Final week at Sogang

😦

The day had finally come.

It seemed so surreal that right after all off my exams ended, it was time to leave. The week went by a bit like a blur. Monday was a panic day after my first exam trying to get a visa to Japan.  Tuesday was a long long study day. Wednesday was a little scuffle with the Jap embassy LOLOL, they basically quetioned why my hostel booking was different than my flight date and who’s ‘Alvin Darmawan’, and i had to go on a long explanation about how my bro is in Japan and he’s checking in first to the hostel without me. Lol. It took a while but they believed me eventually, thankfully. Thursday I got pretty lazy to study for my final exam lollool, and just went ahead to collect my visa at the embassy. We agreed earlier on to eat together at this famouz Samgyetang place near Gyeongbokgung, so I was waiting around for them and found this cosy place to chill~

I’m typing all of these while sitting at a Starbucks in Japan, and I’m already missing Korea’s cafes. Seriously. I’ve taken for granted how widely available cafes are in Korea and in Japan, Starbucks is the only cafe i can really count on for good coffee and wifi. All the other cafes serve dubious coffee that don’t taste very good somehow (idk how you screw up a latte though), and never have wifi haha.

So anyway, met the rest for dinner at the famous Samgyetang place that I will write about in another post, and then went back to (try to) study. I didn’t end up studying and mye xam on Friday was kinda scerwed up lol…..

Anyways, after exam on Friday I met Zenn to try to chek out this goshiwon that I found online. It was really really cheap (11k per night, despite of the room type) so I was told them i would go down to take a look. When I did find the goshiwon though they told me a few minutes ago someone came in and took the room I had wanted, the orom with the shower. They only had one more room left and that room had no bathroom. I saw the room and it was such a hamster hole OTL, but for the size I thought it’s decent enough. The owner then told me someone’s moving out on the 29th so if i transfer a deposit before then, I could get the room with ensuite bathroom from 1st July onwards. I was happy to hear that and told her I’ll get back to her. I transferred as soon as I got home.

But they cancelled on me a few days later when i went Japan because the tenant decided to extend her stay and i was so angry but anyway whatever, i’ve ranted about that on another post…

So then anyways. On Friday night, i found myself looking at my luggages and deciding how to pack my things in. I couldn’t bring myself to pack and ended up going on Twitter to rant a bit about Taeyeon LOL and then laid down on my bed in the darkness feeling very sad i was never going to sleep in this place again. The rest were outside drinking at this point but I felt the need to stay indoors to appreciate the last of my dorm. I can still drink with the rest in Singapore.

Jasmine ended up inviting me over for some fried chicken, to which I agreed. Had a great time eating chicken and chatting with her and XC :’)

And the next morning when i woke up it was panic LOL. I barely had time to be sentimental and emotional the moment I woke up ._. After a last breakfast at the cafeteria, i basically panicked cuz i had only 2 hours to pack AND clean my room and i was barely done with the first task. Ended up running around and only managed to squash everything in and threw away all the precious things like the cup i brush my teeth with and my cute pink scissors. Anyway we evacuated the room just nice before 12pm and it looked like this 😦

Almost exactly like when we walked in.

The supervisor came in  and checked everything and cleared us. As planned, I dragged my luggage and blanket down to Jas&XC’s room and XC was so nice about me leaving all my rubbish in her room while I go Japan :’) My original after-plan was to hang out at a cafe and then check into the jjimjilbang before going to the airport the next day, but plans changed and I ended up joining Jas and Lineatte for lunch with their buddy.

 

I predict that that would be my last Homilbat patbingsoo. I don’t want to be negative about it but i still think that it might happen.. 😦 oh wells at least we bought the coffee patbingsoo and it turned out good! Yoojin never ate there before :O us foreigners have been frequenting Homilbat soooooo often haha.

Chatted until pretty late, around 5pm, before I returned and ended up (again) nua-ing with Jasmine in her room haha. She toyed with the idea of sleeping in her room one last night that night despite having checked out, since XC’s new roomie isn’t going to move in until 2 days later. I was thinking of doing the same but the thought of returning to my old room and seeing it completely empty, no roomie, no belongings nothing, made me change my mind. I don’t want my last memory of my home in Sogang to be such a sad one.

