We went down to Seoul immigration office to apply for some weird card called 'alien registration card', which was required of Korean visitors staying for more than 90 days. That pretty much sums up how the nationalistic (maybe mildly xenophobic?) Koreans view foreignors. "Aliens" @-@ Lol.

We transferred at Yeongdungpo-gu and alighted at omokgyo. We walked for a stretch before arriving at the immigration office. Got a free sample of some malt candy like snack from the ajeossi. Damn sweet. and sticky. like caramel. I figured I had enough sugar today to send a ADHD kid convulsing to the grave.

I love free stuff. :>

Ariyo's and my applications were processed rather swiftly. Our queue numbers were up even before we finished filling up our forms. Sadly, our Chinese counterparts weren't so lucky, they had to wait for approximately 2hrs? for their turn. The seoul government even allocated an exclusive level to cope with the masses of Chinese exodus.

While waiting for them, Ariyo and I went to grab some donuts to fill our stomachs.
We dropped by dunkin' donuts. And ordered donuts worth 1700 won each.

Plonked our butts by the window seats and ate our donuts while watching passerbys go by.
Playing around with food.

Lends a whole new meaning to do..nuts. Thanks to Ariyo for supplying his balls.

Doubly sweet. *U*KIN Donuts. I love the chewy feeling of the glutinous filling.

Little girl eyeing my candy stick. -Not for sale-

After that, we went back to look for our Chinese friends, Adam and Yuan Yuan, and we took the subway to Ewha's Women's University. We were gushing exuberantly about the 'beauty' of Ewha we had preconceived through conjured images and hearsay.

We were supposed to look for the swimming pool. But it was hard with all the barricades and renovation going on.

The school in a dismal state. And we realised that school hasn't started.
DiSaPPointed wE weRe.

Nevertheless, we were rewarded with some Beethovens. Kudos to Ariyo, our talented photographer, for these shots, at our request. I hope his gf doesn't slaughter him. Lol.

The Ehwa girls are such hot commodities. Look at the number of children they have even before they finish uni.

Happy men.

Roadside stall (Old post)
I was walking down the streets near Edward's house, trying to look for Kim's Restaurant to have a meal of kimchi fried rice. After walking for 15 minutes, I still couldn't find it and decided that I was probably not fated to eat there. My hunger pangs made me gravitate towards the nearest food stall..which was a roadside stall.

Roadside stalls are a good option for people who are looking for cheap food who don't mind the passer-bys and the fumes from the cooking. The stall had a license, so it seemed pretty hygienic to eat there. Even if it didn't have, I'd still eat there because I was so hungry that I could eat an entire pig.

The intestine looking thing in the tray is called Sun dae 순대 ,a Korean blood sausage that’s steamed and served with assorted organs. They use the pig's intestine and stuff it with flour and pig's blood, to make it resemble the real intestine. I really wonder how they are able to come up with such a creative dish. It has a soft texture and a distinctive smell that causes many people to hesitate to try it.

The first time Edward bought Sun dae back for supper, I didnt really want to try because it..smelled a little foul. Btw, sundae is not the mcdonalds' kind of sundae hor, if you think it's sweet, you're in for a rude shock.

It has an acquired taste and I like it so much now.
Now every time I catch a whiff of its dry, earthy odour, it’s hard for me to resist stopping for a bite.

My meal. I know the ramyun looks ordinary. (yes,it is. I can cook that as well as her or maybe better)

Anyway, I ordered ramyun and some deepfried stuff with spicy sauce (I forgot the name of it) I decided not to be too adventurous. That adds up to 3,000 won. (ard SG$5) Most meals cost around 6-7 sing dollars. I can feel blood streaming out from my pockets everytime I foot my bill for meals.

