I was so shocked when I found out that the CD was in my laptop and came along with me to Korea.

I'm SO SO SO grateful that it's here.

I thought that's a present from angel, hahaha!

Without it, my study time would have been very dull. I'm more motivated with CNBLUE's accompaniment :D

Thank you, CNBLUE. I love you guys! (Especially MinHyuk ㅋㅋㅋ).


P/S: I watched 15th episode of the drama titled "My husband got a family" yesterday and MinHyuk was kissing a girl. That seriously made me very very sad! Oh my god, I can't accept the fact that my MinHyuk's kiss was given away! I am actually pissed off! If that girl is a kind girl I might be happy for MinHyuk :(

Ahhhhh...am I abnormal (变态) to think in that way? :'(

1st independent exploration in Seoul--part IV (Ahjussi playing games)

Alright, here's the last exploration of the day.

While I was walking around without direction near Hongik Univ. I saw a small park where a few ahjussi was gathering and playing several games.

 

Here, they played the black and white chess board game and other games which I have no idea what they are.

Some of them were just chatting with friends and watching others playing games.

They are playing a chess game which looks like Chinese chess.

I wonder why the ajuhssi was watching far away.

 

When I saw the scene in that park, I was jealous of Korean ahjussi. I wish my father can have leisure time and enjoy life just like those ahjussi.



 

This marked the end of my single exploration in Seoul on July 20, 2013.

 



 

1st independent exploration in Seoul--part III (Korean Croquette)

One day I happened to watch a Eatyourkimchi vblog (video) about Korean croquette in Hapjeong.

Ever since then, I wished to try Korean croquette if I had a chance to be in Korea.

I was longing for it not just because it looks delicious, it's also because Simon and Martina said it's safe for vegetarian.

And......Walah! I'm physically in Korea now, unbelievable, hahaha....

You know what? Hapjeong Station is just two stations away from Sinchon Station. It's so near to the campus, how could I miss the chance to get a bite of it?

Well, thanks to the another blog I found, I was able to find the Fingerfood Bar Chilly-cha-cha (길모퉁이 칠리차차) by following the simple instructions.

First of all, get yourself out from Exit 5 of Hapjeong Station (합정 ).

You will see a bicycle shop named GIANT on your right, take the right turn as pointed by the yellow arrow.

 

Here's the corner turn.

 

Walk straight down this street.

 

Turn left when you see a coffee shop in a brown building with flower design.  

That day I almost bypassed the Fingerfood bar as I thought it can be easily seen on the left while walking down the street. Luckily I turn around and spotted the Fingerfood Bar Chilly Cha-cha right next to the coffee shop. Phew!

 

In front of Fingerfood Bar Chilly Cha-cha, there's a 7-11 convenient shop.

 

On each table, there's a menu. Write down the amount you want and pass it to the owner.

Here's my food. Glad to meet you, croquettes :D 

Tomato croquette, potato croquette and corn croquette, from left to right.

 

Unexpectedly, I love the potato croquette the most. I thought it'd taste like plain potato but the additional ingredients(I'm not too sure of what they are) made it taste great.

 

However, the corn croquette which I had high expectation disappointed me. It taste nothing like corn but plain potato, yakks...

 

As for the tomato croquette, it tasted like tomato pasta sauce. You might like it if you like tomato pasta sauce, I personally don't like the taste.

Here's the thing which came along with croquette, you gonna miss it if you are not eating croquette in the shop.

 

I'm curious what's the name but I somehow didn't have the guts to ask. There's also a sauce which you can dip you croquette into. I couldn't tell if it's salty or sour sauce, I guess my tongue was malfunction after having the tasty croquette? :P

 



My greediness exploded while eating therefore I ordered two more croquettes to be taken away as my stomach has no extra space at that moment.

Here's the curry croquette and basil cream croquette.

Both of them taste good. But damn it, the curry croquette is not meant for vegetarian. I only realised that right before I finished it, haiz........

Here's my bill.

Now, I had accomplished my mission, hurray!!! It's time to go back to campus.

But I explored a bit by taking the exit to Hongik Univ. from Sinchon station and saw something interest me.

Find that out in my next blog (Part IV).

1st independent exploration in Seoul--part II (Shopping at Edae 이대)

Right after the lunch at Jyoti Restaurant, I headed straight to Edae 이대 (abbreviated for Ewha Womans University 이화여자대학교).

You just need to go straight down along the main road after you come out from Exit 5 of Sinchon Station until you see Yes aPM building on your left. Cross the main road and you can start your journey exploring whole bunch of shops deep in to the left of the main road.

