Korea life - day 111 (week 16) / (Seoul) dinner

Korea life - 13 June 2014 (day 111 week 16)

It was been a while we last had dinner with the rest, so I met up with old classmate with PQ to seafood. Haven't got to eat seafood very since I had started to live in Korea as it's not easy to find seafood dish like in Singapore.

There were some seafood restaurant around the school but it turn out that they were either serving raw seafood only or gilled shellfish only (they don't have a restaurant we serve both.) So we just ransoming choose one restaurant and sat in. However we all agree that after eating so much raw food, we felt like eating fried chicken. So after we finish the seafood, we went to have fried chicken with beer nearby.

Had beer and soju which chatting away the whole night and we really had a lot of talking with each other. We didn't need to worry if the people around us understand what were we talking about, so even had 19+ talks came out. (because they are all Korean and we were specking in mandarin)

Korea life - day 106 (week 16) / (Seoul) Bukchon & Samcheongdong for assignment

Korea life - 8 June 2014 (day 106 week 16)

Although I was still tired from my short trip to Gwangju, but there was no time for me to rest as we needed to continue our assignment. So we headed to bukchon hanok village & Insadong & Samcheongdong. Met up with my teammate first at the subway station exit, then walked toward bukchon. We choose to head to Bukchon first as it was nearer from the subway exit.

< Bukchon Hanok Village >

How to go - Alight at Anguk Station (subway line 3); Exit 2.
                    Go straight for about 500m to arrive at Bukchon Hanok Village
                    (Entrance is next to a pharmacy)
Visiting hours - 10am to sunset (Due to give residents (staying there) some peace, it has been advice that visitor are to leave before sunset and not to visit too early.)
More information - http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_1_1_1.jsp?cid=561382

Before we came out of the station (next to the exit), there were introduction of Bukchon 

Walking from the subway station to Bukchon Hanok Village 

Bukchon Hanok Village is one of a Korea traditional village with a long history located between Gyeongbok Palance and Jongmyo Royal Shrine. The traditional village is composed of lots of alleys, hank and is preserved to show a 600-year-old urban environment. Now it is used as traditional culture center and Hanok restaurant (some are still resident area), allowing visitors to experience the atmosphere of the Joseon Dynasty.

Not only tourist, even locals comes and wants to take a pictures with the alleys of Bukchon. As we still had a few places to go, after going to a few area and took a few picture, we headed to Samcheongdong.

< Samcheongdong >

How to do - Alight at Anguk Station (subway line 3); Exit 1.
More information (thing that you can do at Samcheongdong) - http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SH/whereToShop/whereToShop.jsp?action=about&cid=995817

Samcheongdong is a hilly neighbourhood that is characterised by numerous small art galleries, shops and restaurants/cafe but peaceful and quaint area. Since each art gallery building along has its own unique architectural design, taking a walk and appreciating the building is a journey in itself. Many galleries have their own cafes, restaurants or craft shops, allowing visitors to enjoy art, shopping and lunch all under one roof. I was so hungry that I kept asking them to hurry out decide which cafe that they want to write about and I can order for them to take picture of it. And finally we decided on this - CHLORIS TEA AND COFFEE  house.

It has a very quite environment. Even though It has 2 storey, we choose to sit outdoor to enjoy the sun. I was starving that I just kept looking at the menu while the rest were busy taking picture of the area. Was quite shock with the price, but I was too hungry to worry about the price, I just order a set and waited impatient for the food  

My Brunch - French toast set 

 Took the bus from Samchengdong to Insadong. Even before I start to live in Korea, Insadong is a place that I will visit every time I'm in Korea, so I suggest to them why not let just take some picture and we can leave this place, as I know this place too well (not trying to be proud [-w-]). So we really just took some picture and left for dessert.

While eating the dessert, we took time to talk about it and decide how should we were to split the presentation into 4 for all of us. And because this time, someone suggest that she wants to do the PPT, so the rest of us just went back and write our speech will do. I'm just going to go back and take a nap before I start writing my speech.

Luckily it tasted not bad (although Wicked is still better) 

Korea life - day 105 (week 15) / (GwangJu) Short trip to Gwang-Ju Day 3

Korea Life - 7 June 2014 (day 105 week 15)

Our last day in Gwang-Ju before we take the afternoon train back to Seoul. Not wasting any time, after breakfast (by LJ once again), we bid goodbye to our nice hostel owner and took picture with the owner before we leave the place with all our things.

