Day 07 - 30 June 2011 (Hangout with Singaporeans)

I woke up super early today, without the help of the alarm clock. Don't know why. And I mistook the time on my iphone to be Singapore time, and thought that I'm about to be late. Then I realised that it's Korea time. So I had an hour to do some readings.

It was raining in the morning as usual, but afternoon was cool and fine. Lessons went on pretty well, just that Developmental Psych is beginning to be boring cause the lectures are a bit rushed and I feel sleepy after having lunch. Oh! I ordered one of my fav dishes, spicy rice cakes with ramen! Nice!

 I ordered it myself this time!

Ok. My favourite lesson of the semester - Korean Language. The teacher went super fast today and I'm was in a state of shock after lesson. All the alphabets have been taught, and I hope I am able to memorise them! It feels cool to be able to read and understand another language. Though I know I still have a long way to go.

After the whole day of lessons, it's time for dinner. Dinner today was with a group of Singaporeans, and I do not know most of them except weiqi and yanzhi. Joel went Crusade Fellowship with Daniel. So yz and I went to eat with them. And coincidentally, among the group, there were classmates of the Korean Lang class. But along the way, it was massive messy! Imagine around 18 people walking on the streets, not knowing what to eat and staring through the glass doors of the various cafes and restaurants! In the end, we came past this Korean BBQ restaurant and decided to have that.

Thankfully and fortunately there is this waitress who knows how to speak Mandarin. If not I would be startled by the Korean words.

The menu all in Korean. 

So the shop is specifically opened for BBQ. Yz and I sat with 2 other classmates in the Korean Language. One funny thing was that when we discovered that there was actually a compartment within the seat, we opened the lid and placed our bags inside, and almost the whole restaurant customers followed suit.

Ok the eggs are free flow. Cool isn't it.

The 五花肉 and lettuce.

Ta da! Eggs were cooked and ready to BBQ the pork!

This meal ended up quite reasonably priced. 5000W per person. oh, the meat were not free flow.

Back to the dorm, I saw these...

Walnut cookies from my room mate, who has been eating those for the past couple of days. Wanting to finish it all up, he decided to put some on my desk before he left to meet his friends.

I'm going LotteWorld tomorrow! Hope the weather's fine!!!

Day 06 - 29 June 2011

Ok. Nothing much happened today. Just that it rained super heavily when I was on my way to school. Seems like it's going to rain madly for the next few weeks.

Lessons were fun. Korean Language was fun, but there's way too many things to remember in a day? And there's dictation tml?! Sigh. Shall start to mug soon. Bought my Korean Text and workbook, 28k and 18k respectively.

Just some random shots of the coins in Korea.

Coins in Korea. I think that should be all? 

My budget lunch in school cafe (below Student Union Building) with Kenny and WeiQi

 Dinner at some chinese restaurant with usual ppl plus Paul this time.

My Zha Jiang Mian (there's like no minced pork in it?!)

Oh! I'll be meeting Winny on Saturday at Anguk Subway station. I don't know where will she bring us to, but think should be somewhere fun. Friday will be Lotte World Day Trip, free cos it's included in the school fees. 

Can't wait for weekends to come! I'm going to read my psychology now.

Day 05 - 28 June: First day of class!

Ok. I lost my T-card! There goes my 30,000 Won ( ~SGD 35). Shit! Waste of money! I shall try digging it out again!

Anyway, the first lessons were always fun and relaxing. Both my profs for Social and Dev Psych are wonderful! They simply capture my attention! Social psych is taught by Prof Shige Oishi and Developmental Psych is by Prof Eric Youngstrom. Both are humorous in their own ways.

Had lunch in school. Pretty cheap. 2000Won (~SGD 2.30)

Ok I can finally get some photos of the outside of my dorm. Because, it finally stopped raining!! Its a Sunny day today! Yippee. It's warm but not as bad as Singapore!

Main Entrance. 

School ended pretty early today cos there was a placement test, where we have a conversation with the profs. The prof asked me, " Do you know how to write ur name in Korean?" 

"I don't know."

"Ok, beginner class."

Haha. Short and sweet!

Then we took a shuttle bus back and slacked for a while before heading out to Anam area for Mr. Pizza cos i was craving for pizza. Its really big. It cost 17,500Won though. But for the size, it's worth it.

Dinner at Mr. Pizza!

Then it drizzled on our way back after buying breakfast for tml. Bread from Paris Baguette. Should be nice I hope. Ok. Time to carry out a carpet search for my T-card!! Please let me find it!!

Day 04 - 27 June: KU Orientation

Highlight of the day - Korea University ISC Orientation 2011

Orientation starts at 1030am. So we walked a tremendous amount of road to reach Inchon Memorial Hall. Oh. Forgot to add that it was drizzling and we were not quite familiar with the road yet! Ok after about 15-20mins, we reached the place. The first part of the orientation covers things like scholarships, student id card, add/drop courses. It's quite boring but it's important. The booklet has most of the information though. But luckily, it ended pretty soon and we have like 2.5h for lunch.

