Masyeora! Masyeora!

Monday wasn't anything special.

It was raining a lot so we only stayed at Hongdae.

I wanted to go shopping so we went to H&M.

There is a huge H&M store in Hongdae so I was able to see a lot of different clothes.

I thought that the prices of the clothes were sometimes too expensive.

I'm pretty sure that the H&M in the Netherlands is less expensive.

That's pretty weird because I'm sure that H&M is worldwide even though it's a swedish brand.

I bought a really cool necklace and rings that spelled the word "Swag".

I also bought a top that reminded me of 4Minute Hyuna in the MV of Muzik.

Later we went to a coffeeshop (yes I always get confused with this word)

A coffeeshop in the Netherlands is a place you can buy pot.

But coffeeshops elsewhere sell coffee.

I still need to get used to it.

I really wanted to tell about how I think Korea is so damn smart.

They have this device for umbrella's; You put your umbrella in a long plastic bag and then you pull it out.

This way your umbrella won't make the whole place look like the ceiling just leaked out an entire swimmingpool.

It's probably because of the monsoon season but still.. we should have these kind of things in the Netherlands too because Dutch weather is pretty much like this:

Right now it's sunny.. and 5 minutes later it rains for hours.

Dutch weather is the most random and confusing weather all time.

Anyways..

We went into the coffeeshop.

I chose a green tea / red bean combination drink.

It was pretty good.

After that I also had some grapefruit juice, which was delicious.

Yeosub said he never went drinking before so we went to a bar that night.

Actually.

There was only bar I've been to last year and I could remember the exact location so we went there.

I was so happy because they played the music I like.

This place is probably now one of my favorite spots to go in Hongdae.

I'm not even sure how the bar is called.. I just recognized it because last year my best friend said:

"Look!, that wooden place up there looks pretty cool.. let's go there!"

Actually.. I wanted to get the exact same thing as I got last time.

Fried chicken and soju.

Yeosub told me : "Wait.. it's my first time drinking.."

"Shouldn't I start with something less strong?"

And I just told him he would be fine.

Everytime he would drink soju he would just cringe and pull really funny faces.

I had to laugh every time I saw him having a hard time.

He would fill up half soju and half water so it wouldn't taste that bad.

I guess he did pretty well for his first time even though he drank lots of water with his soju.

Eventually we also drank some Cass, it was pretty good.

I was worried Yeosub wouldn't be able to get back to his guesthouse because he normally walks through the subway but the subway closes after about 00:30.

In the end he walked me back to my guesthouse (what a gentleman.. even though I was supposed to walk back alone)

We both got back safely in the end and I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Sunday cycling and Noraebang

Today we wanted to go cycling around hangang.
We went to look for the park where they rented out bikes.
There were a lot of foreigners riding bikes and it seemed a lot of fun
So we rented bikes and cycled around the park.
And then.. it rained.. a lot.. really bad.
We rented them for an hour so we had to keep going.
But eventually we got used to it and it was kind of nice cycling through the rain.

After an hour we went back and went to Hongdae to eat some KFC since I really craved KFC.
It wasn't anything special.
Just plain old KFC.
I remember that last year my best friend told me that I thought the chicken at the KFC in Korea is so much better than the KFC in the Netherlands.
I didn't really notice any difference this day though.

That evening we went to noraebang.
Which means "singroom" in Korean.
Basicly what you do is renting a booth with a tv, sound system and microphones to sing your heart out for a few hours.
I like to sing rock songs and few korean pop songs i like.
But this time I also sang some TLC, Backstreet Boys and N'Sync.
Yeosub sang mostly korean songs but he also sang a song by Taylor Swift.

He started with "the lazy song" by Bruno Mars.
Since I knew the lyrics I waited till the awkward moment where he would have to sing out these words:
"Tomorrow I'll wake up, do some P90X"
"Find a really nice girl, have some really nice sex"
Ofcourse when he was supposed to sing it he just blanked out for a few seconds.
And I had fun laughing at him.

After Noraebang we both went back to our guesthouses.
Since it was sunday.. Hongdae looked like it was cleaned up by a huge zombie attack.

Forcing Yeosub to hike up Namsan.

Today me and Yeosub went to Namsan Tower.

Can you believe he has not been here before even though he is Korean?

I told him we would go hike up all the way.. but somehow we started on the half already so he was lucky.