We headed to a traditional market that we saw on the first day (when we were looking for our way to the hostel). Turns out to be really a boring and normal wet market, just like the traditional market all around Korea. We got too bored so we just thought of heading out for lunch by cab. We went to a restaurant that again was recommended by the owner, however this time it's not as good as the crab restaurant yesterday. This is one Korean dishes that I don't know how to enjoy, but even thought we think that way, the place is full with people.

We don't know what to do and where to go after lunch, so we just took the cab and went to the train station to see the surrounding while waiting for the train. Although there were not much but some tents where set up there for some discount event, but it helped us to not notice that time were past by too slowly. Took a different train (compare to the train that we took when we came, this train cost cheaper but it take longer time to arrive) back to seoul.

Gwang-ju is, well is a nice place for food and there are some interesting places which located around Gwang-ju that are nice to go, but Gwang-ju itself is really quite a boring place. I don't think I will go there again.

Korea life - day 104 (week 15) / (GwangJu) Short trip to Gwang-Ju Day 2

Korea Life - 6 June 2014 (Day 104 week 15)

Our second morning in Gwang-ju, started early in the morning. Although hostel does provide breakfast, LJ woke up early to make breakfast for us while the rest were still sleeping. Last night, she didn't had the chance to wash up so she woke up earlier this morning to wash up first.

Went out to meet up with our old classmate, Joseph, who moved over to study here instead (He's here in Korea to promote Catholic study) after breakfast. Subway here in Gwang-ju is not as confusing as Seoul as there is just one subway line running whole Gwang-ju, so it's easy for us to take the subway. What make me like this place the most is that, no matter where we go, there is no crowd. SO HAPPY

Met up with Joseph at his university to take a look around. As the University students are on vacation, there wasn't much people in the campus therefore we had the chance to really take a good look of the campus, however the campus is WAY too big for us to discover.

전남대학교 / Chonnam National University 

We wanted to have a better chat with Joseph so we went off for lunch that the hostel owner introduce us to go. Even if we wanted to take the cab, it's not easy as there are 5 of us, so we asked the driver first if they willing to drive all 5 of us in one cab and we did found one which quote and off the meter.

<동원 게장>

Address - 111 Jisan-dong, Dong-gu, Gwangju
Cost - 8,000 won (side dishes are all refillable excluding rice)
More details other (Korean) blogs - http://blog.daum.net/sophia1009/8932754
(Don't understand Korean also can, picture speak everything)

Korean fermented crab and side dishes 

Korea Fermented crab which also known as Gejang, is made by marinating fresh raw crabs either in soy sauce or in a sauce in chill pepper power. Not many people able to accept this dish as the crabs are raw and some thinks can't accept the taste but if you like this, this restaurant serve the best fermented crab dishes (as you can keep refilling until you are happy)

We didn't plan ahead what to do in Gwangju so we decided to walked around the restaurant. Found a bus that goes to the city after our walk around the restaurant. Headed back t the central of the city to a big shopping mall to walk around and sent Joseph to the bus station before we take the subway back to our hostel to rest. We were too tired to go out so we asked the owner to help us to order pizza and we just stayed in. Tomorrow have to wait early to get ready to take the train back to Seoul

Korea life - day 103 (week 15) / (GwangJu) Short trip to Gwang-Ju Day 1

Korea life - 5 June 2014 (Day 103; week 15)

Tomorrow was a public holiday in Korea which mean there won't be lesson,  my friends (1A classmate LJ, CL & CA) and I decided to head to gwangju for a short trip (travelling for the first time without PQ ).

LJ had asked her Korean friend to help us to book the accommodation and transportation from Seoul to Gwang-ju few days before the trip. After our afternoon lesson, we took the 5.55 pm KTX train from Yongsan station to Gwang-ju station. Whole train trip took around 4 hrs, by the time we arrived at Gwang-ju station was already 9pm.