We wandered off to somewhere near Anam station, but the other part of it which we did not explore. And being super indecisive, we do not know what to eat till we stood outside a eating place and Jun told us that they sell stews. On looking the menu, I was quite shocked, cos it's not cheap, and if we were to continue eating at this rate, we will go bankrupt in no time! Ok, so we decided on the seafood stew for our lunch.

 Seafood stew (Crabs, prawns, vegs, octopus, mushrooms...)

Then for the remaining 1.5h after we finished our lunch, we walked around Korea University Campus on our own. The campus is mega huge! I think it's 1.5times NUS or bigger! And there's a lot of green spaces there!

Below are just some photos of the campus!

 Main gate of KU.

 Main Hall.

 Main hall also.

 Group photo (its super windy!)

If I remember correctly, this should be LG-Posco building. 

Korea University Main Library (Central Library) 

Law College building

Woodang Hall (where lessons are held) 

Woodang Hall ( This would be the place most frequent by us)

Part 2 of the orientation was cheer leading by KU. We have to like all stand up and participate with them, but for me I don't know how to read the korean characters so I don't know how to sing the songs they taught. Plus the moves that they teach, hmm.. if everyone does it, I don't mind. HAHA. But overall they are super active!! And it was great.

Ok so after the orientation campus tour, there is this after party which I didn't attend cos we agreed to meet at Woodang after the Campus Tour. Oh. I met a new friend Paul, an American Korean too. But he's a bit quiet and I'm not those very sociable kind of person. And there are a  few hong kong citizens in my campus tour group. Besides these, KU has almost everything, there's mobile phone shop, Popeyes, Cafes etc. And there's these 2 buildings sponsored by LG and Samsung respectively, and they look posh. The reading rooms, some of them, require you to book I think?

Yea, so after the end of the tour, we wanted to settle some of the stuffs like get the textbooks and materials but the textbooks were not ready I think and we have to photocopy it when it's ready. But we purchased the Social Psych course materials. Wanted to get a copycard, but we shall see how it goes.

Then we went to the school's canteen and I ordered ramen with spicy rice cakes! YUMMY!

rabokki (I think that's how it's spelt)

Back at C-J International House, there's orientation for it as well. But I think only a few gathered there. Then we saw Kenny, a NUS Life Science major as well, and we begin talking and got to know a few other foreigners from ShenZhen, Brunei, Japan, Hong Kong. And that's the end of the day. I think it's very heartwarming to meet fellow Singaporeans cos it makes it feel like I'm not exactly very foreign in Korea.

Oh. Placement test for Korean Language is tomorrow.

Hmm. A bad news. My grandpa passed away on 25 June, and I only knew about it today cos there's no wifi for me to check my what's app. Sigh. Ah ye, rest in peace.

Day 03 - 26th June

Highlight of the day - "JUMP!", a musical comedy drama.

It rained first thing in the morning. Seriously.
Today's the first time that we are going out with my room mate, Jun. Over breakfast, we discussed where should we go. Due to the foreseeable rain, we decided to go watch a performance - JUMP!. We then realized that a credit card is needed to book the tickets over the website. In order to make sure that we get the tickets, we went to buy them during lunch time.

Lunch was around Jonggak Subway (131) area and we bought the tickets at the same time. 

We have to go to Cinecore building to purchase the tickets, but because none of us are familiar with the place, we ended up lost for a while. But luckily Korea Tourism Board sign was high up on the building, we head towards it and Jun helped to ask for directions. OH! We stumbled alot of idols.. (see below. Lol)

 Handprints of some Korea Stars.

 Super Junior

SNSD

Minho (Jiamin see your minho, can't find KHJ)

Ok, so after spending alot of time taking these photos (of cos there are others), we went back out to the streets, and it stopped raining!! And finally, we found Cinecore building, and with Jun's help we managed to get the tickets! 50,000W for middle section, 40,000W for seats at the sides.

The streets of Jonggak. 

Ticket to JUMP! 

Then, we went to the streets opposite to have lunch! Finally. I was so hungry then. We decided to have hotpot/ steamboat. It turns out to be average. Not really fantastic. And it's almost similar to those in Singapore.

Jun and Yanzhi 

Joel and I 

Lunch at "About Hotpot" 

As JUMP! starts at 6pm, we had 2hours plus to idle. So, Yongsan station was the next destination cos it was the nearest place with shopping malls - I'Park. At I'Park, there are millions of electronics! There's a building for just electronics, another for apparels. OMG. It's seriously huge! All shoppings malls in Korea are like magnificently large!! My legs were crying then. We went around the malls, there's supermarket and we bought laundry washing detergent, went to see music store etc..

