[Adventure(s)] #13: Eleventh Week in Korea

Reminder: Click on the titles for pics and videos

Day 71 (Saturday, August 26): Energy Sharing Concert

OOTD: white and black stripe top that looks suitable for baseball event, black jeans, oishi tamago socks, black Boy London shoes–later in the evening changed into Dean crop top, higher waisted pattern denim shorts, star dangly earrings

Woke up at 6am today to go to Alex’s baseball game. I felt pretty awkward and unsure of to interact with the other people there but it was nice to see Alex in his element and having fun playing baseball. I was happy that I was able to record footage of him playing out on the field and batting. We met up with my sister and I was ecstatic when she showed me the project she’s been working on for her silkscreening class! She made me a shirt and canvas bag with a cool pic of Dean. AHHHHHH I was freaking out. Also perfect timing since we were going to be seeing him tonight. We ordered some fried chicken delivery for lunch and the place was super cute with their handwritten letter thanking us for ordering from them. Apparently they write a note like this every time. How cute!

After taking a quick 20 minute nap, my sis and I got ready and headed over to Olympic Park for Energy Sharing Concert featuring Saay, Heize, Babylon, Zico, and of course Dean. ❤ I headed over to the subway station wearing my sunglasses and I felt pretty coo. I totally dig these sunglasses. We were supposed to meet up with Lindy there at 5pm and we got there a bit later but she was nowhere to found. I was freaking out and running all over the -lace trying to find her. I realized her I may have confused her with y typo but then I realized that my typo wouldn’t even make sense. it’s just hard since Lindy as no data on her phone and I was worried that she was here already and super lost and pissed or something bad had happened. My sis and I headed over to the concert venue entrance in hopes of seeing her there but we couldn’t find her there either. Luckily it as at that point that we were able to talk via the phone option n KakaoTalk since she was able to find some wifi. Turns out she got lost on the subway and was still on her way. Whe. We finally met each other and kept apologizing to each other and sighing a breathe of relief as we entered the concert venue. Also side note: it was a good thing that I checked the tickets that said the concert was at 6pm since the original ticketing service I talked to said the concert was 8-11pm. If we listened to them, we would have missed he whole concert. Lesson of the day: double check and that people make mistakes with typos and whatnot.

The concert was phenomenal!!!!! I’m super glad Jess finally got to got to a music concert with Korean artists and that she enjoyed it. She liked everyone so much and she sees why I get so hyped about Dean all the time. Saay was cool as usual and Heize was absolutely adorable with her fan service. She was saying a couple in the crowd was so cute so she gave them an umbrella and her album. She also wished they would get married. Hahaha. She would even take selfies with fans using their cameras. So jealous. Babylon was amazing and it was my first time hearing him live. His voice can go so high and he has so mush control over his voice. So impressed. Dean was up net and of course I was fangirling so hard throughout all of his songs. I was singing at the top of my lungs and thank goodness I had Jess who helped me with recording the performances so I can remember them forever~ I freaked out when he sang 어디 since I haven’t heard him sing that song live in the 3 prior times I’ve seen them. Of course that’s because that’s a new SMTM6 song hahaha. What’s funny and great about seeing him multiple times live is that I knew what antics he has up his sleeve and I know certain things he will do that I can make sure to Snap or record. No matter how many times I see him perform live, he will always mesmerize me. When Zico came to join Dean for Bermuda Triangle and Fanxy Child, that was super epic. Also super happy that I got to see Zico live too. He’s a great performer. I also must note that whoever was in charge of the filming and the visual arts on the huge display screens behind them did an amazing job. Great filming angles and shots and visual arts were captivating and not too distracting. Everything was on point. Greatly appreciated.

After the concert, My sis and I said goodbye to Lindy and we went home to eat some leftover chicken. My sis got to meet John and we hung out for a bit with him, Alex, and Kyle before washing up and listening to music and catching up on K-ent news before falling asleep. Once again I didn’t blog like I should have. Hahaha.

NOTE: It will take time for me to export and upload videos from the concert so be patient and just check back on this folder~

Day 72 (Sunday, August 27): Making New Friends

OOTD: “Long Beach” long sleeve white rash guard, higher waisted pattern denim shorts, oishi salmon socks, black Boy London shoes

After packing up my stuff for the day and adding new songs to my phone (Hoody’s “Hangang” and Crush x Wrong Addresses’s “Love is True”) I headed over to Yeouinaru Station which is close to where we could rent bikes. I ended up taking the bus since apparently that was supposed to be faster. I’ve usually been lost trying to take the bus but I was actually successful this time. Granted it was only 2 stops away but a success is a success nonetheless. I met up with Jessica’s friend Ria first since Jessica was a little late. She was at Coex Mall buying a new phone case for our mom.

I got to talk to Ria and we got along and had things in common. She’s so sweet and cool! It’s also so cool that they became friends because they were in the same Facebook group Sad & Asian Girls (I’m part of that page too). Once Jess arrived, we headed over to the rental bike station which was 5,000 won for 2 hours. So a little under $5 USD. Ince again great deal. It was super fun and relaxing being able to bike alongside Han River. The path was super nice and the weather was perfect for biking. I got to get in a breath of fresh air with the wind blowing in my hair and face. Gahhhh it was great~~~ I felt refreshed. We stopped at one area to do a quick photoshoot. it felt like we were trespassing since we went through the wire rope thingies to go under the bridge. We were careful so it was all good. Jess and I felt pretty badass with our sunglasses and trying-to-be-cool poses. Hahaha. We had a lot of fun! We biked a total of 22km which is abut 13 miles? Got in quite the workout. We also ended just in time since rain was starting to sprinkle for a bit.

For inner we went to VIPS which was a pretty classy buffet that had food from all of the world. I usually don’t like going to buffets because the quality isn’t usually good but this place was soooo good. I had some sushi, oil pasta, BBQ pork, fried chicken, khao phat (Thai fried rice), mochi, passion fruit, mango (slightly frozen), peaches, mochi sticks (this was once of my faves), coconut pudding, churros, and other food. But yes, food was good and so was the company. We spent a few hours there just talking about a bunch of things. The bill for VIPS was a little pricey but thank goodness Ria found a discount when she researched about the restaurant on Naver. Bless Naver!

Once Jess and I got home to her house in Hwajeong, I showered and then started to blog (getting to catch up is great but so much to have to remember). Also looked through the photoshoot pics from today. Bless Ria for workign so quickly and bless Jess for being an awesome sis who lets me stay with her and puts up with my crazy antics and always helping me boost my confidence (especially when it comes to my modeling abilities hahaha). Can’t wait to share them to the world~

NOTE: Check out the photoshoot pics here!

Day 73 (Monday, August 28): New Read

OOTD: “Long Beach” long sleeve white rash guard, higher waisted pattern denim shorts, oishi salmon socks, black Boy London shoes

I spent most of day chilling at my sister’s place catching up on my shows and blogging. She brought home bibimbap and miso soup for lunch. Yum. I’m totally loving “Strongest Deliveryman” and I can’t wait for more OTP interaction. I’m loving their characters and the trajectory of their relationship. I also started reading “The Highly Sensitive Person” per my sister’s recommendation and I really identify with the book. I am gaining insights about myself and now I have something to do when I’m riding on public transit besides going on my phone (I’m running out of data for this month hahaha).

