Self-refinery

In the midst of achieving personal goals.

Gotta hang in there.

I left a piece of my soul in Seoul (Part 2)

We went a little crazy picking hotels / backpackers for our 10 nights, and ended up staying at 5 different places altogether. Madness it was, packing and unpacking, dragging our heavyweight luggage through snow. But twas fun getting to stay / check out different rooms each night! 

Entrance of Banana Backpackers. The receptionists were mainly university students, and they are so hospitable! That's the 'tourists' wall right there above the brochures. They'll keep one of the polaroid and let their guests keep one for memories. I have mine slot between the pages in my moleskin. :p 

On our last night, we stayed in Studio 41st Hostel. It's located walking distance from Hongdae (filled with young adults / uni students). The room has an inbuilt kitchen and washing machine. How cool is that. 

The common area! We had our complimentary breakfast here.

The guys at Studio 41st recommended us to this cozy barbeque shop, manned by a middle age Korean dude. Very popular with the locals but definitely not catered for tourists. The only menu in sight is the ones stuck on the wall with Korean writings. Haha, we had trouble ordering what we wanted, so we nodded at whatever the shop owner said, and hoped for the best. 

TADAA! Glorious barbequed meat!! He gave us a hearty portion, and taught us how to barbeque the kimchi together with the meat (my first time seeing people barbecuing kimchi). We were also served side condiments and a delicious tasting soup. 

Noryangjin fish market is not heated, and visiting it on a winter night is not a bright idea although it opens 24 hours a day. Our main mission -- to gulp down some live octopus.

Bought a baby octopus from a random shop we passed, had it chopped at a dodgy eatery behind the market, and tried our fresh octopus sashimi (a.k.a. Sannakji)! 

Omg it was still squirming when we place it in our mouth. As disgusting as it may sound, it tasted very very awesome, like how fresh sashimi should taste! Won't do it again though, too cruel an act. 

Hongdae on a weekday night. Pretty quiet, at midnight. We wanted to try Charlie Brown cafe or Bau House Cafe (where dogs are allowed), but woke up too late on our last day in Seoul. Meh.

Freshly steamed red bean poppers on Insadong street!

Korean inspired boyfriend. :p

Wined and dined to usher in the New Years. Had Western for a change, wine instead of Soju. (:

So Koreans don't celebrate countdowns the conventional way. From what we interpreted from the locals, Koreans usually go outstation for countdown, like Jeju. Man, so there were no fancy fireworks to be found, only a crowd at Bosingak Bell, with some performances on stage.

Half tipsy, we stumbled into Yogane Dakgalbi, which in my opinion, has the best Dak-galbi ever!

AH LOOK CRAVING FOR SOME RIGHT NOW.

omnomnom.

I left a piece of my soul in Seoul (Part 1)

It's been 6 months since Korea.

Admittedly, much of my memories of discovering Korea are slowly dissipating. A post left in the draft for waayyyyyy too long! Eheh, since declaring today a chillout day (but feeling quite inspired to write, surprisingly), here's a peek into my touristy experience of Seoul.  

++++++++++++

I love new experiences. I love trying new things.So it wouldn't be strange for me to find excitement traipsing around in a foreign country during different seasons of the year. And boy, was I squealing with joy to have a chance to catch a glimpse of the city of Seoul covered in a blanket of snow. It was somewhat magical. 

We had 4 days to explore the nooks and crooks of Korea. What I clearly remembered was how cold the weather was, touching -20 degrees on the coldest days. Covered with four layer of clothings, we still felt shivers down our spine walking along the streets. Winter can be so unforgivingly brutal. 

But winter landscape is too breathtakingly beautiful. The picture above depicts Seoul covered in snow -- taken at dusk atop N Seoul Tower. 

Coincidentally our last sunset of 2012. 

Seoul is like a successful man wearing a tailored made suit, but pairs the suit with a classic old tie (a gift from his mum 20 years ago). Ok, my metaphor isn't that great, but all I wanted to say is I'm impressed by how Seoul managed to keep its traditional culture throughout the years modernising. 

Me with N Seoul. Freezingly pale.

Thousands of love locks along the walls of N Seoul. Each bearing a special meaning to a certain couple.

Spot ours! That's my boyfriend being corny. 

