Study day

Its the last week to exams.

Im studying for today. With Ga mun (Jia wen).

At Goma - Hongdae, bought a cuppa mochachino.

The atmosphere at goma is fantastic. Its a book cafe.

Jiayou!!!!!!!!!!!!

Cant wait for my exams to finish. And spend more time with my current class who are all so fun.

Seriously I had a lot of class outings with my current class.

The outings we had:

- First lunch gathering
- Yeouido cherry blossom picnic
- Cultural experience lesson + lunch gathering after that
- Ashley lunch gathering
- Costco lunch outing
- Seoul zoo outing (upcoming)
- Hangang (?)

This semester I had the most gatherings with my current class.

Abortion debate - opinions on disagree

We have a few. But my part was on low birth rate and how other people perceive it.

저출산, 남의 시선

일본 신문기사에 의하면 지금 일본정부는 저출산때문에 낙태금지라는 정책을 제안하고 있답니다. 어떤 일본 국회의원에 따르면 일본현재의 상태는 해마다 200,000 명정도가 낙태를 할 것으로 예측하고 있습니다. 그래서 초고령화 사회의 일본은 저출산율을 높이려고 비록 원치 않는 아이라도 낙태해서는 안된다는 것을 국민에게 전달해 준듯싶습니다. 즉, 개인의 문제보다 지금 국가의 문제가 우선이라는 것입니다.

그래서 사회, 경제적으로 출산은 큰 영향을 끼칠 수 있으니까 저는 낙태에대해 반대 합니다.

Im a king for a day. lol

Wow. Thisis my first time uploadig a picture from my phone. Taken from instagram though. ^^ hmm its a little hard navigating around because the image is big and the screen issmall.

Does it look clear?

We went to mullae subway, to a mbc set centre, because of my jap classmate momo, we got to wear the costumes for free. It usually cost 15, 000won to try these clothes and take picture. But that day was free. So i went with current level classmate sasa, and we had so much fun!!

Debate test day

Yesterday I spent the whole night, figuring out how to write my speech for the debate test.

This semester the topic for the second debate was abortion. Agree or disagree?

I was initially on the agree side, but due to a 93 year england female classmate, I volunteered for the disagree side. Sometimes, when I see them arguing their way through, like aww teacher I was sick so I cant go to school that day and my class has already decided my part, so I didnt get participate in the decision making, if its possible I would like to change to the agree team, pleaseeeeee.

The teacher also gave her a look and changed for her reluctantly, but out of a sudden, the agree team has six people and the disagree has only four! It doesnt make sense, I think for easier sake, I volunteered to be transferred to the disagree side. To me, it doesnt make any difference.  Its just a matter of how well you speak and fight for your team. XD

If I have the time I would write my opinion our here. Unfortunately I didnt bring out the piece of note here.

After class today I went back home to take a nap. My god. I napped straight all the way to 8pm. Had a quick bath, ate dinner and wanted to make preparations to the library when selina called.

Selina is back in seoul ~ but apparently she had a lot of problems back in singapore. Awwwww.

She couldnt stay in the current boarding house as there were no rooms, so she was arranged to stay with my ahjumoni's sister boarding house. But unfortunately wifi wasnt available there, so I suggested her to borrow my router and use it first. She was amazed that I know such things lol. Im like. Erm. Nothing to say. Know a little bit before I came here, some basic stuff. But then actually I dont know much. Really. :-:

So now here I am, in the library, came at around 10.20pm and now just starting to settle down. Time to study! Tata ~

My dramatic life in korea. Never did I know such a situation will come to me. A friend once said, fall here, fall there,  its normal.

But now what do I really want? Its a lot of people's question too.

Improvement on blogging

I have just realised blogger have just made it easier for us to blog on the go!

Now I can write my posts, anywhere, on the go.

I am able to upload photos from my phone too, from gallery!!

Android rocks. Awesomeeeeee. ♥

Today. decided. me.

Hello. Writing this post during the break of the class.

A lot has happened during the week. A lot of realization,  a lot of self thoughts, and a lot of advices. A lot of good people around me, fortunately to help me along the way. Thankful.

