Day 40 - 02 August (Ginseng Chicken)

The shuttle bus. I think Thursday will be the last day that I'm taking this bus. So sad.

Today's weather was fine just that it got super hot in the afternoon. 

There's only Social Psychology and Korean lesson today. So Audrey, Joanne, Yanzhi, Wai San and I went to Dongdaemun after the lesson to have lunch and shop. It wasn't really a shopping trip, more of a lunch trip cause we forgot to alight from the train and went to another stop, so we ended up spending some time navigating to Dongdaemun.

Prior to the trip to ddm, there was Social Psychology test. And though some of the questions were repeated, I think it wasn't all so easy, but not very difficult also. I hope I can maintain above 90. Then I will CHIONG all the way for my Korean language test.

 Took with this Tiger after Social Psych test. KU's symbol is a tiger.

This was the beef bone soup at DongDaeMun. 

 The marinated pork in DongDaeMun.

We were so hungry that we went to eat at the first stall we saw. And ended up the price there was quite ex. But it was nice! So we walked around dongdaemun and then returned back to school for Korean Lesson. Today was the last lesson for Korean Language. Audrey bought a cake for 선생님.

During the break, we decided to give 선생님 a cake. It was quite funny, we all decided to go out of the class together while she was using the computer. We stood outside of the classroom and was getting ready to bring in the cake. At that moment, 선생님 opened the door! HAHA! It was super hilarious! She was so shocked and surprised that her face was blushing! I thought she almost cried! Lol! We gave her cards too. There were 2 cards. Then when she opened and read it, she pointed out a mistake in the Korean word that one of my class mate wrote. lol. Then we took quite a lot of photos with her, and then she suddenly realised that too much of the lesson time was taken to do all these and settled us down before giving us a listening practice.

My 귀예워요  선생님!!

선생님 feels like a star here. Haha.

우리반

저는 하고 선생님!!

I will miss my 선생님! She's so cute and funny. She is very encouraging! Every time we were told to read, she will comment "good", I think she is trying to get us all to speak up more.

After lessons, I met up with Paul and Sam, together with yz and Joel, we went to eat the legendary famous 토속촌 사게탕!!! We met up at around 645pm at WooDang Hall before setting out to 경복궁 station. Once you reach the station, look for exit 2 and walk out of the station. Follow the streets, walk all the way down, past Baskin Robins. Look for the Neon sign that reads 토속촌 사게탕. It's not very far from the station, around 100m. The place is super super famous so you must and have to wait to try it. Not sure if there's reservation though.

Look at the queue!!

While waiting.. 

 And waiting..

 Finally we advanced to the entrance. Note the sky colour.

 And we finally get to go in!

 I suppose that's the number of the place.

You have to removed your shoes when you enter the eating place. The place is pretty well decorated. It looks like those traditional homes where people have different rooms for different activities. Here, the rooms were all for eating. And it's quite packed inside. Once we got a seat, they served us the Ginseng Shot and Ginseng Tea. Cool isn't it?

 Ginseng Shot.

Paul ordered 5 Ginseng Black Chicken soup for us.

 TADA!! Ginseng Black Chicken!!

It tastes better than the previous one that I tried.

The soup is awesome!!! The price is also awesome!! Black chicken is expensive! But I think it's worth a try cause you won't be eating it everyday. The ginseng chicken has a very large piece of ginseng stuffed inside it. The ginseng was very tender, I believed that it's been boiled with the soup for very long. Hence the essence of the ginseng resides in the glutinous rice inside the chicken and the soup! There were also chestnut, black sesame, sunflower seeds in it. SUPERB NICE! This time round, we didn't go for ice cream, cause I felt too full and most of us had not much money left.

After dinner, we went back to our dorms. Since Paul is leaving on Thursday morning, and he has plans on Wednesday, we decided to give him the souvenirs we bought from Singapore, the BBQ Pork (Bakkwa from Bee Cheng Hiang). LOL! Also, Singapore Curry by Joel. It's nice having Paul to show us around and do the translation. Thanks Paul!

Paul and I :)

Day 39 - 01 August

Woke up super early to go for a run today because I didn't get to run yesterday and I'm feeling very unhealthy. I went to the gym at 715am, and ran for 20mins. The treadmill stated that I burnt 200 plus calories, which is so little?! But nevermind, I shall do more running when I get back to Singapore!

