[Part 3] 152. Last day of the year

Today's the last day of the year and it's the first time I'm spending it quite differently! Back in Singapore, I would celebrate the new year's countdown together with my family at Temasek Club's countdown party or outside watching fireworks or on the 3rd floor of my house where we would jump up and down to glimpse some fireworks from Esplanade and toast with champagne. This year, I spent the day with Nasir and his friends- Calvin and De Rui in Myeongdong, the night with YW and 2 countdowns in a bus on our way to Donghae 동해 (Korean and Singapore time).

It was great meeting up with Nasir and his friends! I missed my internship days at UOB and Nasir was one of my closest friends there. The days of taking the shuttle bus together to Alexandra Building, having AB Interns' lunches together, going for dinner at TCC near the Singapore River, going for dinner with him and Cyn in Vivo after our last day of work, going for dinner with Bailyn and him in Kovan before I left for Korea...He was supposed to stopover in Korea for a few days in August and we had planned to go to Jeju together but couldn't due to his flight scheduling issues. Today, we finally got to meet in Korea after nearly 5 months! I brought him and his friends to 명동교자 Myeongdong Gyoza for 갈국수 kalguksu (knife-cut noodles soup) for lunch. We were lucky that we went to the restaurant early because there was no waiting time. After we had our lunch, we saw a snaking queue into the restaurant comprising of nearly 30 people. If you're in Myeongdong, drop by this eatery if you can because its kalguksu and mandu (dumplings) are delicious! You have to make payment right after ordering though. After having some donuts at Krispy Kreme, we headed to Namsan Tower and it was so cold!!! After awhile, I couldn't talk because my face was rather frozen :(

Electric bus!

Back in Myeongdong, they headed to Cafe Bene for drinks while I went to Daehangno to look for YW. While waiting for him, I shopped in Banila Co for the first time! I've always seen the makeup brand around in Myeongdong and other parts of Seoul but never bought anything from there. Today, I got 2 marshmallow-textured glitter eye shadows, a lip scrub for my very dry and flaky lips, and a bright orangey-red lipstick on impulse. It's the last day of the year...one last time to be an impulse shopper! We had ramen for dinner in a Jap eatery and again, our timing was perfect. We didn't have to wait for our seats and shortly after we had started eating, a queue started forming for the eatery. After having desserts at Cafe Luwak, we took sticker photos before going back to Anam for me to get ready for our day trip to watch the 1st sunrise of the year at Jeongdongjin 정동진 with Jeannie and Phyllis as well. We went with Hana Tour so that we wouldn't have to worry about transportation and all and each of us paid 47,000KRW.

YW looking much better with a haircut :)

Hate the ice :(

Oops...didn't know the shade was so bold! The shade is called "crazy". Crazy, indeed!

But we didn't have a nice start to our day trip because we were almost late in catching the bus! It was due to set off at 10pm and we were supposed to meet at Cityhall at 9.45pm. But at 9.45pm, we were still on the subway on our way to Cityhall and poor YW had to field calls from the anxious and angry tour guide who even said that the bus could leave without us. WTH. Some Koreans are just so nice...We managed to reach the station at 10pm but exit 11 where our bus was waiting at was so far away and there were too many steps to climb! I yearn for escalators in subway stations :( We huffed and puffed our way there, got too much cold air inside our lungs, perspired and panted but made it into the bus within 5 minutes so we weren't that late. Phew, thank goodness! But everyone on the bus were staring at us when we got on.

[Part 3] 151. One whole day spent in Anam

I think today was my last time spending an entire day in Anam and not going elsewhere: lunch with YW, Sebastian and his gf in Sinpo Dumplings for lunch, desserts with YW and Jaehyun in Cafe B1, dinner with Yong June, my Yonsei buddy from immersion last year in Otsal and drinks with him in Soul Kitchen Cafe.

My room, after a batch of 4 boxes were shipped back to SG, still looks quite filled! 

In between my meetups, I bidded for my modules on CORS and took passport-sized photos because photos are enhanced here with quite a lot of photoshopping done. I got whiter skin and a slight glowing face but my hair looks terrible. I should have had my photos taken immediately after I did my hair at Edae 2 weeks back! Actually, I prefer the photos I took in August but YW prefers the latest one. He said that Koreans would prefer it. I'll update this entry with my passport pictures soon!

