Grad trip - Day 12

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 12 out of the 12 days grad trip in South Korea! ^^

It is a long post, but if you are interested to read about my experience, please do so. :)

Day 1: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-1.html
Day 11: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-11.html

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Day 12: The last day in Korea

The tiredness from the previous night packing prevents people from waking up to enjoy the last sunrise in Korea, but this is how the skyline looks like at 5 o’ clock in the morning… Back to sleep…

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The next waking up was already at 7+, rising to the last bright and beautiful day in Korea. In about 9 hours, me and SY would be on our flight home back to SG! With my jacket, cap, remaining food items and file, I set off for the last morning walk with the intent of exploring the Seoul City wall. For the past few morning walks in Busan and Seoul, I realised that some of the stalls and shops actually sold toast as their morning dishes which I found it ironic as toast seemed more like a western kind of breakfast rather than a Korean one. I am not talking about the ones sold in bakery / Paris Baguette, but rather the standard ones made of French toast and omelette. =P The small stall by the roadside sells really fragrant toast, and I decided to try one after breaking my change at a CU convenience store. So this small stall is a really cosy place for eating, I think a maximum of only 1 or 2 people will be able to eat in front of the stall while looking at the chef preparing the dish, and the rest of the customers are to take away their food. Beverages such as milk, juice, etc. are available for sale too!

They served the toast in a cup (for 2k wons), and it smells really good! I realised Koreans like to serve their small snacks in a cup, the toast, the ham and cheese salad roll, the egg cake, etc. Perhaps paper cups are considered much more environmentally friendly than the plastics being used to hold smaller snacks? Not too sure about that. The toast is basically French toast that has a crispy bread skin texture, with a soft middle, wrapping around a generous layer of onion-ham-egg. One bite of this hot treat, ah… heavenly! Even writing about this makes me hungry. XP The traffic junction near the Seoul city wall is extremely hectic, but nevertheless the noise did not bother me much and I found a nice shelter to have my breakfast and wrote down the memories of the previous day. That experience is just like a personal outdoor picnic. =D

The Seoul city wall is a beautiful piece of stone architecture that covers the horizon under the golden sunshine. When we watch movies that depict the ancient lives, how people hide and live behind the walls for their safety, that view gives a really similar impression. The flowers around the area is looking very healthy, blooming to the surroundings proudly. I walked up the path to explore more of the area, passing by a museum which unfortunately wasn’t open at 9am. The mid-point view of the city looks great, buildings everywhere, showcasing the business of the Koreans’ work life. That doesn’t change much when I return to SG, wouldn’t it? After these 12 days, it seems like the life in Korea isn’t that relaxing after all. We often say that our lives are busy due to the high standards of living, and thus we have to work longer hours to keep the economy workforce operational and indirectly sacrificed our own personal freedom. That seems to be the case too for the urban areas of Seoul and Busan. One kind of hectic lifestyle, spread across different countries. =/

Behind the glass-window museum likes an ulu low-rise building district that looks rather old and very different from the actual main area. I didn’t go there due to lack of time, but took some pictures anyway. Not sure if the wall was really from the past or was reconstructed, as it looked rather clean and symmetrical, allowing visitors to appreciate the beauty of the structure or peep through the missing bricks for a sneak-peek at the surrounding areas. =D Generally, the location is nice for a walk or a date despite it being a small area. The next area I visited before going back to the accommodation facility is the waterway near the Dongdaemun shopping district. That waterway is nicely decorated with plants and stones, and the people could walk by the paths on an elevated path right beside the water. Is that a location where Hello Stranger was filmed? Someone who is standing on a bridge over the waterway could shout out their worries with echoes bouncing off the walls! =D A short walk for the feel, and the flying time brings me all the way to 9.30am, the time to meet / wake SY up.

The previous few days did not feel that fast as the level of shagness brought us down to concentrate on resting than counting down. Ok I meant me, SY felt that the time was getting faster as our days in Korea were limited. SY was already up when I returned from my walk. My original plan in the timetable was to check out at around 11 in the morning and proceed to the airport for a walk before the departure. SY did not really like the idea of dragging his luggage around, and instead suggested that we have a meal before going off. He seemed to be in a more emo mood than usual (although that was more evident in the last few days), but still tried to look ok and chose a random Chinese restaurant for our last proper meal in Korea. I think neither of us were really hungry, and just wanted to do something for killing the last stretch of emo time. We heard the person speaking Chinese, and thus conversed with her in the same language which made ordering much easier. Funny how such convenience wasn’t given to us in our first few days, but appeared more often during the last few days of the trip. =/

