[Part 1] 005. 6 August 2010 Friday

It was a mad rush today...packing and rushing to places. I woke up at 8am to finish up my blog entries for the past 2 days before hastily packing up my luggages and checking out of our hotel room at 11am.

The view from our room

Before we checked out, I had a bit of a drama as I wanted to use the coin-operated laundry machines located on the 10th floor so I took my room card key and went into the lift. However, my card was deactivated and I couldn't swipe the card to access the 10th floor. Thank goodness a nice guy got into the lift and selected the 10th floor for me. Alas, there was nothing in the laundry room about the estimated time for washing and drying so I left. Again, I couldn't select my room number and when a stranger came into the lift, I asked him if he could press the 17th floor button for me but he couldn't understand and just said "I'm sorry" before getting out of the lift on the 19th floor i.e. the reception level. But there was no way I was going into the lobby to ask for a card reactivation because I was dressed in a t-shirt and FBTs with my big black glasses. Luckily, someone got into the lift on the 19th floor and right after he swiped his card, I immediately selected my room floor. Phew!

After checking out of the hotel, Melissa, Aunty Jenny and Joanna went off to Seoul Station to shop at Lotte Mart while I left for Lotte Department Store to get Chanel makeup. However, Lotte doesn't sell Chanel makeup so I had to walk quite a distance under the sweltering heat to Shinsegae. It certainly didn't help that I wore a rather thin blouse to make the heat more tolerable because it was very obvious when I perspired :( Anyway, I bought a new shade of the Vitalumiere Eclat power for 78,000KRW and the Iridescent fluid eyeshadow 42,000KRW before going back to the hotel to collect my hand luggage.

I didn't have much time before the scheduled meeting time of 12.40pm at Anam Station Exit 3 with my Korean friend, Junho, so I decided to take a taxi from the hotel. Anam is about 8 stations away from Euljiro-1-ga so I thought I should be able to reach in time. But guess what? The taxi driver heard wrongly and at 12.35pm, we arrived at a station and he said, "We're at Hanam Station." -_- I said 안남 not 한남! So from being early, I ended up late and arrived at Anam at 1pm. Sorry Junho oppa! Luckily the taxi driver was nice enough to charge me 10,000KRW instead of the total fare of 13,800KRW because he sent me to the wrong place earlier.

Junho and I walked around Anam area while he looked for a place to bring me to for lunch. We decided to try cold noodles 냉면 but the shop was closed so we eventually ended up at a 칼국수 place and the food was delicious :) love it and thanks for treating me to lunch, oppa! We had a nice chat over lunch as we haven't met since November last year.

Really delicious egg rice

Sadly, it started raining quite heavily after lunch...my luggage got wet and instead of walking over to his place which is nearby, we took a cab so I incurred another taxi expense of 2,400KRW. His place is on the 3rd level and as there are no lifts, he had to carry up my hand luggage! I felt so bad :( I think Jeannie and I should only stay in places with lifts...I told him that there's no way we can bring all our luggages up and he said I should have many boyfriends. Like 1 boyfriend per luggage? Right :)

After depositing my hand carry luggage of winter clothes at his place, he sent me off to Korea University Station and I rushed back to Hotel Ibis, 5-10 minutes behind our scheduled meeting time of 3pm. Late again :( but it wasn't my fault because the train stopped for quite a long time at a few stations for some unknown reason. We waited for Mel and Jo to get back from Artbox before taking airport limousine bus 6015 back to the airport at 3.30pm. This time round, we didn't have to purchase the ticket beforehand from the reception but could directly pay the bus driver. He was quite irritated when he lifted up my luggage to put in the storage compartment because it was too heavy. I think I heard him cursing :( so I was quite wary of him. But later on, he stopped the bus for awhile and asked everyone to put on seat belts before he hit the expressway to the airport. He took Jo's box from her and put it in the holding area in front of her and kept touching the box, trying to figure what was inside. So I told him soju 소주  and he smiled. Not so scary afterall!

We reached the airport at about 5pm and after Melissa and Joanna had claimed the tax refund (I forgot to take back my receipt :(:(:( ) and all of them had started queueing up for check in of baggages, I bade them a teary farewell before rushing to the arrival hall with my fat luggage to look for Jeannie who had so kindly and patiently waited at the airport from 5am to 5.30pm for me. Thanks Jeannie!

We found the bus that goes to Songnae Station where Youngjin's mother wanted to pick us from: bus 302 and even got the help of 2 Koreans to help us with the payment of the bus fare because Jeannie's T-money didn't have any value. BUT unfortunately, the bus to Songnae didn't have a lower luggage storage compartment and there was no way we could bring up our 4 luggages (3 big and 1 small) up the bus :(

That left us with no choice but to take a cab. 2 drivers approached us but when the driver of the normal silver cab saw us with our luggages, he refused to take us. That left us with the driver of the black cab which foreigners should always be wary of because there is no meter. I was quite hesitant in taking the cab and asked the driver the estimated fare and he said 60,000KRW. But since Jeannie noticed that the other driver didn't want to take us (she noticed it, not me), that left us with not much of a choice because other drivers may not want to take us too. So we got into the black cab.

But you know what? It was a blessing that we didn't take a taxi with a meter inside because traffic was heavy and we were not sure where Youngjin's apartment was. If we had taken a taxi with a meter, we would have been penalised for getting stuck in the heavy traffic and trying to check if we were at the right place. The initial plan was to meet Youngjin's mother at the subway station but since we were in the taxi, we might as well go directly to her place. However, my brilliant blackberry battery died halfway through Youngjin's mother's 2nd call to us. Thank goodness she managed to tell the driver her address earlier and he brought us to the right place. He's the nicest taxi driver I've met because he helped us call Youngjin's mother on his phone to confirm the location before taking out our luggages and letting us alight. Youngjin came down to pick us up and bring our huge luggages up. You should have seen his expression! He was aghast at the sight of 3 huge luggages..haha. Some kids playing outside the apartment saw us and started asking him how he got to know us (foreigners) and stuff but he ignored them.

Youngjin's place is really pretty!

The refrigerator my mum will love

Youngjin was so excited about our arrival that he hurriedly called his uncle and his BFF to inform them that he has 2 foreigners at his place. Within minutes, his BFF skated over but he was so shy and didn't dare to step into the apartment initially! And when he left, his bow to us was more than 90 degrees (Jeannie noticed).

Dinner was at an eatery near his place where we had Cass beer and my face turned red after a glass. How embarrassing :( There was a play area within the restaurant for kids where Taehun, Youngjin's four year old brother, played in with another little girl who seemed quite aggressive because she spent half the time chasing him around.

Back in the apartment after dinner, we presented Youngjin's mother with a Longchamp Planetes Tote shopping bag which Jeannie and I shared, as well as Bengawan Solo pineapple tarts and Eu Yan Seng Bak Kut Teh from my mother.

I think she likes the bag because she transferred her belongings into the bag after that :)

I love the bag too and I intend to get one in Argile instead.

Raisin and Ebene seem nice too!

I'll have to go to a boutique and check out the colours. Which colour is the nicest? I swear, no more Longchamps after getting this one! I have a big family already :)

We spent the night chatting till quite late before turning in for the night. There is only one bed so Jeannie and I will take turns sleeping on the bed and on a mattress on the floor. I'm sleeping on the floor first and I slept beside these luggages!

Look at one of Jeannie's luggages: