DAY 3 -
part 1 : before the concertwell before i start (finally) updating on my third day in seoul a.k.a the day i see my dear in action, for the benefit of matty, i shall introduce my dear. and everyone who already knew can catch up again. i mean.. i certainly don't mind repeating myself over and over again, really.
so dear matty... this is my beloved dear!
his name is shin hyesung (real name: jung pil gyo.. you can tell why he changed his name). he is 27 years old this year (birthday: 27/11/1979) and is a A+ type guy. he is the main vocal of shinhwa and he is undoubtedly one of the cutest guy alive on this earth. he has a younger brother and he love black & white (same as me ^^). ah... i think i can go on and on forever about him~!!!
but in conclusion.. yes matty, he IS my boyfriend. haha.
~*~*~
So now back to my day 3... i'm finally going to see my dear in action~~~!! it had always been a dream to hear him... or rather, the whole group live~~! you can't imagine how excited i was~~!!
this morning, the plan was to visit nearby places first.. because i would have to leave for olympic park by 4.30pm. where else is better than myeongdong, since it's right at our doorsteps?
the place was mad crowded.. a lot of people shopping since it was a saturday. right at our doorstep is the big lifesize version of the bear featured in
goong (i think it's because that shopping mall right in front featured the main lead, joo ji hoon).
i don't like him but he looks good here
freaking big bear eh?i usually hate shopping districts can.. because crowds induce headaches.
i don't like crowds. not even in a good place like korea.anyway i didn't buy anything.. did i? i think i only went around trying to look for shoes that would save my legs from dying.. and locating the shops where i'm going to buy stuffs for my friends.. i didn't want to lug around a lot of things to the concert venue. that would be plain tedious and very inconvenient...
so we walked around... qiaoyan and candy bought some stuffs.. and i spotted this nice neoprint shop where we could rent some hanboks!!!
we can give dae jang geum a good run for her money. 
i wish i took one with pose and stuffs. hmph.well... i left after taking the pictures.. and on the way to olympic park
FINALLY FOR THE CONCERT.. i was stranded at the train station because i got off at the wrong step thanks to a pretty lady's wrong directions. no i don't blame her. because she's nice.
lady: oh.. you.. trip?
me: yes!
lady: alone?
me: no.. with friends.
lady: ahhh.
me: i go olympic park... see concert. shinhwa concert.
lady: aaah! you.. shinhwa.. like?
me: yessss.
lady: *pats me on my shoulder* have a good time!
see? she's nice. why would i blame her? although i wonder if she realized she gave me the wrong directions when she went past the olympic park stadium herself..lol.
anywayz.. because of my wrong move, yingying and her sister had to wait for me for fifteen minutes. when we were at the station, you knew everyone was coming for shinhwa's concert. there were young girls everywhere.. and stalls selling all sorts of shinhwa stuffs.. nametags.. balloons.. lightsticks.. i didn't get anything except a nametag with andy's name for my junior and my dear's for me of course ^^
not that everything was good though .. the previous day.. i forgot to mention (now that i'm looking at qiaoyan's pictures, my memory is back).. i bought a bottle of soju.. and being so silly, i didn't know it was to be diluted.. and so i took a gulp at one shot and i regretted it at that very moment because it burnt my throat. freaking hell.. that was a good 20% alcoholic shiat and i had it as it is in me.
but i knew i could still scream... and....
*to be continued
listening to: shinhwa -- highway star
DAY 2the second day started with apgujeong, where my dear's kyochon branch is at. when we arrived at apgujeong, we had our first meal in korea -- ramyeon!! qiaoyan had hers with cheese while candy and i had ours with mandu.
yummy....one thing i like about eating in korean is that they give you plain water for free. unlike some places in singapore, where they INSIST that you don't get iced water... not even when you have ordered food. arghz. talk about bad service.
after eating, we walked to find this princess hotel because kyochon is directly facing it. and after much difficulty.. we finally found it!!!
finally there!! the kyochon store endorsed by my dear and co!! i love the interior..
clean and crisp.. the whole place was in orange and white. i liked it the moment i went in.. of course, the fact that my dear's
love of may was playing when we entered helped. not much people there when we arrived.. only a couple and several obvious shinhwa fans. why would i know? because they are from hongkong. hahaha.
