Grad trip - Day 1

The jellyfish is back! This post is about my Day 1 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 2: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-2.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 12: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-12.html

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Day 1: Arrival at Seoul

This is the first time I am going for a trip without my parents, and it is even more exciting as the trip is kind of long (12 days) and in a place with a different climate from SG. So everything is basically a question mark for me. With a luggage and a Garfield tag, me and my parents reached the airport at 11pm. We had some egg tarts before the flight, and also walked around the T3 area. The time passes rather fast, and soon it was 12.30am, the time to meet SY.

SY was there with a larger silver luggage, wearing a nice red shirt. To my parents, he would be my guardian for the 12 days. To me, well it is like following an elder brother for a trip, someone who is going to guide a noob Jeff for the duration. J SY seems happy for the trip, and lighten the atmosphere that he will be borrowing Jeff for 1.5 weeks. =P My parents told SY to make sure I enjoy the grad trip, especially after the FYP. After checking in the luggage, it is goodbye to my parents, and the official start of the grad trip! This is it Jeff, you are going to start to explore and enjoy yourself in an unfamiliar place!

At 1am, we proceed to collect the wi-fi at the T3 collection counter. The process is rather easy, as all you need to do is to show the booking page, give a $1 deposit through the credit card, and you get the wi-fi! I feel it is quite worth it, especially since the cost is shared between two people. We then rested in the check-in area, walked past some duty-free shops, etc. The place is rather comfortable, you have many seats in front of a television screen, koi ponds and butterfly gardens to look at, and cafes / food courts to satisfy your hunger. Changi Airport is really a nice comfortable place to rest in, it is one of the best airports right? =P Anyway, SY handed me the Korean won (a million!), and we just talked a bit about life. I took some photos of my boarding pass and the place as a memory.

At 2am, we proceed to go to gate B9 to board. The large number of travellators really ease the walking distance between gates. So all was good, I put my bag in the x-ray machine, passed my passport to the officer… Until the officer asked: “May I see your boarding pass?” I instantly panicked, isn’t that in the passport!? And for some strange unknown reason, OMG it isn’t! Extremely thankfully, I showed them the photo of my boarding pass I took earlier, and proceeded to run around the airport to find the hardcopy. 10 minutes have passed, and it seems like their re-printing of the boarding pass is faster than my search. They reminded me to not lose such an item again, and so a very lucky Jeff (and a laughing SY) boarded the plane at 2.20am. XD I swear that I didn’t run for so long in a row ever since the Energizer night trail run medic standby. Phew!

So we boarded this plane under Asiana Airlines. It is a Korean airline. The CAs are beautiful, and the plane is more spacious than the United Airlines I took in J2. We found our seats, and rested. There’s a screen for every seat, a remote control, lights, cushions, etc. The provided facilities are good for an economy class. I am definitely excited about the flight, as it was my 2^nd flight in my life. Already forgotten how flying in an aeroplane is like. XD The start of the flight also marks the transition from speaking English to speaking Hangul. A lot of safety briefing instructions in the video are in Korean, the plane signs also have Hangul characters. It is time to get used to it anyway. When the plane starts to fly at 2.40am, it is literally an ascending goodbye to SG, all the way into the dark sky.

So in the plane, I played Sudoku with the remote control. Although it is a bit troublesome to navigate through the squares, overall the game experience is still user-friendly enough. Watched the BFG movie after the game, and found that the giant is indeed very cute. XD Most people in the plane are asleep, so the darkness provides a mini cinematic feeling. =) Oh! “Your Name” is also shown in the plane, but since the sound is Japanese and the subtitles are in Korean, I thought I will give it a miss. The darkness also caused some confusion for me. Nearing to daylight, I went to look for the toilet, but somehow ended up at the first class cabin, and opened the curtains for the CA resting spot. The CA looked at me, and one of them proceeded to guide me to the correct location. A very dark ulu door which I definitely missed out. How kind!