A lot of things have to be taken slowly. People are all different, and I have realised what I want and need.

I need comfortability. Im a slow person. Im learning.

The guy is not what I want.

But thanks to him, Im moving on. I do not see this as a bad thing. Instead I feel its a good learning lesson.

On ahead to a good life !

Recovery of my korean exchange trip blog posts...

 A small peak of my Jeon ju photos
Thursday January 10th 2013
MY GOODNESS. ITS ALREADY 2:59AM KOREA TIME. WHAT AM I DOING HERE.

Hahaha. Yesss I know its kind of late now. But if I don't jot this post down, I know I will be busy from now. My school will be starting tomorrow <ahem sorry> today. 5th Level, its gonna be a challenge ahead and I know I won't have any spare time to think anything else except school work. Yes its that hectic, at Yonsei Korean Language Institute. But I'M LOOKING FORWARD TO IT~~!!! ^^ Because I'm happy to start school. I missed school. Having the second chance back at school; I cherish it a lot. So dear friends, if you have any idea how I had been through Level 4, my daily routine goes like this:

9am - 1pm : School
1pm - 2pm: Lunch
2pm - 6/7pm: Revision
7pm - 8pm: Go back home, bath and for dinner
8pm - 11pm: Starbucks for continued revision.
11pm - 7.30am: ZZZZZZZ, and there you go, the next day comes arriving.
7.30am - 9am: Prepare for school

I'm so glad I have a kaki friend with me for the previous level. She is really good and guided me a lot. Because I was not familiar with the exam formats and the method to study for language education, I failed 2 segments during my mid semester test, and with her guidance I pia up for an satisfactory pass for those segments I had failed.

Anyways, students who wish to come over to South Korea for language exchange, welcome! Teachers from the language institute are pretty well prepared and know what they want to teach and communicate to the students in general (from any university language institute, that is ;)). The objectives are very clear and there are assignments to achieve and do so I can say you will be very occupied throughout the semester not to worry.

I would say for Yonsei KLI Level 1 - 3 are fun levels, is more of an enjoyment while learning korean. Level 4 onwards, its pretty academic as they gear you up towards university admission goal normally for foreign students who wish to enter their university for a degree course or a MBA.

Anyways, some updates from me~ :) How did I spend my winter vacation for dec'12 till beg jan'13?

At first it was a long holiday vacation. I tried to keep myself occupied. Classmates were all preparing to fly back to their own countries as it was a long holiday break. Zijing was there till mid dec, we did some sightseeing around Seoul. As a foreigner, I have to admit, I felt the loneliness impact. What to do for the day, what am I gonna do for the rest of the vacation? I hadn't felt this when I was back in Singapore, I would be totally fine alone. But here I couldn't stand it. And I needed some 'getting used' to it, the need to overcome and to live with it. Its certainly not easy. The impact was bigger than I had imagined. Definitely not easy to be an overseas student; now I had totally understood the feeling. Never been through, would never feel it was what I had felt. No wonder Liz was totally emo over it and kept crying over that initial period. Because I did the same thing too. During the night, the feeling of loneliness would be even greater and tears would just fall subconsciously. These are all the thoughts when there is just nothing to do. Of course, some students will not miss as well; and some returned home thus won't experience the big break in overseas. This happens to students who are first timers to overseas I realized after chatting with some other overseas students. There was a thought that had slashed through my mind, shall I just immediately buy a ticket back home?

Hahaha obviously I didn't, no $! XD I MISSED HOME, BADLY. MISSED MY FRIENDS TOO.

There was a girl friend, Minnie who came over from Hong Kong, so I accompanied her around for two weeks after Zijing returned back to sg. Pictures will start flowing from here and I shall stop writing because a picture speaks a thousand words and will say how much I had enjoyed, living with the loneliness. ~~ Happy. I'm good. ^^

I went Jeonju with Minnie! Great place. First two pictures were from Gyeongbokgung, and one of them was taken in Lotte World. Rest were from Jeonju. I loved it. Peaceful and slow.

