Grad trip - Day 11

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 11 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 12: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-12.html
Day 10: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-10.html

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Day 11: Walk / shop in Seoul

The initial planned free day has been cut into half as SY feels that some extra time should be given to shopping instead of cramming everything into a night / using the last day in Korea. This last minute spoiler that was mentioned the previous evening before led to some of the intended visits being cancelled (E.g. Namsan Park), but that can’t be helped ya? =/ At 6.10am, I set off to the area near Yeouido Park to have a nice breakfast and hopefully avoid the morning crowd. True enough, there isn’t many people on the subway platform and the trains although the food and convenience stores were already opened for business (random bread, confectionery). The transfer walk at Jongno-3-ga was damn long, did it take 10+ minutes? O_O After walking through a lot of bends and stairs, I thought I had reached line 5 from line 1, until I saw that the brick wall part is only for line 3 and line 5 needed an additional walk. T.T I think the reason is due to the extension of the train lines at different times, and so the lines are built on a different level, hence the difference in vertical heights. Some subway lines do have their stations in greater depth as opposed to the other lines. The original plan was to buy some breakfast from a nearby shop in Yeouido, and then find a table in the park to have a nice meal while writing the previous day’s activities. The exit of the subway however looks more like a business district with some residential buildings on the corner of the streets, and many shops in the region will still not open at 7am. The prices for most shops seems quite expensive, comparable to the café prices we see in SG. Not wanting to buy convenience store food for breakfast, the food hunting part was skipped and I proceeded to walk to the park. Unlike the busy traffic condition at the road junctions, the straight trail through the botak trees and the residential area is quieter and windy to walk in. =)  

The end of the path marks the entrance to the Yeouido Ecology Park, a place apparently with some learning value instead of purely recreational. The park does not seem to have much of entertainment / areas for resting bur rather long sand and wooden paths that lies in the dense greenery. Another function of the park is to bridge the gap between two areas through the Saetgang bridge, a beautiful infrastructure with aesthetic wires and some protruding areas probably used for performances and shows? The other side of the bridge holds a small exercise facilities, an expressway beneath it, and another busy street. This side seems to be less commercial, lesser tall buildings, and has more eateries and shopping options in the form of shop houses. A Korean eatery seems to have quite a number of people entering / exiting, and out of curiosity I went to have a look… Ah! A kimbap shop! :D The shop appearance and prices look quite similar to the one SY introduced in Anam, and a curious Jeff stepped inside the restaurant to find a few ahjumas busy preparing tons of kimbap rolls in aluminium foil. The ahjuma asked me what did I want, which at that point of time I was deciding whether I wanted to have a kimbap or a bibimbap (reminded of the nice vegetable version in Busan). Requesting a tuna kimbap, the ahjuma asked if I wanted to take away, and I just pointed to the tables. I think she gave me a strange look as I did not answer her but instead used hand signals. I was already prepared to accept anything she gave even if it was the wrong order. >.<

In the middle of writing the previous day’s activities, my kimbap was served and to my surprise on a nice black dish, served with side dishes consisting of kimchi and pickles, and also a bowl of soup! Wow! All of these for a mere 2.5kW! The kimbap uses white rice, instead of the purple rice present in the kimbap bought the previous night. Tastes good and heartwarming, just like a complete meal. Of course kimbap may not fulfil the requirements of a complete meal for some people, and that was quite evident from an elderly gentlemen who ordered a bowl of rice / noodles, and had an extra kimbap to complement his main dish. =D

