[Part 2] 023. 24 August 2010 Tuesday

We spent the morning in Woodang Hall filling up the application forms for our KU Student ID card cum Hana Bank card together. Thomas Valera, a French guy in my group, sat beside me and I helped him with the process and also shared with him about Singapore. We had to write our names in Korean and those who don't know Korean had a hard time.

Before going for lunch, Jaehyun brought Alex and I to the International One-stop Centre at Dongwon Global Leadership Hall to submit our course registration forms. I also made the 40,000KRW payment for the Seoul City Tour tomorrow, even though I've already gone to the National Folk Museum once before and Insadong at least 5 times. I've also watched the "Jump" performance with Melissa, Joanna, Morten and Aunt Jenny earlier this month. We should have watched Nanta then! The Jump ticket for the Seoul City Tour is cheaper at 28,800KRW instead of the 45,000KRW we paid then :(
Lunch was in a canteen which was really stuffy. I had to stop eating halfway just to fan myself and poor Alex had to eat spicy spaghetti with a spoon because there were no more forks by the time it was our turn to get our food and he can't use chopsticks either. Definitely not an enjoyable lunch.

After lunch, everyone went to get their 2nd hand mobile phones from the telephone shop in the Main Square. The queue in the shop was snaking long and halfway through, I got a pleasant surprise when Byungsoo (my NUS buddy for last semester) tapped me! He was studying for his Chinese characters test in school and was taking a break when he walked past the telco shop and saw me. Anyway, there were only 2 phone models to choose from for the exchange students and they were second hand phones. Each phone cost 30,000KRW and the charger cost 15,000KRW. Luckily, Dongsoo helped me and I got a pretty brand new Ice Cream 2 phone  :)

After Alex bought his phone, Jaehyun brought us to a photo shop near Anam Station (wonder why Zechy and I didn't see it when we went photo shop hunting earlier this morning) to have our passport sized photos taken (10,000KRW for 8 photos). As we could only collect the photos 30 minutes later, I went back to my room to deposit some belongings before heading to Love Ice for patbingsu (Jaehyun treated us).

it's so cool that there's a grand piano in the cafe! good for proposals or love confessions? haha. 

We also went to the KU Science Campus to print our Certificates of Enrolment (1,000KRW each and required for the Alien Registration Card) and checked out the Hana Fitness Centre. It costs 136,000KRW for 4 months and I'm considering whether to join. Co-m Livingtel is actually just beside the Science Campus but there's no short cut in and I have to walk a big round just to go to the Fitness Centre :( We went back to the photo shop to collect our photos before going to the International One-stop Centre to submit the documents for our Alien Registration Card registration. Initially, I was grumbling about having to take passport-sized photos again because I ran out of my recent ones which are my best passport-sized photos taken ever and I just know it that I would look terrible in the new photos. But guess what? I look nice because the photo shop photoshopped my face slightly and I have a nicer face shape. No wonder we had to wait for 30 minutes! If I were to use the new photo as my passport photo and a custom official were to compare me with my photo, he/she will probably think that I gained a lot of weight.

The green building in the middle is Co-m Livingtel.

We went back to the International One-stop Centre to submit the documents for the application for the alien registration card before I left to meet Byungsoo. We took a bus (can't remember whether we took bus 101 or 144) to 미아삼거리 Miasamgori where I shopped at Daiso before we went back to KU and he treated me to my 2nd patbingsu for the day. Just as he was about to place order, Zechy met us so we ate together and had an interesting conversation about the differences between Korea and Singapore's English education systems, etc.

On our way back to our accommodations, Zechy and I met Yuhong and we decided to go for dinner together in Dongdaemun, together with Jeannie.
The first restaurant we want to was crowded and full and the only level that had available seats was so stuffy, hot and smokey (it was for smokers) that we left for another restaurant. 3 middle-aged Koreans sat beside us and one of the ladies asked us where we are from. She thought that Jeannie was the only foreigner and the rest of us were Koreans.

After dinner, we went shopping but the on-and-off rain marred our shopping experience and mood as we walked from one shopping mall to another. I bought a pricey 42,000KRW top. Actually, I saw quite a number of stalls selling it last week but this time round, I only found 1 shop so I had no choice but to settle for the blouse from this shop called Modern Juice :( The sales assistant didn't give me a discount when I tried bargaining. Autumn fast approaching and quite a number of stalls are already replacing summer clothings with fall clothings so we have to start shopping for summer clothings really quick! Jeannie wanted to eat the patbingsu we had last year when we came to Dongdaemun (that would have been my 3rd patbingsu for the day) but we couldn't remember whether the shop was in Good Morning City or Hello A Pm and both buildings were closed on Tuesdays. But now that I've checked my entries for last year, I think it was in Doota, which was actually open! After shopping, we took a cab back and had an interesting conversation with the taxi driver who even told us where to take the taxi from next time because it's nearer or something. He asked if Yuhong was naturally quiet because he didn't say much during the entire trip but that's because he doesn't know Korean! I think we'll take cabs to and fro Dongdaemun next time because the cab fare only amounted to 4,000KRW and we go in a group of 4, it's just 1,000KRW which is just about the cost of taking the subway and we don't even have to transfer lines which really is a hassle here.