I ordered a hot stone bibimbap while SY had a bowl of cold noodles. The side dishes looked kind of strange although it is definitely Chinese cuisine except for the kimchi. Among the dishes was an egg-coated luncheon meat dish, but sadly it was quite disappointing as the luncheon meat was vegetarian and it tasted more like beancurd instead. =/ SY didn’t like the taste either, and I ended up biting the egg off only. Our food came thereafter and we had a really quiet time eating our food. The given servings were really big, until SY could not finish his noodles and I struggled to finish the serving of rice. I think the vegetable bibimbap in Busan is much better, as the taste wasn’t that heavy and it had more of the refreshing vegetables I like. That being said, it is still worth the higher price. I guess the taste went down partially due to the fact that we were on our last day of enjoyment and thus it is natural to feel more emo when eating the food. SY was like playing with one large chunk of his noodles after he declared being full. For the whole grad, we didn’t take many photos together and it was quite a bit of shame. That’s not too late though as we could still take one more, and so I suggested that we should take a photo together as we had never really done so other than the initial photo taking in the Busan SEA Aquarium, and surprisingly SY agreed (yay). =D The ahjuma helped us take one memory photo despite being quite busy for the lunch time preparation. ^^ So that’s it, goodbye to the cosy family restaurants in Korea! I will definitely miss the nice service, the free flow of side dishes and beverages, and of course the nett prices displayed on the menu! The Korean restaurants in SG hardly follows any of those rules locally. =/

The clock reaches alarmingly fast to 11.30am in the morning, less than 2 hours before we left our accommodation facility. SY wanted to buy some snacks home for his mother (uniquely Korea), leaving me to have last moments with the GS25 convenience store. I remembered when SY went for exchange a few years back and linked me the map around his hostel through Facebook, the number of GS25 in the map surprised me greatly as it was really densely packed. Come to think of it, the concentration of convenience stores in Korea is far heavier than the 7-11 / Cheers we have in SG. I will definitely miss the packed food, nice seats (near Hongik Uni and Busan) and the large range of beverages. =) Ah, not forgetting the nice service most of the GS25 staff gave! The small bow culture seemed to be easily grasped by me. =P 

Our last pack up of stuff and bath before we left the accommodation facility included a photo taking of the amount of cosmetics we bought from Innisfree. One mask costs 950 wons in South Korea as opposed to the S2 SGD unit rate in SG. Naturally, we bought a bit more to give to our families. =D It was then a quiet and emo subway ride back to Seoul station, thinking about the last few hours of Korea life before all these were gone. =/ SY noticed that Seoul station offered an express train ride that skips all the stops in the line all the way till the airport and suggested that we took it to save some time. Sounds like a good idea, and we got ourselves an express ticket each for slightly lesser than 8kW after a 1kW boarding pass discount event. =D The half-hourly train service (AREX) promoted itself to be 25% faster due to the non-stopping and is really comfortable with dedicated seating arrangements similar to the case of the KTX.

We got an instant orange ticket to pass through a special gantry to the train service, and true enough the train feels really comfy with its facility standards being very close to the KTX levels. There’s a metal rack to place the luggage, or an alternative inclined shelf about the seats without any doors. At fast I was puzzled if that structure would allow any dropping of stuff, but SY showed that the slope declines towards the wall and not the passageway, minimizing the danger. Cushioned seats with magazines and gift forms on the net, a TV screen and windows to look outside. Yup, our whole journey was on the middle tracks of the 3-track railway, and it was a nice sight to see ourselves zooming past all the stops. XD Not sure if anybody remembers this, but few years back in SG, there was an express service from JE to Raffles Place without stopping on any of the intermediate west line stops, does anybody know how does that work? I definitely didn’t!

After a 40 minutes ride, SY pointed out that we were running out of time and we had to double our speed of checking in. My initial plan of exploring the airport was completely destroyed, but I guess we didn’t have a choice. =/ SY didn’t mind missing it though as he did not want to drag his luggage all over the place. We got a refund of 500 wons each for our orange ticket at the place where I bought my T-money card. Ah, that noobness of asking about an ez-link card in English on my 1^st day. =D The excitement of not knowing what to expect in a foreign land of words, is all coming to an end. We walked to our check-in area and deposited our luggage with the Asiana crew. A guy cut our queue by saying that he was in a rush of time, which turned out that he was actually in the same flight as us. True enough, the time hit 3.10pm and we started to feel a bit rush as we haven’t buy any Korean snacks before the departure. The security check took a super long time (we got separated) due to the world cup event, and it doesn’t help when one of the guys in my queue brought some water bottles into the checking area. By the time I was done, it was close to 3.30pm! Omg, so little time left before boarding the plane! >.<

Shopping for snacks in 10 minutes or so can be a very thrilling experience. Does the item look good? If yes, buy! I did not really get to slowly choose the items, and ended up just taking the recommendation of a sales personnel by taking 3 boxes of sharable items in addition to a complimentary gift that comes with the purchase. The prices are surprisingly not labelled in Korean wons but rather in 2 digit numbers. I suspected that it was USD and made a mental note in my mind of the total purchase amount. After days of brownie hunting, SY finally found what he wanted and recommended me to buy a box. XD Not sure why is that so nice, but I took one anyway and paid up subsequently. It ended up to be over a 102k wons after conversion, and I was short of 10+k wons. -_- SY lent me some money and I finished my purchase with big bags of stuff to bring back! So happy haha! Is that feeling the reason why females like to do shopping so much? You get to admire the spoils of your trip, an indirect form of mental satisfaction? =D Ok bah, at least this keeps me happy and tired which is a good form of distraction from being emo. Before the airport rush, things were going nice and slowly with an emo mood. The rush pulled me out of that level and all I wanted was to quickly board the plane and go home. =P I rested for a while in front of the boarding gate while SY went to look for another round of items.