When I finally headed back to Alex’s place, I was pretty proud of myself for navigating the bus system for part of the trip. I’m not as hesitant to ride the bus anymore which is great since it’s way more convenient to use the bus in Yeouido. When I got home, I showered and watched the new episodes of the variety shows “Outrageous Roommate” and “I Lived Alone.” For dinner, we just had some pizza. There were two pizzas were split into four flavors (spicy chicken, pepperoni, Hawaiian, and bacon. I spent the rest of the night editing my d.school application, planning for my solo travels the next day, and uploading photos while doing some of my laundry

Day 74 (Tuesday, August 29): Solo Traveling

OOTD: “Girls, Girls, Girls” shirt, long light wash jeans, black Boy London shoes

I started off my day by trying to wash my Dean shirt again because there was a bit of a smudge. WHAT A TRAINWRECK THAT WAS. I guess you should only hand wash single items since I ended up putting too much detergent and the washer bubbled up. Good thing it didn’t overflow but I still had to scoop out the bubbles and stay at home to let the washer rinse out for a few cycles.I was planning to travel to Gangnam today to explore a few places but that got a little delayed because of the whole washer dilemma. But it’s all chill. Even with the delay, I was able to head out of the house around 2pm.

First stop was Bongeunsa Temple! I successfully navigated the bus and I’m really starting to get the hang of it. Whoow~ The temple was so busy with the many hanging lanterns and lotus plants. I took quite a few pictures and bowed to Buddha. It’s been so long since I’ve last been to a temple and I do miss it. The peacefulness and calmness it brings really helps to ease the anxiety and stress from my day-to-day life. After exploring the temple I headed over to COEX Mall. I was pacing around here and there trying to figure out where I wanted to eat. I wasn’t really feeling a sit-down kind of restaurant but I didn’t want to eat somewhere like Lotteria and Burger King. I ended up going to the CJ Foodworld food court and ordered myself a Thai styled pork rice plate with egg. The rice was a little dry but everything else especially the pork was real good. The service of the place was nice as they handed my plate of food with utensils all set up when I went to go pick up my food. Also the graphics of the placemat was pretty. Korea’s aesthetic game is definitely on point! As I was heading over the aquarium, my backpack’s zipper decided it was perfect timing to break. NOOOOOO. I literally spent a good 10-15 minutes sitting a t bench trying to zip it back and forth to see if it would work. It didn’t/. Right next to where I was sitting there was a store selling backpacks so I was trying to figure out if this was the universe trying to tell me that I should just go buy a new backpack already. Well I checked them out and I wasn’t digging any of the styles and they were quite pricey as well. I ended up walking a few stores down and buying a 19,000 stylish black bag that was sizable enough for me to carry the stuff that was already in my backpack. I ended up putting my broken backpack in the plastic the store owner gave me.

Next part of my adventure was exploring COEX Aquarium and that was definitely a fun experience! Of course with my awkward and heavy backpack in the bag, I had to get a locker which only costed 1,000 won which is less than $1 USD so that’s chill. Well anyways, back to the aquarium. It was so HUGE. There were so many exhibits that tbh it was a little overwhelming hahaha. So many different sea critters and also random ones I didn’t expect to find like prairie dogs and bats to name a few. There was this one fish called Picaru that was MASSIVE and I mean MASSIVE. Look it up and you’ll know what I mean. It was pretty fun to explore the aquarium on my own although it did feel like I was taking my friends with me because I was Snapchatting a lot hahaha. Let’s just say the COEX Aquarium had so much to see and I enjoyed exploring it for quite some time.

After the aquarium, I decided to check out the famous COEX Library to take some time to relax by sitting down and reading more of “The Highly Sensitive Person.” The library was gorgeous with bookshelves that reached all the way up to the high ceiling. It was also very crowded so I had trouble finding a seat but I was luckily able to eventually sit in a comfy chair to read. I was planning to stay over at my sister’s place tonight which meant that I needed to stop by Alex’s house first to pick up my stuff and then head over to my sister’s place which is a little far from Seoul. That trek took quite awhile and involved a lot wth navigating the bus with two heavy bags but luckily I got there safe and sound. Once again super proud of myself for navigating the bus system successfully. Yeah~ Pat on the shoulder.