there were pictures of them hanging all over and video walls that were playing their videos and concert footages. what's interesting are the tables that had their stuffs in them.. ranging from photos to cd albums to cards and pictures. ahhh.. i think it's pure bliss to work in there!! (although i eventually heard tvxq's
tonight through the radio lol)
bad move though.. to have had our lunch before this. because we were so full, none of us were able to eat somemore. but how could i, who is so in love with my dear, leave his store without eating its signature food! therefore, i went on to order a set of wings, despite escalating weight, to show support for my dear.
finally i'm eating some chicken!good thing is, the chicken wings were pretty small... candy, in a show of good faith, helped me with some of it while qiaoyan left me in the lurch (no i'm kidding.. but she did not eat any really). the set comes with some pickled... i don't know what's that... radish? in any case, it's sort of like a good appetizer. the chicken though... hmmz. how should i say it? it's good, seriously it's good. but it tastes like... roasted duck. okay i know that sounds weird and is totally irrelevant but i swear it tastes like roasted duck. i think it's the spices. but still it's pretty good to go and thus even though i was mad full, i finished like half of it.
after saying goodbye to this lovely place, we made our way to the coex mall where we were supposed to meet up with nellie and yuenling to tour the aquarium. we were late (sorry girls!) partly because i finally caught sight of a cd store and rushed in to buy my dear and co's 8th album,
state of the art. i was pretty rushed because i was afraid that the posters would be out of stock if i bought them too late so i was lucky to get them at coex.
despite our original plan to tour the aquarium, the three of us ended up not going in instead because we realized that .. gasp.. the entrance fee is mad. and also, the two of them were more interested to shop instead. so i called nel and told her to meet us when she's done. eventually qiaoyan and candy each bought a jigsaw puzzle and a chain puzzle (is that how you call it?). nel and yuenling took a while to come out and meet us because the latter got lost in the aquarium and nel had to spend some time looking for her.
we agreed to meet at jonggak for dinner later that evening. they left and the three of us made our way to lotte world. not interested in the theme park rides, we only wanted to take pictures of the magic castle with its lights on... but little did we expect that the sky would still be so bright at 7 in the evening.
would have been prettier if it was in lights...we gave up on waiting for it and made our way to jonggak to meet the gals.. what a long way.. before that, qiaoyan had her nails airbrushed. i think it's quite a good idea to do that. fast and cheap..
on our way to jonggak...finally we met up with nel and yuenling. we took a while to find our way to the famous eating house featured in
my name is kim samsoon.. but thanks to this ajusshi and a young pretty lady, we finally found our way there. the crew, esp. this old lady seems pretty excited to find out that we're from singapore. however, eventually ... i found myself unable to share her excitement.
beef tripe soup... does that beef blood? because even if it doesn't mean that.. whatever that was in my bowl looked like it. i think nel was even more grossed out because she didn't take beef and could only eat the pancakes. but trust me, even the pancakes were no good. the pajeon was plainly.. fried oyster eggs. i was mad disappointed because i could understand why i didn't touch the beef thing (i believe it's good but it's for the korean palates) but no.... not the pajeon!!!
after this (disappointing) dinner, we made our way back to myeongdong. it was nel and yuenling's last night in seoul and they haven't been to the seoul tower yet. although the three of us were mad tired and our legs were dying, we decided to go with them too. nel had to lug this case of pears which she bought earlier from a vendor off the streets. i swear no one should attempt to walk from myeongdong station to the cable car station with a time limit to meet. it will just kill you. well.. it nearly killed me!
the cable car station, by the time we reached was already pretty deserted and to our despair, we had to come back in twenty minutes time! that meant we would not be able to ascend the seoul tower itself!!!
okada sensei.. i finally understand what you're talking about when you say it's a million-dollar nightscene.
but it's waste that we couldn't ascend the tower anymore because it was closed but still we had some good time taking pictures by the side, which was high enough to have the seoul city as our backdrop!
you can't see much from here though. hahaafter we got back to the hotel, i met up with nel and yuenling to make our way to dongdaemun where i knew i had to get a good pair of shoes so that i could last the whole trip.. my shoes were killing my feet!! dongdaemun is a war zone on a weekend night... motorcycles behind you all the time, people pushing and threatening to step on your head... we could hardly move around without getting horned at.
we walked around for maybe two hours... and i still could not find a good pair of shoes. i slept without saying goodbye to nel and yuenling because i was simply toooo tired...
the next day would have me meeting my dear finally...
ahhhhh..
listening to: shinhwa -- highway star
back to the bad weatherafter only five days in korea, i'm already hating the weather here back in singapore. i don't even have to move. all i have to do is sit in my living room and already, i'm sweating like i've been exercising..
.
.
.
