i thought the 'toothpaste container' holding the red pepper sauce was cute :) we landed at around 6am korean time, and had to get our own breakfast at the airport. there was some local places, macs and belinda wanted to try dunkin donuts. so that's where we went haha.

09 may 2008 - Seoul

chocolate seoul milk and heart shaped donut :) the milk was nice and cheap ! makes me realise how much singapore loses out when we dont have our own primary industries. we then went for a company visit at Nuri Telecom where the guy didnt speak english. and it didnt help that we didnt have much sleep on the plane so we were all nodding off. thank goodness we went for lunch after that.

the first of many bbq pork meals to come. i thought it was nice cos the marinated pork tasted kinda good, though we smelt totally like charcoal when the meal was over. we then checked in at Seoul Palace Hotel which was nice, and spent some time walking over to the underground shopping arcade which was pretty far. as in it was reallie hard to find and luckily we found it hahah. the clothes there were reallie cheap but we didnt have enough time to shop there sadly. after the 'rest', we set off for a fashion show/ dinner outside dongdaemun.

omelet rice with bacon wrapped prawn. i think it was nice :) then off to the fashion show.

oh it was in the open and we all almost froze to death. being the first night, open air and strong wind. the show was so-so i guess. think the models must have been freezing worse than us.

10 may 2008 - Seoul

we had a city tour of seoul, first to the Gyeongbok Palace, National Folk Musuem and President's residence. we took so long taking photos that we barely made any progress at all.

the blue tiles of the president's residence. and us with the korean policemen on rollerblades.

it was pretty nice, with the chicken stuffed with glutinous rice along with noodles and ginseng wine. apparently the ginseng is only 1 year old so it's more of a healthy food then for real medicinal value. from there we went to myong dong for shopping :D

we just had to try this fantastically tall ice cream haha. which was 1,000 won each. tasted not bad :) but melted fast haha. bought some clothes there, but i didnt have enough time. and belinda thought i got lost when i was in the same shop all along .. next to Cheonggyecheon Stream.

it was freaking warm ! oh and this stream was a natural stream, and when the govt wanted to like revamp it it took them around 8000 talks with the people to convince them that it'll be a good investment. from there, we went to Insadong for some antique gazing.

while belinda and i were walking, there was this protest against the china olympics which kinda shocked us. i think we're just not used to seeing this stuff in singapore. yeah didnt buy anything in Insadong other than some sweets which tasted like sugar and coconut which i havent finished till now, all melted together in this weather haha. then to dinner !

more pork, but this time more fatty !

after some snipping and browning, it's ready for consumption :) we had soju along with it, and it reallie warmed us up.

haha okie that marks the end of my korea bsm posts thank goodness !

the egg is kinda raw, so we're supposed to mix everything in and it'll get cooked cos the pot is reallie hot. and funnily, bibimbap has no meat at all. it's vegetarian ! after that we went to Gimpo domestic airport, checked in, spent some time testing out the smile shutter function on belinda's cam and then flew off to Jeju.

checked in at Jeju Pacific Hotel which was super near the airport, and they apparently have two types of rooms - traditional and western. ours was traditional, and the room was reallie nice with flowery wallpaper and nice lights. the only thing missing was nice seaview :)

our room ! from there we had about an hour to kill but it didnt look like there was anything nearby the hotel, so we just waited till the bus took us to dinner. and they brought us to the restaurant which served pheasant hotpot!

see the meat, it's kinda red and white depending on which part of the bird they took it from. tasted normal. the pinkish popiah is their local specialty which has radish in it. and they like to put funny vegetables into the hotpot, if im not wrong they even put peppermint which gave it a reallie weird taste. then we went back to the hotel after dinner and headed out later on.

we went to Sinchon, which means city hall. well i expected tall buildings and all, but it was kinda quiet, even for a sunday night (public hol on monday the next day). the group was kinda big, so we broke into smaller groups and went around.