The exploration of the streets continue with a slightly cooling weather, passing by the Korean and Chinese restaurants with rather cheap prices, hardware shops, etc. While the Koreans in the street are walking in formal working attire to catch the buses, I was enjoying a freedom walk in an area where no one knows me, independent of other people. =P I didn’t really expect to see any subway stations during the walk, but there seemed to be a couple of over-ground stations along the way. I continued walking until I saw a nice sign “Daebang Station” which appeared behind a facility of buildings across the road. After checking the subway map, it turns out that the route I took was on the dark blue line, line number 1. Two more places to visit on the plan, and so it is time to move on to the next place which is the Common Ground near Kongkuk University. Before that, I bought myself a delicious coffee bun (only 1k won!) before moving to the subway. =P The coffee smell from the bakery seems to be much stronger than the one seen in one of the long bus journey rest stop. A long train journey with more people (rush hour) this time, and eventually I arrived at Kongkuk University stop 45 minutes later. It is also an overground station, with a lot of low-rise shopping buildings in the region. Is this a nice shopping area in the evening? A level halfway between the platform and the main road holds a claw machine shop that opens 24 hours. A group of girls in uniform were playing inside, and were kind of surprised to see a stranger walking into that facility on that auspicious morning. Didn’t try any machines as I remembered the scam experience in Jeju. =P The usual pokemon soft toys covered almost all the claw machines in the shop. There were some very weird ones like aliens and robots, not sure if the characters had come from an anime or is simply random. =/

Common Ground is a shopping facility with a twist that the shops are not placed in buildings, but in shipping containers instead. The special structure should make it easier to identify compared to other buildings, and that starts the hunt. The shophouse street area is really big, and one can easily get lost if you do not have a sense of direction. After 15 minutes or so, I reached an intersection where there is no obvious routes to containers whatsoever as the whole place is full of eateries and meat / seafood shops. Let’s find the place later and visit the supermarket as a short break. XD This is again another place of hip music, as the songs were in English and even playing Ed Sheeran’s Shape of you song. I am not a fan of this song, especially after hearing 987 FM playing that millions of times on the radio as it was rather popular, but that sounded quite nice in a foreign environment and I am pretty sure I can sing the words better than everyone present in that supermarket at that time. =P Ok, you have the traditional Korean biscuits, spices and tea, but other than that the items look kind of the same as the ones in SG except that the manufacturing companies are different. The bakery section sells the usual white bread, muffins, baguettes. Do they have cakes? In SG, some of the sections have butter / fruit cakes for those who are sick of having bread-related items, although the quality is not as good. XD 

Still not being able to find the containers, I gave up searching on my own and used my phone to locate. It turns out that Common Ground is directly along the main road, an area which I immediately ignored upon my arrival. -_- The interior opens at 11am, and so the only stuff available for viewing would be the exterior and a glance of the main corridors. The whole place isn’t as big as I thought, maybe slightly bigger than a neighbourhood non air-con shopping facility in SG? The walking surfaces are literally container floors except with nicer flooring, lights are hanged from the ceiling, and thus basically the structure of a container is still preserved. Some of the shops can be seen from the glass windows (modified from the original dead end of a container), and it looks kind of cool. =P Apparently there is a market place inside too, but naturally I didn’t get to go in. =/ The outer area features a bar-restaurant with wooden umbrella seats which seem perfect for an evening drink for those who love to chill after a long day. =D Maybe the Container Ground is catered to a night crowd and more often used for a meeting point instead of shopping? =P

The last stop before meeting SY in the remaining 2h+ of freedom would be to visit the lock museum near Hyehwa station. Just before leaving the station, there’s a stall that caught my eye with the 1k won sign, and that is something which I have not seen in the past 10 days of the trip! A simple modification of a kimbap gives a similar seaweed vegetable roll, but with a lot of different flavours! =D So this roll has some of the bitter lettuce greens, your desired topping (mine is ham and cheese), and all those will be wrapped nicely with a layer of seaweed with sprinkled sesame and finally served in a cup as a street food item. It tasted nice! Of course, kimbaps are nicer as the Koreans will make sure their rice is of a good quality and is thus better than a slightly bitter vegetable, but I guess this is not so bad if somebody wants a lighter snack without the extra carbohydrates. =D Initially I wanted to buy some for SY to try, but went against it as he wasn’t that interested in eating vegetables.