.
and thus i am now in the room with my aircon on and the sun shining in throught the window. because my mother washed the curtains. gee, someone save my skin!!!
dead tired when i reached singapore yesterday.. i fell asleep in my father's car. he came to fetch me and was waiting for me at the arrival hall (awww thanks pop!)
all in all, this korean trip has been great. i love the weather (so i'm never going in summer haha) and all the people there, who had been so friendly and kind, be it showing us directions by bringing us there or chatted with us. i love the food, from the roadsides to the restaurants and i especially love my dear. haha oops that's digressing.
but pretty sure imma visit korea again.. and next time, i want to venture out of seoul to the neighbouring cities.
DAY 1candy and qiaoyan came over to tiong bahru plaza where my father then drove us to the airport. we checked in early to get rid of our luggage. we wanted to have breakfast at macdonald's but couldn't find it anywhere. eventually we realized that it was in the departure terminal. it had a nice scenery, with a good view of the runways outside. i didn't eat much cuz i was going to have the inflight meal on the plane. time to board the plane after so long! first time on a cathay pacific flight… they’re actually quite good!! but the meal sucked. i forgot what it was but the bread was horrible.
the transit in hongkong was very bearable because we arrived in hongkong late, due to flight delay in singapore itself. candy and qiaoyan braided my hair too! haha can you tell? this time, the food was much much better. some Korean style beef with a freaking good piece of bread. haha. we thus decided that since cathay is a hongkong-based airline, they serve better food in flights of hongkong origin.
after the transit flight... we're finally in incheon!!! after we arrived, we set out to collect our rented phones. initially we thought we would have missed the airport buses because it was already almost ten by the time we settled everything.. but in good faith, the lady at the information counter told us it's still available!! yay! haha so we hurried to the bus stop and we were the very few passengers on it.
on the way to our destination, myeongdongwe reached sejong hotel, our designated stop at 10 plus in the evening. it was right beside the myeongdong subway station so there was lots of people around. we were supposed to locate a certain pacific hotel to get to our guesthouse. so we asked the bus driver where it was. he was already kind enough to help carry our bags down but then he brought it back up to the bus again and said he would drive us further to the hotel as a 'present'. awwwww. our first encounter with a friendly korean! hahaha.. well turned out it was only another 20 metres down the road but that was good enough!! thanks ajusshi!
we were greeted with a rude shock to know that nellie meant it when she said the guesthouse was on top of a hill. the directions on the guesthouse homepage made no mention about it being a 300 metres up a steep slope.
we felt a bit lost but we finally realized that the slope that we were facing was the one to our guesthouse. and so we preservered. our luggages went some noise in that quiet street and we seriously thought that someone would just throw something at us from their windows.
upon arrival.. even a ruder shock. our room is too small for the three of us!!!
our pathetic roomi kicked up a fuss at the counter and after much trouble, the owner told us he would confirm the next day if he could get us a bigger room. arghz. my mood was pretty spoiled because of the small room issue. so what if the bathroom is decently big?!
spent some time idling around with nellie, yuenling and my australian friend, mal who came here for the concert. after that, we went down the slope to the convenience store to get some groceries before making that painful ascending of that slope again...
we spent the night (and many nights following) watching the tv.. and there's almost like 50 over channels on cable to choose from. trust me, when you go to korea, watch OCN (the supposedly no 1 channel in korea as endorsed by various top artistes *wink*). watch it especially in the middle of the night. they undoubtedly play good movies that had us staying up til early morning.
listening to: shinhwa -- your man
from seoulit's about 2.43am, korea time.
i am writing at the computer terminal in the guesthouse and i'm dead tired.
i wanted to say a lot but the moment i get down to it, i can't write hell.
but in any case.. it's fun so far, although our room is freaking smaaaaall.
listening to: myself.
fell from the skythe tv is showing ian wright in ireland and i personally think that's a nice place. never mind the secret army which i cannot remember the name.. i only remember brad pitt in a movie about this. i have little knowledge of that place but what i remember is the music. irish music, erm, not U2 (although i do like them) is beautiful in my opinion. and it's the reason why i think it would be nice place.
well after weeks of waiting, the new ian wright show on discovery travel and living has finally premiered!! ah it was so much fun as he made a fool of himself with karen mok on the pilot episode featuring a weekend in hongkong. how come i didn't have so much fun when i was in hongkong last december?? haha.
one day to korea.
and i've yet to do any planning.