Quirky decorated cafes can be found at almost every corner of the streets. We were quick to comprehend why it was so. Nothing beats the feeling of sipping a cup of latte in a heated coffee joint watching the snow fall outside.

And of course, we had our fair share of coffee during our stay there. Our very first cafe was BEANSBIN coffee, a famous coffee chain around Seoul. 

... with waffles to pair.

Grand entrance of Changdeokgung Palace (창덕궁).

Very surreal to see a palace covered in snow.

We also made a pitstop at Bukchon Hanok Village. 

This is the one of the main street, where traditional hanok rooftops are juxtaposed against the skyscaper skyline of modern Seoul. 

Samcheong-Dong with Bakaksan (부각산) in the background.

Hehe, think I could totally fool people to say that this was taken from Switzerland instead.

That said, Samcheong-Dong is a hipster street filled with hipster coffee joint / bakeries. We wanted to try so many of the coffee places, but so many of them were fullhouse. Speaks of the level of coffee consumption in Seoul during winter. 

It was wayyyyyyyyyy too cold, as usual. So we spend a couple of hours sipping coffee, people watching. From my observations, Koreans dress impeccably well!

Z was very enthusiastic to ice skate at the City Hall skating rink. On a Saturday night, this place was filled with happy Korean kids, dating couples and even tourists were spotted! Romantic Korean ballads filled the air as people skated around the ice rink (or at least, attempt to! :p).

To our dismay, only a limited amount of people were allowed to skate in the rink. So you had to book your time slot, and wait in line. We decided to scrap this activity given that next available time slot was at least an hour away. But it shall remain on my bucket list!

We ended up in Lotte Mart to grab some souvenirs and local delights. Ermerged, the human traffic inside Lotte Mart is insane. Typical Asians are everywhere blocking every lane possible with their filled-to-the-brim carts. Not gonna reommend Lotte Mart unless you're kiasu and really like to get some cheap Lotte stuff.

Half an hour later, we were battered. Decided to have a quick bite instead, so we had my favourite Tteokbokki (chewy rice cakes) ! I LOVE TTEOKBOKKI!

Remember to catch Nanta' when in Seoul!

It was SOO funny and entertaining!! No dialogues, only rhythmic banging of knives, pots and pan. Highly recommended.

Note - Buy your tickets online for more discounts!

Ending this post with my favourite picture of the lot!

Taken with the frozen fountain behind us at Cheongyecheon Stream.

Part 2, coming soon!

Jeju Island, Korea

One of our main mission visiting Jeju Island was to hike Mount Hallasan, well apart from visiting the obligatory tourist destinations in Jeju Island itself. Afterall, it is known as the "Hawaii" of Korea. We stayed in Yeha Guesthouse, a clean and nicely decorated backpackers. 

Guests were given one complimentary beer each night!

We chilled at the common room, enjoyed how homely backpackers can be. No hotels can ever give you that awesome experience of staying in a backpackers. 

The walls stairs were lined with happy pictures of tourists from around the world. 

The next morning, we hired a cab driver to bring us around Jeju Island. Manjanggul cave was our first tourist destination, known as the longest lava tube in the world. We thread through the icy cold cave, avoiding puddles of water and uneven rock formations.

This was what we were rewarded at the end of the cave, a unique formation nicely lit. Given that neither of us were really interested in structures and formation, we were not very impressed, and were eager to turn our backs and head back to the cab. 

Our cab driver also became our photographer of the day! He was nice enough to stop at a few scenic locations along our journey to take a few pictures for us. There were two cute little kiddie chair placed there, so we took a few shots, and I personally like the one above a whole lot. 

Made a short climb up Seongsan Ilchubong Peak, supposedly a famous place to observe the rising of the sun. The view of the top was quite magnificent, you could get a bird's eye view of most part of Jeju Island. Very scenic. 

 (: 

Lunch! at some restaurant where the cab driver brought us to. We had seafood pancake, abalone porridge and some seafood soup alongside the condiments. The meal was truly worthy. We loved how fresh the seafood were, and how the soup warmed our cold bodies up.

That's Seongsan Ilchubong behind us! 

Seopjikoji, filming location of many a Korean drama. Would have looked more picturesque in spring, when the grass is green and flowers bloom. 

 Steep narrow stairs down the lighthouse.

Oh we also visited Jeongbang waterfall, the only waterfall in Asia that falls directly into the ocean before calling it a day.

