Korea, See You in August!

One of my Instagram snapshots. Taken during a 3-week Summer Exchange.

Yes, this blog might just come to life this coming August! I had some thoughts about scrapping this blog and restarting another one but ah well, I guess I owe this blog one, since I wasn't able to post during my Language Immersion in Yonsei back last summer.

That said, I finally submitted my formal Student Exchange Program (SEP) online application to Korea University this Monday ㅎㅎㅎ and now I'm just overwhelmed  and swirling with a cocktail of excitement and anxiety because there's lots of preparation to do!

So today marks the beginning of my SEP preparation - I guess the SEP briefing really helped in many ways.

Some links that I took note of today:

Blogs of SEP Returnees
http://wonderrrgirl.wordpress.com/
http://www.walkingup-korea.blogspot.sg/

Korea International Student Association
http://www.kinsa.org/
https://www.facebook.com/kinsa.org

Ministry of Foreign Affairs
http://www.mfa.gov.sg/content/mfa/overseasmission/seoul.html

Visit Seoul
http://www.visitseoul.net/en/index.do?_method=main

Possible Accommodations (Prospective Korea University Exchange Students)
What is 고시원 (Go Shi Won)
http://www.exploringkorea.com/goshiwon-hasuk-jip-and-one-rooms-in-korea/

고시원 (Go Shi Won) Near Korea University
http://goshipages.com/find-housing-near?id=1&search=university&query=Korea+University+-+Main+Campus

(I can't wait to go back to JK House in Hongdae though! There's still 3 months to plan!)



아이고...today also marks the end of my freedom. My first ever internship begins tomorrow in town! I guess this 3-month break would be a fulfilling one. HWAITING!

In the mean time, it's time to kick start the regime of preserving my Korean Language skills - I'm serious ㅋㅋㅋ it's getting from bad to worse, though I confess I think in Korean sometimes.


Things I guess I'll REALLY be looking forward to this 3 months:

• 아빠 어디가? Dad, Where are you going? (If you love heartwarming and hilarious variety shows- AND you absolutely LOVE Korean Kids, this has to be on your list this season! It has become kind of a "Family Thing" - I can't watch this without my siblings now! Each parent-child couple has their own amazing personas that WILL grow on you.) 

• Jin Woon and Jun Hee's We Got Married! (After Julian Kang, Kwang Hee and Lee Joon's WGM ended, this is the only couple that keeps me watching! Hahaha, WGM has its ups and downs too.) 

• Barefoot Friends  (The first episode takes place in Vietnam, our Barefoot Friends would have to live and work like a Vietnamese for 24 hours! Kim Hyun Joong's return to variety really came as a pleasant surprise, he's...as 4-dimensional as ever?)

• Once Upon a Time by ABC Production, Season 2 - if I ever get the chance to be a script writer in the Fantasy Genre, I would totally love to meet OUAT's production team :D 

Happy Holidays! <3 

CN BLUE MOON TOUR

Not sure if anyone read this blog anymore, it's rather dead - but anyway, CN BLUE CONCERT WAS 완전 대박!!! (Totally a hit) For photos, please visit my tumblr and Instagram - Boices do enjoy!

Ahhhhh I guess I'll just upload them here, at least some of it ;) All photographs are captured from the Moon Zone by Samsung Galaxy S3, with a fitting 12x zoom camera lens.

It's a Seoul Affair

Credits, my Instagram

Editor's Note: This blog has been moved.

This blog has been dead for quite sometime - and guess what, I'll (most likely) be returning to Korea in August!!! This post is pretty useless - or should I say the blog itself is utterly nonsense since I wasn't able to journal my 3 week stay in Korea last summer (laptop died there).

Unfinished affair

1. Check out all the cool cafes in Hong Dae and go beyond Seoul (The places I love to hop around: SinChon, Idae and HongDae) 
2. Lotte World, Caribbean Bay (Ok, this is one touristy thing to do because I have never ever sat on a roller coaster before...and I'm gonna be all dorky and get pressed coins! :)
3. MANGOSIX!!! (Thanks to Gentleman's Dignity, I totally regretted not stepping into the place when we were at Gangnam)
4. Do some island hopping with ZIPLINE
5. Eat all the STREET FOOD. Technically, the only thing I actually ate there were the fishcakes - so this time I'm gonna gobble them all, the dokks and all!