I actually went to Edae with my roommate yesterday and I felt there're still a lot more to shop. So I decided to go again since I had plenty of time left before departing to Hapjeong to look for my croquette which I had been longing for quite some time after watching the 'eatyourkimchi' video by Simon and Martina introducing Korean croquette.
          
In fact I was going to explore my way to Edae alone yesterday afternoon as the afternoon culture class was replaced by Marionette performance at night. Coincidentally (too many coincidences happened recently), I bumped into my roommate who was on her way back to campus after her lunch with her friends. So, she came along with me without thinking much.

As I had been there once yesterday, today I went there without much worries about losing my direction to Edae.

Yesterday I bought myself two clothes for 5000won each and also some souvenirs.

I was so overwhelmed by the cheap and pretty clothes and dresses. Too bad, they are too beautiful that I have no confidence to wear so I wasn't able to buy many.

There's one thing I'd like to point out is that there're really a lot cute socks which costs 1000won per pair. These are what I bought for my cousin.

I was actually expecting to see socks of many different idols but so far I only saw Bigbang and SHINEE's. Hmmm....May be I didn't really put in effort to look for it.

Believe it or not, today I bought another 9 pairs of cute socks. Crazy huh? I was buying them as souvenir but I'm not sure if that's appropriate.

AHHHH...I hate to buy souvenir. It's always hard to find cheap and appropriate souvenir.

Today I didn't walk too far away from the main road as I am worried I can't find my way back.

I only went to a few shoes shops and I bought a new sandals.

 

I was also looking for another pair of cool shoes but I felt guilty already after buying the sandals for 17000won. May be I will buy next time in other place when I don't feel guilty anymore. Wakakaka......

 

Here is what I think after the shoes buying experience. There're a lot of shops selling shoes and there's no price tag. That pretty much means that you need to haggle.

The worker in the shoes shop told me that the original price is 25000won but I strongly believe if I have a better skill in bargaining, I might get it for a price lower than 17000won.

One more advice from me, if you don't intend to buy shoes, do not go in to the shoes shop......unless you can handle the stress.

Once you enter, they will keep asking you to try. They would ask for your size even you never request to try on the shoes. Trust me, this is happening in every shoes shop in Edae.

By the way, the size system they use is in mm. So size 250 means 25cm.

And, you know what? I still can't forget the weird face expression of the shop owner when I rejected to try the shoes. What??? I couldn't find any shoes I like why would I need to try them? Doesn't it work that way? Am I missing out something here?

Okay, as I wasn't able to buy anything more due to guiltiness of spending money, I headed back to Sinchon Station and started my journey to Hapjeong.

Croquette journey will be continued in part III :)

1st independent exploration in Seoul--part I (Indian lunch in Seoul)

Initially, I planned to record my daily life in Seoul for the duration of the whole KIP program, but......LAZINESS is all the reason I didn't do that, haiz......

Okay, today I must write down my special experience.

Whenever we are not in class, all the students speak in English (as expected) and I can't really understand them due to their speed and accent. Besides that, I can't express myself very well in English too, so I end up having no close friend here.

The 'close friend' I mean here is someone who would do almost every non-KIP program-activity with you. As what I observe, normally, girls gang up with someone when they are in new environment.

Never mind, I should accept the fact that I am alone.

Okay, that's not the main point today. I just wanna explain why I had my lonely exploration today :)

Since dorm doesn't provide lunch and dinner on Sat, this is the perfect day to hang out and look for new stuff. So I went to Jyoti Restaurant by walking as it's not too far from Sogang Univ.

I read a blog regarding the restaurant so that's why I decided to give it a try.
Here's the link of the blog I read:
http://thewanderlustproject.com/2013/02/the-best-indian-food-or-really-any-type-of-food-that-ive-had-in-korea/

The instructions given to find the restaurant are straight forward so I managed to get there easily.

Basically, you just need to make a first right turn after you get out from Exit 5 of Sinchon (신천) Station. Then you can easily see Jyoti Restaurant sign board on the building to your right. It’s located on the 3rd floor.

I was welcomed by all those pictures on the wall on my way going up to 3rd floor. 

Tadah! Here it is. There's a "Tourist Restaurant' sign on the left of the door. Does that mean the food are meant to be pricey? Hmm......

 

Let's check out the menu.

 

I was having hard time to choose as I wanna to try more than one.

 

 

 There is free wifi provided. 

 Here's a peek of the interior design.

 

Here's the window view from my seat. Thanks the waiter to let me have the table for four with window view even after I told him I was alone. I reached there near 2pm, besides of a young Korean couple waiting for their meal, there's no one else. So I think I got that strategic seat because it's not peak hour? 

