Overdue post on my last year's trip to Macau-Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong. Realized that I haven't edit the pictures, so here goes my shitty editing skills. I still remember my parents scolded me for taking pictures of surrounding more than pictures of my family haha. Because I'm so used to take pictures of idols, I guess it's better for me to practice taking pictures of my surrounding as well. (Not that I'm good in taking pictures lol).

Day 1: Macau (12th Dec, 2014)

Spent 4 days (from 29th of July till 1st of August) in Bangkok, Thailand. Despite being stuck in traffic jam most of the time, I learned that typically, Siamese is much better compared to Malaysians in several aspects. Even if they're caught in traffic jam, they hardly honked. In fact, they would give way to any vehicles that went out from any junctions without honking or trying to stop them from going out of it. I actually felt guilty as well, as I've always try to not give ways to other cars which were about to go out from a junction and be like, "I need to go there first." Childish, I know. But that's what most Malaysians are like. Childish, impatient. We kept on saying bad things about Siamese, calling them rude and all, but I remembered a saying that goes, "You point a finger and say bad things to other people, but the remaining 4 fingers were pointing to yourself," which could be translated as, you can say bad things to other people, but you'll be 4 times worse than the people you trash-talked to. Anyway, this is the beauty of travelling. You get to observe what kind of people they are, how they grow, how they live. I'd love to spend my life being a solo traveler, but sad thing I'm out of cash to do so. I really hope there'll be good people with so much money that they don't know how to spend them anymore to spend 1/10 of it to me so I can travel and learn more of foreign cultures... #pleasecometrue Anyway, here's some pictures which were taken when I was in Bangkok! Not gonna post all of them because I'm a lazy bum.

Assalamualaikum.

It's the final day for us to stroll around in Seoul before going back to Malaysia. Since we barely had any energy left due to excessive walking for few days straight, we decided to go to visit the famous universities nearby. I basically chose the hostel to be in Sinchon/Hongdae area as it's packed with youngsters, and I really want to observe their fashion sense and all.

Before going out, we made breakfast. It was the only day I had complete meal for breakfast. I cooked maggi while Ina made half-boiled eggs for us. We met the remaining 6 persons who supposed to join our trip but we sat at different tables and barely had interaction besides saying hi and asking short questions.

The first university we went to visit was the nearest one to our hostel, which is Ewha Women's University. To speak the truth, the structure and surrounding were outstanding! And there are lots of shops and eateries just after exiting the main gate. Lucky Korean universities' students for having such good place to study at!

We didn't actually visit the whole area, we just took pictures at the place near to the main gate and then set foot to the second university, which is Hongik University (Hongdae). I don't know we entered through which gate but we saw buildings of art faculty right after going up the hill. But the view wasn't really nice, or maybe we didn't get to see the nice parts of Hongik University.

There was this handsome oppa (I think he's an oppa, hahaha) leaning at this signboard opposite Hongik's gate and I've been curious and always want to see his face. He wore face mask so I basically saw his eyes, but he totally caught my attention. To that oppa, 연락해주세요! Hahahaha. We then stopped at Paris Baguette for brunch (lol yeah brunch.... it was me who feels hungry and wanted something to drink hahaha) and wow, I must say Paris Baguette has the best coffee among other cafes I tried in Korea.

We then head to Yonsei University, and it took a really long walk from the main gate to the main building. The buildings along the road were under construction, and I saw those controversial notices put on by students protesting about something which I don't really read about it properly. Imanina's foot was killing her and I really felt sorry for her, but what to do, we're in a trip and I don't really want to waste our day by only being in our room.

It felt like dreams come true to finally able to step in universities that I wanted to enrol in. The views were nice, the buildings are pretty, and everything just... I don't know. They caught my eyes, every single one of them. And then began the endless comparing of how Malaysian universities looked like haha. Or maybe it's only UiTM that looked typically ugly :/

We then went to Myeongdong, again, to meet Kak Shiema. It was really cold that night, so I bought gyeran ppang (egg bread) from nearest stall but it wasn't enough so I bought ddeokbokki (spicy rice cake). The sauce was really red, and it basically left red marks on my hands. Needed to wash hands for few times with soap to get rid of the red colour. We walked around Myeongdong with Kak Shiema and entered Nature Republic, where EXO is the face for the shop. And guess what?