Monday Runs

For the past 20 years of my life, I've never taken fitness seriously. Things started to change sometime last year, where I decided to start healthy living, for several obvious reasons. So I joined a gym, and started going for group classes, which were fun and effective.

It was going all fine, until I noticed that some of the classes were so packed! I hardly had comfortable spacing to move around freely without worrying that I would accidentally kick someone (during body combat). So I decided to get on the treadmill and just jog / run.

Ok, yes, I admit I used to have bad stamina, and I used to hate running. So the first 10 minutes on the treadmill  running at the speed of 8, I was out of breath. I wanted to give up, call it a night and just head home to the comfort of my bed. But somehow, I managed to continue running on for 40 minutes, and that's when I experience the runners high. OMG I felt so good after the run!

So I inserted a new routine in my weekly schedule, to run every Monday.The end goal would be to able to comfortably run 21km by the end of this year. Gonna be tracking myself to work towards it!

Hiking Mt Hallasan, Korea

So both me and Z bid goodbye to 2012 and said hello to 2013 in Korea. 

With 5 layers of clothing bracing the -20 degree cold plus the crazy wind chill. 

But it's all good cause it's our first time seeing snow! 

One of the crazy things we decided to do in Korea was to hike the highest mountain in South Korea, Mt Hallasan (1,950m). Seriously don't know what got into us when we slot Mt Halla into our itinerary. 

But no regrets, it was an awesome decision at the very end! 

We started hiking at 7.30am via Seongpanak trail.
It was pitch black and drizzling. Thankfully there were many hikers with us, which lifted our spirits a little.
On the flipside, 99% of the hikers were Korean who barely speak English so we couldn't really communicate in the end.

Most pictures were taken only with iPhone 4. It was too much hassle with the rain plus gloves to pull out the DSLR.
Self shot of us when we hiked around 8% of the mountain.
Forced smiles. Our boots and socks were soaked wet already, and our feet were numbed.
Rain + Hiking in snow is never a good combination eh?



The first shelter in sight! God we were so happy when we saw this shelter.
By this time the rain has subdued, so we packed our raincoats up and latch on our crampons.
We also brought hot brown rice green tea with us and happily sipped them to warm our bodies up.

Our cool crampons, which costs around RM100.
Best investment ever!
If it weren't for these crampons we would have fell a million times in the snow.



Reached Jindallaebat Shelter feeling so hungry cuz we only had two pieces of bread in the morning.
Happily slurped brimming hot instant noodles sold at the shelter.
Z even had second helpings and extra Snicker bars for booster to continue our journey.

Yay at least we have one nice shot for the album!

Iphone pictures do not justify how pretty the scenery was throughout the way.
Dead trees covered in white snow.
Snow everywhere, so serene.

Obligatory feet shot! (:
With our colorful crampons.




At 1,900m. At this point we were quite eager to finish it and get back for a good hot shower and food.
But nope, we had the toughest last 50m to go and another 10km journey down.

Every step after 1,900 m was crazy because of the strong wind. It was so strong it kinda blew me till I lost a little of my balance. Everyone had to cover their faces to protect their noses from falling off (haha, ok I kid, but my nose was pinkish red already).

And then we made it!!
HAHA LOOK AT OUR FACES OF PURE UNADULTERATED JOY.

Mind you, the wind was still blowing like mad, and the fog was so thick we had no pretty scenery to see (like the ones from google image). No crater view, all we see is white, white fog / snow everywhere. 

It was still cool though, to hike in snow. A totally different experience from hiking in summer. 

And it is still very surreal to me to see a bed of snow layering the ground, so pretty. 

After sipping whatever tea we have left (surprisingly it was still hot! super good idea to bring a hot flask), we made our way down. Fun thing about hiking in snow is that you get to slide down, which equates bigger steps and faster speed gliding down. 

The total journey up and down took us around 9 hours, including lunch break. 

Although it wasn't an easy breezy journey, it was an incredible unique experience. 

I will always remember how we hiked through 20km of snow with wet socks & boots. And how we supported each other throughout, mentally especially. So in the future, if  when we ever go through hard times, I will remember this journey, and remind myself that we can make it through. (: 

Our reward for the night! 

Glorious mouthwatering Jeju's famous black pork BBQ. 

Man, we cleared every piece of meat there was, even the condiments.

*Burp*