I'm finally done with my mid-terms!
Now I can play with unfettered abandon without the nagging thought of exams. Haha, well...not that I studied real hard but enough to do okay bah, at least I hope so. I'm been going out very little during the exam week. Mainly camping in my dorm to read my slides, dota.

Most of my meals were settled with cup noodles. In fact, I've consumed so much over the past week that I think I am now certified to do a review on Korean cup noodles.

The cup noodles here are pretty good and theres a good amount of variety to choose from. Shin ramen, KimChi ramen, Maruchan ramen, Spicy ramen, Udon ramen & Seafood ramen.

Prawn flavour noodles. Non spicy. Kind of like Myojo prawn flavour. Its good to have this when you're sick though because its mild and good comfort food. You think of Singapore food and you realise that your soup gets more salty because of your tears dripping into the water. Haha just kidding.

Spicy noodles. Er..I think its obvious from that reddish soup base. The noodles (tang myun) are more like mee sua which is different from the typical cup noodles. So-so.

The Kimchi. This is cheap and good. Lots of noodles, good for fulling the stomach. I'll skip introducing Shin Ramen, you can easily find it available on the shelves of all Singapore supermarkets.

The 'higher class' version of Kimchi flavour noodles by Nongshim. They use dehydrated soup base with tofu cubes and big slaps of kimchi. This is good shyt but kind of costly. So I hardly consume them.

Bibimmyeon. Basically its noodles mixed with gochuchang just like bibimbab. I love this. But I love the real thing even more. Of course, the egg is sold separately.

Chachangmyun! My favourite noodles but somehow processed chachangmyun doesn't taste anything close to the real thing. In fact, it tastes really different especially in terms of the black bean paste and the elasticity of the noodles.

A smaller version of chachangmyun. Good for light supper before going to bed. Its fit for girls with small mouths. But definitely too little for me. I can finish it in one swoop.

Spaghetti. Would've tasted like the authentic stuff if the noodles were thicker. Nice but the portion was too little and pricey.

My all-time favourite! Ra men bokki. Ramen with spicy sauce that they use for tteobokki. Its so good that I swept all the remaining cups off the shelf. I am going to pack a luggage of this back to Singapore.

Teen Teen Agricultural Fieldtrip (Day 2)

Milk for the morning.

The next morning, we headed out to Taeshin Ranch to get our milk from the Korean cows.

We had to walk through this long path between the cows. I nearly fainted while getting myself across. The stench was bad as with all dairy farms in the world. If hell were to really have 18 levels, this would probably be the 9th level and the International House male toilet would be the 10th level.

Milking the cow. Took me a while to get the warm milk squirting into my palms.

I've seen Singapore bred cows and I compare them with the Korean cows. Koreans have bigger teats than their Singapore counterparts. Maybe its the climate or the food that makes their assets bigger. Cows, yes cows. I was referring to cows.

Got onto a tractor to take a leisurely tour of the farm.
We got warned by the owner of the farm not to disturb the sheep because they had weak minds. -.-

An ass carrying another.

Ariyo bulling. Tsk tsk. This is turning into a bestiality site, haha.

Making ice-cream later. We spent 20 minutes mixing the milk and strawberry flavour over a tub of ice-cubes. Which we consumed in less than 2 minutes.

I checked the itinerary and it said that we were supposed to visit some HUB farm to do some HUB candle. I was curious and my mind was throwing up ideas as to what HUB was.
LUB? RUB? WTF was HUB? Toa Payoh HUB? Our mystery was solved when we arrived at a greenhouse filled with plants. Ooh HERB Farm. We had curry lunch there which had me craving for prata... T-T.

Our try at making herb candles. I picked the lemon flavour because I don't really fancy the smell of lavender.

And at the end of it, we received a certificate of completion, which commended us for our 2 days of slacking. WORK and STUDY programme! HAHAH
From the Minister herself. And a genuine signature instead of a electronically generated one.
Wahahah. I love the Korea Government.

Teen Teen Agricultural Fieldtrip (Day 1)

I just came back from this wonderful trip which was sponsored by the Korean government (Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry). It was a field trip where international youths from various universities in Korea were invited to immerse in the Korean traditional culture.
I was initially clueless as to what we are actually doing during the trip except the idea of a free hanbok (traditional Korean costume) enticed me so much that I arranged to take my exam earlier than scheduled so that I could attend this trip.

We took a long bus ride out of Seoul before arriving at a folk village called Oeammaul.



We felt very much like them. Young and excited.

We alighted from the bus and there were people from Arirang who were filming us like we were some bigfuck superstar. Apparently, this was some high-profile event and this was the first time that the Korean government is organising a cultural trip for international exchange students. There were 10 students representatives each from various universities: Chungang, Sungkyunkwan, Seoul's Woman, Hanyang, Dankook, Kyunghee and Yonsei University.



We got a taste of how life was like in the rural areas.

The folk village was much bigger than the small one in Seoul since its in the rural area. This one we could view the mountains spanning across the borders of the village..unfortunately, its difficult to capture that on camera.



I just love the scenery and the architecture of their traditional huts.



Our residence.

The folk village was much more modern than I expected and had facilities which resembled Pasir-ris chalet. Their floor heating was extremely comfortable and kept us warm in spite of the freezing temperatures outside. My only gripe is that they didn't had heater for shower but then again, its supposed to be a 'traditional farm stay'. Ha.



Bibimbab. I love free food. I didn't spend a single cent during two days. WOhoo!! Not to mention the freebies that I received. And for the experience that money can't buy.
Gong. Me in my oversized hanbok, which resembled more of a baggy hiphop suit.



Our first activity after our lunch was to learn how to play traditional Korean instruments. We were assigned instruments and they taught us the basics. DO NOT underestimate the simple gong (that I was assigned) its the leader of the entire orchestra. and much harder to play than I thought.



Ariyo with his face mask. The other four Yonsei girls with the unpainted masks.
I will not display my mask picture because I think its such a flop that even elementary schoolkids can probably do a better paintjob than me.




Random pictures



Pounding ricecakes from a huge lump of rice which was probably enough to make 200 pounds of Tteokpokki (Ricecake).

I think I sprained my hip from swinging that freaking heavy mallet. These ajeossis are way fitter than me, heaving and pounding the dough with the mallet as if it were some play dough.



Ariyo having a competition with Michael from Germany. Tough battle. They were equally matched, both refusing to budge.



Mixing out dough and enjoying our ricecakes. With Shihkye (a refreshing and naturally sweet tasting drink made from rice) which tastes like barley.



I know what it resembles but its not. The man is merely putting a contraception to prevent the rice from exploding out from the machine. I don't know specifically how this works and I won't pretend to know. The rice is supposedly done when the machine explodes.
Organic explosion. Pop-rice.

The German guy commented on how amazing the Koreans can make so many things from rice, ricecakes, drinks, crackers. I totally agree.



Ariyo helping out with the ajumma to squeeze her sacks. Its always good to have young men to help them out once in a while.



Giving the games a try. Some stick throwing contest.
Ariyo attempting the tightrope walking.



Ancient torture. S&M. The ajumma's whack was more wicked than the korean girl's on my right.




At night, we had fun making panjeons Korean pancakes and drinking Makgoli, korean rice wine. Korean rice wine is dangerous for me because it tastes like beer minus the unpleasant aftertaste that beer has, so one can get drunk pretty fast on Makgoli. Notice that I have no pictures. Haha.



The males.
The Yonsei group! The privileged few.