Absolutely loved my jumps!! More to come, after I process it~! Hehehehehehehehehehhehe nice right?? ^^

Jeonju. I will write more of Jeonju when I upload in detail in the next post, will describe more in that post. 

These are just.. teasers? Hahahaha.

Another one! XD

 The village of mural paintings~ So prettyyyy. 

In awe with them, after seeing this, others have not impressed me so far.

THANK YOU so much MINNIE!!! I had such a great time with you! ^^ 

Hope I can meet you up.. REAL soon. Loves.

Life. Absorbing it all here. Now. In South Korea. 

Love, Carrot.

 Well, life's been busy, school's stressed, but I'm immersing myself into the stress and fun simultaneously.
Sat, oct 20th 2012
Well, the above has explained clearly about what I'm doing now.

Time has passed fast; it has been a month since I've been here in Korea. 

School has been stressful. But its a reason for me to study hard. I had felt the big impact when I had been placed into level four. The stress level went up to my head, ringing a bell about how much improvement I needed to brush up. Furthermore, the language which I had studied in my leisure time previously has now become my main cause of concern; it certainly pushes me to work even harder. Time's precious; this kind of chance won't come again, I told myself again and again. And again. I treasure this very much.

The 8 hours of work, I had transitioned myself into studying 8 hours everyday. Liz couldn't stand it, she said I needed a balance of study and play. But what am I supposed to do if I don't study after class? The time is there for me to study. Not for me to play around when my objective is there to become a full time student. I've played enough last time during my poly times. I've wised up. Yet I still feel that time is insufficient. DX

Yonsei is a university full of vibrancy from the way I look at it. A library that provides a very conducive environment for students to hold their discussions and self study as well as for them to do their individual projects fully equipped with power sockets and computers if you don't have one. If given a chance again, I would like to go back to SIM and use their library facilities which, unfortunately I had failed to step inside for more than 30 times during my 2 years course of study. Nahh, but I'm satisfied with what I had achieved. And I move on, without looking back. That was such a good experience.

I've been enjoying life as well, amidst of school and studies. I'm heading to Dae Jeon via Yonsei for an expo event today.

I'M ENJOYING LIFE. :) Living life, without regrets.
One thing I had felt it deeply, THIS is the time to come for me.
Things would have drastically changed if I had came here two years ago.
I would not have been able to handle this study exchange as well as I am doing right now.
At present, my head is functioning twice as clear as the fountain water.
I know what I'm doing. I'm proud of myself.
Well done carrot. You have thought well.
Hope you can continue this attitude well.

 P.s. Sorry for the self praise to myself. I'm writing this for myself, not for anyone else. Sometimes people just have to compliment themselves for doing well. To motivate us to carry on. Study exchange isn't that easy. Especially when you have money budgets to adhere to, and learning to be independent. People who can afford to study abroad aren't easy. I feel. And for such a study exchange like this, a lot of people come here together bearing a lot of different objectives individually, thus its crucial that we come knowing clearly what we want to achieve during this study. If not, it would be easy to stray away.

 Our dinner after our visit to Namsamgol Hanok Village
Friday oct 12th 2012 published
30th Sept 2012, Sunday

Its chuseok!! Luckily some food shops were open for the day. After a day of visiting, and several hours of study-revision, we got our dinner fix. Fried chicken!! XD

This salad is worth it. Same price as compared to sg restaurant caesar salad, but the amount here is much more.
I can't live without vegetables in my life. Meat as well. Both!

Nagisa's satisfied expression. heheheh. XD

 The sundujjigae sold in school
Wednesday oct 10th 2012
28th Sept 2012, Friday

A friend of mine has commented why my blog has so many food photos, I think, when I come back to sg in future, my sides, would have expanded. Hahha. One thing I forgot to correct her though, yes I do take lots of food photos, but I also didn't take photos of all the hills here that we have to climb everytime! My boarding house (hasuks, they call it here, literally meaning homestay) here is situated on a hill, I practically have to go up and down the hill everyday. My school is located on a hill too. I hope to slim down!! Healthily.