The CAs are generally very polite. Throughout the flight, they served drinks (water, juice, soft drinks) and attended to passengers should they need help. At 8am in the morning, breakfast is served! Every passenger is given a choice between porridge / omelette. SY and myself chose the omelette option. It looks extremely delicious! An onion egg, served with some toast, baked beans, vegetables, potatoes, fruits, yoghurt. The CAs also served coffee / black tea. The black tea tastes a bit bitter, but not bad. =P

Nearing to touchdown, the flight screens show some eye exercises to prevent long distance flight tiredness. I didn’t really do them, but they look like the kind of exercises I will do back in Unity Primary. The 5SOS Mrs All American song was also played, which has a very happy tune. A nice start to reaching Incheon International Airport!

After stepping out of the aeroplane, Korea mode is officially ON. From there onwards, speaking and reading stuff becomes a challenge! All the things I have read in my notebook / learnt from KLP 2 years ago becomes real life! As a start, SY asked me to buy a subway transport card to have a warm up of how to speak to Koreans. So being the blur guy I am and not finding out the name of the transport card, Jeff went to a Korean transport information counter, and asked the guy in English if he has an ez-link card (literally). The Korean gave a O_O expression, as he had totally no idea of what I am saying, and hand gestured a big cross to whatever I am saying. SY tried to help me, and it turned out that the subway card (T-money card) is sold only in convenience stores. Wow, that was a disastrous first experience for Jeff. XD

A 2^nd try at the convenience store proved to be better. I asked the guy cashier if there is a T-money card, and the answer was fortunately yes. J I also bought a nice Korean chocolate wafer bar, and then called my parents to say that I have reached Korea successfully. After that, we proceed to take the subway to the Accommodation facility near Hongik University (L2). First up is the Airport Railway line which caused a bit of confusion as I would have expected that every door at the station will be used for the train, which apparently isn’t the case. Minutes after running up and down the station, we got the train right and I enjoyed the view of Korea while sitting down (and testing the Changi wifi router). In SG, you will mostly see HDB / industrial buildings for the outer view. For the airport rail way, you can see shorter buildings, farms, long stretches of waters, or the expressway that is just directly beside the train. It is an amazing difference.

So far, the temperature in these indoor areas have been relatively constant and warm. Once I step outside the subway, the air is only described as COLD. It is 17 degree Celsius in the afternoon, and even with a hoodie, you will still want something that can make you warmer! In SG, the only places that can be cold like this would be offices or labs with a generously low temperature. Imagine this kind of coldness, but experience it in an outdoor areas. Sure, the sun will still shine on you, but the feeling is like being trapped in a cold air-con room, except that this time the world is that room. A very amazing feeling I must say. XD

In that temperature, we proceeded to find the location of our first accommodation facility, Chloe’s house. On the map, it looks quite easy to find. It turns out that the place is indeed straightforward, but the walking distance is far longer than expected. We found it by marking a triangular split-road as the milestone, and then using a while (not found) continue walking; kind of mentality. After finding the place successfully, SY introduced to me a convenience store he always patronized during his summer exchange days. The well-known GS25 in Korea. XD So ok, that is a typical convenience store just like 7-11 / Cheers. A nice thing about this outlet is that there are tables and chairs over there for a quick dining. The GS25 ahjuma is very friendly. When we go in to the shop, she greeted us with a bow and a hello. Being polite, we greeted back too. How often do you see such politeness in SG?

I have never really looked at the variety of food present in SG convenience stalls, and thus I can safely say that Korea would be the first time I have properly looked at the food. =P They sell an assortment of snacks, drinks, ice-cream, paper materials, hot snacks such as chicken fritters and hot dogs, pre-packed meals such as kimchi fried rice, pastas, bento sets, sandwiches, seaweed rice balls, etc. In SG, they will show the price of the items, and also a promotional price whenever applicable. In GS25, there is this special +1 culture. Only a small proportion of items have a percentage discounts, the rest of the promotional items will be in the form of a buy 1 get 1 free (1+1), or buy 2 get 1 free (2+1) bundle. We settled our lunch there (corn, hot dog), while I checked my messages and looked at the timetable. Before we proceeded back to the accommodation facility, I bought a cheese bread (2.9kW) which has a slight cheese crust, mealy on the inside, with a hint of cubed cheese hidden in the layers of the fluff. Delicious! J