Since Zenn was gonna take a while, i decided to join them for dinner as well. We went to this pretty cool place in Hongdae called Kongbul!

 

To sum it up, it was something like a fusion food of Bulgogi (beef) + beansprout, hence the name. We ordered the first set because we saw that everyone else had the drink so probably everyone ordered sets haha.

 

YUMZ

 

 

It’s local culture to eat the meal first without any rice, and then use the leftover ingredients to make fried rice~

I had not much time left after that so I rushed back to grab my small luggage and then made my way towards our Jjimjilbang place. It was my first time at a Jjimjilbang so I’ll make a separate post~

So that’s it… thi is the final ‘weekly’ posts that i’ll be making. No more of this already… 😦

It is the little things that matter.

We learn a lot of things when we say goodbye. Most of the times, we are never prepared for goodbye. It’s not because we didn’t know or expect when the day would come, but because we can never imagine how painful it really is until we are saying goodbye.

On that last week of school, when I was preparing myself for the day to say goodbye, I found myself surprised at the things that made me the most sentimental or emotional. I did my routine as usual on that last week of school, but I found each routine more endearing by the day.

Like how I could leave the dormitory just 10 minutes before lessons start, with enough time to grab a cup of iced latte from Cafe Dream to kickstart a nice day.

Like how I could never resist buying the cheap strawberry yogurt goodness from Cafe May.

Like how I wake up without fail every day at around 8am because my body clock adjusted itself so I can wake up everyday for dorm breakfast.

Like how we sometimes spend 5 minutes deciding between which of the two meals to eat at the dorm cafeteria. Sometimes because both options are good, sometimes because both seem to serve only preserved vegetables…

Like how I snuggle into my blanket after breakfast and fall into a deep food coma. Almost every day.

Like the cold winter days that same blanket gave me so much protection from

Like how laundry can be so frustrating when I decided to do it at the ‘crunch’ time (10-11pm) and everyone’s doing their laundry and im just like #stahp and then i end up sleeping at 2am because i had to wait it out. And how i screwed up on my first laundry day by starting another person’s dryer.

Like how my snacks are right within my reach on the shelf in front of me, and i only needed to step out of my room to get hot water for a good cup of ramyun or coffee/milo/tea

Like those days watching dramas till late nights without a care (i watched all of dae jang geum and you who came from the stars in this exchange, plus a bit of dong yi)

Like how i get so irritated at the slow wifi at the dorm

I started to miss every of those routines and they became so bittersweet on that last week. Things that seem so small and mundane during my daily life in these past few months, became so symbolic of my life in Korea.

On that last night, Jasmine and XC invited me to their room to have some fried chicken and pepsi, and when i sat there with them just eating chicken in their dorm room and talking in english to jas and korean in XC, i felt this sudden wave of regret. Like why did this not happen sooner? Why did we live for the past few months and never thought to do something as simple as ordering food in and gathering to talk? Did we take it for granted that we had time, and didn’t think of doing the simplest yet most memorable things?

On the last day, when we ate our last breakfast in the dorm, Joanna came over to join us and she was tearing up because she was leaving Korea on that day. When we said goodbye, I never realized that I was sad as well. Because I wasn’t close to her, I didn’t realize it would affect me that much when I said goodbye to her, knowing it’s most likely forever.

After the rush of packing and cleaning our rooms, as I sat there in my bare room with my roomie Selina, we took a photo together and I didn’t realize how far we’ve come the past few months, and although I was not particularly close to her, I would always remember the few nights we chatted for hours just about life, and her constant presence in the room has become something I would miss.

As I was throwing out the thrash, I bumped into an Indonesian friend I made during the exchange, and he was with the other exchange students. For the first time the look in his eyes wasn’t the usual playful one when he was going to call me ‘ba’ which is a teasing word to call aunties in bahasa, and his smile had faltered. Instead he gave me a long look, as if he wasn’t sure whether to give me a goodbye hug or to continue teasing me as per usual. He just smiled a little too wide and told me to visit Indonesia often.

