서울 (Seoul) Part Deux

I am back!!

As what Daphne greeted me with this morn, I am back in sucky Singapore. Haha.

I made another trip to Korea last week with my mom and sis - kinda in "stealth" cos I didn't tell many people about it. I dunno, I guess I didn't want to draw any unnecessary questions from people I don't care about.

That aside, Seoul and Jeju in 8 to 9 days would've, should've been enough. But as good as plans go, things never turn out the way they do. Please remind me never, ever to take a trip with my mother ever again. I mean it. We just have too different personalities to be able to holiday happily together. It is too stressful and too painful to holiday with my mother because... Well.

Because I like getting lost and she doesn't. I like having a free spirit when I am travelling and she doesn't. I like long walks around the city and she likes tours. I like finding my way around the subways and alleyways and she likes to hop on a tour bus to take her from A to B. I like budget travelling and she likes spacious hotel rooms with soap and shampoo you can pack back home. I like discovering new things at new places and she likes someone to hold her hand to and through each tourist attraction.

You get the drift.

Now that the ranting's out of the way, let's talk about the trip itself.

Going back to Seoul this time, it felt different. It didn't feel like I was going on holiday. It felt like I was going back home.

Plus, I noticed all the bad bits about the city that would make life more miserable there than living in Singapore. Which is quite a mean feat, since I am definitely not happy here.

I know that sounds strange, but I guess because I hope to make Seoul my home in the near future, the way I felt about the place got influenced by that hope.

Taking the plane (kudos to Malaysia Air for the enormous amount of leg room, halal food and the unbiased crew), I didn't feel excited until I landed and collected my luggage from the carousel.

And immediately after that, I fell ill (no kudos to Malaysia Air for bad cabin pressure control). That kinda brought a damper, but I suppose that was part of how I was meant to live my life in Seoul. I didn't get well throughout and I am still sick today.

No matter, I thought. Sipping my breakfast latte at Paris Baguette felt right. My uncle was right - this feels like home.

The weather in Seoul this time was erratic. The last time I was there, it was freezing. This time, it was sometimes warm and sometimes cold. That did not help my flu, but again, I suppose that is good practice to get used to the weather. I do not like the cold weather that is characteristic of Seoul. Neither do I like the humidity levels of Singapore. But weather is a slight inconvenience to any lifestyle - we are built to adapt, so adapt I will.

Another inconvenience was having absolutely no mobile phone connection. People may say that we are all addicted to technology, but we can't escape from the way our lives have changed due to convenient connectivity.

Korea uses the CDMA system (and just launched 4G), while Singapore uses the GSM system (and is still struggling to establish fibre optic cable-esque speeds for residents). I should have rented a phone from the airport but what use would that be if the people I needed to keep in contact with were using phones that didn't work?

It was more important to be able to communicate with the Koreans cos I still needed to eat and sleep. And I am glad my two years' worth of Korean classes didn't go completely to waste! I am still horribly bad at the language (even though taxi drivers and a former lecturer said that I could speak well, yarrite) but I was able to understand and speak Korean a wee bit better than I thought I could! Haha, self-praise.

The other not-so-nice thing about Seoul is the congestion - people and traffic. Subways are packed, the roads are forever jammed and there are twice as many people in Seoul than in Singapore. (FYI Seoul is slightly smaller than Singapore.)

But what is a city with too much space, eh? We would call it the countryside if that was the case. Even though there is a sizable number of expats in Seoul, at least it isn't infested with PRCs. Yet.

I met and got re-acquainted with a few people this time, and it certainly felt like I was simply meeting friends after work or during the weekend.

I visited 가로수길 (Garosugil) thanks to Liting's recommendation. We had a yummy 찜닭 (jjim dak - chicken and clear noodles in soy sauce) dinner there. She pointed out the not-so-desirable bits about life in Seoul and kinda that kept my feet on the ground.

And then she did something that I am extremely appreciative of. She re-connected me with a former lectuerer from NUS, Dr. Shim.

Meeting Dr. Shim again was nice and I am grateful for his advice. He pointed out what would work and what wouldn't if I were to up and have a go at life in Seoul. While I felt my feet getting further tied to the ground, I am still excited by the possibilities.

One more thing I discovered this time in Seoul was that even after a year and a half, things could stay the same. 목은 (Mok Eun) is still busy with his work and still knocking off at 10.30 pm everyday. He's also the same playful dude I first met at iPark five years ago. We still talk as if we were idealistic 22-year-olds dreaming of a better life outside castle walls. As if time didn't tick forward and as if life didn't happen.