Chloe’s place is rather small, but yet comfortable. I guess that’s a cosy place for a small number of people. I tried to charge my stuff with the travel adaptor back in SG, and it turns out that the area is too big to even fit! So I went to GS25, bought another local travel adaptor, and hoped that it worked. After purchasing the Korea adaptor, we headed off to the Seoul Olympic Park in the slight rain. That is where I experienced the Seoul Metropolitan Subway in a more careful fashion. There are a lot of differences between the Seoul subway and the SG MRT system. One cute thing is that before a train arrives, they have this long jingle that announces that a train towards a direction is approaching. It sounds nice! It is similar for the trains, where a traditional piece of music will be played when reaching a transfer station. A bad part about the subway is the walking distance when transferring between subway lines. In SG, transferring between lines are usually very short, such as crossing to the opposite side. The longest transfer would perhaps be the NS to NE line in the Dhoby Gauht station. For the Seoul Subway, that kind of walking distance could be considered very normal, and with quite a lot of stairs instead of escalators. So if you have multiple transfers from one station to another, then you need to mentally prepare for a large amount of walking. XD

Oh, we made a detour to the Central City Bus Terminal to buy bus tickets before proceeding to the Olympic Park. The tickets are for the day 3 trip to the Wando Ferry Terminal. Buying tickets is yet another test of the Korean Language. The information counter person does not know English, but pointed to us that we are in the correct place for buying the tickets to Wando. Since SY could not help much in buying the tickets, Jeff decided to try by utilizing his guides. So it started off by choppy words with Wando-tickets-Monday in Korean. When the staff roughly understood, she said something in Korean and asked the number of tickets we wanted (it was a wild guess). I just answered 2 and it turned out that my guess is correct! =D I chose the seat numbers (no problem with that) and done! Jeff survived a round of tickets purchase in Korea! Even SY was slightly impressed with the success and sheer luck I had. Ah whatever, at least it was ok right? Moral of the story people, bring a guide or at least know some of the basic sentences!

So that’s the important thing settled, and we made our way to the Seoul Olympic Stadium, the very first attraction of the Korea Graduation trip. It is a pretty beautiful place, with the signature Olympic architecture and never ending flame at the entrance. An open area like that results in a generous supply of fresh (cold) air in that region. It is a place to remember the memories and achievements of atheletes who took part in the Seoul Olympic Games. They even engraved the motto, objectives, creed and names of the people on the stone walls. There is also a large number of flags which I presume is the list of countries that have participated?

There is also an open park area which SY is not interested to go. L There were some Koreans / tourists there, on the opposite end of the small pond. We just walked around our part, breathing in the air and admiring the scenery. Apparently there is a semi-circle curved area with seats which look like an open performance stage. Although nobody is there, we saw a cat seated on the open roof of the area! Doesn’t that cat feel cold!? I was practically feeling very cold from just standing there. -.-

We spent the next 20 minutes or so resting at a swing. SY said that he was a bit tired as he had never walked so much in a day before (not even in the exchange). That is when I thought about SH, accompanying me to walk for lots of hours on our Saturday dates. <3 If only she is here in Korea, but then she will not like the cold weather. >.< Anyway after that, we proceeded to look at the Olympic stadium museum. Nothing very interesting in there, and we left after 2 minutes. The main reason why SY wanted to visit the Seoul Olympic Park is that one of his Korean idol has a stage performance on that evening. However, there was no trace of such an event as we had went to the wrong section of the park. Nevertheless, it was still good for a nice walk. J