I left the room with my luggages in tow, I looked at the rows of bags lined up along the doors, and I wondered that when we all leave, would there be a trace of us left in those dorm rooms? When new people come in to fill up these rooms that we once called our home and treated as our sanctuary, what will be the traces of us left? Would it be as if we never lived there? Are we just occupants in sheltered rooms?

I went out to get coffee, and on the way back, I saw Selina leaving. I ran up to her and gave her a hug. It was our first and last hug. She pulled me in closer and gave me the most sincere smile I’ve seen her give. I’ll see her in Singapore, hopefully.

As I was hanging out in jasmine and XC’s room, XC’s friend came in and started to cry because her room mate just went home. I didn’t know her friend, nor did i know her friend’s roomie, but I found myself feeling a gaping hole of sadness seeing her tears, so I just went into the bathroom to bathe.

After dinner when I was finally ready to leave to join Zenn and find our Jjimjilbang for the night, I turned back and saw Jasmine, XC and XC’s friend all staring at me with the same wide-eyed looks, and I had to tear away so that I can leave without letting the sadness catch up with me. I will see them again.

It is the little things that matter. The second more of a glance, the smile that reached the eyes, the simple talks over silly things, the mundane routines of dorm life, the little cheap thrills, the quiet moments alone, the things that i would never expected to be the things i couldn’t stop thinking about.

Goodbye, exchange. Goodbye, Sogang.

Second last week of Sogang University :(

The second-final week of school… 😥 It just suddenly hit us how soon our exchange was gonna end T__T It felt like yesterday that I was walking into Sogang wide-eyed and apprehensive, finding every little detail fascinating only because it had been my dream for so so so long.

Just as we had stepped into the convention hall for a welcome ceremony, we walked in for our goodbyes. They even served us the same mediocre bibimbap that they served us on the first day haha.

the side dishes deserved a pictuer more than Mediocre Bibimbap

There were a couple of girls who did an amazing performance but there were also a couple of awkward performances and speeches in between. It felt like they didn’t QC the performers who volunteered which was why there were awkward moments here and there, but props to them for speaking up bravely!

After the farewell it felt a bit wasted to say goodbye so quickly so the bunch of us Singaporeans together with Robert an american, went to Baskin Robbins the huggeeeeeee 3-storeys branch at Sinchon~

It was kind of cheaper to get ice cream in Korea’s BR than other places

 

We were talking about stuff and then suddenly Liz started talking to me about SNSD so like the entire night became a KPOP topic lol.

We retired early because the next day had to chiong for freaking report -_-

fast forward to the next day aka report chionging day haha. I offered to read through the entire report because english wasn’t their native language, but i kinda regretted halfway omg there was so much to edit. While jas and i were chilling at Ediya opposite our school, suddenly a Korean friend I know walked in looking kinda dazed. He bought a drink and came over and started babbling about random shit. He was kinda still drunk from the previous night and was desperately trying to recover from his hangover because he had tons of work to do. He didn’t seem lke he was well on his way though. Fortunately he left after a while, i mean i really don’t mind meeting him, but i really had a report to rush…

on Thursday, i had a sudden revelation that i had very very very little days left in Korea and that if i wanted to do all i wanted to do, i had to start immediately. So after a bit of research, i decided i should get out of the house to visit Samcheongdong because it’s cafe street and if i left Korea without visting cafe street i’d never forgive myself. Thought for a while of going alone but then decided to ask Sheryl and Zenn anyway, and Zenn wanted to come out too, but Sheryl was already in Hongdae haha. So after lazing around a bit i finally went out and met Zenn. We had a good loooong walk at Samcheongdong before settling down haha.

Post on Samcheongdong here~

On Friday, we decided to all meet up one last time for chicken and beer, and also because Jasmine has NEVER JOINED US BEFORE NOT EVEN ONCE PRIOR TO THIS, so we dragged her out and ting yu also brought his friends alone. His friends were really hilarious and it was a good night 🙂

Saturday and Sunday was dedicated strictly to STUDYING. We studied at Knitting Cafe and a Study Cafe separately on these two days. i’m kinda proud of our ability to find these little treasures in sinchon and edae alone. haha. Since i’ll be living in Hongdae for my remaining days, i have plenty of time then to explore the cafes there~~~~ finally maybe after then, i can make a proper cafe recommendation post ^^ I’m typing this when i’ve found a goshiwon in Hongdae, i’ve got a story to tell for that one heh, will make a separate rant post on goshiwons.