While we were going up the mountain he kept nagging.

"It's so hot", "We should walk in the shadow instead", "We should sit there by the water stream like the ajumma instead".

That day Yeosub was crowned King Nag.

Yeosub always has trouble saying "shade" so I always have to remind him about the pronounciation.

And then he said : "Yes, but there is something wrong with my thong".

And then I laughed because he said thong instead of tongue.

I bought some kpop stuff at a store before going up to Namsan.

I bought Jang geun suk and TVXQ changmin and yunho socks.

And also 2 keychains from Block B members Park Kyung and P.o.

It was one of the few sunny days until now and it wasn't crowded at all.

Yeosub wanted to buy a lock to hang on the lock railing.

In the end he didnt buy one.

It was nice sitting around the namsan area.

Since it was not crowded I felt really relaxed.

So we stayed there for an hour just sitting and enjoying the view

Afterwards we went to myeongdong.

Yeosub would give me all his stuff to carry in my bad so I told him:

"You are the worst"

I guess I hurt his feelings when I told him that because he suddenly became very quiet.

In myeondong I was trying to find the kimbap place we went to last year.

But I didn't find the exact one.

Because it's a chain it was easy to find a similar one.

Afterwars I wanted to go to the photosticker place I went with Heelim with last year.

Because I remembered they had really cool photobooths.

In the end we couldn't find the exact one either and we just went to another one.

I really wanted to shower so we both went back to our guesthouses.

We were supposed to go out since it was saturday but I was so tired..

So I fell asleep xD.

The multi purpose 63 building and tricking the eye.

Today Yeosub and I decided to go to the 63 building.

The building has an aquarium, a wax museum and a sky art gallery on the 60th floor.

The aquarium didn't have any cool sharks though..

I think we should have gone to Coex aquarium instead.

I did see some sea lions, mantarays and some really beautiful fish.

And they had all the fish that were in that animation mvovie Nemo as well XD.

In the wax museum I found 2 dutch people.

Could you guess who they were?

Yes.

Ofcourse one of them was Guus Hiddink ( the hero of the world championships soccer in 2002 )

Our dutch football coach got them really far in the competitions and that made the Korean people very happy.

The second one is a dutch painter.

Yes.

It's Vincent van Gogh.

I didn't think he looked anything like I've seen in his selfportraits though.

For some reason some people in the wax museum looked a bit Korean even though they are foreign.

They even had Leonardo Dicaprio.

Which is one of my favorite actors (NOT BECAUSE OF TITANTIC)

On the 60th floor there were these art works you could see but they weren't anything really special.

We also found these blocks which you could spell your name with.

Yeosub took me to this great place where they grilled this beef and kimchi dish.

It was so good.

The ajumma there were so nice but they were constantly argueing about food and ingredients.

I experienced that when Korean women age they work 3 times harder and seem much stronger.

They take care of so much. They definitely become more impressive when aging.

I really wanted to go to the trick eye museum since last year.

Because last year we never went I was dedicated to go.

Actually.. the trick eye museum is quite hard.. it takes effort to take really good pictures.

It turned i'm not good at the optical illusions thing.

We took some great pictures though.

After that we walked around the Hongdae area.

Because it was friday night it was really crowded.

Yeosub normally isn't the party kind of guy so I thought it was hilarious that he was getting excited about going out.

We saw this photo sticker place and we decided to take photo stickers.

I can't believe this was Yeosub's first time taking them.

He's korean and he never took them before? So strange..

After that we went to Burger king to eat.

Yeah I know.

I shouldn't go to Korea just to eat something at Burger king.

I didn't eat much because I felt so ill suddenly.

I went back to my guesthouse early.

Going back to Everland... again!?

So we decided to go to Everland.

It shouldn't be raining a lot today so let's go!

I went to Everland last year as well but I seriously love themeparks so I decided to go back.

Yeosub hadn't been there for like 10 years.

Everland has this really famous rollercoaster called "T-express", which is a crazy wooden rollercoaster.

Yeosub was going to go in the T-express with me even though he feared for his life haha.

But when we arrived at Everland we found out the T-express was closed.

Argh, such a disappointment.

So we decided to go in the Flume ride first.

I explained to Yeosub that this ride featured canoes.

But he seriously thought we had to peddle everywhere ourselves haha.

