I decided to start a wordpress to keep track of my trip.  I’m not sure if posts will appear here.  I am going to move the posts of Korea from here to my wordpress (but I will not remove the ones already on tumblr.)

I’m actually pretty nervous to bring my laptop to Vietnam, but unless I get something small like a tablet or netbook, I won’t be able to keep a day-to-day posting rate with pictures.

After Starcraft~

I went back to my dorm to drop off some stuff and then ran back out.  I had to walk really quickly since the dorm is so far inside the campus, and therefore really far from the subway station. ;_;

I had to go to Myeongdong so it took a while. I transferred twice, but when I got there, I realized I could have just stayed on the green line until Euljiro 3-ga station.

They were all at a buffet called Ashley’s on the 5th floor of SPAO.  It is so nice and classy inside.  Apparently buffets are considered higher dining there.

The food… was just awesome.  There were so many things to eat, and for drinks they had 2 kinds of wine, fruit punch, green tea, and water.  They even had ice cream and waffles (you can choose toppings and such yourself).  It was about 26000W a person.  Worth the price, though, if you ate your fill.

potatoe wegde, sweet fried pork, fried rice w/ crab meat, salad

various forms & flavours of chicken, pork rib, mango salad

chocolate cake, not sure what kind of cake, pineapple, lychee, persimmon, watermelon, grapefruit

watermelon, grapefruit, belgian waffle with caramel & chocolate sauce & whipped cream

After we ate there, we went out to chill around Myeongdong and just went into shops.  I found a store that sold really nice dresses, but for the love of bread I can not remember what it was called.  It gets more popular and busy closer to closing time, for some reason.

streetfood~ dried seafood~

not sure what he had but there were a LOT of people in front wanting some of it!

After we were done going through Myeongdong, we started walking to a theatre near Ewha called Artreon) to watch… Captain America.  In Korean, it’s called The First Avenger.

Then… after a movie, everyone gets hungry, so we walk towards Yonsei… yes, we walked.  A nighttime walk in Seoul is really the way to go, especially with friends.  There is just something about a walk at night.  In any case, we go to this bbq place that always has an ahjusshi in front advertising with his loud voice during the day.  We called it the “ahjusshi place.”  They are really nice and have good service, and one of the employees can speak English from his time in the army.  Food there is decently priced and really good!  My table had ordered dishes instead of meat to bbq, while the other table had bbq.

kimchi stew~ came with a bucket of seaweed for the rice!

After sitting, talking, and drinking for another hour (it was by now, about 4am) we leave.  We got a free bottle of cola, though, so yay!

It was a big day… July 30!  Happy Birthday, Neville Longbottom!

Also, it was Code S finals for Starcraft!

And HC’s farewell dinner~ last day we will see him in Seoul!

Held at my school, it was such a coincidence, like I was meant to go watch it!  Team IM were giving away some free shirts and hats from their sponser Googim.  It is a clothing brand and personally, I like their clothes.  I wish I got one… I was just so stunned that I stared at them. OTL  Unfortunately, the player that I watch closely, Mvp, was not there because he was at MLG Anaheim.

It was just a big event.  In the morning, I just ate.  I was mostly excited for the game!  It started at 4pm, but because I reserved seats I came really early.  I looked all over for my friends but didn’t find them, but I recognized other foreign students from Yonsei so I lined up with them.  It would appear we were allowed ahead of the Korean fans… and we entered our own separate raffle.

We were seated right at the front, such good seats!  It would have been nice to be closer to the middle but I have no complaints.  These other people I knew, got to be seated right behind team IM, who came to watch!! I was pretty jealous.

Took a picture with some members… ah, one of the members (not in this photo but he looks a little like Mvp, his ID is IM Sihyun) gave me a Powerade bottle when I asked him for a sign.  At first I thought he asked me to hold it for him while he signed since he was holding 2, but when I returned it to him he said you can have it, so I was really happy.  It made me like IM even more.  I think the girl sitting next to him was his girlfriend, but I could be wrong.  She giggled a little when she saw my reaction.

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The set-up was so amazing, like a concert.  There were strobe lights, camera dollies, camera grips, pyrotechnics, fog… the works!

they come out after the booths turn around… such a cool entrance!

Korean girl group 5 Dolls came to perform.  They’re the female members of the group Co-ed School.  I think they are not bad, but they are not too active, not as active as the really popular groups.  I took video and photos, should I post them up?

they come out!

ah… there is a member who injured her ankle (?) so she could not dance.  that’s really too bad… i hope she has recovered since then.  Performed “Like This Like That” first.

they are introducing themselves~

performing Lip Stain (?)

After… time for the finals to start!!