The ajumma noticed that I was having a hard time picking the ingredients because I could asking what was this and that. And now I cant remember anything. Haha. Out of slight exasperation and perhaps obligation to satisfy the curiosity of this poor traveller's palate, she told me that she'd let me have one of each to try, much to the hearty delight of my stomach. It wasn't a fantastic but nice meal.:))

My failed attempt to take a photo of the ajumma's face. She refuses to let me take her picture despite my 'pleading' and sycophantic extolling of how pretty, beautiful she was. Oh man, I can feel my cheeks burning and hairs standing. Hahaha

I'm pretty lazy and tired after walking around the school. So i'll just post pictures and add some captions.

Most of the buildings have a layer of creepers growing over them like a layer of moss. For some reason, they remind me of some green tea mousse cake. Maybe I was hungry.

Its the vegetation that probably makes the place look nice. If Singapore had a nicer climate. four seasons, NTU would probably transform into an attractive campus too.

I grimace when I think about our Yunnan Garden, with the Chinese professors strolling with their mistresses. Maybe I'm just overly biased. Haha

They even have nests for birds. Their parks are also lover's nests. Lots of Yonsei students making out. In bright daylight.

Its so heavily vegetated that it feels like the campus was constructed in the middle of Bukit Timah Nature reserve. Minus the awful humidity. The heat is going down now..the chilly winds and rains have arrived.

The international house where international students stay.
I know it doesn't look very nice but the important thing is that the people residing are nice. hehe.

A view of my room. Messy. Its pretty much, in this state throughout the day. Haha.
I think I'll go for a nap now. Yawnz.

I woke up with a dull ache in my head and little patches of rashes over my arms.
After all that drinking last night with a group of international students after the welcome party (which was horrible). I guess I don’t really enjoy meeting people in that way. A little soju does help to break the ice a little. But I got pretty wasted rather fast. I shall leave out the details because it got a little blurry at the end too, I didnt know what I was doing, I think I was giggling in my bed.

In the words of my roommate, “Theres nothing else that they do in Seoul, except drink, Drink , Drink!” My roommate is a law student from University of Memphis, who has a Korean mum and Ang moh father. The Korean ancestry probably explains his knack and love for drinking.

Yesterday was an unproductive day, which consisted of lots of small little things that isn’t really of blogging material, like lugging suitcases, washing laundry and checking out the girls in the laundry room.

Ok, got to get ready for orientation

This entry is about my place of residence for first 4 days of stay in Korea.

It has been an enjoyable time staying with a Korean friend whom I can communicate with rather well since he is able to converse in English and Chinese. Although there are some breakdowns when he fails to comprehend my Singaporean English. And likewise, I cant make out his Korean English. In such cases, we make assumptions/ guesses of what we were trying to tell each other.

Since I have arrived, I have been exposed to the way Koreans go about their day to day activities, their food preferences, their quirks, their love for drinking, singing.

I have exposed myself in many ways. Including public bathhouses, which I have never done so, in sg. But I believe there are still many facets of the Korean culture that I have yet to discover.

Heres some photos of my friend's room.

My friend insists that I sleep on his bed…while he sleeps on the floor. I really need to thank him for his hospitality.


My stuff encroaching into his private space. His room is equipped with a mini-kitchen, which is good for doing light cooking. Most Korean males can cook. And they usually settle at least a meal at home, since eating out can be rather expensive.

Lastly,
The girl who accompanies me to bed every night.

Haha.

Wedding Special

Sunday morning. We were supposed to attend Edward’s cousin wedding.
I met Edward at the McDonald near yonsei after his TOEIC paper and we took a train down to Samseong, where we took the limousine bus to the hotel prima seoul.

We went to look for bride..and there she was in a brightly lit room posing for the photographers with her bridesmaids. It was much later that I realized that I just missed a good chance for a photo shoot.

I entered the wedding hall, feeling a little weird, knowing that I was probably the only non-korean in the entire room.

