Chuseok Weekend in Busan

Life's been good. Just came back from Busan and it was fun! I loved the hostel we stayed in. Initially I was quite against it cus I had Angel Hotel in mind. A night at Angel Hotel will cost about 24,000W and the guesthouse that my friend recommended was 30,000W per person. Furthermore Angel offers room service and is in a central location while the guest house doesn't and is located in a corner of Busan but it was near Haeundae beach (must go for Busan). In the end we had to go with the majority and the guest house won. Not a bad thing afterall

Took a 4hr bus ride to Busan. At first I didn't want to go to Busan cus I've been to Busan last year. However, we did not visit the Haeundae beach as it was raining. If I don't go with my friends, I would be alone for 3 days, which is quite scary so I decided to join them.

 The view from my bed :) The guesthouse was 44 floors high!

The huge living room. It felt so good to be sitting on the sofa! I missed lounging on sofas.

Went to Spaland, which is like a high class korean bath house. It was quite awkward for us at first cus we must be completely naked inside. The Koreans had no problem and were quite open. For us, we covered ourselves with towels and the people inside were staring at us :X Each of us showered in a booth then we went out to enjoy the jacuzzi tubs of water with different temperature. They also had an outdoor spring and sauna! We sat in the 80 degrees sauna for awhile and couldn't take it. After that we showered, dressed ourselves in their t-shirt and shorts, we went to their rooms with different themes.

How one of the rooms look like. Something will supposedly emit electrons at us and has some health effects. Don't know if it's believable.

After Spaland, we went to dapao fried chicken and had supz in the living room. How I wish my current place in Seoul has a living room for us to hang out!

The following day, we went to Jalgachi market which is a seafood haven. Tried live octopus for the first time! We ate the small octopus so it wasn't so bad. Tasted just like normal octopus sashimi just that it moves if you don't chew.

Huge oysters!

 Ordered their king crab to try too! It was awesome, and I could take out the meat in the leg with a small tug like in those travel shows.



Crab fried rice but I could barely taste the crab meat.

The amount of roe in the crab!!

A must try in Busan, gukbap. It's just pork soup with rice. However it's not very common in Seoul and is a Busan specialty.

Friends. Changed hostel room on the second day and it was awesome again.

The manager prepared Chuseok breakfast for us, which were japchae and some mochi thing (not sure about the korean name)

Pasta at Thursday Party near Haeundae.

Haeundae beach, one of Busan must visit places. The water is so much clearer compared to Singapore's!

When asked about how I'm doing in Korea

I would answer that I want to come home. Why so? Cus...

"Haha omg this sentence I don't know how to use Korean. Haha I want to come back cus it's really so good in sg, like I don't need to wash my own clothes, don't need to worry about what to eat every meal, and don't need to clean my own room... Over here I have to do things myself. It's a good experience la haha but nothing beats the comfort of home :) I'm enjoying myself here, like I really like my new found freedom, like I can go anywhere anytime! Haha. And Korean food is nice! Class is slack cus I don't need to score well! And the weather is good ;)"

What I typed to my friend over whatsapp. I guess this is how I really feel about exchange. I always thought going on an exchange would be glamorous and I would have lots of fun. Boy, was I wrong. I mean it's right to some extent but people on Facebook just don't show you the photos of them cleaning their room, doing their laundry, spending time planning their trips and having disagreements. These are the scenes behind the "having fun and good food" photos on Facebook.

A good way to enjoy exchange is to bring my whole house with my family there. Haha joking.

Above are just some of my late night muses.

Goodnight x

Oh Hi

Hello! Sorry for my lack of updates. The past week has been pretty hectic for me, all thanks to 2 modules: fixed income securities and service operations. These 2 modules have really heavy workloads!!

Main highlights of what I did in Seoul from last Fri onwards

Last Friday:
Woke up at 5.15am to take a train to 삼각지 station to Camp USO for DMZ. From Camp USO, we took a 1.5 hrs bus to the Joint Security Area (JSA). It's damn cool!!! I actually got to see the border between South and North Korea. Think it's quite exclusive and really worth the money. To go to the JSA area, we paid extra 43,000W (48SGD). For those who don't know, there is a 2km wide buffer zone on both sides of the border and they call it the DMZ. In the DMZ, there is a blue house that stands equally on both sides of the border. Leaders from both countries have meetings in the house! We got to visit the house and got to stand on the North side of the room! So I've been to North Korea :) haha

The blue house. The gray building opposite belongs to North Korea.

On the North Korea side of the room!

After that we went to the tunnel, which was dug by North Koreans to sneak an attack on South Korea. Also, we went to Dorasan observatory to look over to the North side. Nothing much could be seen :( Finally we went to the Dorasan station where South Korea built a train to Pyeongyang. However it's not in use :(

This trip has really made more interested in North Korea. I want to go visit North Korea when I'm slightly older and have the $$$ $_$ It would be really cool to see what's inside!

Last Saturday:
Woke up pretty late cus we were really tired from the trip. The previous day I was awake for 21 hours! Went to look at the Bukchon Hanok Village in the late afternoon and proceeded to Myeongdong for shopping and the dance night! Nothing special except that we missed the last train and had to cab back.