I think I have been really blessed with nice Korean buddies...Kihong (in NUS), Yong June (in Yonsei), Junghyun (in NUS), Byungsoo (in NUS) and Jaehyun (in KU). None of my friends are still in contact with their Yonsei buddies but I am and I got to meet mine again :) He spent 8 months or so in Nepal as a volunteer and recently returned to Korea. I got a nice coin purse from him which I promptly used after switching back to my old wallet with no compartment for my coins.

[Part 3] 150. Gyeongbokgung + Hongdae

I met up with my new buddy for next semester, Jaesuk, for drinks in Coffee Bean this morning. The welcome session for the incoming batch of exchange students to NUS Business School will be on 7th January, next Friday afternoon but I won't be back in SG till 10pm so I arranged to meet up with him in Korea first before he left for Singapore. It was quite awkward when we first met but we warmed up to each other quite fast and...what a coincidence! He was in my Consumer Behaviour class in KU and actually remembered me! Come to think of it, I think I saw him a few times...he sat in the row in front of me and never did I/we expect that we would become buddies for next semester! I promise to be a better buddy this time round! My 4th semester as an exchange buddy, out of the 5 semesters I've done in NUS. Talking to him about Singapore made me realise how long I've been away from home. I had difficulty remembering quite a number of things about Singapore! I couldn't remember the buses from school to Clementi or Bukit Timah but that's not just because I haven't been in Singapore the past few months. I guess it's because I started driving to school this year so I'm quite out of touch with taking buses to and fro NUS. But I don't dare to drive when I'm back...I'm quite scared of driving actually. I want to stay accident-free but the thing about driving is that it's not just about you. It's about others too. I can be a safe driver but others are not and I always seem to meet with erratic drivers. Alright, I know, I'm not a perfect driver either and I suck at parking. I haven't done parallel parking since my driving test 2 years back. Way to go!

I had my favourite curry donkatzu for lunch in an eatery on the other side of Anam which I had never ventured to before. It's near the science campus. One of waitresses was quite nice. While YW was taking a photo of me, she actually came forward to adjust my hair! And she said that I don't smile like a Korean because I have dimples near my eyes. Actually, Singaporeans don't have that as well. I know, I'm just weird. But at least I stand out from the crowd :) I like to be different!

We headed to Gyeongbokgung after lunch and actually caught the changing of palace guards ceremony. It was the first time I watched it even though it was my 2nd time to the palace this year and the 5th time in my life. Actually, each time I head to Gyeongbokgung, I would tell myself to venture beyond the green field where Mel, G, Chun and I sat on and took pictures at last year. In August this year when I was there with Joanna and Morten, it was too hot so we didn't stay there for long. This time round, it too cold and we were short of time. Ah...I should have gone to the palace during autumn instead and spend one whole day there! We met up with Jeannie, Phyllis, Kenneth and his 2 Singaporean friends in the palace later on in the afternoon. Jeannie and I were supposed to meet up with Jeehyun unni at 5pm. But at 4.30pm, we were still at the palace so we wanted to change our meeting time to 6.30pm instead. But Junghyun unni and Sungjoon oppa were also joining us and they were already on their way so we stuck to 5pm.

Calling Jeannie

Obviously, we couldn't make it by 5pm because at 5pm, we had just reached Gyeongbokgung Palace Station and only reached Sangsu Station at 5.30pm. We headed to Plan B, a cosily decorated Italian restaurant for dinner before having desserts at a cafe called Maman Gateau 마망갸또. Upon arrival at the cafe, Jeehyun unni said that the decor of the place had changed and she asked the waitress about it, only to be told that this was an entirely new dessert place that had replaced the previous one! But the dessert was good...maybe it was because the chef went to Le Gorden Bleu!

Jeannie and I with our buddies for NUS AY09/10 Sem 1 :)

Jeehyun unni did her nails herself!

Us with Sungjoon

Lanvin for H&M lookalike

I got the Tony Moly famed whitening tomato mask for 7,800KRW to try after hearing much about it. We also took sticker photos :) It's so cool here in Korea! You can have the soft copy of the photo emailed or smsed to you.