But of course, life did happen and time did pass more quickly than we felt it did. I only wish the best for him. Till we meet again.

Perhaps I should start considering moving in a parallel fashion across borders. Warner Music Korea doesn't sound too bad. That's where I met 중석 (Nathan) and his friends, 우태 (Woo Tae) and 민규 (Min Kyu). They are a nice bunch of guys but I guess our lunch was too short to establish any kind of connection beyond the perfunctory nice-to-meet-you.

Meeting up with Daphne, though, was refreshing. Outside the confines of work and Singapore, we found comfort sipping our hot chocolates in deserted 명동 (Myeongdong), chatting about how we don't want to leave Seoul.

They call it 인연 (fate), and I kinda agree. The concert my sis and I were psyched up about got cancelled at the last minute. No SuJu normally puts me into depression (haha, yes I am exaggerating) but I got to know a very humble and kind lady through this incident. She went out of the way to ensure that we got our refund back and it was heartwarming to get to know someone else who faced the exact same problems at work as you do, half the globe away. 미아 (Mia), thank you and 화이팅 (fighting)!

As much as I'd like to make Seoul my home, I am skeptical as to whether it would actually happen before I reach 30. It is stressful to put a deadline on a plan like this, but it is more difficult to make it happen if I only talk about it.

So I submitted my graduate school applications to Korea and Hanyang University. (Side note: It costs less than S$12 to send two heavy packages on registered express-within-the-day domestic mail in Seoul. How cheap and effecient!) I don't know what the outcome will be and if I will be able to carry through with my dreams, but I am afraid to think too far nor too much about it.

But of course, the trip wasn't just to build my network or to apply for graduate school. I had lots of fun, too!

If you've been following my rants, you'd know that I haven't shopped nor enjoyed myself very much for the past year or two.

So I kinda went crazy shopping in Seoul. How can a girl not, when everything's pretty and affordable? I blew my budget by about S$300 but that is okay. I bought a few things for my sister and a lot of other people. Plus, looking at the amount of things I bought (clothes, shoes, bags, beauty products, CDs, merchandise and everything in between), you'd think my expenditure was justified too.

The item(s) for which I am most happy to have bought? Three boxes of groceries (chips, Peppero, Choco Pies, ramyeon, curry, porridge) that we hauled from Lotte Mart at Seoul Station to our hotel in Myeongdong. Muahaha. I think we have enough junk food to last till the end of the year.

And speaking about enough, I think I bought enough beauty goodies to last me till the end of next year! Not exaggerating.

(Side note: What is it about the snail cream? It seems to be the next big ingredient in beauty products - essence of snail. Eeew. No thanks.)

I also managed to try a lot more Korean food this time, since I am now able to say "돼지고기 싫어!" That means that I do not want pork. Yay!

Finally got to try 국수 (guksu), or soup noodles with chili paste thanks to Mok Eun. He helped us order 김치전 (kimchi pancake) too, and while I've tried that before, there 's nothing like having it in Korea itself.

And it's also thanks to him that we got to try street food! He ordered some Korean-style chicken kebabs for us, and it was kinda fun standing at the stall trying to make sure the sauce didn't drip on our clothes or feet!

Nathan took us to try Japanese food in Seoul, which was interesting, cos everything still tasted very Korean.

I took my mom to a Korean restaurant where they served traditional 비빔밥 (bibimbap) with all the 반찬 (banchan, or side dishes). The bill here came up to only 54,000￦ for five people. Cheap or what?!

We managed to find a noodle place where we got to try 비빔냉면 (bibimnaengmyeon, the noodle version of bibimbap). The next day we got to try fish stew (not my fav dish, but the fish was real fresh). I even managed to order 냉면 (naengmyeon, or cold noodles) on my last night!

But of course, it wasn't just about shopping and eating, the trip. We did some sightseeing too, though this time I was leading my mom and sis around.

I haven't got sick of walking around 세종로 (Sejongno) or 이화 (Ewha) yet. I still love weaving in and out of the alleyways of 인사동 (Insadong). I enjoyed experiencing the street performances and youthful vibe of 홍익 (Hongik). 남산 (Namsan) is still as pretty as ever, though it somehow felt a little more touristy this time around.

One of my favourite features about Seoul is the stunning backdrop of hills, mountains and greyish blue skies against the city buildings. While I am not a nature buff, I do like the serenity the scenery lends to the cityscape.