Top left pic - Platform to Gwang-Ju ; Top right pic - Gwang-Ju station
Below pic - Yongsan station 

When we walked out of the Gwang-ju train station, the place felt so much different from Seoul itself. Not many high rise-building, empty street (no cars and also no people),  or even on the subway, feel so scary. But luckily we had each other, so still not that bad. After an hrs of walking on the streets of Gwang-ju street, we finally found our guesthouse <Namdo Hostel> which was located on the 3rd floor

Namdo Hostel 

Namdo Hostel's offical website = << http://blog.naver.com/dewpark >>
Don't get afraid by the Korean words, the blog is written in both Korean and English.
It also introduce some nice places to go and eat or play.

After leaving our thing behind in our guesthouse, we went out for late dinner. As not many shops were open, we just went in to a ransom shop to eat something.  Went back to rest instead of exploring, store up some energy to get ready for tomorrow morning. But there is just one washroom, we have to queue up to shower, however we were not the only one need to use it, we need to share with the other rooms too. We need to keep a look up for the washroom and make sure to go in faster than other people or else we need to continue to wait. By the time I came out of the washroom, LJ didn't got the chance to bath and fall asleep.

Korea life - day 102 (week 15) / (Seoul) Hong dae & Sinsadong - Cafe hopping

Korea life - 4 June 2014 (Day 102 week 15)

Assignments were getting more and more challenging every time we advance to the the next level. And this term's (level 2) assignment was to arrange an itinerary to introduce places (of Korea) and my team chose to do cafe hopping

Due to voting day, there was no lesson today so we heard to Hongdae to start. Before that, we did our homework and look for all the address and direction online first, so we were able to find the places easily. First stop was Hello Kitty Cafe !

<< Hello Kitty Cafe>>

Address - 358-112, Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea 서울시 마포구 서교둥 358-112
Open hours - 10am to 11pm
How to go - Take subway to Hongdae station (subway line 2 (station 239)) ; Exit from exit 9 and follow the blue line as below

Map to go from Subway station to the cafe
Taken from - http://ajugglingmom.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Hello-Kitty-cafe-map-Hong-Dae.png

We were there pretty early so there was not many people. It's not a very big place, but is a 2 storey building. First floor has just a small low ceiling seating, a corner selling Hello Kitty merchandise and the counter, Second floor has more seating with a human kid size Kitty sitting in the middle. They have quite a few choices like cake and waffle, hot drink (like coffee and tea) and smoothies. Price are slightly on the high side, as I'm not really a Hello Kitty fan, this should be my first and my last time here. But I'm not going to denied that fact that it's a cute place.

Picture inside of the Hello Kitty cafe 

My teammate's were a mix of Japanese and Chinese, even though we were in level 2 of Korean language, we still have problem to make a conversation. Feel like ending this whole trip asap but there are a few places that we still needed to go. Not everyone eaten at the Hello Kitty cafe, so we went for early lunch at a restaurant that one of my classmate was working (like that also can end earlier). 

<<Cafe Source>>

Address - 343-10, Seogyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea 서울시 마포구 서교둥 343-10
Open hours - 12 pm to 12 am
How to go - Take subway to Hongdae station (subway line 2 (station 239)) ; Exit from exit 9. Find your way to Hongik University Main gate. At the three-junction road, you will see a Hana bank. Turn around on the left corner and you will see a Starbucks branch in distance away. Then turn left into the alley before reaching Starbucks, and you will be able to see the car

Cafe Source 

 After lunch, one of my teammate had to start her part time, so we went on without her as we don't have much more time to waste and to go with her. Next on the list was Cat Attic

<<Cat Attic (Cat cafe)>>

Address - 343-10, Donggyo-dong, Mapo-gu, Seoul, South Korea 서울시 마포구 동교동 164-14
Open hours - 1 pm to 10 pm
Cost - 7,000 - 10,000 for a cup of drink and you can spend there for as long as you like
How to go - Take subway to Hongdae station (subway line 2 (station 239)) ; Exit from exit 9. Walk down the street, take your first left and keep an eye out for the yellow signs on your right

Cat attic cafe - If you are a cat lover, this is the place for you 

We were asked to change our shoe before entering the place and disinfect your hand. In case of cats running out, there is a small gate that we need to push open to go in. We were asked to order a drink (as entrance fee and no need to worry if you can't read as it's written in Korean and English.) and to take note . Bags were asked to keep in the cabinet (that was under the seat, in case of the case cats bites it.) Spent a few hours there where you don't no need to think what to talk to each other and just play with the cats. It's really a good what to spend a afternoon  