The tofu is really soft and delicious. Ah. Something I wanted to mention. Koreans eat a lot of beans.
The oil that they used is also made of soy bean, they have a lot of soy beans products, and the food they eat is also beans-related too. i.e. tofu (either the soft one or the slightly rough texture), soy bean milk, bean sprout. My impression is that I keep eating a lot of beans-related products here.

Mr Pizza after school orientation
Tuesday oct 9th 2012
26th Sept 2012, Wednesday

Got to know which level I was placed in and met Lizzie for dinner. She recommended Mr Pizza which was yummy. Slightly cheaper than Pizza hut if I didn't remember wrongly. And there were more flavours.

It was delicious. No need for the salad bar, seriously here the salad bar is nothing as compared back to sg. Just order the pizza, its scrumptious, cheaper too. Why waste the stomach space for those stuff on the salad bar when this is the lead !!
^^

 Alien card registration at Omokyo, School recce
Thursday oct 4th 2012

20th Sept 2012, Thursday

Back in Seoul on Wednesday, right on thursday I went to register for Alien card. Nearest subway station from Sinchon was either Jongno or Omokyo, I chose Omokyo.

Exit 7 if I'm not wrong.

Then walk on straight till you see an intersection, turn right and you will see the immigration building clearly. Do head there earlier because there will always be a lot of people applying for alien card. The process only takes about 10 mins but the waiting time can get you quite bored, its about 2 hours wait.

Back to Sinchon, had some more spare time around and I thought it would be good to recce my school for a while before I start class next week. Seriously now that I had turned into a full time student, I hadn't managed to transition myself well. I missed work. Say me a workaholic, but I am not used to the do-nothing-all-day-long. Maybe when my school peaks, then I will have some work to do. I better make full use of this free time to sort out my photo backlog.

Its a long walk from the school, a 15 mins walk. Up the hill. The school is very big. Yonsei uni. Food is pretty okay in school at the language institute, costing about 2800 won minimal spend (treat it as 2.80 USD)

Sinchon, is a very happening place, once you get off the station and walk in the streets you can totally feel the vibrancy of the area. 3 universities are all in close vicinity (Yonsei, Ewha woman's, and Sogang), a lot of university students, for sure that's the reason. Enjoying the live band, that is quite frequent here.

Here in Korea, there is bubble tea too, makes me miss KOI Tea back at sg. Tried their green tea flavour, but is not what I like, its the matcha powder flavour, instead of our brewed green tea. I think I better choose their best seller taro flavour next time. And their pearls are not as chewy. The weather is turning cold, peeps~ am enjoying the aircon weather right now, albeit a little chilly when its at night.

Jeju trips blog posts recovery

*2. Gimpo -> Jeju-do 

 Monday Sept 17th 2012 published

Finally settled down yesterday. I arranged my room to the style I wanted and was deeply satisfied with it. I thoroughly cleaned up my room, as I had to switch my study desk position and found a lot of dust. Good gracious! Then I went with Zijing to Daiso which was 3 levels of stores big, and got some of our essentials. Came back and I still have to settle my clothes shelves, and there was still a problem. Supposedly to have two shelving, but then I only had one shelf. I still need ahjumma to settle when I come back I guess. Still a lot to settle when I come back from Jeju, but at least the room was okay to sleep in for the night already.

Then today! Headed with Zijing to Myeong Dong first to exchange monies. The rates were quite reasonable. But its better to exchange with the bank, which bank was it? I couldn't remember. Shinhan perhaps? The rates were pretty okay.

Then we were off to Jeju. Little did we know that the typhoon had hit Jeju. Which meant a lot of activities couldn't be done. And Jeju is well known for outdoor activities. Sharks.

 Literally it means espresso milk red tea. Hmmm so so.

Travelled by the subway and changed to the airport express train.

 We boarded by Jeju Air.

Touched down at 4 plus. I rented a phone and we took the limousine bus number 600 off to Seogwipo town. Note that this limousine number 600, actually will stop by some of the famous spots, like Lotte hotel, the Shilla, and the tourism places like Teddy bear museum and all the others situated around in the vicinity.