I waited to eat dinner with my sister and since we were to order and tired to deal with ordering food with our limited Korea, we decided to just eat McDonald’s. I got a McChicken, medium fried, and a medium Sprite (basically the same thing I got the last time I had McDonald’s except I got large fries and a large Sprite last time). My sis got their premium mushroom burger, medium fries, and a vanilla shake. We did some catching up as I told her about my day traveling on my own as she talked about her day at work as an English teacher. We were there for quite awhile talking before we headed home to shower and rest. Quite thee long day and I was glad to be back home. So blessed to have many places I can call home here in Korea. ❤

Day 75 (Wednesday, August 30): Photoshoot~

OOTD: white flowy floral tank top, white sheer top, light wash long jeans, leaves dangly earrings, black Boy London shoes–for the photoshoot: I wore a long white A-lie skirt with sheer strip and tan wedges (borrowed from my sis)

I spent a good amount of time just chilling at my sister’s house since I wanted to recuperate for being out so much on my own yesterday. My sister reheated some grilled mackerel and samgyupsal stir fried with mushrooms and spinach(?) to eat with rice for lunch. The meal was very yummy~ Oh and she also made some banana avocado smoothie that was also delicious. I’m so thankful to have my sister here in Korea with me. I’m going to miss seeing her and hanging out with her in person. After she left for work, I just stayed at home working more on my d.school application and telling myself that I would do some blogging and uploading photos although I just ended up watching YouTube videos.

I met with my friend Ria for a photoshoot at Olympic Park. I was super excited to do another photoshoot because I love being able to dress up and play around with modeling. It’s so fun~~~ We ended up taking pictures in the areas–a flower field, an area with white log trees, and a woody forest area. I had so much fun during the photoshoot and glad that I was getting to know Ria better. Afterwards, we headed over to the Lotte Mall where we had fried chicken and waffles from a chain that’s also apparently well known in the US. We ordered the original meal and man it was tasty. Never ate proper fried chicken and waffles before so it was a cool new experience. Ria was planning to meet up with some friends from school so I just tagged along.

We went to the Seongsu area which is apparently is the super hipster area in Korea. Good to know! We were heading to a super aesthetic coffee shop called Urban Source that had a bar named Urban Space. We wandered into the coffee shop and IT WAS GORGEOUS. The interior decorations, the rooftop, the outside terrace area. I have to come here again with my sister. I know she would love it. We then headed over to the bar which was super fun with a pool filled with inflatables and the plastic balls you find in ballpins like the ones in McDonald’s. I don’t drink so I ordered a Pretty Lady which was a non-alcoholic drink with Yuju (a citrus fruit). Quite yummy although it was overpriced. I hung around for a bit and played in the ballpins (which was surprisingly pretty comfy) before heading home because I didn’t want to be out too late since I knew my sis would already be home from work. Another long commute back home before I showered and did more things that didn’t involve blogging. Hahaha. Sometimes I just get to exhausted and lazy to write about the day’s events although this just makes my life harder when I have to play catchup. 😛

NOTE: Check out the photoshoot pics here!

Day 76 (Thursday, August 31): Midnight Runners

OOTD: burgundy sleeveless top, medium wash denim shorts, long sheer top, black Boy London shoes, silver diamond geometrical hoop earrings

Today I made the decision of wearing a more bold fashion statement piece aka a long sheer top over my sleeveless top and denim shorts. Although I was debating whether or not it was too much, my sister just encouraged me to wear it if I felt god in it and that it’s okay to be different. So I did because my inner fashionista told me to. Hahaha. For lunch, my sister reheated some mackerel and I had that with rice. Simple but yum.

I met up with my friend Alex to explore Gangnam area. Yes I know I went here a few days ago but there were things I didn’t get to see and really explore. Our first stop was the SM Coex Atrium which is basically the building that fans of SM Entertainment can go to see all kinds of merch and cool stuff from the artists. We explored all of the floors and saw many things–fan art, the outfits they wore in music videos, awards/trophies, the storyboards fro their music video concepts, dessert that were artist themed and many other merch. We didn’t get to run into any idols but it was still super cool to check it out nonetheless because it was all free. There was this cute hat I tried on that went with my outfit but it was too expensive for me to get. Up next, we headed over to Coex Mall to roam around and attempt to do shopping before we went to watch the movie Midnight Runners starring Park Seo Joon and Kang Ha Neul. We just wandered in an out of various clothing and bag stores and were disappointed by the overpriced items. Not a productive day for shopping.