Oh yes wanna make a special mention to the food we ate on Sunday!!

This is a branch chain place and kinda like convenient fast food, with a concept that perfectly suited Korea – rice burger!

blurred sorreh

The food was realy really cheap, most of them were below $3! And the original one was under $2~ the options were also simple.

 

My order was tuna something i forgot what it was called on the menu, but it was served with tuna, kimchi and spam. IT TASTED AWESOME. really salty though, i’m almost sure it’s all made of MSG but anyway, it made for a very good, relatively feeling and very cheap meal. So yes, recommended esp for students haha. You could easily take it away too.

And that was it for this week. It’s bittersweet because it’s almost over but it made me cherish every moment so much more.

College Life in Seoul: Week 15

Obligatory update! i haven’t been doing these weekly things which is bad because like i said, i wanted to remember every memory of my exchange.

So a quick summary of Week 15: Monday and Tuesday was spent relaxing and doing necessary group projects. Wednesday and Thursday was off exploring beautiful Gyeongju and Ulsan. Friday was paragliding with Amber. And the Saturday I called Zenn out to have our good old soondubu and then Seven Bricks later on to study. OTW we saw this LGBT parade which happens annually (i think?)

It was a lot of noise so we scooted to Edae area instead to study haha.

Sunday was another quiet time for me so I went to Table A to study and relax.

That’s all. What an update LOL.

 

College Life in Seoul: Week 14

As the exchange draws to a close, I’ve been doing less and less meaningful things haha. It’s kinda expected so I’m not beaten up over it or anything. In fact I think I should spend the remaining days of my exchange appreciating the normal life in Korea. Just sitting around, eating, going cafes, sleeping in when i want to, etc. I’m going to miss Korea so much. I did think that I should travel as much as possible to prevent regrets of not traveling, but as much as that, I think I should slack as much too, so I won’t regret not just slowing down and appreciating life in Korea.

And so that was kinda like that for this week. Aside frmo visiting a couple of touristy places, I’ve been just slacking around haha.

Monday was nua day as usual, because of awkward class timings. Coffee Bean has become one of my favorite study spots due to its proximity and i found my favorite little corner near the toilet and where no one can see what i’m doing~

Tuesday I had the whole day to myself but decided to just meet Zenn to study. Dropped by Coffee Break for an earlier study/blogging session. Coffee Break is another favorite study spot due to its cheap beverages and lots of tables and power points and its 7 wifis for 2 floors ahhaha.. and it’s right outside my school! I’m gonna do a separate full post for Coffe Break in another post~ Table A is also becoming one of my favorite study spots because you get to sit at your own little table on the second floor and have adorable kittens crawling all over your laptop and hiding in your bags and pawing at you. The drinks are also really huge for 5000 won and you kinda would expect people to stay all day long at that cafe.

Wednesday finally there was something a little more interesting. we gave up our cafe routine and decided to visit the Seodaemun Prison Museum. I’m not going to make a separate post for the museum though, because i have plenty of posts on backlog D:

Jasmine and I were saying that the Seodaemun museum had a peaceful atmosphere. It was unlike the one in Cambodia that we’ve both been to before. The one in Cambodia legit had an unsettling atmosphere, and i got pretty scared looking at the room that held their photos and stories. After reading and seeing their faces, I did seriously feel unsettled, almost as if I could feel their torture and suffering. I couldnt stay in one room long enough in Cambodia, and by the time we were done touring, I was feeling really uncomfortable and really just wanted to get out of the place. Jasmine had felt the same way. Seodaemun didn’t have this kind of atmosphere thankfully. I think it’s partly due to the fact that they renovated the place, while the one in Cambodia was pretty much kept as it was in the past.

Thursday too it was nua day @ Coffee Bean and hang-out time with Jasmine and her roomie which also means practice korean day. Ahahahaha. Also it was my first time trying one of my favorite milk teas from the overpriced Gong Cha in Korea… 3900 won means about $5. Twice more expensive. Taste was pretty consistent though hahahahaah.