An artistic town lies right outside the subway station, featuring the creative decorations of the streets around Naksan Park. I was quite amazed by this themed public park as it looks seriously just like a common resting greenery area until you properly observe the facilities around there. The edge of the road features a visitor centre where the public could find out the different performances that will be held in the near future, the inner contains an ieum arts centre. Very beautiful landscape, cooling for a rest. =) The streets focus a lot on the theme of arts, and hence almost every unit contains some form of murals, performance features, instruments, figures, etc. The cafes in the area also offer a more open concept, where patrons can sit outside and look at the artistic decorations instead of being cooped inside. A lot of cuisine are rather western though (even more than Korean food) featuring waffles, wraps, sandwiches and all kinds of meat main courses. Probably this area attracts a lot of international visitors and is not really targeted at purely Korean audience.

Finding the lock museum proved to be a challenge despite the directional signs located on various locations of the streets. After happily walking for some time in the shown direction, I realised that the lock museum was shown to be in the direction I came from, and that left me oscillating for quite a while. Museums are usually distinct and have big signs / features to show their existence, so what’s so difficult about finding this one? It turns out that the museum is hidden on the 4^th floor of a building which looks super abandoned. >.< Although the indoor stairs are exposed to sunlight, the whole structure looks very eerie as the corresponding facilities at the 2^nd and 3^rd floor were totally dark. Out of curiosity, I climbed up (rather quickly) while playing some music on my phone and saw the entrance. A separate flight of stairs leads up to another location which I presumed is the exhibition area, and that same level contains a rather large room with factory kind of fluroscent lighting with drawings scattered on the table, slightly messy bookshelves and equipment which looked like they were not touched for a long time. The whole place looks really eerie. =/ After shouting “Hello” in Korean with no reply, I quickly left the building. Is that an abandoned place or something? Why isn’t anyone there!? o.o

I continued the walk along the art streets for another 20 minutes or so, and then read about the lock museum online. The ratings given were quite ok, displaying the history and motivation for the lock museum, and no one said anything about the scariness. Probably I was over-reacting, but that atmosphere definitely isn’t very welcoming. That is when I decided I shall give it another shot. Running up the stairs once more, I shouted “hello” and “excuse me” in Korean with a louder voice, and this time a young lady popped out of nowhere and asked what I wanted politely. I was definitely surprised and sort of jumped. XD She must have been confused by my big reaction. I told her I wanted a ticket for the lock museum, and after sensing that I was not a local, she told me that she could speak and understand extremely basic English (still better than most locals) and explained the instructions to enjoy the visit. Apparently the owner of the museum isn’t in, and thus she is supposed to take charge of guarding the museum and settling the admin work all by herself and is thus too busy to entertain people. Oh well, the amount of work must have kept her distracted form this kind of super quiet environment. >.< After collecting 4k wons for the entrance ticket, she passed me some brochures and directed me to the upper level, which is a really dark place (one of the darkest as compared to other museums) with exhibits illuminated by internal LED lights. Despite the small area, the amount of content here is abundant. The entrance features a panel of keys with weird designs and sizes, but yet features the basic shape of a typical stereotype key. 

The lock museum is divided into sections for collectors to view on their area of interest, including locks from different countries and dynasties. The walk started with the showcase of safekeeping boxes with small traditional locks that could be seen in our everyday lives, and more special ones with rounds locks and pieces which I will have no idea how to open them without instructions. =P I particularly like the animal-shaped locks, such as the fish and dog locks. It is just the design that is special, but other than that it isn’t really a special kind of lock. XD

The next section features latches there were being used in Korean architectures. The really ancient ones features the typical big bulky wooden latches with cool designs, although a bit weird though. Maybe they are more for aesthetic purposes or represent the area in some way? There are also mini latches for unknown purposes, looks more modern, some of them left me quite puzzled as I do not see the variable part of the lock anywhere on the design. If the whole piece is fixed, that would be a lock instead of a latch right? Hmm.

With most locks looking rather old / traditional / having only a single colour, some of the key-lock pairs are actually really beautiful, such as the fan-shaped key charm. Not sure how that works, but I wouldn’t want to carry such a special key to any of my locks, everyone will know that the item belongs to you. =P There are also keys with really big pieces of embroidery attached to them, similar to the concept of a keychain.  