I just tagged alongside Edward as he introduced me to his friends and relatives as his Singaporean chingu. We sat at the table and there was already lots of food on the table, bread and ricecakes , mochi-looking cakes and needless to say, there was kimchi. I was wondering who was going to occupy the two seats beside me. After a while, the bride’s mother and father answered my question by …settling themselves comfortably in the seats. and then I saw the white sign on table (the Bride’s family table). -.-


I was rather quiet throughout, due to my inadequate grasp of the language (some of the Edwards’ relatives, his father and grandfather spoke Chinese to me). I only managed to hold a decent conversation with Edward’s sister’s friend, Brenda. She was a native English teacher, teaching in Daegu through phone, who was hoping to switch to become an Emirates air stewardess. Not bad. hurhur. Other than that..basically, I sat there, observed and took pictures.


Here comes the groom.
Apparently the groom is some rich guy, who is the CG director for The World, some Korean movie that is showing in Korea right now.
In Korea, it’s a dream come true for a girl to hook up with a rich guy. Everything’s covered. If you watch enough k dramas you’d probably know that the male side needs to prepare the house and the female side need to provide the furniture. So if you’ve got a uber rich husband, you can ignore the part about getting furniture.

The bride.

My camera is not doing justice to her. Not my fault.

Kid feeling bored just like me. For a moment, we shared the same thoughts: Can they stop mumbling crap and just get on with the ceremony?

Looks like a set from some Korean drama. With the bubbles and dry ice to create a winter sonata effect.
Please make your mother cry ah. But actually quite sad. I also wanted to tear.

I think I was too near the stage and had an overdose of dry ice.

The entire cast. Family photo, my friend is in light blue. I caught them while they weren’t ready for the camera.

Among the bride’s friend, Miss Korea..look for her yourself, but according to my friend, she isn’t that pretty. I heard that Son Ye-jin 손예진 was her friend too but she wasn;t invited because the bride was afraid that she would steal the limelight. Lol.

Edward and I.

Time to head home after the wedding..his sister is going to stay over at his place.I hope we have enough space to sleep tonight...

Day at Myeong Dong
Arrived at Euljiro Ga 1 Station after some experimenting with the bus service and the subway station. Heng I didn’t get lost. Surprisingly, Korean people are rather helpful with providing directions.
Finally met the rest of the NTU gang, Ariyo (my other Yonsei counterpart), Nicholas and Esther (the couple from Korea Uni).

Myeongdong is a financial and high priced shopping district, famous for their trendy fashions and fashion accessories. Streets of shops, distributed in a iron grid-like pattern and they also had several large department stores like Lotte Department Sore , Migliore. Not to forgot the street side vendors, who were peddling their hawkerfare or their merchandise and entertainment acts.

We walked in circles hunting for cheap and decent food, which was virtually non-existent. And the cheapest they had was some restaurant selling Korean dishes like ramyun, bibimbab etc. for 5000 won. Esther, Ariyo and I ordered barley bimbibab (vegetables- sprouts, cucumber, radish etc with a dollop of gochujang sauce) served with barley rice, which I didn’t really enoy. And Nicholas made the wisest choice of ordering ramyun.

We were eating the vegetables in the big metal dish and scooping from the rice in our rice containers…when one of their waiters shouted, “ 喂，你们是中国人 吗 ？ 这个不是 这样吃 的 !” We were supposed to throw the rice in like all other dishes (the Koreans have a penchant for mixing stuff)..and we guffawed at our horrendous mistake. Damn malu.

We just lowered the Singaporean image in the eyes of the Koreans,by several notches. On hindsight, we discussed that we should have replied that we were from China.
The food was getting more distasteful as we chewedthe vegetables. It was a hard dietary change for a carnivore like me. I struggled to finish more than half of my food. Ariyo cleared all of his (amazing, but at a price of enduring a terrible war at the subway toilet two hours later, haha). Esther cleverly tagged Nicholas to swap dishes with her, because it was not what she had expected. Poor Nicholas. Lol.

After paying for that unsatisfying meal, we walked around aimlessly like some bloated zombies slacking around after lunch break and commenting on the endless crowds they have. Finally, we decided to head to Migliore (it’s the nearest) because the sun was starting to kill people again. I heard the NUS guy who went to Korea Uni suffered from a heatstroke. Maybe not enough blood going to the head above bah.haha.

and we were greeted with floors of shops. Shops and shops.