Friday was a nice catch-up session with Sheryl and Zenn. I was contemplating whether or not to go Jjimjilbang with Jasmine and her friends that night, but didn’t go in the end anyway because i was tired and i had an italki appointment the next day!

Saturday was once again nuaaaaaaaa. SUCH A NUA QUEEN THIS WEEK

Sunday though I do have something a litte more exciting to share. Shall do it on a different post. Annyeong!

 

College Life in Seoul: Week 11

Featured this week (separate post):
Cafe: Table A @ Sinchon/Edae, Book Cafe ‘Humanitas” @ Hapjeong, Noriter Cafe @ Edae
Food: Budae Jjigae, Bossam

WEEK 11 LIAO EXCHANGE ENDING????

Okay that aside. Nothing that exciting this week really, besides my cafe/food adventures which are already in the other post. I can’t believe i separated those posts like i live for cafes and fooooood.

So after a day of pure nua-ing on Monday because yknow, long weekend trip and tiredness, on Tuesday I dragged my ass off my dorm bed and jio-ed Zenn out and we managed to drag ourselves out by 4pm to eat a lunch/dinner and head to a cafe to study. Productive, productive.

Cafe Noriter! Find my earlier post for a full review~

On Wednesday, after being forced to wake up early to attend a class with insufficient computers to learn SPSS i already know about in Korean language which deems the entire class basically pointless and sent Jas&I sitting in a corner browsing nonsense……… we got back our grades. Oh god those two points are not even remotely related I guess my English or Logic is falling apart.

To fill in the rest of the Wednesday, we went to a book cafe (featured in my cafe post) and well, Wed will be Wed, which means lessons all the way.

maybe being surrounded by books can convince me i’m not wasting my timeeeeee not studying

Fast forward to grade release. That was the official day mid term results were planned to be released and i was waiting anxiously hoping I wouldn’t fail International Business and guess what!!! I got a C-!!!! HAHA i would have flipped back in SMU because of how it would have dragged down my alr-low GPA, but i was celebrating because i thought i realy really screwed up that paper. well i gotta be careful though, for finals. Anyways, I got As and Bs for the other mods so those turned out well.

Thursday entailed another free day that i waste trying to study but not quite succeeding. On the bright side I tried Bossam, boiled pork. It tasted better than it sounds i promise.

And the rest of the week basically more studying or actually trying to study. Not always successful.

Saturday though, we headed back to Table A like normal college students with no life just going cafes to try to study, and it was so awesome because unlike the previous Table A visit, I could play with the cats a little longer this time!!!!!

CAT!!!

We also ate Budae Jjigae which I haven’t had for really long ❤ We ate it twice in one go, on Saturday and Sunday. Haha. Table A was with Jasmine and Lineatte but they actually didn’t have that much to do, so Lineatte was really just listening to music all the way. They don’t even like cats that much so I was wondering why they were more enthusiastic than I am lmao.

On Sunday, as planned with Jasmine at first, we went to Yongin MBC Dramia together with Lineatte and Karin who in the last minute decided to come along!! Yay I’m gonna write a post soon about this so wait for it~~~~ *sings Moon Embraces The Sun OST*

College Life in Seoul: Week 10

Featured this week (separate post):
Cafe – Brit’s Farm

It’s been a lazy week haha. Besides the weekend crazy road trip which I will blog about soon, i didn’t get much done in terms of work or traveling. Monday was spent lazying around and on Tuesday I attempted to get out of the house, dropping by Gwanghwamun to help goatie Nat buy her Apink album and after that walking around Myeongdong in vain. Didn’t find a single thing :<

Wednesday too was lazy. After our visit to beautiful Brit’s Farm, and a looooong day at school, I met Sheryl and Zenn for dinner at some Hamburger place that i wouldn’t recommend and thus wouldn’t write about lulz, and walked around edae just wandering. I ended up buying a pair of earrings for myself with the intention of repiercing my ear by myself at the dorm, and a manwon bag. It’s called manwon bag because it costs only 10000won which is about $12. Haha. They have a good collection though! You can find these shops everywhere throughout Edae and I’d dare say it’s a must-visit HAHAHA.