Then they had various interviews in between.  Nestea and LosirA’s moms came, and I think some other members of their family.  I wasn’t sure who was whose relative, though.  There was this fellow who really wanted to say hi to his mom.  The commentators even said “I think he got the point across he wanted to say hi to his mom.”

I don’t really want to give away too much, but we all know how it ended.  

taking out the champagne to spray~ on nestea~ hehe

got him! 

Raffle time!! I won a bottle cap figure of a Marine, which is perfect because I play Terran.

I can’t get over the fact that I took a picture with LosirA, and it got deleted by mistake!!  At least I got his sign, though.

I was really, really bored.  Everyone had something to do like fieldtrips or they had plans made and so, I was very bored with nothing to do.

Eventually, after looking through my phone, I arranged something with a friend, TT (the second T meaning Texas because she’s from Texas), and I will call her TT because I don’t know her last name (sadly).  Now, TT is a huge, huge, huge fan of kpop and Korean celebrities… but not necessarily in the conventional way that most other people like kpop.  She digs the “girly” guys and she invests most of her time buying cosmetics they endorse or trying to see them in person.  

TT wanted to spend our day going to the school where 넌 내게 반했어 was being filmed.  I looked up how long it would take to get there and there was no way I was traveling 1.5 hours to go to a filming site not knowing if they would be there for sure.  Then she wanted to go to an entertainment company’s building to wait outside for celebrities to come and go.  Also not happening, because I am not going to go out of my way to meet celebrities, which takes the serendipity out of it, and also may trouble the stars themselves.  I’m sure they have their hands full with their schedules and you know, celebrities are people too so just gotta respect.

In the end we decided on shopping in Idae (again) and eating, then going back to the dorms so she could nap before going out to a club in Gangnam.  We just picked a random restaurant in Idae area, and it was probably the second-shadiest place I’ve eated at.  It wasn’t bad, but service was slower than every other place I’ve been to, and they don’t clean quickly.  This couple next to us even asked an employee to clear the dishes on their table (they were left by the previous customer).

Food was not bad, though,  I had Oden Udon (fish cake udon) and my friend had Nengmyeon.

Then we spent pretty much the whole day shopping around Idae…and ended up at a cafe hidden between 2 stores.  Their waffles are pretty good!  You get a choice of 2 ice cream flavours.

After we ate here, took photobooth pictures and then we went back to the dorms.

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I only rested in my room for a while and then my friend from home MS invited me to go eat with him and 2 other girls.  I was hungry… so I went.  

We ate at a tonkatsu place near this big church near school.  

I had a kimchi udon (I really like soup…) and the rest had some variation of tonkatsu!

soup that came for everyone~

kimchi roll tonkatsu

Yum~ we went home after.  It was a good meal!  It is always good to have a full stomach.

Interestingly enough, I did not stop there.  After resting in my room and thinking about going to bed, my friend AK (who was at the University of California EAP Banquet that Friday night) texted me and asked if I wanted to go to noraebang.  It was about 11pm.

I kind of didn’t want to but it was spontaneous and fun, and I knew JM and AM have never been to noraebang yet, so they were the first people I called up to go.  It was pretty great, we went around midnight and came back at 2am.  The place we went to was nearby and gave us some service, so it was not bad.  I thought I would not like noraebang since I don’t like singing in front of people, but I think because it was in Korea and everyone does it, that I got used to it and kind of like it.  The place was a bit shady, though.

Well… after all that rain, it still rains.  It stops for a while, maybe a few hours, and then starts up again.  Always go out with an umbrella!  That is what I learned.  Even if you don’t have one on you, there will be people on the sidewalks, subways… everywhere, selling umbrellas.  Why? Because rain in Korea is acid rain, so umbrellas are a necessity, and also wear out quickly from the acidity.

Luckily, they are really cheap (and usually really cute).

However, me being me, I went for usefulness over looks, mainly because I was running low on cash again.  My poor purple umbrella that I bought ages ago was worn out, and quite frankly, on the verge of snapping.  I noticed a lot of 아저씨 and 할아버지 use this big black umbrella, and since I carry a backpack most of the time, I thought it would be better to get this kind.

Before I got to that part, though, I had class.  I ate various things during break:

green tea ice bar!

this delicious sandwich that had ham and imitation crab meat… nomnom.

cream filled bread. i. love. bread.

After class…

I went out on this day…first to Kyobo (to go to Hottracks to buy 2NE1’s new CD & poster for my sister & cousin which led me to buy a poster holder/case as well since I had a feeling it’d rain), then to eat!

For dinner, it was Pizza Hut.  I was kind of surprised to see one, but there are a lot of western franchises here so I should have expected it.  Pizza Hut in Korea… is amazing.  For starters, the menu is totally different, the interior is really nice, and they have a salad bar.  Do we have locations like that in North America?   Maybe, but I have never seen or heard of one so I am guessing it is probably unlikely.

