been wanting to draft Korea (III) but I've been so busy ever since school started and probably won't be free till exams end (i.e. 27 Feb)

so I guess hiatus till then?

hopefully I'll have photos from cny tooooo

~okay bye~

it's really always easier said than done

sigh

death will never not scare me

91: Korea (II)

PART 2!!!
 So I'm not sure if there will be a part iii, but we'll see by the end of this post!

forgot to put this in the previous post, but we had to use the stylenanda photobooth hehe

On Day 2 I think (I don't remember very well!) we went to Dongdaemun to shop at Doota and eat some great samgyetang (ginseng chicken soup). Unfortunately I didn't take a good photo of the soup because I was way too hungry and cold! Also I really love samgyetang because it doesn't just consist of chicken, Korean ginseng and soup. They stuff rice into the chicken. R I C E. How to not be obsessed?!

After more shopping, we took a cab to Lotte World to shop and take a look at the largest indoor amusement park in the world..... In retrospect I forgot why we didn't go in, but I guess we didn't really plan to go in but we wanted to shop at Lotte Department Store there. (note: there was a LDS right next to our hotel, but this one was way bigger)

 

Day 3: Jade and I really love EXO (friends reading this pls don't judge me I love y'all) and they opened a pop-up store in Garosu-gil (in Gangnam-gu) that was originally supposed to close down in September, but because they were releasing a winter/christmassy album, the store is open for the whole of winter (blessed or what?!)
 

So after visiting the BWCW store (note again: we went there thrice. no ragrets.) and spending a significant amount of money on exo-related paraphernalia we left to shop along to streets of Gangnam and Garosu-gil!

I recognized a shop that I saw on a reality show and I had to go in to shop...... We went in only planning to look-see, but look-see always ends up as 'look-see-BUY!!!!!!'
We left the shop happy girls with our purchases and 2 new korean friends ^~^

Eunji 언니 (I talk to her on an almost daily basis, which is pretty cool. My broken Korean and her broken English makes it very entertaining.)

and another 언니!!! I never got her name even though we went back to visit twice, bc every time we went she would be busy manning the till or serving other customers :(

After which we walked around a little longer, and we wanted to go look for the entertainment agencies just for the fun of it. Who knew it would take 1.5 hours for us to find it? Prior to this we had found out how to get there, with various 'landmarks' we had to look out for and such. 

Crisis #1: A 20-min walk became a 1.5 hike around Gangnam/Apgujeong. 

Crisis #2: Took to long to find the agencies, so we decided to take a cab. Told the cab driver where it was in terrible Korean (must be the pronunciation, I swear) I said, "Dosan-daero 89-gil please!" and he brought us to 45-gil.

At this point I was fuming........... I mean, if he could bring us to 45-gil, why couldn't he find 89-gil? 

:(

Anyway, we got off the cab, because the cabby was getting frustrated and so were we. Walked 2km from 45-gil to 89-gil and finally we found CUBE cafe and JYPE!!!!!

(some toast thingmajiggy from CUBE cafe, which was rly good but too much for me)

Walked diagonally across to JYPE, in the hopes that someone famous would come out......... we gave up after 20 mins bc we still wanted to go to SM Ent.

Didn't take any photos of the SM Ent building cuz the new building looks pretty shabby compared to the old building (current global training centre)
I HAD REALLY HIGH HOPES THAT I WOULD BE ABLE TO SEE EXO OK (sian) because the new building has the same entrance and exit, which means anyone that was leaving or entering the building would be easily spotted......
Sobbles bc we didn't get to see them but it's ok we left to go shop again (lelelelel)

^Shinsegae which is really big and beautiful (inside and outside)

DAS OL FOR PART 2 I guess there will be a part 3 after all!!!

안녕 친구들 ^^

90: happy new year

happy 2014 everyone!!! :-)

new year new me

leljk none of that

but yes I had a very good night last night 

goodbye 2013

89: Korea (I)

I wish I was in a better mood while typing this but I'm not. But I also wanted to put up the photos I took during the Korea trip! 

I didn't take many photos on my g12, everything was mostly taken on my phone but that'll be uploaded another day. 

for now:

this was day one! (excluding the last 2 photos)

we had gotten off the plane with barely any sleep, and we took the airport shuttle to the hotel (which took about 40 minutes to an hour to get there)

dropped our bags, and immediately left for the subway station at 830am. on a saturday. with 1 hour of sleep.

We took the train from Konkuk Univ. Station all the way to Hongik Station, which was a painfully silent and long journey. The trains are really silent compared to the MRTs in Singapore. People are also allowed to consume food and beverages on board the train (pls sg govt pls)

I forgot to mention - we went up the wrong flight of stairs, bringing us to the opposite direction of where we had planned to go. We realised our mistake quite awhile later, and quickly made our way to the correct side. 

We arrived in about 50 minutes or so, and we were completely lost. We had planned a full day out and we couldn't even find the first cafe......... (cue sad music) 

The streets were dead. How were we supposed to know that shops only open at 11am?! The weather was terrible (-8deg) and we were both wearing 3 layers. After walking around and occasionally slipping (dang u ice), we decided to settle down at Belief cafe, which was the only place open and our only option. 

I had a hazelnut/caramel latte (I can't rmb lol) and it was reallllllly good. I guess when you're freezing your butt off and in desperate need of some warmth, everything tastes good.

After many attempts to connect to the WiFi nearby (only bc Belief's WiFi was password protected and we had no balls to ask for the password lel), I finally managed to use the internet. Clearly, I'm too dependent on the Internet.

We sat at Belief for about an hour and a half before heading out as most shops were opening by then.

Shopped for maybe about 2 hours around Hongdae (ily stylenanda and your free Photo Booth) snow started to drizzle down. At first I was mega excited. I mean, living in Singapore - the only chance you ever get to experience 'snow' is at Snow City. But then the snow got heavier, the roads got extra slippery. We were hungry and made our way to the most random Korean restaurant and were greeted by grumpy Ahjummas.. We had our fill and decided to move on to our next location - Ehwa Women's University.

It's supposed to be a very very very pretty place with lots of shopping in the neighbourhood. By then, the snow had gotten a lot heavier but we decided to go for it anyway. It was only 2 stops away and we were really excited but the snow got heavier..... and heavier... and heavier... 

We walked through the streets really quickly (slipping occasionally again) and we didn't even get to see the University. I really wanted to take a cab back to the hotel, seeing as the train ride would be - once again - long and torturous. But it was only our first day there, so we decided we wanted to fully experience the subway and also to save money. (note - we cabbed everywhere else subsequently)

And so begun the long journey back to the hotel. 

By the time we got back, we were completely wiped out. 

Obviously we took a short nap and BAM when we woke up both of us were feeling so so so unwell. 

Jade was shivering and I, burning up. Super thankfully, Jade's parents (who decided to come on the trip w us as well) came back and started nursing us back to health (lol) 

Ok this has been a very content heavy post but yes - by night we were fine and ready to go the next day!

aaand the next post will be on the following days and some photos from my phone. 

Short video compilation (and the only videos I took):

Korea from Alyssa Wong on Vimeo.

(bg music: No Diggity (Bondax edit))