After the walk, we went to Gangnam district to search for SY’s K-pop stuff. SY seems very uninterested in that area, and we left after 10 minutes of walking in the Gangnam underground shopping centre. Subsequently, we went to the Starfield COEX mall, which SY mentioned that his idol merchandise may be found over there under the SM Town recording company. Starfield COEX mall is a big mall (reminded me of VivoCity) consisting of various higher-class shops, theatres, performing arts facilities, an aquarium, etc. They feature quite a number of international eateries as opposed to Korean ones, and the price is naturally jacked up. There is a DAISO there, and to my surprise not everything there is 2kW! In SG, the products are always $2, but apparently this fixed price does not apply to other countries, interesting. The aquarium looks nice, but is kind of random as it appears in the middle of a shopping mall. The movie facility in COEX is kinda cool. There is some Marvel figurine shop all by its own, and some human-size figures of Iron Man and Hulk. Do Koreans like Marvel movies? There is also a super large popcorn storage / dispenser at the top of the snack bar counter. Something tells me that the corn kernels has been up there for days before they are being sold to customers. That’s a bit scary. =/

A building is dedicated just for the SM Town recording company! The first item that greeted us was the floor of big screens that show the MV of various Korean bands under the company. Even as you go up the escalators, the MV would still be playing beside you. There were quite a number of floors in that building, each having a different purpose. The 2^nd floor is a gift shop filled with K-pop related merchandise such as shirts, mugs, collectibles, etc. SY walked around and sadly didn’t get what he wanted. =/ The other floors showed some of the awards the company obtained, more pictures of the bands, etc. On the upper levels, there are rooms which the public can participate in such as dance classes, viewing of exclusive videos (?), cafes, etc. If you are crazy of a Korean band under this company, then this place will be nice to visit! :D

At 7.30pm, we chilled (literally) at the outdoor area benches outside COEX mall. The sun still haven’t set, and it looks just as bright as SG 6.15pm skyline. SY asked me to try to endure the cold wind for 5 minutes to get used to the climate. It is really cold, with the wind blowing on your face. >.< Afterwards, we headed back to the accommodation facility. The shopping area near Hongik University is very crowded for a Saturday evening. The most similar representation would be the food streets of Bugis. You have BBQ shops, Korean food shops, random international cuisine shops with young people crowding in front. Then there are couples dating, street performers, etc. Of course, there are shopping complexes which appeal to the fashion maniacs. We walked around for about 30 minutes, including being lost in that shopping area and warping back to the correct exit via the subway. A super lively evening. =P

Near to 9pm, we settled for a quiet and dark Korean restaurant. The dark is not scary, but rather a cosy getaway from the busy streets. SY likes this type of quiet restaurants that have a family feel, and that is where the final Korean challenge begins. The whole shop and menu items is in Korean! The ahjuma spoke lots of Korean to us, which SY replied that we are not Koreans and don’t say much. So when SY asked for an English menu, the ahjuma was like shaking head and saying no, we knew that luck will play a part for our dinner. I am not sure what did SY say, but we ended up with a plate of chicken wings. I tried to ask if there is cola (cola-isseoyeo?), and the ahjuma replied yes (isseoyeo). Once again, application of the KLP in real life! XD The chicken wings were nice but lonely on their own, and so I ordered a serving of rice. The ahjuma was nice and gave me an additional serving of vegetables too! She then spoke some long sentences in Korea, which I inferred to be something like “you should have some vegetables to go along with the chicken”. Oh, the water is free flow in the restaurant, a very different style from the stingy restaurants in SG where you have to pay 60 cents for iced water. Overall nice hospitality, and with a nice goodbye from the ahjuma, we left the restaurant with a sense of satisfaction. J

After dinner, we bought the next day’s breakfast and then went back to the accommodation facility and tested out my new adaptor. To my surprise, it doesn’t fit the original Samsung charger! Just when I was about to give up, I tried to combine the two adaptors, and WOAH, they fit! So my awesome charger ends up to be a linked list of Charger->SG_adapter->Korea_adapter. After that, I went to bathe, and this extremely confusing water heater system made me dry bathed with cold water T.T Oh well. It’s about 10.15pm after everything is done, I video called my parents to recall about my first day in Korea, and document the day stuff. =) 11.15pm, it’s lights out and a day in Korea cleared! XD

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

Day 2: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/06/grad-trip-day-2.html
Day 12: http://jellyunderthesea.blogspot.sg/2017/05/grad-trip-day-12.html