decided to try their street food which i wanted to but forgot to try in seoul, so yeah, see the rice cake? it was reallie nice ! and in the cold weather the spicy and hot rice cake reallie warmed us up. wanted to try the other stuff but they looked as though they had been left there for quite some time and would be cold. after that we walked around and stumbled upon this 'shooting game' place.

yup using pellets to hit the targets. 2,000 won for 40 pellets :) hahaha some of us got the hang of it pretty fast, but someone (hhaahah) still needs quite some practice :p

the guy behind me is the shop owner, and he was damn nice ! gave us a bonus round knowing that we come from overseas haha. and he kept trying to talk to us in korean and we kept trying to understand. we walked around a little more, went to one small shop selling accessories and bags which was kinda ex, but bought something there as remembrance :) went for supper after that.

this doesnt look too appetizing, cos it's liver and (was it) stomach and pigblood mixed with rice sausage. yeah it was weird cos of a certain spice they used in the sausage. we couldnt finish eating it. and we had a reallie hard time ordering cos the waitresses couldnt understand english. actually we thought the sausage was reallie just meat, and we were trying to ask them whether it's chicken or pork but they couldnt get it. eventually we had to draw..

and here's korean sushi. they have preserved radish, kimchi, tuna, egg and some other stuff which i think was pretty nice altogether. luckily they managed to get this order right too.

happy us :) and after that we decided that we should exercise to work off supper, so we went to play pool. we didnt know where was a good place and decided to chance this place on the 6th of 7th floor of a building which looked pretty shady, with some icky stuff on the steps leading up to the lift. but luckily it wasnt that bad at all. and pool was cheap !

here's the pro playing pool haha. guo hao was trying to teach us some new skills but i think im gonna need to master the basics first :p

the gaping entrance of the cave which we entered. i was damn reluctant to go cos it was early morning, slippery, dark, cold and worst with my slippers which offered little grip. thank goodness didnt fall.

in the darkness of the cave, we still attempt a picture. i think it took us may 1h or longer to walk to the end and back to the opening, and by that time we were all feeling pretty warm haha. from there we travelled to the next place - the filming site for All-In, the korean drama with stars Lee Byung Hun and Song Hye Kyo.

sunning sotong on a line haha.

and the first corn dog we ate ! it reallie looked good with mustard and ketchup and it was being fried right there and then so we decided to try. the dough was reallie reallie nice ! gosh it's making me hungry.

the view there was so pretty, which was comparable to australia. sun+wind+seaside = perfect.

the famous place where they filmed All-In, there was a bride taking her wedding photos there even.the huge picture of the stars beside the building. we look tiny ! and after that, we went to Seongsan Ilchulbong Peak, to climb it.

the peak from the bus, picture us climbing it ! but we had lunch before that luckily, to give us the energy to climb hahhah. was so gonna need it.

apparently the seafood at jeju is good, but we only had seafood once - mackerel stew. at first i was a little apprehensive at the fish stew cos i thought it may be fishy tasting, but it turned out nice. no fishy taste at all :) and after lunch, we started out great ascend.

the view of the back, can only be described as breathtaking :) sea+buildings, something like a panoramic view of jeju.

and finally at the peak ! i look worn out lol. tsk lack of exercise. and we found a rabbit at the top chewing nonchalantly at some grass below. hahha. and then we went to the Seongsup Folk Village which was all mud houses. we only spent 10mins there, and i think it was to make us buy this berry syrup which was nice, and luckily the price was still reasonable.

haha belinda, this isnt an unglam shot right, so dont kill me :p then more travelling to see the filming site of Daejanggeum, or what we know as Da Chang Jin.

apparently the rock on the right >> looks like a human head but i cant see it from this angle haha.

us with the legendary lady nurse. from there we travelled to see the Natural World Heritage Site entitled Jeju Volcanic Island and Lava Tubes.