Two brightly-lit rooms are used to display the modern locks used in today’s society and not just limited to Korea. The rooms gave me a creepier feeling despite the lighting as they have some items that look strangely similar to the ones used for Chinese offerings… >.< Anyway, the items are placed in wooden cabinets and have much more to show compared to the outside ones. Probably that’s because the ancient items were lost in the excavation process, and modern ones can be duplicated easily with permission from the founder. Some of the items look like things you will hang on your personal belongings instead of being used as keys/locks (E.g. tortoise lock). The other room is rather unclassified to me, as they contain silver badge-like items which neither looks like keys nor locks to me, and big treasure boxes which look kind of creepy. Not bad, people who appreciate such stuff could spend a long time there and analyse the security that was present in those designs. =)

A thing that puzzled me was the statement that the owner of the museum had collected each and every lock of the museum by himself and wanted to share this beautiful category of craftwork with the public. The solution would be to ask the lady herself via a translated sentence. =P Before that, I glanced through the souvenirs (left in the open area) and chose to get a fish lock postcard. The lady was nowhere to be found, and so I went in to the museum shop (which looked like an abandoned library) and found her inside the office. That item cost 600 wons, and she was like “oh wow somebody is buying something”. XD The query was solved when she said that the owner had traded some other items to get some special locks for the museum, and it is not possible to hunt for every single lock internationally by himself. Wow, that means there could be potentially many more locks than the ones he had seen! On that note, I thanked the lady and left the lock museum at noon time. If you are in Seoul and have some friends who are interested in these too, spare a short period (45 mins) to visit and be amazed by the items! Maybe people with design talents can appreciate all these much better than me. =D I think the shop does sell some of the key-lock replicas, but I didn’t buy them as they cost quite a lot of money. =/

Lunch time soon arrived as people from various buildings walked to the restaurants in the art street for lunch. As for me, I spent my remaining half an hour around the park and visiting the university / hospital across the street. The relation and proximity between the two facilities strongly reminded me of NUH / NUS, not sure if that is really correct though! Didn’t walk around the hospital much as there was a lack of time, but I saw the department of pediatric medicine which looked kind of atas, but other than that the external looks super kid-friendly. XD In terms of design, I feel that KK still looks nicer as compared to the Korea’s version. =P At 12.30pm, I set off to Korea University station to meet SY. That’s a rather eventful YOLO half-day! =D

Our original meeting time was at 1.15pm, but it turns out both of us were early and arrived at 1pm instead. For lunch, SY recommended one of his favourite soup dishes (he normally does not drink soup) during his exchange days. That honour goes to the beef stew soup in one of the quieter family restaurants that prides itself on the ginseng. It is a sit-on-the-floor restaurant, with free flow side dishes that doesn’t appeal much to me. Is it Chinese food? Hmm. We got a complimentary vegetable soup which tasted quite odd due to the heavy presence of soy beans and beancurd, followed by our main dish. The soup tasted kind of sweet, much to my surprise as I had always thought that meat soup is naturally salty regardless of the kind of cuisine. The serving of meat and vegetables is rather decent though, as the sweetness did not overwhelm our tastebuds nor made us thirsty after the entire meal. SY liked it a lot, but not really for me as I prefer soup to be of a plainer taste. =P Nevertheless, it was a good recommendation and I appreciate it. =D