On the way back we encountered an area of vigil for the victims of Sewol. I picked up a ribbon and wrote my message for the kids, and got the ribbon to put on my shirt. It’s still a rather emotional matter for me, but i won’t harp on it here. We saw those ribbons in both Sinchon and Edae.

Thursday was supposedly a girl’s day out and we went shopping at Myeongdong (again, for me lol) and again, i couldn’t find anything. God why!! Maybe i’ve become so stingy with my money lol i become so critical when i look at clothes, refusing to spare a second look if i know i will only wear them once in a while and not often enough. I also think twice, thrice and end up not buying anything lol. But i have been prowling around gmarket lots though, have bought a couple of items, and still have some on my cart that i’m still thinking whether or not to check out xD Fortunately thte other girls found things to buy though!

Friday was again… chill day…  I had a huge scare in which i left my wallet at Cafe May and i was so panicked and devastated, with Sheryl following me and all (thanks unnir <3) It was a slow Friday and I just headed out for dinner with Sheryl at a local Korean restaurant in Sinchon that sells really nice affordable soondubu that’s not made with Ramen seasoning (a lot of the cheaper chain branches in Korea use ramen seasoning and you can tell clearly). Often it’s hard to predict because they are all priced about 4500won to 6000won.

Like i said this was a very quiet week and i think the weeks following will be quiet as well due to tons of assignments piling up and a very important Korean exam coming up haha. It’s kinda becoming stressful OTL i guess i can’t travel out anymore on my free days…

But anyways, a hectic post is coming up, the post about us traveling Jeolla province!! Well not all, we just went to Yeosu Suncheon and Boseong, but we did it in two days so yep i’m gonna write a pretty detailed post on that so wait for it~~ it will take me some time to compile all the pictures and remember all the details haha.

College Life in Seoul: Week 9

This week’s features (separate posts):
Cafes – Cafe Boiing Pot Hoho Myoll, Namu Cafe, Cafe May
Food – 맛있는 순두부 (Masshineun Soondubu), 착한돼지 (Chakhan Dwaeji)

Other misc. happenings

So I’m thinking of doing this new featured in this post thing before the beginning of this post, so for people who stumble upon my blog wanting to find some nice places to eat or smth, but not wanting to get through my entire post to see if I mentioned the place at all, I’ll leave a simple list at the top featuring the places mentioned in the post. You can technically tell from the tags at the top of the post but they’re only at the top cuz of my layout so i’ll still do the list thingy haha. I’m still thinking of the best way to streamline my posts so bear with me till then! I’m thinking of separating my Korean blog and possibly my personal blog as well and keep this a solely Korean-travel focused blog, so yes please please bear with me until I have time to sort this all out haha! And like Korean exam is coming so it’s scary

After multiple editing of this post, I’ve finally decided to separate my food and cafe posts for easier reference. It was a hard decision because i actually wanted to be able to summarize everything into one nice Week 9 post for example, but i do realize as well tat I don’t intend for my blog to remain private, i still hope it might help some people out there hoping to venture to Korea for exchange, or are in Korea for a while and need some food/cafe recommendations. So I’l keep it this way 🙂 From now on my CLIS posts will leave links to food/cafe for that week and also other misc. stuff that happens in that week, if anything is worth mentioning xD

This week was mid terms so it was just lots of mugging and stuff. Yeah because in Sogang you gotta study too, cuz passing mark is 60% and stuffs. I thought not being able to skip class was bad enough :<

And… that’s it LOL. It’s kinda a bummer realizing that when you separate food posts and stuff, you end up with virtually nothing else to write because your life revolves just around food and cafe ._____.

well.

I did go to Jeonju for a Hanok stay over the weekend though…

College Life in Seoul: Week 8

Featured in this post:
Cafe – MY MUG
Food – Homilbat (Patbingsoo)

Time sure passes quickly!! It’s already Week 8!! Once again, here’s my rigurous weekly summary of my week in Korea. Haha. This was a relatively quieter week as i realized i needed to catch up with my Korean. We had a long Easter holiday but didn’t really travel out much.