I think it's because of the run this morning, I felt extremely sleepy throughout the day. I slept during the developmental psychology lecture, didn't have enough concentration for Korean Lesson. Oh my goodness! And I felt super hungry after Social Psychology! I think I spent too much energy trying to stay awake during lesson, and I bought this chocolate bar, which tastes a little like snickers. FAT!

 Snickers-taste-alike-chocolate.

Lunch was as usual, taken after developmental psychology lecture. I think I am eating more and more in Korea. Bad sign. Time to stop eating so much.

I still love the dessert! The hotcake taste alike yellow thing on the top left, it's decorated with hersey's chocolate sauce. YUM!

Dinner was with 용완씨at around Anam area. He brought me to a BBQ place. The pork tastes absolutely delicious!! Super tender!! He ordered a Soju too. It was quite awkward initially as there was a bit of communication problem. HAHA. But it was alright after a while. I don't really know how to eat the pork so I just followed what he did! HAHA! As learned from Social Psychology, this is called Informational Social Influence where you observe what others around you are doing and you think that it is the correct/ appropriate behaviour and follow suit.

Side dishes to go with the pork! 

 BBQ pork in the making!

The soju which he ordered. Tastes like vodka, a little.

Chef 용완!

Ok I have Social Psych test tomorrow! It's all the chapters at a go! Time to study!

Day 38 - 31 July

I thought it was going to be a bright Sunny day? But NO! It rained the moment I stepped out of the dorm. Like really once I reached the lobby it rained! ARGH! I did bring along my umbrella though so it wasn't that bad. I thought of going to Myeong-Dong today to get some stuff but since it was raining the whole day, I decided not to.

McDonald's here is slightly cheaper, just that the orange juice is not from those dispenser you see in Singapore, it's Minute Maid brand orange juice, equally nice! I had hot cakes and it was marvelous! I've been wanting to try some pancakes and I got it today!

Hotcakes ftw!

TA DA!!

As mentioned earlier it rained the whole day, so I stayed in the dorm the whole day. Only went out for meals. So lunch was also nice! Had lunch at the Frontier Cafe again, the "buffet" kind. There's fried rice today! Plus some Zha Jian Mian sauce and friend chicken patty. I had 2 rounds, Kenny had 4 and Yz had 1. It cost only 3000Won! But of cos since we don't understand the menu if we were to eat it everyday, it will be a week of surprises! Plus I will become super fat then.

 Worth-it lunch!

Dinner was at some Japanese restaurant which, in my opinion, serves the worst sushi ever! The rice was quite hard and the seafood on it looks sooooo not fresh and the colour isn't bright at all! But the udon tastes not bad. So dinner was the worst out of the 3 meals today. HAHA. Today's so boring that I actually ranked the meals. omg. Oh. I went to gym before dinner and the treadmills were all taken and the people on it ran super long. So I got sian of it and went back to my dorm after cycling for a while at the gym. Will try to go gym tml morning to run. Feel very unhealthy. 

 This is the dinner. No good no good.

Day 37 - 30 July (Insa-Dong)

Finally we went to Insa-Dong, one of the tourist place.

Prior to Insa-Dong, Kenny brought us to a famous Stew place near Insa-Dong. It's located near the Anguk Subway Station, Exit 1, walk towards Starbucks, follow through some atas cafe, walk past a school, then to a road with trees by the sideS. And you will see a sign like this:

Follow it and queue up!

Fortunately we went there early, so we escaped the long queue! Phew. Look at the queue in the later pictures. We reached there at around 1145am and after a while, the queue came! Anyway, we order Budae jijae ttubokki, Cheese ttubokki and Beef ttubokki with 1 ramen, 1 Q noodles, 1 plate of mandoo and 1 plate of fried seaweed something. It's all cooked together with the special ttubokki sauce and this is how it looks like!

 Are you salivating? I love this! The sauce is BEST!! Would prefer the darker cheese but this is nice too!

YUM! 

 Apron provided to prevent staining of clothes!

 YUM YUM!! 

 This is the long queue which I mentioned.

After lunch, we went to Insa-Dong, it's just across the street. My main aim was to eat the superb nice Green Tea Ice Cream bing su! And we arrived at the place, O'sulloc Tea House.

 This is the mega nice roasted green tea!! Chao Best de!! I tried it and omg it tastes so qing shuang!! How I wish I can buy like 1 kg of it back! I bought a smaller packet of it though, plus green tea latte and some brain empowering water mix for minghao and myself. LOL!