13may, morning- we went to this stream (i dont even know what it's called) and had to cross this shaky bridge. didnt spend long there and i dunno what significance it was even. shucks. then we went to the company visit [jeju self-governing province] which was kinda nice.

lunch at holly's coffee which was in sin cheong [korean for city hall] which was a good change. ice lemon tea and ham and cheese sandwich. along with free wireless internet. and the sad thing was when i checked my school email, there were only 5 new mails and all said 'your inbox is closed' so essentially i couldnt receive any emails for all the days before that.

baskin robbins ! dessert after lunch. decided to try this new flavour called apple mint and it tastes somewhat like apple flavoured toothpaste cos of the icy feeling. the white part is apple, the green is mint. ate it on the bus while travelling to the next company which was selling stuff which was persimmon dyed. yeah kinda brownish coloured (picture a farmer's clothes) but super expensive ! it's almost as expensive as branded clothes. guess it could be cos it's all hand dyed.

and dinner - bbq pork (no surprises here). at least they had the 'thing' to suck the smoke from the bbq cos previously after every meal our clothes smelt like charcoal. and the pork this time was black pork but i couldnt taste any difference. oh it was more fatty than usual.

14 may 2008 - Jeju/Seoul

14 may, morning - back to seoul from jeju. 6 lucky people were upgraded to business class (including me haha) so although i had to sit alone, the seat was much bigger than economy class :)

lunch at incheon airport, i dont know what it was called but it's noodles with stuff like fishcake etc. pretty nice too considering that anything other than pork is a good change :p right after lunch we went to visit dongwon industries which was the first company to introduce tuna into the korean market (like canned tuna etc) and they brought us into the freezing cold warehouse which was i think near or below 0C. seriously froze. check-in to lexington hotel after that.

then prof yoo's old company kbiz hosted dinner for us - shabu shabu with seafood and beef. the beef was reallie damn good. poor belinda cant eat beef so more pork for her at the other table.

free time after dinner, decided to do some late night shopping at dongdaemon cos the first time we went we only shopped at the super expensive doota shopping mall. didnt manage to explore the other shopping centres around it. and then street food which was corn dog with fries around it :) yummy. went back to the hotel with more clothes and a full stomach.

15 may 2008 - Seoul

something like my last day in korea !

visited tons of companies that day, 3 in fact. first was samsung everland foodculture, which was reallie reallie nice. their toilets even had music and a sketch pad at the side so you can jot down ideas while you're doing your ahem. kinda impressive.

and lunch was pork cutlet which took ages to arrive. it was nice but wayyy too much to finish. only managed to eat 2 out of 3 of the cutlets. and after lunch it was off to chaesundang company which is a f&b franchise dealing with shabu shabu. they gave us cookies and some canned ceylong tea (which tasted like lemon tea somehow). and then to kbiz where there was a talk held by the founder of the media company NEWCOM. yeah i think it was more of a motivational talk somehow. oh and dinner was shabu shabu again. but with noodles this time.

we decided to head out with eileen's korean/russian friend and to hongdae, where we wanted to go to this club called nb2 (noise basement 2) which is apparently super popular among koreans. and here we are having some sorta supper at bk before clubbing.

anyway nb2 was so crowded and so smoky. and the clubbing culture there is reallie much different, cos the girls dont wear tight and revealing clothes but more of hoodies and cool stuff. guys too. and they have (i mean guys) this habit of hugging girls, any random girl, from the back. yeah the guys we went with were making sure we had our little space to move around and that no guy came and hugged us from the back haha. think their clubbing experience was more of fighting for space lol.

16 may 2008 - Seoul/Singapore

yup i left a day earlier than the rest, and so while they went off to nami island, i went off to find the nearest emart to shop for groceries/local stuff to bring back. i walked like damn far cos the place we stayed in was like all hotels and commercial buildings so the supermarket was damn hard to find. and i was all alone and luckily people understood what i was trying to ask them lol.

my buys from emart! i wanted to buy more of those oranges (the one with the grapes) but there were none cos they are jeju produce and guess they didnt import into seoul. if i knew i would have bought them in jeju. and yeah rice cookies, black bean noodles, gum, kimchi etc etc. all handcarried up the plane :)

alrights will update the other days as soon as blogger allows me to :) 1.22am

eliz shared a cookie at 11:43 PM