FRENZY!!
nellie and yuenling already gave me a message when they reached.. in good faith, we'll be able to catch the cheaper limousine bus to seoul. please... please let me catch it!
listening to: shakira feat. wyclef jean -- hips don't lie
gee.i refuse to say more, because i don't want to start thinking about how my family has been talking about it over and over again that whole week. i just want to say... alright. the results are so. so let's just all move on from this.
it was fun though, waiting for the results with matty, suhaimi (who weren't really listening anyway haha) and the cleaner at starbucks, where i ended my shift at 1am, leaving me with a tired back and broken legs. i don't know the name of the cleaner... maybe i shall find out next time i do the closing shift. man.. just seven hours and i'm all dead. how did tay survive her shift that lasted eleven hours? a round of applause for our very own tay please. lol.
phew. i don't feel like my exams are over. nor that my trip is nearing. i have so many things to do and i only have tomorrow and wednesday to do it since i'm spending most of the time on monday and tuesday working.
let me see... i have to take back the suitcase and camera from my sister, borrow her mp3 player and load it with my collection, do the placard for the concert, think of what to get my dear (dang, i'm so broke.), buy all the necessities (there we go again. i hate money issues), pack my clothes but damn seoul's not that cold anymore, meet candy and qiaoyan on wed to discuss itinerary, settle the phones for roaming...
all by wednesday evening..
but anything goes for fun, travel and my dear <3
listening to: clazziquai feat. tablo -- love mode
destiny. faith. love.it's finally over. finally. over. i'm saying it again. it's over.
i feel surreal.. gosh this doesn't feel real at all. although i feel sorry, i can't believe, at all, my three years in nus is over. you mean that's it? you mean there's no more? you mean THAT'S THE END OF EVERYTHING?
today's paper was .. okay.. except for a few glitches.. i managed to remember everything that i studied (however little it was) and i managed to spot a question on postpartum depression in mothers.. haha. i feel like i won't fail it... but i really think my memory paper yesterday is going to be my fatal wound.
but anyway.. now it's time to get ready to reunite with my dear in seoul =D
SURREAL!!
listening to: epik high -- paris
you had a bad daywhen your day starts with a 15 min wait for the bus under the hot sun, followed by a puking session in the school washroom immediately after... you know your day is going to be bad.
i swear... i will vote for whoever can improve the bus system. although i don't think anyone bothers to do that. heeeey! why isn't anyone listening to me?! don't you guys want MY vote?!
this morning, as i've mentioned, i was puking myself silly in the toilet the moment i reached school. in fact, when i boarded the bus, i already felt nauseous but i dismissed the thought of puking on bus... no one looked amicable.
i think whatever that i expelled out was.. gastric juices? i don't know. i only know it was horrible after i puked. because it felt like someone was twisting my diaphragm (do you spell it like that?) and refusing to let go. then i had a tummyache.
then my paper was bad. well.. the questions were.. i don't know. but in any case, halfway through the paper i wanted to just die and give up and head home for some shut-eye. i only wrote three pages of crap which i don't even think is relevant for a 50 mark question. AND MY HANDWRITING IS BIG.
this is really more than just a bad day.
listening to: tyler james -- your woman
your womanfirst up, to everyone who expressed concern, seemingly after reading my blog entry for yesterday.. thanks guys! i feel loved! don't worry.. it's just the exam stress. by friday, i would have had survived it and tell everybody proudly.. I MADE IT!
but then again.. comes may 29 (i think) when the results come out and we'll see.
procrastinating.. i just wanna say i love this song.
well i guess what you said is truei can never be the right kind of girl for youi can never be your womannothing special about this song, isn't it? but then.. with a man singing this, it suddenly becomes so enchanting.
listening to: tyler james -- your woman
on the verge of a mental breakdownyou read that right. i am on the verge of a mental breakdown and i swear i'm closer to it than i think i really am. does it sound like trouble when it's nearing my two hardest module and i'm still here blogging after a 3 hour nap?
yes, it does sound like trouble.
add endless political talk in my living room to all these and my mental breakdown suddenly feels closer than it ever did. yes in XX years, my constituency finally has a opposition party wanting to be part of it. i have to go polling this saturday and at first it was interesting until everyone who's in my living room (namely my father, my mother and my brother) starts talking about it EVERY NIGHT.
i mean... alright, just go vote for whoever you like. geez.
i'm sooo tired. and i've met with unpleasant things over these days. and i'm not talking about the exams. people... i'm talking about people.
but then again, it could be just me. i'm such a bitch anyway.
listening to: jolin tsai -- dancing diva