Here's my Korean rice (1500won). I really like Korean rice more than Thai rice and Indian rice (I haven't tried Japan rice yet so no comment about it). Why didn't I try the Naan? Because I wanna save some money, man...



 

My 1st choice--Banana Lassi was not available :(

So I go for my 2nd choice--Mango Lassi. It tastes really nice, but the amount was just too small, it costs me 4000won for a couple of sip, gosh......

 

Here's my 'vegetable mix curry'. I was kind of disappointed actually. First of all, it's not spicy at all, nope...not even a little bit. Hey, I was expecting a spicy curry!

 

And, the ingredients were consisted of what??? this 8 simple things? Okay, I guess I was expecting too much after reading those high recommendations from internet?

 

A picture of my whole Saturday Indian lunch in Seoul.

 

As a conclusion, the food wasn't too bad, it's just too expensive for a poor girl like me. I will think of it as a rare luxurious meal (in terms of price not the food). Oh ya, the waiter always filled up your cold water without you asking. But he has no chance to fill up mine as I didn't even have a sip.

 P/S: the waiter who served me is quite handsome, I can't really tell if he is an Indian.

Part II is to be continued.

小考验。经一事，长一智 。

有好多事是我一直想做却未能完成的，写小说就是其中一项。
昨天突然有了灵感，我第一个小说终于有了开端。

可是，今天在此部落格寻找昨天的草稿时，我几乎要晕过去。
因为我这才发现原来昨天一些技术上的问题导致我的草稿没被储存到。

这种心情就好像医生告诉你怀孕的好消息后，第二天又说原来是一场误会。
以为终于可以有自己的孩子，第二天却发现那只是技术上的错误所给予的假希望。

最终还得乖乖回到原点继续努力。

天啊！我的第一次非得如此难忘吗？

好吧，我不会因此轻易放弃写作的。就算现阶段写的是垃圾作品，我就把它当作练习。
 


p/s: 怀孕的事纯粹是个比喻，并非本人的真实经历。哈哈！

是梦想成真吗？

倒数三天。

有好几个朋友不约而同地恭喜我终于梦想成真了。其实，说真的，我不太确定这就是我的梦想。

没错，我非常渴望可以去韩国生活三个月，希望可以更深入地了解当地的民情风俗，好好地亲身体验那里的生活及品尝道地的饮食。

没错，我非常有兴趣学韩语甚至多过于学钢琴（抱歉了，钢琴宝贝）。

可是，这样也算是一个梦想吗？

他们说佩服我勇敢地追梦。也许，他们佩服的并不是我去韩国学韩语的事。而是，我拿了一个月的年假和无薪假只为了去韩国学韩语。（其实好遗憾我只能去一个月。）

我，确实被学韩语的热情冲昏了头，不顾一切亦然决定非要去不可。胆小的我其实好怕孤身一人去陌生的国度，而且是语言不通的国家。但我更怕年纪再大一点就会失去了出去闯的勇气。

其实，我想做的何止是学韩语这么简单呢？

梦想成真？还远着呢！

希望我正走向对的方向。

My thoughts after watching Running Man ep152

This episode is my last chance to watch RM before I am off for Korea this Saturday. WOO HOO~~~ I am going to Korea, oh yeah Korea, oh my Korea, Yeah! Yeah! Yeah! Hahaha......

Ok, back to the topic. 1st of all, I need to admit that this episode is another kind-of-boring episode. Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of RM but sometimes the episodes are just ordinary. Luckily this time the two male guests are attractive enough to make my day, hehehe... Sorry that I have no interest in the female guest (after all, I'm a girl :P).

My eyes was kind of greedy while watching this episode, they keeps targetting Jung Woo Sung and JunHo. For some reasons, JunHo appeared to be sexy in my eyes...omo!!!

Last time I was attracted by Taecyeon when I was watching 1st season of "Dream High". Soon after that drama ended I don't favour him anymore. Oopss, I think my heart changes too fast :P

Anyway, his English fluency does impress me in his "We Got Married" show with Gui Gui.

After that I don't really favour any member of 2pm. I didn't even fall for Nichkhun when I was watching his WGM show though I think he is really a gentleman.

But this time I started to be attracted by JunHo after watching one episode of "Hello Councelor" where 2pm present as the guests. In that show, an Ajuhma was so so so obsessive of JunHo. I think I was slightly infected by her virus...haha...luckily just slightly infected...phew!

Back to RM, I think this episode make me confused again. The way they edit it was so different from usual. At the end of the show, they already started to introduce new guests formally, it's not just preview.

Errmm, it made me feel that they're adding in parts from next episode since this episode is too short...or may be next episode is too long? Hmmm......