While the city is wonderful, this time I decided to explore further. My sis and I wanted to visit 쁘띠 프랑스 (Le Petit France), a village resort slightly outside of Seoul, in 경기도 (Gyeonggi-do). We managed to get on the Korail to 청평 (Cheongpyeong) but then we had no idea how to get to our destination. We asked around but apart from the Tourist Information Office, there was no one in sight to ask for more directions. So we headed back to Seoul to continue our shopping spree.

We spent two days in 제주도 (Jeju Island) and I thought it was a nice retreat from the busy city. It was a good idea to have booked a cab to take us around the island, because the tourist spots were not easy to get to on our own. It also kinda helped that I could help explain to the cabbies in Korean where we wanted to go to - we managed to cover most of the places we wanted to see.

They say that Jeju has an abundance of rocks, wind and ladies. And they weren't kidding. Caves, waterfalls, lalang fields, 한라산 (Mount Halla), beaches, blue seas - everything was picturesque and gorgeous.

My favourite place in Jeju has to be the 오설록 (O'Sulloc) tea plantation. There was a cafe there, and the tea-inspired menu was absolutely delicious. Green and black tea cakes, green tea ice cream and lattes. If I ever go back to Jeju, I would spend my time at this cafe.

The other cafes (among others - Angel-in-Us Coffee, Cafe 7gram, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins with yummy Pistachio Almond ice cream in 14 degree weather, etc) that I really liked was Handel and Gretel.

Haha. Ok. Fangirl alert. Handel and Gretel is a franchise, and one of the branches was newly-opened in July by my (other) fav SuJu boy, Yesung. It wasn't that easy to find the cafe, but it was worth the walk from 여의도 (Yeouido) station.

Handel and Gretel was actually much smaller than it looked like in pictures. But the size kinda made it special. It was quiant, cute and cosy. The decor was warm and inviting, like a little nook tucked in a cottage. Lovely.

The cafe serves coffee and sandwiches. What made it different was that every sandwich was freshly made. The ciabatta sandwiches weren't whipped out of the refridgerator upon order, and each order came with a serving of salad and chips. Splendid.

The only thing about Handel and Gretel that I found strange was the SuJu memorabilia all around. It is either a genius marketing ploy or Yesung's slightly narcissistic. I will go with the former. Or, the signed CDs, figurines and posters of himself could simply be his family's way of showing how proud they were of him.

But I still found it a wee bit strange. Just like how I found the SPAO store a teeny bit strange too. SPAO is the Korean equivalent of Giordano, except it is endorsed by Super Junior and Girls Generation. Our hotel's located in the same building as SPAO and it is definitely nice to be greeted in the morning and at night by my fav boys every single day. Giant posters, I mean, not the boys themselves. But I will take what I can get.

So anyway, SPAO had photo zones. You could take pictures of, and with, the posters of the idols on the walls. I guess I find this sort of thing weird cos I've been working in the music industry for some time and I've learned to appreciate these people as, well, people. They just have a job that requires them to be immortalized in the forms of posters, standees and other such paraphernalia.

On the top floor of SPAO is a merchandise store with more posters, framed and signed pictures, file folders, notebooks, mugs, etc of the S.M. Entertainment artistes. We had a lot of fun laughing away at the ridiculous prices of the useless things fans do not mind wasting money on. The store had everything except lightsticks, which is the only merchandise I would spend money on. Grr.

So that's that. Soon enough, it was time to go back to sucky Singapore. Seoul has been good to me so far, even though a lot of my plans got ruined this time yet again. (Damn you, SME!)

As if she knew I needed one last reminder to not let time pass too much before I return, I got to watch SuJu on TV the last night there! Thank you, God.

And thank you, Seoul. It was great to be back, and this time, to be able to take a step back to notice the inconveniences of city life there. I guess, like I mentioned earlier, I was looking out for signs that would put me off moving out of Singapore.

But even though I got acquainted with so many bad points about Seoul (read: same social problems as Singapore), I still find myself drawn to its beauty. I simply want to give myself a chance to get out of my comfort zone and to get out of this godforsaken place. And when I put my mind on something, I make sure I see it through.

I am not sure, though, when I will be back in Seoul. I don't want to expect too much out of my plans, but there's one thing I know - I already miss Seoul very much. And I hate being in Singapore very much.

Someday, my dreams will come true. I'm working towards that. Thank you, God for opening my eyes to the possibilities outside the confines of what I know here.

And thank you again, Seoul. It won't be too long, hopefully, before I return.

<3 P.S. Photos on Facebook will be up soon. Don't hold your breath, though. Update: Photos here!