After half day of cafe hopping, I went on to Sinsadong with Qi for another round of cafe hopping. We heard that there were many interesting cafe here in Sinsadong and is a must invite street if you are a coffee fan. (Our assignment did not choose to go there main reason was it's too far away from our school. ［what kind of stupid reason, but they vote and chose not to go］). Walked down the street and just enter a cafe that match our eye. Sorry that till the end, I totally forgotten to take note of the name of this cafe. But I enjoyed myself, if I have the money, I don't mean doing this everyday. But the coffee price in Korea are too expensive for a poor student like me ...

nice cafe in Sinsadong 

Article from "Yahoo" - World Street Food Congress: 24 hours food tour to digest the cause

After living in Korea for 8 months, every time thought or seeing all the Singapore food picture that my family sent, it will just make me miss Singapore food even more. So even if I'm going to gain back all the weight that I lost, I AM SOO GOING TO DO LIKE WHAT THEY DO WHEN I'M BACK IN SINGAPORE  


[cut and paste from - https://sg.entertainment.yahoo.com/news/world-street-food-congress-24-091103792.html ]

World Street Food Congress: 24 hours food tour to digest the cause

Mamu mee kuah opeh at bedok hawker centre intriqued them with the way he packed it.

Eating for 24 hours in one stretch is no joke. It’s serious business or culture, if you can see it.  So, about 25 foreign media descended onto our hallowed makan island last Saturday to embark on a food tour of their life- the 24 Hour Food Frenzy Safari. They were invited by Makansutra and The Singapore Tourism Board for what may be the world’s longest press conference event at this 1440 minutes of non-stop feasting on the go. It was to update the media, both local and international, on the upcoming second edition of the World Street Food Congress (April 8-12th, 2015).

It began at 10.30am at the Esplanade and they cruised through 34 stops and scarfed down about 40 items. It took them to all corners of the island through day and night. It also included an early morning seaside washroom and refresher break plus some stretching session (which many were too zonked to bend over and reach the knees to loosen up). There was also a proper one hour media press conference session buried in there somewhere. Four doctors took duty turns on board the food bus to keep things in check, but they really ended up enjoying the feasting party themselves. There were no casualties.

Media curiously hungry at tian tian chicken rice.

Very often, many could not see the opportunities, culture and the craft  behind that bowl of laksa or chicken rice in a hawker centre or coffeeshop. So this 24 hour food tour served to give them an idea of what we cannot usually see behind that bowl of kway chap or pig offal stew. They got insights on the business models of hawker centres, supply and supply chains in our land-scarce island where 95% of our ingredients are imported, the irony of a popular food culture that has no proper structure or culture that seeds continuity and even how a comforting plate of nasi lemak can be profitable at a measly $3.50. They now understand the culture behind why folks would queue for a spicy and spunky bowl of laksa at 7am and the entrepreneurial opportunities in this comfort street food trade.

Nasi padang at Hajjah mona geylang serai.

Tales about the plight, intents and aspirations of a new generation of hawkers were also regaled along the way, showing how this culture can play a big part in social enterprise efforts.  All these are part of the purpose and cause of the World Street Food Congress, which had its first event in 2013.

The media came from as far as Britain (the Independent) and the USA (The Daily Meal). There were also regional publications and online sites, plus bloggers from Indonesia (Detik, Femina and Jakarta Post), newspapers in Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Thailand, Korea, Denmark, Japan and even our close neighbours from Malaysia.

Ye lai xiang laksa at Woodlands.

They were taken to Woodlands, Bedok Changi, Jalan Kayu and to the shiny and delicious corners in town and saw how fishballs are made and turned into fishball noodles, how roti prata is flipped and made, and they understood the culture behind why folks would queue for a spicy and spunky bowl of laksa at 7am.

It made good footage seeing how prata is flipped at jalan kayu.

Blogger, chef and food host JJ Yulo from Manila was amazed at how safe the trip was. He intends to bring foodie travellers from his country to Singapore and the event opened up his mind to the opportunities in his field of work. Ms Julia Buckley from the Independent in London was bowled over by roti kaya and roti prata, and was particularly amazed at the prices and how it all still makes  economic sense adding, “Even if you raised it by 30%, it would still be cheap by the world’s standards”.

Bak kut teh at Rong Cheng was done using the long dragon ribs.