...yeah. The section was closed but we didn't know about that so we kept on taking pictures with them before the promoter basically asked us to leave the section haha we immediately exited the shop. All of us then head back and part ways with Kak Shiema. It's time to take our belongings from the hostel and head to airport. The long journey was tiring and I was completely out of energy. We decided to sleep at the airport since our flight was on 9:35AM and we need to check in and everything by 6.20AM. Worrying that we might not make it there if we're still at the hostel, we checked out earlier and stayed at the airport for 7 hours or so? I forgot haha. 

And... that's all for our journey in Korea :) Not really told in details, and not really as interesting as what you thought it might be. Still, it's a memory to be cherished forever :)

It's finally day 4 of our trip to Korea, and I don't know if it's because of we slept really late the night before (maybe because of too much caffeine intake once we arrived Korea) and being extremely tired of walking, we were up almost noon. Lol talk about girls should wake up early :P 

The plan for day 4 was to visit the areas near Anguk station, Bukchon Hanok Village and Changdeokgung Palace. We set journey to Bukchon Hanok Village without having proper brunch and, like always, we got lost and just walk wherever our feet brought us to. And bam, we found it. Turned out we're at the lane number 9 or something like that, but for sure, we're not at the main entrance and didn't pay for the entrance fees. *Oops, that's our dirty little secret!*

We were really hungry after going up the hill and looking at the houses there, so we thought of finding any place to dine in. Naturally, we cancelled our plan to Changdeokgung Palace because of hunger. We were lost after exiting Bukchon Hanok Village since we exited at the other side of it and not the first road we used to go there. We asked for directions to go to the subway station. We hesitated quite lots of times as it didn't seem like we're nearing it but yeay, we managed to find it with the help of ridiculously-not-helpful map of Seoul given by the information girl.

We alighted at Jongno 3-ga station, and thought of going to this spicy baby octopus restaurant but because of the confusing map, we ended up searching for any restaurant nearby in hopes there are menus that we can eat. We walked in this small alley and there were few restaurants there. I thought of dining in this one restaurant but I think it was Imanina who pointed there's this restaurant selling soondubu jjigae and all. The menu displayed outside seemed like it's a seafood restaurant so we stepped in happily with no doubt.

But then... getting the real menu, I began to quiver. Porks. Porks. Porks. I then looked at the soondubu jjigae- alhamdulillah, seafood soondubu jjigae. The ahjumma came to take order and I've been repeating like I don't know how many times to not put any kinds of meat in it and she assured that the jjigae is prepared with vegetable stock. One thing I like about Korean restaurants is, they prepared a jug/bottle of cold water on the table so we can drink as soon as we arrived. (Malaysia, bila nak buat mcm ni? Jimat sikit tak payah bazir duit utk order air)

One thing I must say is, THAT HAEMUL SOONDUBU JJIGAE TASTES SO GOOD LUCKY US WE ORDERED 2 SERVINGS OF IT LIKE SERIOUSLY IT TASTES REAL GOOD WE WERE DRINKING THE SOUP TILL WHAT'S LEFT IS THE BOWL ITSELF. ((due to excessive hunger, we didn't take any pictures of the meal hahahaha))

Since there's time left, we decided to go Han River on Yeouido side. KBS and MBC are nearby but we got lost while trying to find MBC and since it's getting dark, we cancelled the plan to visit the buildings.

After getting lost while trying to find MBC, we went back to the subway station and decided to go to Hongdae, just to get the youth feel. It's natural to feel hungry even though you just ate few hours ago because of the cold weather. We stopped at Etude House as I need to buy some stuffs for my friends before we searched for any decent cafe to dine in. Since Imanina wanted to go to Zoo Coffee, and there's one nearby, we made way to it. The interior is actually beautiful and elegant, but it was packed with customers and some people had to go out to find other cafe to dine. 