There's so MUCH things to do in Korea besides shopping, and truthfully homework IS important because travelling is all about being IN the place, walking along the streets with the people, living a mark there and vice versa. Travelling is NOT about watching the people live their lives in the city in order to put a FAT tick on the list of countries you aspire to take selfies at. 

And lastly, I have lots of lessons learnt from last summer - book a straight flight, preferably SIA or Korea Air; know the things you need to note for proper insurance claiming, get a local cellphone.

Drama that happened last summer 

11 hour flight from Singapore to Incheon:

• Flight for Air China was delayed by 1.5hrs*uh-huh*
• Landed at Beijing Int. Airport and the staff were channelling people to any bus (most likely not the right one) just to get them out of the ground crew's way.
• Dashing across stretches of travelators (with our bagpacks) in Beijing International Airport only to be told "SORRY, you can't board the plane." -*but the plane is right THERE, that's our plane right?* -"No, but yes, that's your plane."
• So, it's a flight misconnection. And people refused to take responsibility (Oh come on, the staff were half awake and just strolling to the counter, surely they must be blameless.)
• Arduous security scrutiny *scanned us once, and scanned us twice*.
• Cheap breakfast didn't really add on to our sense of disbelief.
• Arrived at Incheon
• LOST OUR LUGGAGE
• The Korean staff for Air China were a little more helpful than the Chinese staff but they were less than half as helpful as they think. 
• Claim for expenses denied (We didn't meet any big shots in the office, it was a one man show - though we did get to make a call to our guesthouse.)
• Bag-packed (with our meager belongings) all the way to our guesthouse- it was a blessing in disguise because at night our luggage were delivered to us safely, intact, by a nice 아저씨 (Uncle).

The 3 weeks were perfect, we returned to Singapore with AirChina staff (either Korea or China HQ) paying special attention to us and giving us our living expenses USD50 only when we were checking in for the flight home. I basically kept the US note as a souvenir. Transition was smooth because the three Singaporean's on board the flight from Korea to China were given special attention.

Speed things up a little, I failed to get my rightful compensation from NTUC Income - basically, I gave them everything I had, all the nitty gritty documents - but they needed that ONE slip of receipt which that nice  아저씨 had to collect back.

Well done, and I was expected to contact AirChina myself (to find out when I collected my luggage). I did, but their website was down.

And so, I got a charitable amount of 50bucks from NTUC insurance. (My friend got at least a hundred?) It wasn't that much about the money, but I hate it when staff talk down to customers. It's not about the organisation, it's the kind of attitude people have these days when they have to entertain millions of people in a day.

So, these are the lessons learnt and I will book a direct flight next time, for the sake of my neurons. Well, but I did enjoy my 3 weeks in Seoul all the same - I met the Running Man and Idols! 

A Little Publicity Shout Out to All Bakers and Sweet Tooth

*Coughs and clear throat* Here's to the people who LOVE to BAKE (and munching goody pastries)! I know this is a little random - and fear not this blog is not hijacked. I'm helping a loved one to publicize her new blog *confetti shower*

CHRISTMAS is coming and if you are looking for adorable baking kits, sweet pastries to pamper yourself, your friends or your family's tummies- do visit Bake.Bakery.Fun for Christmas goodies!

ALL PHOTOS taken by me for this little Public Service Announcement - enjoy! :)

Smelling Christmas?

Fingers Crossed for Exchange

After weeks of contemplation and resource-gathering I finally submitted my exchange application on 13 October :)

1. Korea University

2. Yon Sei University 

Keeping fingers crossed in hope that I'll be able to return to Korea next fall - when I would able to join their inter-school events! 

---a very short post from StarBucks@Singapore---

On Vulnerability Fear and Treadmill

I solemnly swear I will not social-whine, nor stick my head up into the clouds because this is how I analyse and break down the different sides of myself - in order to be a better person.

And so, onto the self-confession:

Everything's been on a constant hiatus ever since college started. Uni life is passing really fast  - as if I'm about to graduate soon even though semester one and Year Two commenced just a few weeks ago. 

I knew this feeling would come - for I understand myself well enough to know that I would whine about the things I would like to do and have not yet done with my youth. *roll eyes* I've always been doing that  -but now, it's a different thing altogether. 

The thing is, when you have only this much time (5.5 semesters) left to do all the things you want as a student, time becomes blatantly scarce. I've been living in this bubble filled with anxiety and passion to excel - in this bubble I have with me dreams and aspirations as well. 