Dropped off at the Sunbeach Hotel, and a 5 minutes walk will reach our hostel Jeju Hiking Inn. Had a scrumptious dinner at the host's recommendation and the wind was quite chilly.

Very tasty fish that is quite famous in Jeju. The fish meat was so tender.

 Steamed egg! Niceeee.

This was sesame seed leaf. Has a nice fragrance to it.

I seriously don't really know what to do for this trip due to the lack of time. Hadn't had anything planned at all. The host was kind enough to introduce some places for us to head to, but he said it in such a way so fast that I couldn't really catch all. Even if I could have caught it all, a night's sleep would have made my brain forget it all.

Went to Cheon Ji Yeon water fall, but we didn't manage to go to see the proper one (the picture above was a small one only), because it was too dark, but I guess it should be quite lovely for couples since the lighting was so romantic. Heh.

On the way back, we bought this to try eating. Similar to cuttlefish, its delicious.

Go with what of course? Meishu. Ume Plum alco! Kyaaaa~

Its my first time travelling without a plan and I think I would just go along with the flow, what to do for the day. The typhoon was also something unexpected.

See how it goes!

*3. Korea Tourism Board vicinity in Jeju 

Tuesday, Sept 18th 2012 published

16th Sept 2012, Sunday

The weather wasn't getting any better, in fact it got worse, it was raining for the whole day since morning. Not a choice given though. We just decided to head to museums, the indoor activities to avoid the rain. Took the limousine bus 600 back to the Korea tourism board area, and chocolate factory was our first stop.

Breakky for this morning was.. Kimchi Jjiggae. Note that for it here, they assume if you are taking two servings, then they will serve you with a bigger portion of the side dishes and the main dish.

My Chocolate, Woohoo~ LOL.

Chocolate Land: First Stop. To be honest there is nothing much in the chocolate factory, except the interesting part was to make our own chocolate. In which we melt the chocolate and then pour it into the plastic mould and then when it hardens, its done! Pretty easy actually. I think the Cadbury factory in Australia would be more interesting.

Add captionAfter that we headed to Ripley's believe it or not. Quite okay, since this was their first outlet I had been to. After that we headed to the Korea tourism board office and asked for directions. According to them, Monday would be quite bad to travel around due to the typhoon. And the weather being like this, it was really difficult.

Went to the alive museum, oooh, this was really interesting! I think a lot of tourism companies bring their guests here. Saw quite a lot of photos on this. Hahaha some were really funny.

It was raining very heavily, plus my shoe had wear and tear; it was all wet.
Sigh, days like this how I hoped I had a good pair of walking shoes with me, that would never get wet.

Will only be posting some of the pictures, obviously its crazy to post it all.. there are so many paintings! The rest.. go visit it yourself!! ^^

This is supposed to depict Provence. Is it the same? I LONG TO GO TO PROVENCE. BADLY. In future of course. ;) Skies started to darken. Winds were getting stronger. My umbrella broke due to the sudden gusts of wind. My original umbrella was lost in the bus. I took it out because I thought it was raining outside and we would need to use it, but then in the end I left it in the bus when we reached and moved our bags outside.

Went to the Emart to get our dinner fixed and then bought some food to prepare for tomorrow's hibernation... Night time the winds were so gusty. Could totally feel the typhoon. 

What's going to be like tomorrow??

 Hallasan, Jeju

Tuesday, Oct 2nd, 2012

18th Sept 2012, Tuesday

The typhoon was gone, in fact monday afternoon it was already gone. So our plans continued, either we go hallasan today, or we shall walk one of the olle trails. Final decision was to hike Hallasan.

 

Took a bus 516 from Seogwipo bus terminal to Seongpanak, which was the starting point to hike to the peak.
Bus ride took about 1 hour.

The whole course takes about 6 - 8 hours to finish. Its better if we reach earlier so we won't be so tired. And there are time limits to reach certain points, therefore its kinda better to start hiking early.

