Korea life - day 276 (week 40) / (Seoul) Flight back to Singapore andmusical - That days

Korea life - 25 November 2014 (day 276 week 40)

Today is my last day in Seoul before I head back to Singapore for my father's 60th birthday party.
Whole morning was still busy packing my things, getting ready for the flight that night. Have too many things that I can't carry back so I can only use postage. Because I'm staying there alone, I have to make a few trips to the post office myself. Send one big box back to Singapore, send one box to Jeju where I will be there for 6 more months.

Recently I like to watch musical, I booked the tickets to the musical - That days - act by Super Junior's Kyu Hyun. Because I can't change the date and the time of the show, there is why my air ticket can only buy night flight. But one thing good about this is that the musical event hall is walking distance from my places. Actually I thought of bring my things to the event hall then take taxi straight to Seoul station, but since is very near my place, don't think there is a need for that. There should be enough time for me to go back to grab my thing.

The musical - That days - is a show based on the songs of the late Kim Gwang Seok. Using the presidential Blue House (Cheongwadae) as the setting, "The Days" is a story about Jung Hak, the leader of the presidential bodyguards, who discovers traces of his fellow bodyguard Mu Yeong and an unknown woman who both disappeared 20 years ago, as he searches for the president's daughter and her bodyguard who have similarly vanished.

Rush back home to get my things once the musical finished, luckily didn't need to wait too long to get a taxi to Seoul station. Before taking the taxi, I checked for the last rail train to airport, it wrote that the last rail train depart at 12am but when I was there, counter people saw me with so many thing, highlight to me that the the last train is departing in 5 min time !!! I was in totally shocked !! If I missed this train, I will have to spend $90 SGD on taxi to get to Incheon Airport !! Thank god that I got on that train. By the time I reach airport, there were still some time after I done my check in but most of the shops has already closed by that time so I just wait patiently to board the flight.

Post- feeling after being away from home

I had been home since June 2015. It took me quite a while to get used to Singapore once again, no matter is weather, food or even life. Truth is till today I still can't used to the weather, I will try to stay indoor as much as possible. Even if I was to go out, will choose to wear much lighter clothes.

I stayed home for about 2 month (doing nothing) before officially start looking for a job. Many told me that currently markets is quite weak, might not be able to find a job so fast. I will be lying if I said I'm not worry, so I try not to retain myself to look for job that only required Korean, I also look for job that I has experience in too. Send less than 7-8 application out in a week, but because it was during the public holiday long period, it took slightly longer time to get back a reply. Nevertheless I was still able to get a job in 3 week time.

I was quite surprise I could find a job so fast, I actually was expecting that I will take at least 1-2 month. Even thought my new job don't required me to use Korean at all, but it's a Japanese company and I give me chance to speak to and know more Japanese. Very soon, I will be in this new company for 3 month. Although I only joined that for 2.5 month, they also make me feel that I am needed and is a part of their big family. I admit this company actually has  many problem (management level), but i don't care as long as it don't affect my salary and bonus.

An overall view of my past year in Korea - 

Is a decided that I glad I did it. Is a year that I will never forget and will never regret making.
Truth is a regret making this decided so late, if I has make the decision earlier, I would be able to see more and try out more countries.

I got to meet friends from other countries, from Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China and Malaysia. In the past, chat and understand more of the countries that I had been to before. Although it's difficult to maintain the friendship with these friends, but I'm glad I got to know them and the memories with them stays with me forever.

This trip really taught me how to be independent and taught me to enough playing alone. In the past, I don't dare to do thing alone, but now ? I can watch movie alone, go holiday alone, shopping alone, do things alone. I believe I know how to enjoy life more than last time.

Next year I planned to at least do one solo trip back to Korea and Japan. Go with no one but myself.
I know my mum won't like this idea but I want to do it. Giving myself a chance to understand myself more and to relax myself to get ready for more work in future.

For the time being, I won't be able to do long overseas stay like this Korea trip as I need to earn money to return my parent for this Korea trip. But I WILL DO THIS KIND OF TRIP AGAIN IN THE FUTURE AND THIS TIME I WILL GO TO JAPAN (which I at first wanted to go)

Korea life - day 274 (week 40) / Topik exam

Korea life - 23 November 2014 (Day 274 week 40)

For the last few week, I has been revision alone for this Topik exam. Since I had stayed in Korea for almost 9 month now, I should give myself a chance to proof myself. Lucky I was still in school when the enrolment of the exam happen, because we MUST use a korean computer then can apply.

Earlier in the morning, I planned to head to SKKU (the school that I choose to take the exam; there are a few places all around Korea for student to that this exam, and of course I chose the school nearest to me.) for early to lunch as I quite miss the food in SKKU. Normally there is no school during the weekend, I thought the school canteen will open as normal but turn out the school canteen don't run during on Sunday (the exam was held on Sunday). So in the end I had to eat snack for lunch

Asked ex-classmate to help me to print the application form before heading to the exam hall. Followed the ID number on the application form and we were ask to head to different classroom to take the exam. They started the exam with listening first where there is more than 30 question, after that 30 question we continue the paper with the compo exam where we are ask to write a short compo. That is where my nightmare started. I can't understand what is the question asking !!!! No matter how I break the words out, I can't figure out what is it that they want me to write, but I didn't give up just like that. I write what I THINK they are asking. It is better than submitting empty paper up.

After that, we have 20 min break, before we start our written exam. I came out of the exam hall believe that I won't be able to pass this exam at all. For the first time, I can confirm there I will not be able to pass with this kind of answering style. I didn't want to talk about it at all, I don't even think I'm going to check the result for this exams!!

Korea Life - Day 273 (week 39) / (Seoul) Seoul lantern festival 2014

Korea life - 22 November 2014 (day 273 week 39)

Actually we planned to have home-made laska, then night time head to the Seoul Lantern festival. We were to meet LJ at her place to cook laska, but she reject to come out of her room. Heard that she broke up with her boyfriend (that was going out for a week, knew each other for 3 month). I really don't understand why does she has to be so sad about a relatetionship that just started.

No matter how many times that we called her, knock on her door, she also don't want to come out. So we just give up and let her cool down then let her come out herself, so we went there ourself instead. We took the subway to Jonggak station and walked to the event area.

Alot of people were queuing up to enter the event area, so we too join in the queue. Though that we would need to spend alot of time to wait for our turn to enter into the event area but surprising we didn't need to wait long (maybe is because the queue was slowly moving). The lantern were all places in the middle of the stream, people were walking both side of the stream, enjoying the beautiful light up lantern. Although people were squeezing each other to get a better look of the lantern but everyone was following to order and moving from one lantern to another fast, so I still got to take some nice picture too !!

The whole Lantern festival cover too far, I haven't cover half of it, I already had the though of heading back. The crowd were giving lot of headache (I'm always weak with crowd), I went off without my friend to go back first. Maybe because is the last day of the event, there were more people. If I had went a few days earlier, maybe there is no need to squeeze with so many people. But if there is a chance to go again, I will still want to go and take a look.