Since the serving size was not very large, SY suggested that we go on a post-meal snack consisting of fried chicken, which is another of his favourites. It was a bit of a walk down the streets, and unfortunately that place was closed as it was outside its operating hours. =( That’s a shame, but that couldn’t be helped ya? On that note, the last walk back to the subway station marks the end of the Korea University area exploration! Our next activity was to proceed for our remaining shopping tasks near the City Hall Station. Before our lunch meet, SY went for a shopping walk on his own and found his Korean idol poster! (^^) The poster is quite big and has a nice resolution, costing about 23kW? I don’t really appreciate the beauty of pasting stuff up on my walls, otherwise my room walls will definitely have some of Owl City’s album art hanging on them! XD After reaching City Hall, SY said that he still remembered my original Day 2 plan of visiting the small Deoksugung palace (which was later changed to Gyeongbukgong palace) and suggested that we clear it for completeness. Wow that is nice of him! :D So in we go, with admission tickets at 1k won each. The palace itself is not that fascinating for visitors who had visited Gyeongbukgong as the scenery looks rather similar except that it is on a smaller scale. The roads are sandier though, which looks more traditional to the rocky pathways. =P We had a nice walk of breathing in the fresh air of a warmer Korea, with SY talking about the things we will miss when we go back to SG.

Ah! There is a difference in this palace though! In the Gyeongbukgong palace, the entrance to the actual palace is blocked and everyone could only see the items from outside the King’s chamber. The Deoksugung version strips off this rule, allowing visitors to properly feel the internal aura, with a nice dragon figure placed on the ceiling (That scene can be seen from the Kung Fu Panda movie), is that a dragon scroll? XD The windows and blank area are blocked off though as they were not very interesting and probably fragile from the public’s touch. The remaining part of the palace looks very modern, with beautiful water fountains, shelters and architectures similar to the ones seen in the Jeju Yeojimi Botanic Gardens. Simply spending, and once again another good location for doing tutorials. =P Nearing to the corner of the palace park lies a small building that is apparently a mini museum showcasing the development of the palace. We chanced upon this location purely by accident as the original intention was to find a toilet. Gyeongbukgong had a library, so this smaller palace should have something to showcase ya? XD

The museum structure is a continuous pathway of rooms. Some offers a real life display of items used in the past, while a couple of them are converted into mini screening locations for visitors to relax and watch the historical videos. The objective of these items is to allow visitors to have a better understanding of the life in the past, the challenges such as education, economic, housing, technology, etc. and how the people in those dynasties overcame them. Trivial things such as electricity and communication lines we have today were considered difficult problems in the past, and hence we often hear of traditional methods relying on trained pigeons / messengers for communication. Those exhibits described the development process and they were really interesting! =D The explanation on the walls are mostly in Korean, and so we inferred the information just from the figures and video scenes alone. A visitor who comes to the palace must visit this museum! =P

Rather loud and traditional instrumentals fill the air at around 3.15pm, marking the preparation of the guard changing ceremony with guards and officials marching to the entrance of the palace. We walked to the entrance of the exit where a formal parade was being held to relieve the two current guards of their duty (but ironically it is the ticket collector that blocks people from going in), and puts the next shift personnel in place. Not everyone is wearing the same type of uniform as some are in more vibrant colours than the rest, and the clusters are carrying different items such as spears and flags. The emcees of the event was two Korean ladies who announced the different phases of the ceremony. Our visit is more or less complete, and so we left from the interior and watched the ceremony from the front view. A rather nice formation (in a perimeter-block), with the higher rankings either talking to the on-duty guards or standing in front of the platoon. Some visitors were trying to be funny by going to one of the guards and asking if he could pose for a wefie, and the guard just smiled and said no. Alamak of course luh, people on duty leh! XD That being said, visitors are allowed to step into the formation area to take pictures / videos of the scene without disturbing the people involved in the actual guard-changing procedure. =P