The week kicked off on monday with a self-study time at Coffee Bean. Again i just wanna express how happy i am that Cofee Bean is right opposite my school dormitory, it’s like a reminder of home minus the Korean-speaking baristas and fascinating Koreans that I people watch too much. Idk why i people watch so much here, i think i’m just constantly watching their fashion seeing what’s commonly acceptable and what’s not, or seeing how they communicate and stuffs.

Coffee bean in our campus! Huge branch!

Anyways so! Tuesday was once again a study session, this time at Coffee Break. Now I love Coffee Break because although it’s a little further away from the dorm as compared to Coffee Bean, it sells cheaper coffee and is more spacey and has abundant power points. 😀 Need to keep reminding myself to take a picture of the huge space! Seriously i can’t be a food blogger if i wanted to lmao it’s not instinctive enough for me to photograph everything i see

Wednesday, the cafe hopping day! We wandered around Hongdae, Jas and I,  trying to find Ding Dong Cafe which is an adventure-themed cafe. Had to ask for help to and this guy from a hipster male clothes store went all the way to help us, calling the store, asking around etc. I think the shop closed down :< so we backtracked and went to a cafe that caught our eye previously called My Mug, which I wrote about in a separate post prior to this one~~

Gave me good strength to start an extremely long lesson day, typical, wednesday.

On Thursday, we all decided to have nice picnic by the Han River to ecelebrate the weather growing warmer!

  

Since we were at Han River we went to cycle a little bit! Karin, Ting Yu and I got lost while cycling back because we were taking photos of flowers lmao so we were overcharged but all’s good!!

After the picnic, I followed Zenn to her dance class rather impulsively, like I’m not sure why but yeah… so Shaun and I paid 20k for a trial run of the class. It was this studio called Negative Motion, one of the few studios that had instructors speaking in English. The class was okay, the pace was slow compared to Singapore classes but it was a good workout and stretch ahahaha.

On Friday, I had agreed to meet up with Hyunkyu, a Korean guy i met at a tutoring session. He said he wanted me to meet his friend who lived in Singapore for a while. It wasn’t a friend btw, it was girlfriend lOLOL. but anyways i pulled Zenn along to prevent awkwardness and it turned out to be a nice meeting ^^ Hyunkyu’s english isn’t as good so we had to speak Korean to him, but Hana (the girlfriend) lived in Singapore and all so she spoke fluent English. We ate at a western dining place and then moved to Homilbat, this famous Patbingsoo place in Sinchon!

The patbingsoo we ate that day!

This picture was actually taken when I went there with my parents!

Link to detailed post about Homilbat can be found at the top of this post, under ‘Food’.

So anyway, Hana Zenn and I got carried away chatting about her food blog and her setting up an English one to help tourists find the best food places in Seoul, and forgot that the oppa was zoning out because he didn’t understand everything ahahaha. Sorry oppa~ But yeah anyway Hana’s foodblog is here: blog.naver.com/hanacheong it’s in Korean so it may not be useful to you guys but she said she wanted to open an English one if she has time. There aren’t a lot of native Koreans with English food blogs here so I told her her blog would have potential to become pretty popular.

We also chatted a lot about dating and the likes hahaha. She told us that in korea there is a term called 썸(Some). You may find this term familiar because of the famous KPOP song ‘Some’ , which is exactly the same term. ‘Some’ is a word you use to refer to someone with whom you have ‘something’ with. So there is something between you two, but you’re not actually dating, so you refer to the person as your ‘some’. That’s how the song came about. So people call each other Some-Nam (썸남), the guy you have something going on with, and Some-Yeo (썸여), the girl you have something going on with. It’s so much more fun lmfao like we would normally say ‘oh there’s a guy but it’s complicated’ but there’s actually a cute term for it in Korea.

So yeah that was most of our conversation hahaha. The oppa needed to go study urgently so they we parted ways.

Zenn and I then headed towards Apgujeong area, because I needed to fix my stupid EG sim card, and she said she didn’t mind going and shopping/hanging there.