Lee SeungGi!

We decided to order a Spicy Chicken pizza with Sweet Potato crust, which is those crusts you can pull off, and it’s filled with sweet potato (yam) and cheese!  So good.  The pizza was about 24000W, expensive for pizza, but if you think about it, we were in Korea where western food is more of a luxury thing.  It was a really good pizza though!

After eating… it started to really pour.  Fortunately for us, we were near Ewha Women’s U.  Unfortunately, that was not our school.

We had to walk through Ewha to get to the crosswalk to go back home.

To stress how rainy it was… I always wear sneakers regardless of how hot it is.  That day, I wore flip-flops because I was tired of having wet socks and drying my sneakers.  

The water quickly became a problem and as you walked, you would splash yourself a little.  Then when we get to the part of Ewha with the stairs, we opted for the hill that runs along with the stairs since the stairs would be a little dangerous wet.  Plus it was really, really dark.  The water was running down the hill over our feet.  It was not just little splashes and sprinkles from the water brushing past my flip flop.  It was running like a stream over my feet.  At this point, I was a little nervous.  My 2 friends and I continue walking while hugging our umbrellas.

Eventually we took shelter at the doorway of Ewha’s Students’ Union building.

can you see the huge rain?

the water was shooting out!!

We eventually get to the crosswalk.  The roads were pretty flooded, up past sidewalk level.  It was to the point that all the people waiting to cross the street were hugging the wall because the cars driving by would splash.

As I stepped off the crosswalk, the strong water current rips off one of my flip flops.  In front of a bus.  Full of people.  It was swimming away quite quickly so I just left it and crossed the street with one flip flop on.  It was a depressing, yet amusing, walk back to the dorm.  Thankfully I didn’t step in anything dangerous.

Went through all that… for this!!

Order in?  Order take-out?  Both sound kind of weird to me, but you get the point.

Yeah it rained really bad all day… and so after class I did not step foot outside and we all just ordered Chinese food, and had a food eating party in the kitchen in the 3rd basement.

Props to those delivery guy who still deliver and work in such conditions.  I feel sorry for you and wish people tipped in Korea.

In the morning, I just took a walk around campus again… and walked by what?  What is this?  GSL Code S was going to be at Yonsei?!  Okay, so I already knew that, but I didn’t know where it was going to be.  I was so excited to see the banner, and some guys, whom were walking near me, were also excited and started to discuss it (in Korean) as they continued walking.  Then I just went to eat something, which ended up being fish cake soup.

As I’m sure you all know… Seoul was hit by some heavy rainfall which even caused floods and landslides.  I was lucky to be in a part of Seoul/Korea that wasn’t hugely affected.  However, the street were still flooded from ankle height to mid-leg height.

I decided to venture out despite how windy and bad it was, which was my first mistake.  I have no photos of the water on the ground but believe me… I walked 10-15 minutes and my backpack was damp and my clothes were getting there.  In addition… my shoes got so soaked and wet to the point water was pretty much just going in and out of your shoe and you can just feel the water going through it.  Never wear sneakers in flooded streets.

The reason I went out was because I wanted to meet up with TK.  AJ and TK were going to go buy Infinite’s new album so they could enter the raffle to attend the fansigning event.

We went to Express Bus Terminal (I have no idea why) which was far.  We got on the wrong bus but luckily it went by a subway station so we got off there to take the subway.  We were essentially on the other side of the city from where we needed to go.

In any case, we made it there.  The subway station had lots of little shops in it, including some flower shops!  There were so many, it was like a huge garden.

When we went inside, it was really nice!  There was a fountain, several restaurants, and a Shinsegae Department Store connected to it!  I wish TK and I had the chance to get a cake…

Then we went to eat dinner~ at Omuto Tomato, which is an omurice restaurant.  There are several around Seoul.

This was a delicious donut from Dunkin Donuts, I think.

Now that I got over the fact I deleted some pictures by accident… I will continue my posts in a spam-like fashion until I get emotionally handicapped from reliving the best summer vacation I ever had tired of posting text.  In which case I will move onto my art blog, which I have neglected for a few months.  Btw I am back in Canada now, and so after I finish these Korea posts this blog will be put to rest until I go overseas or on some trip again.  Feel free to unfollow~

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After the day of the war memorial, I did not do anything special. I had a paper to write for psychology, which I had procrastinated, as usual, so I only went to dinner with some friends at a restaurant called “Strawberry” (딸기).  I really like eating there since there is a lot of space and it feels really warm (not temperature warm, mind you).

It was my first time having kimchi sundubu jiggae.  I was pleased at how much stuff was in it.

Then we all went back to do our respective assignments.  :|  Sacrifices must be made!