Closer to 4pm, we proceeded for shopping proper. SY helped me list out the people whom I would like to buy gifts / items for, and that condensed to a simple “items for guys” target. =P Items for friends and juniors are easy as a simple keychain souvenir would do the job (That is definitely representative of the country you had visited). I bought some keychains and bottle cap openers from some ahjuma in the Myeongdong underground shops. The items sold there are more traditional in nature such as country souvenirs, potteries, home decorations, etc. SY pointed out that the curtains look nice and suggested that I should buy one, and that of course earned him a diao look. I would be whacked heavily if I had bought curtains back to SG. My mother shared an example where her friend went to Japan for a holiday, and she came back with almost no photos and items, but merely bought some washing machine bendy water pipes which was of a higher quality and slightly cheaper as compared to the SG counterparts. -_- Moral of the story, buy something special from your tour country! Our walk led us to the LOTTE young plaza which held a vibrant and young decoration style for young shoppers, with fanciful piano steps being an example to embrace the theme. True enough, the items across all levels are designed according to how young people will dress in Korea from casual clothing to formal wear to sports items. A main shop in the plaza is the LINE shop at the level 1 entrance, and WOAH all the merchandise you want related to the platform application! Plushies, giant plushies, shirts, mugs, etc. There’s a UNIQLO too, and the price there is about the same as SG’s. I bought two shirts (not sure if SG has them) with one of them bearing the words “Life cannot be reset”. SY said that will be the kind of T-shirts I will usually wear, a message brought across every shirt. XD A short rest thereafter with SY checking-in our return flight seats, we went down to the basement to buy some tea for my FYP prof. After trying out some cold tea recommended one of the promoters, I bought a box of mint-flavoured tea. It is refreshing and a bit sweet, basically as good as the one we had in the soup restaurant the previous evening. I hope Prof. Wu likes it! =D

The underground shopping centre of the shopping district shows the connectedness of Euljiro, Myeongdong and Dongdaemun as one shopping paradise. SY wanted to visit one of the shopping malls in Myeongdong for clothing and recommended me to buy some stuff for my parents there. Cool with that, and off we went to the Orchard equivalent in Korea. =D Myeongdong looks like a more elaborated shopping district compared to Dongdaemun, as the whole place is flooded with shopping malls, lower-floor shophouses, food street stalls, etc. to a really long distance. The closest to this would be the Nampo BIFF area in Busan. There is another LINE shop in that area, and this time I chose to go in to take a look. A super big Brown welcomes shoppers stepping over the construction decoration to buy random stuff. I got a feeling that most people are there to take pictures with the LINE figures instead of buying items. XD This shop is bigger than the one in the LOTTE young plaza, and definitely has much more products. An example is a rather cool mask toy where it shows Cony on the outside, but if a person chooses to put on the mask, the Brown cartoon will cover over Cony, giving the impression that Brown is tanking the air for her. How innovative! XD Wanted to buy a Brown cap, but the near 40k won price tag is a big deterrence. >.< I have many nice caps anyway. =) I saw a group of people were taking pictures with the Cony figure and wondered if they were Singaporeans. The way they speak sounds exactly like how we speak in SG. =D

Having sidetracked at some of the shops, SY then pulled me back to the main task of shopping for clothes at the SPAO clothing department store. SY called his mother for some choices of clothing while I shopped for the clothing items for my family and girlfriend. There were 4 levels in that building, with the first being items on offer, 2^nd for the ladies, 3^rd for the men and 4^th for the young. Bought some clothing for others and a small blue dark blue bag for myself. =D It started to rain and the shoppers / street food stalls began to take umbrellas to cover themselves and the carts. After stepping out onto the streets, a significant amount of water came in my shoes and signalled that it was also time for me to buy a new pair of shoes. >.< SY accompanied me to Skechers (Can be found in SG too) and woah the prices are really high! The cheapest one cost about 90k wons, and I was simply not that keen to buy. =/ SY suggested that I get a better of shoes for about a few hundred thousand wons instead. -_- We wanted to find the designated tax rebate shop to claim our refunds, but the rainy weather, lost directions and crowd sorts of spoiled SY’s mood for walking and we ended up going back to our accommodation facility for a short rest. That’s a hasty goodbye to the shopping district, but oh well. The good thing is that at least SY has cleared his shopping for non-food items.

