Week 2 and 3 of SCHOOL~

It has been a lot of weeks since I updated. Haha. School has been quite busy I would say, there's already homework! And I have tests in two weeks time.

So let's see, where have I gone and what have I been doing?

27 September 2012
Since I only have class in the afternoon, Xinrong and I decided to do our hair. She wanted to have it cut and I wanted to have it dyed. Found a salon near our school. At first I was quite worried how the service and the quality of the outcome would be, but I guess it is not bad! What is best is it is really worth the money. I had my hair dyed plus treatment for 1340NTD (~SGD 50+)

The colour was much brighter when I first had it dyed. But still nice now! Although at the moment is laksek until cannot.

Then at night, Hyunmin brought the three of us to 東門市場. Which is actually the city area. There is a mini shopping street there, but I was too out of the shopping state to buy anything. For our dinner, I had 魷魚羹米粉 while Xinrong and Shirlynn had 炒米粉. Conclusion: 新竹米粉 is damn nice.

30 September 2012
Typhoon passed, so we decided to go Taipei once again! This time, we went to Taipei 101 building! Although I went before last time, always can go again! Haha. Ate at the food court downstairs. The food is not bad! But kind of expensive. (like duh~)

After that, we went to 師大夜市. The clothes there are really fashionable, and I bought my jackets there, since I needed them for the cold season. Recommended for youngsters I would say.

Oh, forgot to mention. That day was Mid-Autumn Festival. At first we thought we would not be able to see the moon because of the typhoon, but we saw it! It was so round and big and bright :D

3rd October 2012
It's october! Yes time has passed so fast. Anyway, as a dancer, how could I bear not dancing for so many months! So on this day, I mean, night, I went in search of my dance studios in Hsinchu. There are 2 so far, that I knew of. MIX dance studio and MerryMonarc.
Decided to try MerryMonarc's class, and realised that in Taiwan they kind of focus more on techniques. For a 1.5 hour class, 30 to 45 minutes will be spent on warming up and stretching. It's super thorough. And the remaining will be teaching the choreography, but the length of the choreography is not very long. I suppose I will be able to train my basics and techniques here....

Korea Day 14 Coex Mall, Times Square 30/8/2012

The day when typhoon tembin reached Korea.

Since it kept raining, I decided to explore the shopping malls instead. So first, I went to Coex Mall. It is this huge mall that I keep getting lost in. Plus it links to another shopping centre too! There is a very huge bookstore inside for book lovers.

There is supposedly an aquarium in the mall, but I can't seem to find it. An entry fee is needed, though.

The next place I went was Times Square at Youngdeungpo. Once out of the station, you can see Lotte Department Store. To get to Times Square, you need to walk through an underground shopping street. It is really full of shops, and there are a lot people. Like, people are really shopping there. I guess you can get some good buys, but I wasn't really planning on buying anything that day.

Times Square had shops of really expensive brands. I suppose it is one of the higher class shopping malls. There is a Kyobo bookstore there, and the mall is linked to shinsegae department store. Overall not much, it just gives me the feel of Ngee Ann City.

Korea Day 10 26/8/2012

Met Heasoo today! And decided to go shopping in Ewha area. So as we were deciding a place to eat, Regina suddenly saw...

Hence, might as well, we had our lunch here. And we don't need to go and find it in Gangnam anymore haha. Well, the food was not bad. I love the pizza, but a bit pricey though.

after lunch, we went into Ewha Women's University to look around. It is really really pretty!!

So beautiful. How I wish I could study in a campus like this. The surroundings make people happy already. Anyway, after that, it is shopping time! Ewha shopping district has many shops that sell 10000 KRW bags (roughly around SGD11) and they are really nice! I bought quite a few. And of course I bought shoes too! Their shoes are made in korea and really good quality.

So after much shopping, it's time for a break. Heasoo brought us to this famous 밭빙수 (patbingsoo) shop. We even have to queue for a seat inside! Patbingsoo is also known as red bean shaved ice. A little like ice kacang? but different. Their shaved ice is really very fine..

 There were three of us, so we decided to share three different flavours - milk, green tea and fruit.

The shaved ice and the red bean is given separately. How you eat it is to scoop a spoonful of red bean, put it on the shaved ice, then scoop the shaved ice together with the red bean and eat it. Don't worry if you finish your red bean before the shaved ice. They will refill the red bean for you free of charge. No stirring is needed as the shaved ice melts really quickly since it is so fine. All are really nice!!! and refreshing!! :D

After eating, we decided to go to a hair salon to do our hair. Regina and I have heard that hair salons in Korea, their service and products are of good quality, so doing our hair is a must! :D So thankful for Heasoo, as she had to be our translator. haha.

So we were at the salon until night time, after which, we headed back home..

Korea Day 7 Overnight Shopping 23/8/2012

Woke up in the morning to visit another guesthouse that we were supposed to move to for the period of 25th to 27th August. It is quite near from the one we are living in now! Anyway, after visiting, the guesthouse owner of the current guesthouse Lavender Story drove us back. On the way, he stopped by a bubble tea shop and treated us a cup each!