Yet in this very bubble there exists equal amounts of fear, insecurities and inertia. (they perpetually fill up the bubble everyday when I'm unaware) Which is why so many things I've been doing in life (or would like to do) are on  constant hiatus. 

It just doesn't seem to sit well. And now I know I have to face it. 

Why? 

Because somehow along the course of losing the life-chances I deserve, losing the things I love and spending eons envying people who somehow attained self-actualization (by hook or by crook, by effort or by luck) as a child - I've reached this stage when the world is starkly real. So real that I fear myself losing balance as I gaze into the world before me and the one around me. 

And the curious thing is that I believe I deserve better albeit the many flaws I have, given the many wrong choices I tend to make because of two things - fear and shame.

Before college, these two things played the salient role of villain in my bubble. 

Villain is probably the closet word I can think of now -because villains threaten to shatter the glass castle many people tend to live in, villains are bad, they deserved to be blamed. And we certainly have nothing in common with the villain we are running away from, even-while testing a bit of self-defense - we are still victims deserving betterment.

But if you look closely, that villain is just a part of you. Fear comes from within - nobody gives you fear like someone would shove a spoon in your mouth. 

Fear is a reaction. And sometimes we don't know why we react in this way. And in return we fear more, like pouring cartons of carbon dusts into the machine and start an endless cycle of churning fear.

When you can't control your fear - you find yourself running on a treadmill away from it - and ironically, constantly running into it - like an old friend- or villain. Because if you were to stop running on the same spot for just a while, you'll hear yourself panting alone with all the thoughts that made you such a wreck - and perhaps realize that if you have such a power to create such a villain out of yourself, you can do the same - to create the someone you've always wanted to run towards to.  

 Fear comes from within because it's a form of retaliation and justification for not wanting to fall flat on your face. But of you do not start running in the right direction, there is no way you're going to reach anywhere. 

And if you ignore this truth about fear, and how you've always been this way and hating yourself it - then it's time to know that fear is always there- and there are definitely better things to do about it. 

Let it chase you, let it push you, because fear is nothing when you have more important things to do, to love, to think about, to pursue. Courage is when you judge that there are things more important than fear.

Personally, I'm a jack of lots of trades - I know it - but I'm a master of none. But is being a master of none wrong? 

I'm a master of being self-conflicting, but perhaps this is why I always have such monologues with myself, about fear, about vulnerability and about stagnation. Somehow, I'll always emerge a better person after my long talk with Fear.

And so I told myself:

"I'm not a master of most of the trades I'm rather good at - because I'm a bloody perfectionist. But I know I can bloody do all of them well too - just one at a time." 

I had a long chat with a friend this week- and I discovered we share a common understanding about vulnerability.

And that is:

It takes courage to be imperfect. (FYI: you can learn more about this from Brene Brown on Ted Talk)

Well, it pretty sums up all I have to say about vulnerability and that villain you see in the mirror. That's all for today, slow down that treadmill and run in the other direction :)

BACK FROM SEOUL

Too many things have happened and I'm about to abandon my home for college camp again! I has been more than a week since I've returned from Seoul and I swear I've been missing Seoul ever since - I'm not kidding, because every-single-day something happens to me that make me MISS THE GOOD LIFE THERE. 

Now that I'm back (to reality) there's really loads of things to worry about...scholarships, school, my (on hiatus) novel, catching up with friends and family, broken laptop and lagging phone, sneaky wisdom tooth and horrible bank accounts... the reality of my life hits me every time I want to forget myself.

Retrieved from my Instagram

OH SPEAKING ABOUT COMPUTERS - my poor laptop - which I lugged all the way form Singapore to China and then Korea, then there and back again, malfunctioned when I was in Yon Sei University. Which is why I couldn't even upload a single thing on this blog. Schizer.

But I had a truckload of (mis)adventures though, and I met really really lovely people there which I shall continue to have fun with once this hectic semester starts in mid August :)

The best thing that happened in Seoul?

WE SAW RUNNING MAN IDOL OLYMPIC SPECIAL LIVE IN SEOUL!!!

AND DÉBUTED ON KOREA NATIONAL TV (as crazy supporters from Singapore)!!!

YES, (ONE PLUS ONE) HUGE TICKs OFF THE LIST :D