3.45pm eventually came. A last look at Incheon International Airport, and up we board the Asiana Airlines airplane. A very interesting thing happened though. During that period of time, a few planes were bound to depart from the airport, and thus there is literally a queue of planes on the pathway to standby for takeoff! =D Queues of people or vehicles are way too common, but woah a queue of planes? That’s just amazing! Ok la, maybe it’s interesting only for me but not for SY. Pilots have to take note of the turbulence though, something about air currents that still linger after the previous plane takes off, a concept Jeff will not understand quickly. That’s bye Korea then! Thank you so much for the nice scenery, food and attractions! XD

The last flight consisted of two food items for the passengers. The first one was a proper dinner 2 hours into the flight, which I had a nice bibimbap (nicer than the hot stone version in the morning) with more vegetables and delicious sesame dressing. A nice presentation of food, just like the breakfast we had on the morning of the first day. =P The second item was a pizza bar snack an hour before the departure. SY was praising himself on how good he was in maximising flight comfort while maintaining a reasonable flight price. That’s true! It was indeed a great experience for both directions of the flight! Turbulence seems to be a bit of a problem though. When there is some moderate of turbulence, the pilot warned the passengers of the slight discomfort / shaking as we went through the air currents and everyone was to be seated. The CAs who were serving dinner with the trolleys had to squat down and support the trolleys throughout the whole period. You can see that they were slightly tired (imagine squatting for near 10 minutes!), but they still put on a smile and declined the offer of a cushion for their knees. That is simply professional! To the CAs who served us dinner, thank you for your excellent service! =D

A rest for the mind by breaking away from the games offered in the flight, instead I entertained myself by watching movies. The list of movies was different from the previous flight’s, but still a rather decent list. I watched a slightly shorter version of Now You See Me 2, My Annoying Brother, Luck-Key. The last two were Korean movies recommended by SY. I am not too sure how he knew about those, but they were really nice to watch! 

My Annoying Brother was categorised as a comedy movie, and showcased how the conman elder brother used his younger bro’s blindness as an excuse to get out of jail. However, the elder bro still cared for his bro even though his character is really twisted and kept on insulting his bro. =P Some scenes were funny like the ones where he brings him for shopping / to a club / for a home dinner with a guest priest. The movie’s mood turned to a sad mode when the elder bro realised he got cancer, and he was determined to make his younger bro’s life a lot more better and meaningful before he dies. The scene where his younger bro heard from the coach that his bro is dying is simply sad, he literally want to abandon his competition to see his bro immediately, but was persuaded not to as winning for his brother was a more important aim. That was so heartbreaking to watch, silently helping without recognition. =/ That was nowhere near comedy in any way.

Luck-Key is also a comedy movie, with the identities of a poor actor and a rich assassin being switched. Although the lives are being switched, the personality of the assassin with a memory loss is very pleasant, and it is amazing to see how people could change a really unfavourable and desperate situation to one that is totally lovable. <3 Didn’t watch finish the whole movie as the plane landed before completion. Shall put a reference to watch this in the future!

“Please note that chewing gum is not allowed in Singapore”, a typical Singaporean law for such random stuff. That indicates the plane landed safely in SG! Welcome back to SG! =D Received a welcome back message from SH (<3), and my parents were waiting for me and SY at the arrival hall. =D We returned the portable wi-fi (paid by cash) and proceeded home. =D With a last humour from SY that he was handing over Jeff back to his parents after 1.5 weeks, the Korea grad trip officially ended! Thank you SY for being such a nice host, and guiding me around Seoul with basic survival skills and travelling tips! :D I really enjoyed myself during the 12 days (my parents said that I look happier after coming back), a great break after studying for so many years. =) 

With all these memories, it is back to my own nice bed, to a nice sleep, to reality…



And of course distributing the gifts which I have bought! XD This is all for my writing! If you have read all the way, thank you for your time to read! :)

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This is the end of my 12-day grad trip experience with SY! If you would like to re-read some of my experiences, you may click on the links below. :)

Day 1 (Seoul P1): http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-1.html
Day 3 (Jeju): http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-3.html
Day 6 (Busan): http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-6.html
Day 9 (Seoul P2): http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-9.html
Day 11: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-11.html