DJ spinning music on the streets of Myeongdong.

Last Sunday:
We went to the free Incheon concert featuring SHINee! It was damn far away, took about 2 hours to travel there via train and had to transfer quite a lot of times. On one transfer, the number of stations that we had to take was like 30?!! But it was worth it cus it was free and there was a lot of effects like fireworks and stuff!

My packed weekend last week was the reason for the hectic week. I only got home at about 1am on Tuesday and had to do a 3 page case report, study for FIS pop quiz and 11 pages of Korean homework by Wednesday.

I was so relieved that I managed to get past Wednesday! Haha

I have 고연전 tmrw! Will blog about it soon too x_x

1st week of school

School started! It was okay except that most of the classes are quite boring with the exception of 2 modules. Each class at KU last about 1hr15mins and there are 2 classes a week per module. I really like this system because each class is shorter and I feel like I can pay more attention. Even so, I fall asleep like in almost every class so far x_x They have some panels on their ceiling which will amplify the prof's voice when the prof is standing under it! So cool! They don't need to hold mics. And I really like how the school look. Even though it's in Korea, the university looks like it's from UK! Almost all the buildings that I've seen are stone buildings.

#arm candy/#arm swag. I always see people posting photos of their arm swag on ig ( I follow some fashion accounts on ig) and I was so inspired I wanted to get one too! Went to DongDaeMun Complex yesterday to get the below! Nice? I don't know if it matches nicely cus I just bought what I like then I put them together x_x

One of my outfits for school. I got the top and bottom in Seoul for like 10 SGD altogether! I think it's quite a bargain! Mint green t-shirt with lace panel and black high waist shorts

Doing the favorite pose of my KUBA buddy

The BiBimNaengMyeon I had at DongDaeMun. It was damn damn damn spicy! It's cold and spicy at the same time. When my friend recommended this place and told me that their cold noodles was damn spicy, I was like "how can anything be cold and spicy at the same time?" The existence of this dish proved me wrong. After a bite, I was dead and my mouth went numb with spiciness after just 4-5 mouthfuls! I thought it was quite shiokz :) Haha. Must go to this place if you like spicy food!

It's a lazy saturday afternoon and I was lazy to go out x_x It's always those quiet moments in my own room that I begin to get emotional. I miss everyone a lot!! Sometimes I'm okay and I really enjoyed myself in Seoul.

Looking forward to my second week of school and third week in Seoul! Haha

Seoul much fun

Sorry for my lack of updates. I've been pretty busy with orientation, modules adding and sightseeing! Today is the first day that I'm taking a break from all of that. No alarms to wake me up, I just woke up naturally and stayed in the hostel to nua :)

I guess I'm finally accepting the fact that I would be staying in this small hostel room for at least 2 months. Even though it's really dusty (just now I discovered a thick layer of dust in the space between the table and wall that made me shudder) I guess I'll just have to settle for it. I can't possibly move out alone into another place cus it would be quite dangerous.

Sightseeing was okay, I haven't been particularly excited cus I've seen almost of all of the things when I came to Seoul last year. Rather, I have been asking Fangfang for more info on where we went last year, finding out more about it then bringing my friends there. From a follower last year, I've become the more knowledgeable one around! If you want to come, I can bring you around quite well (I think)

Some photos from the sightseeing
N Seoul Tower

Sky at Edae

Sunset at Hangang Park

Water fountain at Banpo bridge

School starts tmrw. I'm looking forward to it. Cus I've been walking and shopping too much that I'm sick of the routine x_x Studying would be a nice break :)

I did a vlog then I realized it's too lame and decided not to post it x_x so... no more vlogs for the rest of my exchange. Hope I would have time to continue updating this space!

Seoul

I'm currently in Seoul, for my SEP.

I thought I always wanted to come to Korea for 4.5 months but now, I don't know if that's what I really wanted. I don't like my hostel cus it's too small and dirty and I can't imagine myself living in it for 4.5 months. I miss L and my family.

I thought I always wanted it and now I feel like I brought it upon myself.

I can't wait to return to Singapore, where my room is at least three times the size of my current hostel room, with my parents who care, clean, wash for me! Now I know how hard it is. I washed 2 sets of clothes and I don't ever want to wash clothes again. But no. I can't "don't want to" cus I'm on my own and there won't be anyone who will do it for me. I'm supposed to be independent.

Ohwell. I hope I get use to my hostel soon! Or else it's going to be a painful 4.5 months :(

p/s a vlog might be coming up!!

Blink

Blink, and I'll be in Korea.

Time has been passing by sooooo fast! 8 days till I leave Singapore. I don't really want to leave now that I'm about to leave. Felt like I did no preparations at all but actually I have a visa, booked air tickets and a private hostel room. All I need to do is to pack my luggage and I'm all ready to go. Oh, I haven't settled my bank account stuff yet...

I'm going to miss everyone here. Please don't forget me!

The party preparations are now a chore. So many things to do...

Oh and I tend to spend much more $$ when I'm not working. I meet up with people every other day and spend money like crazy. I need to save!!!

x

P/S: This post is really just random thoughts.