Ofcourse Yeosub got wet since he was sitting in the front.

He was so stressed when there was a suprise drop after the first one hahaha.

There were a lot of children in Everland.

They were probably on some kind of school trip.

Some of them greeted me with a "Annyeong haseyo" or a "Hello"

Later that day I saw a great scene when a group of kids lost one kid because he was just looking around forgetting about his group.

I made a picture of the scene.

I thought it was so funny how he just forgot about the group while looking entirely impressed at the gardens.

We went to eat at a place called "China moon" and I had jajangmyeon for the very first time.

I could immediately tell that this is my kind of dish.

It was so delicious!

I found out that a the life of a Korean kid is anything but easy.

You are told by your parents to eat a lot!

And when you tell your parents that your done eating they will tell you to eat even more!

You can see that eating is incredibly important in Korea.

And I can understand why.

The Korean cuisine is amazing!

Because it started raining they closed a lot of the rides.

How can they close rides because of a bit of rain?

I don't think they would close rides because of a little rain in the Netherlands.

I thought it was really weird.

So we decided to go home early because of the rain.

we took the bus back and when we were almost there it started raining really bad.

The little umbrella I brought wasn't really handy since I still got super wet.

We went back to Hongik station and we decided we should go somewhere fast to eat dinner.

Basicly we just ran into the first shop we saw.

It happened to be a Seolleongtang shop ( which stands for beef bone soup)

Actually.. it was really really good.

After that I went back to my guesthouse only to get lost for a complete hour because I made one wrong turn.

Luckily I made my way back using the map I happened to pick up the day before.

Going back to Korea.

Packed my bags, got my travel documents ready.
Yes indeed Im going to Korea.
2,5 hours later than planned actually.
Since my plane was delayed.
Luckily my two friends Bert and Samantha kept me company untill about 20:00.
My plane left at 21:40.
Yes alright.. here we go.
10,5 hours to Korea.
And when I saw the movies in the entertainment facillity in the plane I basicly went nuts.

I was able to watch "Werewolf boy" and "Miracle in Cell No. 7".
Not only one but two popular Korean movies.
And for dinner I had some bimimbap and I was actually able to handle the gochujang well this time.
I landed at 15:00 Korean time.
When I walked to costums I could just see how good the weather was.
It was nice seeing sun instead of the rain. (Stupid dutch weather)
I got my luggage quite fast and I was off to find the airport limosine busses to go to my first guesthouse in Seoul..
Until... the disaster began.
This disaster is called : "Rage of the Korean Taxidrivers"
Because if your foregin.. your gonna get approached by taxi drivers immediately.
Some are incredibly rude!
One seriously kept following everywhere when I was taking some money at an ATM.
He was telling me what to do.
"Go tot the information desk and get a taxi"
NO. you stupid twat.
You should just let me think for a minute because you are stressing me out.
Why are taxi drivers so aggressive?
If people want to get in a taxi THEY WILL.
I hate being forced to things.

Anyway. Luckily I found the ticket office for the airport busses and I was able to get on really fast.
It was a 40 minute trip to Hongdae.
Incheon is so damn beautiful.
It looks like a big vacation resort when it's a sunny day.
After 40 minutes I got off on my stop and I had to look for my guesthouse.
Luckily I was able to find it quickly!
When I checked in it was already 17:00.
I dropped my stuff and got some towels at the reception.
I had to get ready to meet my friend Yeosub at 19:00 at Hongik station.
We went for some Pho (vietnamese food)

Hondae looked exactly like what I remembered it to look like.
Crowded, Loud music and really fun.
Yes, I still love Hondae and I wish we had something like Hongdae in the Netherlands.
Me and Yeosub decided we were going to Everland tomorrow (4 July)

Btw. I can understand a lot more Korean than last year and I'm falling more and more in love with the language.

Byebye!

Korea 2013

Hey guys!

Just wanted to let you know that my blog will be continued.

I will visit Korea once again!

From the 2nd of July till the 8th of August.

That means I will be in Korea for over a month!

MORE BLOGPOSTS!

This time I will not only visit Seoul, Daegu and Busan, but I will also add 2 new destinations.

These destinations are Daejeon and Ulsan.

I hope you will follow my blog just as you might have done last year!

I will keep you up to date in the meanwhile! :)