopek eyes like what the shit! Initially i thought he's a bit sot in the head kind so i didn't do anything but just kept alert. But when he tried to squeeze his way towards me while on the train i got so shocked that it a mixture of anger and panic welled inside of me that i walked to another side and warned the girls about him. I stared and guess what! He still kept smiling! Super creepy!
D':
Rach said maybe he thought i wasn't wearing any shorts since the back of my top was quite long. Lol, may be true but still...
-.-
Nevermind, i'm fine! He disappeared after that.
Saturday (6/07)
Went to Myeongdong to explore! Although there were many stalls and shops selling lots of clothes, bags, cosmetic and whats not, we didn't buy as many things as we expected to. Truthfully speaking, the stuffs that the street stalls are selling aren't that cheap. Express bus terminal or any underground shopping is much cheaper. Only shopped like crazy at Spao, a clothing brand shop endorsed by idols like SUJU, F(x) and SNSD. And everything i basically bought were for my brother and father since it's much more difficult to get cheap clothes for guys. Plus got brand, just buy. I think having the idols market the brand definitely made a lot of difference. Lol.
Went in some random place and had udon for lunch.
Had dakgalbi for dinner and we took damn long to search for this place.
If i'm not wrong, it should be this restaurant. Didn't take a picture of it, so i kope this from the net.
How things work in Korea is a little weird. We wanted to order just 2 sets to share among 4 of us since all of us weren't that hungry, but the person kept insisting we have to buy 3 sets. I don't get why this is so, but due to the language barrier we just ordered 3sets.
Yummy! We're supposed to add rice which would definitely taste much nicer, but the rest didn't have stomach space so we ate it just like that.
We decided to cabbed back to dorm since we were really tired and Yvette was having difficulty carrying her 400,000krw+ worth of cosmetic products from Faceshop. The taxi driver was quite friendly but kept speaking to us in Korean despite knowing that we don't understand Korean. He even kept teaching us how to say left, straight, right and our school dorm address in korean. Lolol. We were really so shag that i think all of us were hoping that he could just let us rest, because it's really rude to not listen and respond when he's talking...
Sunday (7/07)
Stayed in dorm again to study for quiz. Had mapo tofu for lunch (didn't take a picture).
To be continued....
No comments:
Post a Comment