I dropped at a station later than her to find the EG Sim card location. It wasn’t that hard to find, but it was a damn long wait. Finally they just replaced my sim card and luckily it’s working fine now. If i had to change my number that would be way too troublesome.

Went back to find Zenn who was chilling at Cafe Pascucci.

Apgujeong. Looking like Hongdae and any other normal streets LOL.

HARDLY A DECENT PICTURE HAHAHAA but you get the point, it was a pretty luxurious-ish branch cafe in Apgujeong. I was secretly on the watch out for celebrities cuz i know they come to this cafe often. But didn’t see any oh wells.

Saturday was Samcheok!!!!

On Sunday, it was another chiong study day so I just stayed at Coffee Bean once more.

That’s all! Finally phew. Done with my rigorous updates. Bye!

College Life in Seoul: Week 7

Featured in this week (separate post):
Cafe – Ann House

Okay so Week 7 was mostly with the parents! But they left on Saturday so I thought I should complete my rigorous life updates by updating Saturday and Sunday haha!

So anyways, Karin’s friend was over for that week and wanted to go club, and I was telling her Saturday I can after my parents leave! It wasn’t meant to be intentional that the moment they leave i go crey crazy LOL, it just so happened that way…

So that night, we all headed to Hongdae to go to a popular club called NB2. Apparently it’s a club set up by YG Ent. so it was really popular. And there’s also NB1 and another club that you can go into if you have NB2 ticket. It’s kinda like the Zouk of Hongdae haha. Ticket was a little under $20 with one free drink. I’ve been to cheaper but there was no event or anything that night so yep no special prices!!

I didn’t took any pictures unfortunately because my battery was flat and stuff that night. But like NB2 was so so so crowded, and it’s even worse than Singapore, the ratio of guys to girls is about 5:2 so the guys are literally like predators. I mean in comparison Singapore is already pretty decent, but i guess i wasn’t surprised since i was warned many times that Korean clubs are kinda really wild.

In the end it was the two guys trying to protect all of us girls LOL. We stayed in the second floor where we had a good view over the first floor. It’s pretty cool, there was this row of people at the front in front of the DJ who were doing mambo dances HAHAHA. So literally like if the song goes ‘have a good time’ they would do a thumbs up sign and point to their wrist like there’s a watch there. Oh god. I laughed so much and we were following and silently judging. Well it beats people awkwardly bobbing on the spot like people do in clubs in Singapore. At least now they have moves to follow. When they’re not grinding people that is.

We also visited the other two clubs which were SUPER DUPER EMPTY LOL. They’re like abandoned clubs D: Seems like NB2 is the only club people really care about so the whole ticket package thing that seemed attractive didn’t matter to anyone lol they just wanted entry to NB2.

So that was it for a crazy Saturday.

The next day of course I woke up late and met Zenn to plan our travels and to study at like 3pm+ where neither of us had breakfast or lunch. It’s normal.

We went to Cafe Bene which is a branch cafe here in Korea. Local brand, i think. Nua’ed and bitched for a long time before planning a few things and maybe got a little bit of work done. Then we headed over to our ultimate favorite Soondubu restaurant 맛있는 순두부 gosh i’ve been to this restaurant so many times i’ve lost count. It’s really awesome!!

I’ve written a post about it here

Usually for me i just crack two eggs into the tofu soup, put seaweed with the rice and eat it with the soup, tofu and other liao depending on what i chose that day, while the eggs cook. They usually cook to a little before half-boiled state, where the whites are not totally formed yet. Then I break apart one of the eggs in the soup, grab more rice and seaweed, and take the other egg out to mix with my rice. ❤ I eat the side dishes separately but I’ve seen Koreans mix all the side dishes into their rice, put seaweed in and crack a raw egg in. It’s like bibimbap kind of?? Then they eat together with the soup. After they finish the soup, they go for second servings of rice, side dishes and eggs, eating the makeshift bibimbap without any soup. The dish is easily delicious even without the soup! I totally understand why Koreans love this place.

Gawd i love Korean food so much T.T

After that we decided we haven’t studied enough so off we went to search for some other place. We accidentally stumbled upon this place called Ann House, which i wrote about in another post (link at the top of post)!

That’s all for the week! Super busy week! Till next update~