To be honest, the coffee isn't nice, the food is quite nice, depending on what kind of food you ordered. The cheesecake is a meh but Fatihah's berry waffle is delicious! I wanted honey berry bread after seeing the couple next to us ordered it and it was really huge, not like the ordinary slice of bread you eat for breakfast. Too bad, many of their delicious range of foods were sold out so we got to order the not mainstream ones haha. We sat at the bar facing the window so we can see the outside clearly and all we saw was couples everywhere.

Basically, if you're single, you might feel uneasy and want to have a boyfriend/girlfriend as soon as possible because of the couples. Some showed PDA a bit too much, some were like innocent-kind of couples, and other kinds of couples you can imagine were there. After our modest dinner, we went back to our hostel. Since it's still early, Imanina and I decided to stroll around since we noticed there's many stalls selling good stuffs there.

Assalamualaikum,

It was raining most of the time; the most unsuitable day to go to Namsan Tower but we proceeded, hoping that the rain will stop when we arrived there. Guess we were wrong, but we still braved ourselves and went through the freezing winter cold to Myeongdong station. Upon exiting, we noticed the free shuttle bus to N Seoul Tower's cable car and we thought, "Why not?" Majority were Korean in the bus anyway, so it doesn't really give us the 'we-are-on-a-trip' feel.

I didn't take pictures of us in the cable car because the glass at my side were foggy, no use of taking pictures as we couldn't really see the beautiful scenery outside. We didn't get to enter the observatory because of the weather, teddy bear museum was closed, and all left was the pad locks thingy. We entered a cafe since I wanted to try churros (yummy I want more!) while Imanina went to find her padlocks. The rain poured heavier while we were in the cafe and it stopped for a few while before it rained again.

We spent some time to take pictures and put our padlocks there before we went back to the cable car station. We stopped at the odeng and twisted fried potato stall where EXO visited in EXO Showtime. I bought odeng while Imanina bought the twisted fried potato. Ohh the heat from odeng's soup managed to warm up my frozen fingers. It was delicious too.

We took the same bus to go back to the subway station and it's time to search for proper meal! We hardly eat rice on day 2, so it's time to consume carbs again. We made way to go to Heuksando (흑산도), a seafood restaurant. Turned out it is located right next to the noraebang we went on first day! Haha such coincidence. We ordered mackerel stew (고등어 조림) and wow, the soup does taste like asam pedas! We ordered seafood pajeon too.

We then went to Dongdaemun and Namdaemun. Guess what? Yep, shopping time. We were like curious explorers, we didn't really follow the exact directions given. We explore by ourselves, which explains why I hardly give direction to go to certain places. While at Dongdaemun, we found Cheonggyecheon Stream by accident so, photo time.

We're not at the beginning of the stream so it explains the ugly and plain impression. I managed to buy a pair of boots that I've been talking about for days and finally bought one, hehe. Original price was 29,000 won, so I asked for 20,000 won. I won the bargain, but was cheated as the ahjumma gave me the pair of shoes 1 size smaller than mine. How dare you! Luckily it fits, just not comfortable enough for me to wear it in a long period.

Namdaemun really is a place to shop. Just need to find good places with cheap prices. I bought t-shirts for my brothers at this shop and they were more expensive than other shops that sell t-shirt but I tell you why: the material is super comfortable. I bought a t-shirt from regular stall that sells common designs and three t-shirt from the expensive shop. My brother loved the expensive one as it's comfier compared to the other one. For me, it's okay to spend a little more for quality as long as it's not a burden to you.

We bought mostly souvenirs for our friends and family there and yep, our hands were full of plastic bags. Since we were so tired because of the non-stop walking on day 2, we went back to our hostel quite early and spent our times by watching tv and chit-chatting. 

*entry for day 4 and 5 will be updated soon!