[Part 2] 035. 5 September 2010 Sunday

Jeannie and I went back to Bucheon today to visit Youngjin and his family in the afternoon. Our timing was unbelievably perfect: we said we'll be there at 4pm or so and we reached at 4pm on the dot. Our journey there took about 1 hour 45 minutes. Actually, I would like to go back to Bucheon often but the journey back and fro is quite tiring and luckily, I got a seat on our journey there. Thanks Jeannie!

Rainy day

fugly knee guard and I didn't have the sense to bring my old nice completely-beige-without-logo knee guard

Everyone seemed happy to see us back, especially Taehun, who jumped up and shouted when we stepped into the apartment. It certainly felt good to be back with Youngjin and his family! Jeannie and I had a wonderful 2 weeks of holiday there...stress-free and well taken care of by Youngjin's parents. I'm really really really grateful to them! If we can get some mooncakes for them for Mid-Autumn Festival, it'll be great!
We were also greeted by the newest addition to their family: 2 month old Doongie which is very tiny and cute! We were quite scared by the way Taehun manhandled the puppy at times :(

Youngjin now sleeps in his room every night with his dog. He used to sleep in the master bedroom with his parents and brother.

So cute! The same position as their IKEA dog which they brought back from Singapore in a luggage.

Watching a game show featuring Lotte World. I want to go to Lotte World either next month or in November. I NEED to take roller coaster rides! I love this ride there. It's the indoor one, Chun En! The one we took last year :)

We did some catching up and I also got Youngjin to help me change my Gmarket mailing address to my Anam one instead of his address so that we don't have to trouble his mother with the collecting of our items from the deliveryman. Later on, Dongsu and Leegeun came over and Youngjin's mother was really nice too! She cooked us a really nice dinner! Jeannie and I really miss eating the food she cooked for us during our stay there. I love the multi-grain rice.

Leegeun

After dinner, the 4 of us (Dongsu, Leegeun, Jeannie and I) went out. I needed to go to Hyundai Department Store and along our way there, we met Zechy, Yongqing and Hidayat when we were crossing the traffic light junction!!!! Like WTH, seriously! In Bucheon, a city outside of Seoul at the same time? What were they doing in Bucheon?!?!?!?! How did they even know about Bucheon? I didn't know about Bucheon until Youngjin told me that he lives there.
Anyway, after making my purchases, we went to a suljib 술집 for 고진갑래 (苦尽甘来) which is basically a mixed drink of soju 소주, beer mekju맥주 and coke and there's a special way of mixing the drink as we were taught by the expert 전문자, Shin Dong (Dongsu). haha. The name is as such because you'll first drink the soju, followed by the beer and then coke at the end; in other words, it's bitter at first but sweet at the end.

Jeannie trying out Dongsu's heel height thingy. I need one too!

Dongsu doing the 2nd step

Insert the soju shot

Step1. Pour the coke into the small cup until it reaches half of the character "이"
Step2. Pour the soju into another small cup until it is half full
Step3. Put the coke shot in first, and then the soju one with the index fingers of both hands
Step4. Use one finger to push the soju shot to one side so that you can pour the beer between the soju shot and the mug to prevent mixing the drink too much before drinking
Step5. Drink!

Taken with Dongsu's Canon550D

As you can see from the above picture, I was almost gone after drinking 2 mugs of 고진갑래. While the rest continued drinking, I drank coke with them instead. I just can't drink. Have I mentioned this in my blog before? I can't remember but anyway, I don't like drinking because I only feel the physical effects but never the psychological effects. Happy? High? What's that? All I feel is a very red and hot face, rapid heartbeat, and a pounding head and I just want all those effects to go away. I didn't get drunk but I just felt really uncomfortable. Thank goodness I wasn't born as a Korean because I can't assimilate into their drinking culture. Give me citron tea or green tea anytime! Anyway, Dongsu and Leegeun invited us to their university next week so we'll be going there on Thursday after school.
We walked back to Youngjin's apartment after our drinking session to say goodbye to the family and Youngjin's mother drove us to the subway station. It was about 10.30pm by the time we reached the subway station and 11.30pm by the time we reached Dongmyoap 동묘앞 where we were supposed to transfer lines to take the subway back to Anam. BUT UNFORTUNATELY, we missed the last train and had to take a cab back :( The last subway trains on weekends (or is it just Sunday?) are really early so that's something you want to take note of when in Korea!