From what I see, the bubble tea trend just kind of started in Korea. I have seen quite a few bubble tea shops, but they are really small. It's hard to find bubble tea here in Korea. Haha, but there is GongCha in Myeongdong! And the queue was so long I decided not to buy. Yup. So this was my first cup of bubble tea in Korea. Surprisingly it tastes quite nice! Not too sweet and not too bland. :D

After that we went back to rest for awhile before heading out again at around 5 or 6pm to Itaewon. Itaewon is like a place that Westerners frequent. Probably because of its history. Itaewon is located in the middle of Yongsan-gu. In the aftermath of the Korean War, American soldiers began to stay in Yongsan Garrison, and probably the influence spreaded till now. Here, you can see alot of imported brands, and restaurants of cuisines from different countries. This place is very multicultural.

Regina and I walked around just to see how the environment is like. There are really alot of westerners. Unlike in Myeongdong, where most of the foreigners are from China or Japan.

When settling our dinner, we decided to get....

KFC!!! Haha. well it is always nice to try fastfood in different countries. I was actually quite surprised they had crispy chicken too! and the crispiness is much more crunchier than the KFC crispy chicken in Singapore. It is less spicy as well. The cheese they use for their cheese fries is that used for nachos if I'm not wrong. The meal is not bad!

So after dinner, it was around 8pm so we decided to start on our overnight shopping trip! And so we headed to Dongdaemun!

Dongdaemun is full of buildings that has apparel shops that does mainly wholesale. Most of the shops do sell their clothes individually as well. This area is usually opened overnight, and closes at about 5am in the morning. Many people recommended this place since it is a place where people buy their clothes in bulk and so it is supposedly cheaper. However, I beg to differ. In most of the buildings I went to, the bags and shoes are rather expensive, the clothes are priced normally. Tried to haggle, but mostly it's not possible. The sellers does not really care about people who come here to buy clothes individually, hence they don't really entertain your bargaining. Even if you bargain, the most you can cut is around 3000KRW?

I bought mainly shorts in this area. Somehow their shorts are considered cheap. I got mine at 10000KRW each. And the design and material is really nice! I bought jeggings as well. But that's about all I got. The other apparels are priced abit too high than I expected. Nevertheless, it is not a bad experience. I guess if you look more closely, you should be able to get some good buys. :)

We were tired by the time it was around 2am, so we decided to cab back to hongdae..

Korea Day 4 MyeongDong 20/8/2012

First day in Seoul, and we decided to do some shopping. Hence, we went to Myeongdong to shop. Myeongdong is a cosmetics haven. In that area, one street only can have 5 or 6 different cosmetic shops. And for each cosmetic shops, there are branches all around myeongdong.

Some of these brands are Etude House, Holika Holika, Nature Republic, Face Shop, etc. Then there is Club Clio, endorsed by Lee Hyori, a relatively new brand Apieu, endorsed by Beast and this very interesting brand Too Cool for School.

Anyway, when we reached myeongdong, the first thing we did was to make glasses. The glasses there had nicer designs, and were cheaper as compared to Singapore. What's good also is that you can collect it in one hour. So while we were making our glasses, I contacted a friend in Korea that I knew through Interpals, called Heasoo. We had been in contact via Kakaotalk even before I came to Korea, and she gladly offered to accompany us around. So Regina and I waited for her in the shop. After which, we walked around to shop.

I was so happy when I saw the Skin79 shop. I love their BBcream. There are also many good reviews online. Have been using it for awhile and my current bottle is finishing so I wanted to get another bottle when I am in Korea. This brand sells in Singapore but at a much more expensive price. :( At the same time, I bought their BBcream O2 cleanser because I heard it was good too. Got it at a good price as well! This is my most satisfying buy of the day. Haha.

I told Heasoo that I wanted to try their Ginseng Chicken Soup Samgyetang and I heard there is one in myeongdong. She wasn't sure of the exact location, so she helped us by asking around, and brought us there to eat. Even Samgyetang alone, there are many times, there's the one for health, there's the one for beauty, and others. The three of us ordered the one good for beauty. Heasoo told me that Koreans eat Samgyetang in the hottest time of summer, something which I kind of find it strange, because it is not a cold dish.

This dish consists of one whole chicken (the small kind) stuffed with glutinous rice and cooked in herbal soup. It is very filling, so for small eaters, sharing is recommended.

After lunch, Heasoo brought us to buy our Seoul City Pass Plus card. It adds on as T-money, which is like an ez-link card. T-money is used for public transport and sometimes can use to pay for items bought in certain convenience stores. Buying this card also gives discount coupons to certain attractions!

 The cards look like this. The design I got was the first one.

After that, she walked us back to myeongdong before leaving for home. We continued to shop then. I would say almost every cosmetic shop we walked into, we bought something. We also went to make another pair of glasses. And bought our Boa Only One Limited Edition Album! I also bought a bag which only costs 10000 KRW.

So for the whole day, we walked Myeongdong in the rain (of course we had our umbrellas) and we were so tired... But we bought so much ^^

For people who love cosmetics, Myeongdong is a must.