When movie time came, we headed over to the Megabox theater inside Coex Mall. We found out they had a huge slide you can slide down on at the entrance, so we did that. Super fun! WE then went to buy snacks fro the movie and proceeded to finish the chicken and popcorn before entering our movie’s eating area. Yeahhhhh we were hungry. Anyways, the movie was great although it was darker than I expected. I love Park Seo Joon and Kang Ha Neul and their characters and bromance was super entertaining. I would recommend this movie. Gets you to think about how the world really works and how messed up it could be but that there are good people out there willing to risk their lives for justice and saving others even if they aren’t experts at what they do. Quite heartwarming. What’s cute is that Alex and I have now started doing fist bumps (as Park Seo Joon and Kang Ha Neul did in the movie) whenever we’ve feel like e’ve accomplished anything or just whenever we felt like it.

After the movie, we headed to the food court (the same one I went to last time I was at Coex Mall aka 2 days ago), and I had the fried eel bibimbap set for dinner as we ate and spent some time talking about who we are as people and other musings about life. We were craving some dessert so we went to another place and got strawberry bingsu. It wasn’t Sulbing but it was still pretty decent. Afterwards, I headed back to my sister’s place and just lazed around as usual. I watched the new episode of Love Playlist and I’m totally digging it.

Day 77 (Friday, September 1): Beautiful View

OOTD: salmon colored halter top, medium wash denim shorts, black Boy London shoes, triangle tropical earrings

Got up at 10:30/11am today when my alarm actually went off at 10am. I got ready and packed all my stuff and said goodbye to my sister to go back to Alex’s place. When I got home, I made reheated myself some samgyupsal and fried some mandu for lunch since we were too lazy and felt that it was too hot outside to go check out the Turkish food festival down the street. After eating, I ended up napping for about an hour or so and then helping discipline Alex as he did some of his exercising. It was quite funny to see him struggle with working out the muscles of his whole body beyond the ones he uses for running.

We planned to meet up wth Kyle for dinner at 7:30pm in Gangnam and decided we wanted to go to noraebang beforehand so we did that. On the way to Gangnam, we took hilarious pictures of us eating bread and tried to be punny with how we were the cool kids with area carbs. Me wearing my sunglasses added to the cool factor. It was super fun per usual. For the most part we sang songs together but this time we also did solo singing which was nice. My fave was probably getting to sing Kim Sung Gyu’s “I Need You” on my own. One of my fave go-to songs when I’m feeling down. The noraebang owner gave us quite a lot of “service” extra time but we had to leave early to meet up with Kyle.

For dinner, we had budaejjigae which is basically a hodgepodge of various things including sausage, bacon, bans, cheese, ramen, mandu, and other deli lunch meats. I quite enjoyed it and was super happy that the place gave a whole bottle of orange juice for free for every table. I was talking to Alex about wanting to eat budaejjigae and I LOVE orange juice so this meal was a win-win situation all around. We talked for awhile and did some catching up about how our week has been and what we planned to do this weekend.

When we got home, Alex and I spent a few hours talking about life, relationships, and etc as we admired the beautiful view outside the window aka the Han River and the highway filled with cars. Quite calming to watch if you ask me. So impressed with how these streets and bridges were even built. Anyways, I love late night talks the best so now I have this warm and fuzzy feeling inside. I headed back to my room to shower and sleep and now I’m finally blogging. Whoow! I’m debating whether or not I want to watch the new episode of Strongest Deliveryman but it’s pretty late now (3:12am) so I’m not sure.

UPDATE: I didn’t watch the episode because it wasn’t subbed yet.

Advertisement