Proper footwear is highly recommended for these hiking courses, and obviously my shoe wasn't a proper hiking shoe. OMG and my shoes has holes in the soles, so I was afraid that it would get wet, and tried to avoid those muddy areas. Aigoo. The course after the typhoon was wet and more slippery to hike.

After two hours of constant hiking, I reached this spot where we could either walk towards the crater or go to the summit of Hallasan. I decided that my body could not hold on longer, I hadn't did any exercise back in SG and was terribly energy drained. I chose the crater route instead. Now to come think of it, perhaps I should have tried to go to the summit. Its all about the will and sheer determination, isn't it. But I figured out that I really need to have the energy to come down. My friend who frequently did marathons and jogging back in sg, went all the way to the summit!! Really gooood for her! But for the next week she couldn't walk at all..

It was a pity for me that the crater was flooded due to the typhoon and I could not progress through, it not it would have been an amazing experience.
Nevertheless I enjoyed the process of the hike. The water was so cold.

It was really flooded heavily and one of the uncles wanted to move through, but others were telling him, no there is no way you can pull it through!
See the middle wooden plank, its almost 80% flooded, meaning you will be covered in the icy water in no time.

Spring water on the way for us to fill up. It was sweet and refreshing to drink.

First sights of orange leaves.

A nice view of the routes. I like routes like this as compared to the rocks... Why don't they have routes like this all the way? Hahaha. But my friend said this route was relatively easier to hike as compared to other routes. She said that at least she could see the routes clearly ahead for her to hike.
There was once she hiked Mt Sorak and she couldn't even see the route in front! And she gave up because it was so difficult. I took the crater route in the end and thus was able to finish my course faster. I finished the hike in 4 hours, my friend who went to the summit, took 8 hours to complete. By the time she came down, she was so utterly tired. The next day her leg pained so much, she really couldn't walk. Plus she had frequent exercise, I thought to myself what if its me, I don't think I would be able to walk at all...... >.<

But all in all, it was a good hike. Just that I really need to have more exercise to keep myself fit. The aunties and uncles were so fit. It could be due to their country climate and geographical location, there are so many hills to walk up and down. They walked a lot, in general. And they like to hike too. We lacked exercise, to be honest.

Something to reward us for the night, since we hiked so much... grilled chicken! And Jajjangmyun. Yum.

 Back to Seoul from Jeju

Wednesday, Oct 3rd, 2012

19th Sept 2012, Wednesday

We still agreed that the jeong shik (traditional korean dish, with lots of side dish, another term they call it baek ban) at this restaurant was better than the rest.
And thus we headed back here for breakfast again. It was near also, so Zijing won't have to walk so much.

I went out to walk a little outside after breakfast and Zijing went back to the hostel to rest.

Just to post where this bus goes to. It practically goes to the touristy places. And so we flew back to Gimpo International Airport at noon, and on the way back to Sinchon, I suggested to travel by the train instead of the subway, as I saw the Sinchon station by Gyeonggui train line was so much nearer to our boarding house as compared to the Sinchon subway station. Therefore, from Gimpo, we took the express airport train to Digital Media City station. From there we changed to the Gyeongui train line, which would fetch us straight to Sinchon. Little did I know that such a short distance would cause us so much inconvenience.

 

So when we have such bags like these.. be prepared to carry it up and down the stairs~ Backpacks are so much convenient to travel around in Korea.

Sg should implement this, this works two way.

When you near the exit, they sense it and blocks you until you tap your card.

The airport train was really fast. But do take note that not all Korea subway and train stations have escalators. For train stations, they still do not have escalators, even they do have, it may not be moving upwards, and could be downwards. All the way, stairs stairs and stairs. Walkways walkways and more walkways to come. So I dragged my luggage upwards and downwards, using up all my strength. I guess its also the reason why people take the coach bus from airport to their respective places because taking the subway is not as convenient. To take to Sinchon, its more recommended to take coach bus or change to subway, which would be the Honggik university and change to Sinchon.

Also the frequency of the train station is very slow, only 1 train per hour, so if we miss one timing, we would have to wait for the next hour to arrive. Not advisable to change to the train. Subways frequencies are so much faster.

 

* Some other photos, on one of the days.