It was around 515pm when we decided to return to Jonggak. Then we happily hopped onto a subway and realised that we made a mistake! The subway was going to another line! Oh gosh! So dear all please check the last destination of the subway before boarding the subway. But fortunately the line was connected to Line 1, so we transferred back and rushed all the way to Cinecore building to catch the show. It was really at the last minute when we entered the theatre. JUMP! is highly highly recommended!

JUMP! at Cinecore. Very nice. Highly recommended! 

A great show it was!! My tummy grumbled for a while and we walked around to search for budget dinner cos I think I overspent quite a bit. So there's a need to cut down a bit. Found this restaurant - Sinpomandoo. Quite nice an atmosphere for rainy nights.

Sinpomandoo

Sinpomandoo Menu

 Dinner at Sinpo Mandoo (Mine was pork dumpling soup w noodles)

Our day hasn't end. We went to daiso which is near Janggak Subway (Exit 4) to do some grocery shopping. Bought a floor towel to place it outside the toilet, hangers and body lotion. My skin at the nails area are peeling. Next time we should just go daiso and do necessities shopping, its quite cheap.

Ok then it started to drizzle again! Back to Anam station, and here we go again, climbing our favourite steepest slope to Korea University, C-J International House. At this rate, I think my thighs will get super toned, in addition, there are numerous stairs that are always present in every subway station, but not all stations have escalators everywhere. 

Transferring around subway is very tiring, you have to walk walk and walk, climb climb and climb! Nevermind, that's a pretty efficient way to burn the calories off! Ok time to get sleep.

There's orientation tml and placement test tml. Hope to have an enjoyable orientation.

I'm starting to miss home though. Like everything is taken care of, just the weather is abit of a turn off. lol.

Day 02 - 25 June 2011

Waiting for Yanzhi and Joel at Gate D.

Breakfast at Coffee Bean. English Muffin Sandwich.

They arrived and this is the bus which we are taking to Korea University. Stopping at Shinseol-Dong station.

 Airport Limousine to KU

The ticket which cost 10,000 KRW

Ok. After alighting from the bus, we were like 4km away from the University. And being super unfamiliar with Korea, we still decided to walk to KU. And after a long and tedious walk with the pushing of the luggage and  the asking of many passer-bys, we finally found our way. PHEW! Next time people who are going to KU and are taking this airport limousine, please just take a taxi, it won't cost much I bet. And please be reminded that KU has VERY steep slopes!

After the tiring slope climbing, we checked in and this is my hostel!!

 Room 403 bed 2

 The CJ-International House double room.

Took the wrong bed. Oops.

Ok. I did some unpacking and stuff. At around 240pm (korea time, SG 140pm), we head out of KU to explore. This is then we realised that we will have to climb this slope very often! For lunch, we decided to have Rice Story. Its just around the corner of Anam Station. Price wise, I feel that till now everything seems about similar to Singapore. So there isn't much difference just that we can't speak Korean.

 Kimchi fried rice.

 Look at how haggard am I.

Lunch was over and we head out to buy some necessities. We went to Apujeong, which I think was a big bad mistake by me. The supermarket is really awesome but the price there is similar to Cold Storage. So that's not what we wanted. However, we did buy cornflakes for breakfast!

 Their seasoning and sauces.

After some walk around the supermarket, I went to search for my pillow case because the dormitory's pillow has no pillow case and the pillow is not very clean. And since it's a very high class shopping mall, the cheapest pillow case I found was 12,000KRW! Sigh.

But nevermind, it's better than sleeping on something not that clean. Next we went to Dongdaemun. A place known for its shopping malls. Apparently some of the malls are under renovation, plus the weather is not very conducive - raining quite heavily. So I don't actually have the mood to shop around. Just idling here and there. But there are places where there are many many male clothes. But in my opinion, I don't find them extremely cheap. Just a little little bit cheaper than SG.

 Dongdaemun and me. HAHA.

Ok we actually spent 4hours walking around. And on top of that I have not enough sleep. My eyes were damn dry cos the cold wind just kept blowing into my eyes. So after the tedious tedious walk, we went back to Anam. Wanting to search for a place to have dinner, but then it came to us that we do not know the name of the food! And we went into one steamboat restaurant but don't know what the waiter was talking about, and left. Then we went to another restaurant and there was this lady who knew korean and english. So I asked for her help in helping us translate the food that was on the menu. And here we go, out dinner.

 Dumpling ramen, cheese ramen and spicy rice cakes!

Seems like Korean food is very spicy! Luckily it was very cold outside so it doesn't really hurt to eat some spicy stuff to make youself warm. Ok time is really running out. And I need to sleep badly. Tomorrow will have to wake up and get ready by 930am. Good night people. Annyeonghi jumuseyo!