The clothes there are damn nice. Koreans have a good fashion sense. Indeed.
But the prices were quite an eyesore. Or rather,just the men’s stuff. Female shoppers would be in wonderland when they head to myeongdong and dongdaemun. Can shop till drop.

Some teddy bear shop. There was a big teddy bear figurine outside too but I never pose, cos it will look very gay.

Everywhere was packed with lots of people , both young and old, mainly between twenties and thirties, couple, which was made worse since it was a weekend. The good thing was it allowed us to catch glimpses of pretty stuff when the crowd movement was a snail’s pace. Ariyo and I tried to catch a few hot chicks but they proved to be elusive and seem to know that cameras were zooming in on them.
Sigh.
A little success, with Ariyo camera and my set up as a decoy.
My camera takes roughly around 10 secs to start up, another 10 secs for my hand to stop trembling from excitement and 10 minutes for me to lament my loss when my photo subject is out of camera sight.

After window shopping..
We decided to visit Myeongdong Cathedral for a change. We were greeted with a building shrouded in a brown net as they were undergoing restoration. What a bad timing. Nevertheless, we managed to enter and we caught a wedding in progress. The ceremony was rather long.. their pastor kept chanting ‘sou sou…” everytime before he ended with Amen. We had no idea what was that. But we could only discern certain words like Father , happiness, male and female in Korean.

We escaped from the cathedral before the masses clogged the exits. Nicholas suggested that we head to the Cheonggyecheon river at City Hall, with some help from the locals.

We settled for dinner at KFC, just to try out their fast food. The chicken is less oily there and they were environmental friendly. They actually bother to reuse their plastic cups, instead of using Styrofoam ones. The design is so nice that it is now in my bag now. My fellow Singaporeans were KFC cup thieves too.

We ate and talked while we waited for the skies to turn dark so that the light would be up to illuminate the river and make it more beautiful.

The Cheonggyecheon river used to be damn polluted.. I dunno what they had last time, maybe decaying kimchi? Industrial waste, animal swill. Soju bottles?

The 6km river was part of the Government’s urban redevelopment to improve the environment in the downtown area of the capital. Like our Clarke quay.

It not only serves as a spot for locals to relax but it is also helping to reduce air pollution and ease the "heat island" effect, where temperatures in urban areas are higher than their surroundings. Ok, I’ll skip the geog part.


The river was not really that amazing. Apart from the artificial meanders, mini-rapids, terrains, vegetation. The amazing part is that there are so many people there! Ariyo remarked that it looks more like Ganges.

Aunties, children washing their feet, oblivious to the poor policeman blowing his pathetic whistle. Kind of reminds me of midautumn festival by the river. loL.
Girls having a fun, rowdy night by the river

There were many couples dating. Maybe the vegetation had other purposes..banging by the river bank.lala.
Ajeossis and ajummas (uncle,auntie) not missing out the fun.

Poorly taken photo by me

There were lots of shops along the riverside. The bright light transformed the landscape to a beautiful one. I have to admit seoul at night is beautiful is much nicer than day. We had a hard time taking pictures at night due to our camera’s limited capabilities. Btw, most of the pictures featured here are courtesy of Nic and Esther’s camera.

Haven for night revelers with their ubiquitous noraebangs (KTVs), bars,pubs restaurants, clubs.

Someone's handphone just crashed..into a car.

On our way back we witnessed a car with a gigantic handphone smashed right into it, getting ready to be towed away. The entire ‘set up’ looked really convincing and attracted quite a group of concerned Korean citizens who began snapping pictures with their handphones right away. Their marketing strategies are really effective..but how come there’s no brand of the handphone. Lol

Soon after, we reached the subway station and we split up, heading for our respective lines, thus ending a wonderful exploration in Myeongdong and Cheonggyechong.

For more information, you can visit my travel mates’ blogs. They have nicer photos n better writeups. No time no time!!
www.ariyokr.blogspot.com
www.ster-light.blogspot.com