While traveling

Currently I'm on a long bus ride back to Seoul from Busan. It's so freaking long, about 4.5hrs if the bus doesn't stop. I realized long bus rides are really good for self reflection. Been thinking of certain things recently while I'm on the bus, and I like it, the pensive me.

I've been really busy lately. After I finished my midterms last week, my friends and I headed to Inje for some outdoor sports, like white water rafting and bungee jumping. Bungee jumping is really cheap in Korea, about 40,000W (45 SGD) but the height is quite short compared to other countries. My friends wanted to do bungee jumping. Bungee jumping wasn't one of my to-do list in Korea and I don't think I would ever have the courage to really step off that platform and face the icy water beneath me. I went white water rafting with the guys instead. It was quite fun despite me being quite cautious. I can't swim and I didn't want to fall into the water x_x

The water was so clear!

My friends didn't want to try bungee jumping in the end so we headed to Sokcho for the night. This was in preparation for Seoraksan. Seoraksan is a famous park in the Korea and has a series of mountains. The highest peak is the Dae Chong Bong which stands at about 1.7km, the third highest mountain in Korea. Not wanting to squeeze with the crowd, we headed to Seoraksan at about 4+am and started climbing at 5. It was pretty scary as it was still dark, really dark. Darker than in singapore. One of my friends bought a torch light and we began the ascend. Oh my, we climbed for 5.5hrs and we still didn't reach the peak. Previously, I've saw online that it would only take 8hrs in total for both up and down. I was very very very wrong. The uncles and aunties who passed by us when they came down the mountain told us we at least had another 2 hrs to go. It was majorly depressing cus my thighs hurt so much and I took more than 1 second to climb up each rock. I used so much effort and I felt like dying. Finally, the girls decided to go down cus we need to go to YangYang for the salmon catching festival. The guys were staying for another day so they persevered. I WAS SO GLAD that we were heading down! Even the descend took quite long, about 3.5hrs? I really really really wanted to die cus I was so tired and my whole body was like crumbling.

At the highest spot ever.

Autumn: the supposedly best time to visit Seoraksan for its foliage

Pretty autumn foliage.

Bye Seoraksan, I never want to see you again.

Subsequently we headed to YangYang to catch salmon using our hands. This is one of the highlights of their festival! For 25,000W (28 SGD), we were given gloves and some time in a shallow pond with artificially released salmon. The salmons can really swim, I went after a few but I couldn't catch any. Finally, a kind Singaporean guy caught and released a salmon into my direction and I caught it with my bare hands!! Haha. After that we paid to butcher to cut up the salmon and we brought it back. So, I'll have salmon to eat for awhile :)

Me and my catch :D

That's pretty all that I did last weekend. I came back last sat night and went on a free tour on Sunday morning to Buyeo, Jeonju, Suncheon, Yeosu and Busan. I'm currently returning to Seoul from the tour. can't wait to be back in my room ^^ Will blog more about the free tour soon

Emotional turmoil

Midterms start tmrw and I'm so unprepared for it. Such is the life of an exchange student.

I think I don't have to study hard, I've been putting in like 10-30% of the effort I put in when I'm in NUS. But the emotional turmoil that I have to go through, like feeling really scared about the midterms and failing is just unbearable. I'm unprepared but I want to at least pass all my modules, what a dilemma!

Can't wait for midterms to be over. After that it's Seoraksan for the weekend. Not really looking forward to it cus I don't particularly like hiking, exercising or bungee jumping. Seoraksan is the third highest mountain in Korea and I'm afraid of what the hike will bring. A few weeks ago, we went to hike one of the mountains in Seoul and I wanted to die. It was so dangerous climbing all the steep rocks :(

Oh well, maybe it's time for me to embrace nature x_x

Cooking Adventure

I've been cooking a lot in Korea and recently I've been trying to cook some new stuff. Mostly I cook stew with veggies, enoki, crab stick and stuff, fried rice or rice with omelette and another side. 

I have a self imposed grocery budget of $20 for 2 weeks so it's quite hard to get fresh items as they are quite expensive. I try to alternate the fresh items I buy every 2 weeks. I bought 20 chicken wings this week and they cost me about $7.70, expiring in about 5 days. After 2 weeks, I'm going for prawns :D Koreans like to put expiry dates on everything, even on veggies. I've eaten a piece of fishcake that was 1 week past its expiry date and I was okay. So I don't really care...

Decided to pan fry chicken wings and it was a success :D The inside was fully cooked as well. When it was cooking, I poked 2 holes in each wing in hopes that the hot oil will reach the insides and cook it!

End product: Mushroom omelette and pan fried chicken wings! Wanted to eat it with rice but there's currently no more rice in the hostel. Meanwhile I should treat it like I'm on a diet with no rice. Had a banana as a source of carbs. On the topic of fruits, fruits are really expensive in Korea! One watermelon goes for 20,000W, which is $22.60. Isn't it crazily expensive? One watermelon cost like $4-$6 in Singapore if I'm not wrong. Sadly, the only fruit that I can afford is my most hated fruit - banana.

I do hope I'll become a better cook in time. Not that I'm a bad cook now! Haha. Meanwhile I will try to add more dishes to my belt :D

Angsty me

I'm so fucking angry with this guy right now, let's call him j.
So fucking angry, I can't believe I'll have to see him for another 3+ more months. I might die.

I don't know how someone can be nice and then obnoxious. In the same person. I've to say j is sometimes a nice person but sometimes obnoxious. j helped me when we went hiking. I was the weakest link and he always lent me a helping hand. But fuck, yesterday he's just obnoxious.

Yesterday was my birthday so I told my friends I would treat them. Okay, normally I don't treat my friends, or we don't have the tradition of treating friends on birthdays. But before I had my birthday party in SG, I thought I would celebrate my birthday in Korea, so I told my SEP friends that maybe I'll have a fried chicken party. Hence I felt like I had an obligation to treat.

We went to Kyochon (damn delicious) and we ordered 3 plates of chicken. j wanted to order beer and I said he would have to pay for it himself. Cus I was quite pissed with his jokes previously, when he said we'll be going to an atas seafood restaurant blah blah blah, and said I didn't need 21 shots, I just need 1. When we were halfway done with the chicken, he wanted to order one more, I retorted "not full meh?". Normally when we go to a fried chicken place, we would order 2-3 plates only. He said he wanted to try everything and said he would treat us the one plate cus I wasn't willing. Like wtf?? It's like don't give me face. Yeah after the food arrived, we all ate and then when we were paying the bill, he only paid for his alcohol and DID NOT PAY me the extra one plate. It's not me being calculative or what, I just feel that he should HONOR what he said. After that my friends said I shouldn't treat and gave me back the money. I accepted after some refusal cus they said they will need to give me a birthday present and they think I would prefer cash.

After that, while we were walking back, he talked about me winning 2 blogging contests. He said I SHOULD TREAT CUS I WON 2 BLOGGING CONTESTS. Excuse me, why should I treat you? You didn't even fucking contribute anything to me winning the contests. It was creativity and my hard work, coupled with the help of some of my friends. Why should he expect anything?

Or maybe, it's me. I'm the petty one.

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!