After placing our stuff and changing into sandals, we proceeded to have dinner before going to Dongdaemun to hunt for my shoes. 9pm, the last dinner in Korea, we went to a trendy food outlet that was meant for drinking and soccer. There isn’t many people inside, only a couple of elderly guys who are watching the soccer match between Korea and Argentina. This should be the first and only food outlet we had that had entirely no female staff inside. XD As a last celebration, we had a good dinner of sweet and spicy / cheese chicken to make up for our lost chicken snack in the afternoon. The serving is huge! I took a bit of cheese from SY, and finished 1 big plate of the fried chicken (sweet and crispy) by myself, along with a bowl of rice, not to spicy kimchi and thinly sliced cabbage topped with mayo and chilli. Absolutely fantastic meal! =D SY was kind of emotionless throughout the meal (probably tired / emo about going home) and so we entertained ourselves by watching the soccer match. I think it is the youth FIFA world cup as the players look really very young. The Koreans almost scored a few times, and the elderly were like “aiya” when their country almost won the goals. It is a really nice ambience, a bit dark and cosy for some drinking. I accidentally dropped a few plastic cups after attempting to take the cold water from the fridge, and the shop owner was smiling and said that it’s alright. That’s very nice of him. ^^ The total bill came up to be 33k wons (we thought it was 29), and I gave 34 to thank him for the great service and food. He accepted that extra tip with a great smile and thank you with no hesitation, unlike the previous few encounters we had at other family restaurants. =D Maybe guys are just more straightforward ya? Eh wait no, the army stew person in Busan Day 7 was stunned at the tip. Oops. =P Haha anyway that’s a really nice dinner, and a feel of a chicken and beer dinner, except that this time the beer is changed to plain water. XD One more trivial fact, our first and last dinner is all fried chicken. O_O

The rain stopped, and we headed over to the Dongdaemun area for the hunting of shoes. The Lotte Plaza was still open late in the night, along with some other night market shops that wished to have further sales to make up for the previous rainy hours. Eventually, I found a pair of non-sports in a basement fair of the mall. There’s a nice looking pair that is worth 59k, a promotion from the original price of 100k+ wons. The promoter is a VERY humorous guy, and his talking style is extremely similar to Dr. Le Hai Khoi! Or I should say… IT’S SIMILAR! XD I think some sample sentences goes something like this:

“This pair of shoes, is very nice! Good quality! Half Price! This price, how to find?” 

“You got your passport? If you have, I can give you discount! I will give you 1, 2, 3k wons discount! No more, no less. You like it? I know, you are happy about it!”

“You have taken everything? Thank you very much! You are free!” <- WOAH OMG.

Even his thank you and smile resembles Dr. Le very much, I should have taken a photo with him! He is one of the rare shopkeepers who speaks really good English as compared to the other commercial staff in Korea. SY was quite puzzled on the fact that I was very amused by the shopkeeper when it was actually just a normal sales promoter convo. XD People who took Dr. Le mods in Linear Algebra 2 / Real Analysis 1 / Complex Analysis will definitely know his talking style. For those who took his classes before, don’t you find the sentences TRIVIAL to read in your mind using his tone? XD Before we went back, I bought a couple of Korean T-shirts at 5k wons each from an elderly couple outside the mall. Actually I wanted to spend more time and money on buying clothing from such outside shops, but the rain isn’t that nice uh. I counted out 10 x 1k notes in Korean, and paid for the clothing. The quality seems pretty comfortable for such a price. If I see similar shirts in SG, I may probably buy more to stock up on my clothing cupboard. With that happy purchase, we returned to our accommodation facility. A lady was promoting her restaurant to welcome patrons for some supper (in Chinese), which I replied next time to her. How I wished there was a next time too! SY was like laughing at my response and shouted that I have to uphold my promise as that night was potentially my last night in Korea, JC Choi last ever! With that lousy cheer from SY, our non-food shopping adventure ended with some laughter and memories about what I would say to the ahjuma if I ever go back to Korea for a trip. =) After reaching back our accommodation facility at 10.45pm, I called my parents to announce that I will be back the next day, and we packed our luggage with our newly bought items. ^^ That lasted all the way till 1am in the morning, bringing an end to a tired but yet eventful day 11. 

It’s time to go home people! =D  

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If you would like to read more about my experiences, you may click on the links below. :)

Day 12: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-12.html

Day 10: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-10.html