 This is the tea house. We decided to re visit it after exploring Insa-Dong as we were still full from the jigae.

Walked around Insa-Dong and found this. I didn't buy it cos I'm saving my stomach for the bing su! I bought some snacks for my relatives and tutees, like finally.

 Shit shaped manjoo.

 Insa-Dong

 Roof top.

 Ugly dolls.

After exploring Insa-Dong, we went back to the tea house. It was a long walk back and the weather was hot today. But I'm glad it didn't rain! Nice weather! WHEE!

 Very nice. The green tea is from Jeju, I heard.

We were all so tired and sweaty from the walking, so no more shopping for us as we head back to our dear dorms. Went to gym for a while to cut some calories and blood sugar. Will be going for a run tomorrow. After gym, we went to have dinner, and I finally had bibimbap! It's not bad just that the portion is too small, and there were not much beef also.

 The eatery.

 This is to be shared among 3 people.

 Bibimbap!

Mix it and you can start enjoying!

Went back to dorm, still feeling a little not full, I grabbed this out from the fridge. Black Soy Bean Milk. Not bad quite nice.

Time to study!

Day 36 - 29 July

Today's weather is super good! There isn't rain throughout the whole day!!

We went Myeong-Dong today. Met yanzhi and joel at 11am at the kitchen before setting off. We went to Lotte Mart at Euljiro 1-ga. Initially we thought the Hypermart would sell some powdered form of ginseng chicken, but apparently it doesn't. They sell the whole chicken with the soup in it. Should I get that back home? Feel like eating that though. I think I should get 2 of that. LOL.

Ok. After a futile trip to Lotte Mart, we walked to Myeong-Dong to have our lunch. We finally had some Chinese food! And it tastes superbly nice! It's been a long time since I ate Chinese cuisine! But the price is a bit steep.

 Decoration of the restaurant.

 Getting ready to eat!

First comes the side dishes..

The appetizer. 凉面.

小笼包. Steamed pork dumplings! Dip it in the vinegar and it tastes fantastic!

Check this out! Mayonnaise shrimp!!! OMG!! NICE!! 

and... Garlic Chicken!!!! BEST!!!

Are you salivating already!?

Lastly, the noodles.

A happy complete meal!! YUM!!

After the wonderful meal, my level of happiness shot up! We then went to shop around. We went a lot of places that I totally have no idea where we went. Myeong-Dong is quite big, so it's no easy to locate a particular shop because there are millions of Faceshop, Etude House, Tony Moly, Skinfood around! I bought a few shirts and pants from SPAO. The quality is quite good. It looks like Korea's uniqlo.

As we shop, we saw Bee Cheng Hiang!

The 1,500won super worth it ice cream in Myeong-Dong. I had the green tea with vanilla yogurt flavor. I find it not bad for the money paid. Nice. Just that it melts quickly under the hot weather! I'm going to eat it again!

Then we went to meet Kenny at SPAO at around 630pm. It feels very uncomfortable when I have a phone but cannot call the other person. And even if there's wifi, I can't be sure that the other person has wifi. So it's like living in an era with no cell-phone. Went to the top of SPAO and saw the SM artistes products.

Super Junior

SNSD

SNSD

TVXQ

Super Junior

Kenny, Joel, Yz and I then went to shop around for masks. Kenny is seriously a big spender. He spent a lot on masks already. I pale in comparison. HAHA! But that's a good thing!! Luggage do not have so much space. I think I need to buy more apparels. At 730pm, Kenny left and we were supposed to meet Audrey and Co. but then we were too late for the meet up. Hence, we went to dinner on our own. Found this mega big pork katsu place.

This cheese pork cutlet is bigger than my face! Though it's quite thin, you will feel super filled after eating it (well, at least for me). Jun and Kenny probably wouldn't feel that. LOL!

This is the normal pork cutlet.

After a long day outside, I broke my record of going out from 11am till 11pm and walking around the whole day, only sitting down to rest during meal times. BEST! I'm so tired. And I need to revise for social psych soon. Maybe tomorrow evening after Insa-Dong-ing.

Time passes super quickly for me. Next week would be the last week of Summer. I've not visited every part of Seoul yet though. It's a bit ambitious to do that with so many lessons and work. Oh and I have not take much photos with people. HAHA. Almost all of my photos are food and scenery. I need to at least visit some  tourists visiting areas. And I hope to come Korea with my family and Rebel! I wish to master/ at least understand and be able to speak Korean before the next trip to Korea.