Exploring Daegu in korean heels.

Okay, so today I wanted to do a lot of shopping and a bit of sightseeing in Daegu.Daegu is so beautiful since it has a lot of parks and temples located in the city.It's more quiet than Seoul and the people here are curious in a good way.
Many people try to talk to us in korean or with the little bit of english that they know.

As you can see.. I'm a fan of Daegu.
My KBF lives here ( Korean best friend), Jinjoo!

Downtown daegu has this extremely large underground mall with a lot of cool stores.I wanted shoes with a lot of straps.So I bought them for 37000 won (28 euro?) and the man said he gave me a discount.
Yeah right.
Somehow I feel like buying more shoes xD.
Oh these are the shoes I bought:

After I did some shopping we went to a one of Daegu's lovely parks.
Somehow I can't really remember which park it was, but it was a small memorial park.
 

Daegu National Museum and there was an exposition about korean marriage culture and traditions.

The room i liked best was about korean marriage clothing, hanboks for marriage.

The clothing looked so pretty!

It would be cool if people would still dress up for marriage like this in current life.

Marriage clothes for women.

Marriage clothes for men (the fancy one for government people)

These are the ''seven friends'' of the women that made the hanbok.
Women who were able to make these had them in their home.
Scissors, needle, thread, thimble, flatiron, and normal iron.

The huge headdresses korean women had to wear.
The bigger the headdress the prettier korean women were seen by society.


Since those big headdresses were way too heavy to use people made hairpins.
These hairpins replaced the headdresses after a while.

Here you can see how hanboks starting to get more western influences.
The shapes of the sleeves became more round and they changed the top part of the hanbok a bit.

Hanbok including the colors of the old korean flag when Korea was still 1 country without being divided in North and South.
Yellow, red and blue.

A miniature small village with hanoks.

Written stories by a famous korean writer written in hanja ( the old hangul still being influenced by the chinese characters ).

Miniature of a korean traditional wedding.
Look a at all the hanbok!

Okay this is not a korean dish at all but i've never eaten Kentucky fried chicken before so I really wanted to eat it.
The chicken was quite spicy and the burger was delicious.
It was quite good but I still really don't get what all the fuss is about.
Korean people probably avoid these since it has LOTS of calories.

So after eating we wanted to go to Daegu bank to see an exposition about old coins.
Currency used in the past and now and also coins from some other countries.
But.. it was closed.
So we have to go another day.

a beautiful traditional park in another park in Daegu.
I didn't see sign so i don't know the name but it could be that this is the other side of the park we visited earlier

More water!
More fountains!

After this we went home.
This is what I bought:

STUFF I BOUGHT.
The Block B album (the correct one), f(x) album, 2 puffy keychains, hair ribbon, sunglasses, nail polish, bag, grape slippers, ViVi magazine and a little mirror.

A delicious kiwi fruit blast from Baskin´ Robbins

So that's all for today!
Annyeonghi gyeseyo!

Yeosu Expo

Today we had to get up early yet again to take the bus to Yeosu expo.

It takes about 4 hours to get there.
 Not funny AT all.

So we searched around for food and a bank first and after that we went to the bus terminal, bought tickets and waited.
While we were waiting some ajumma sat down next to Bert and tried to talk with him.
Ofcourse Bert still understands very little korean and didn't understand her.
After a while he found out that she was trying to explain that he wrote the hangul for some kind of metro station wrong.
Brilliant.

At 10.20 we got inside the bus and left Daegu behind us.
We sat at the back since it's the only spot that hold up to more than just 2 people.
The busses from around Daegu must have some kind of rocket blast-off programmed in it since we were going as fast as a turtle with a jetpack.
I can't remember travelling this fast by bus EVER.
This part of Korea has REALLY bumpy and narrow streets so you definitely needed to wear your seatbelt.
I was really scared in the beginning and I was thinking: ''How are people able to sleep in these kind of busses?''

When we finally arrived at Yeosu at about 14:00.
We walked straight to the reserved tickets booth.

Some girl there asked us what we were looking for.
So Bert showed her the ticket.
She said : ''WOW, that is really expensive, you could just buy a 3000 won ticket''
(We had the ones that cost 30.000 won per person)
About 21 euro, so that's alot of difference.
The girl told Bert that he could cancel his tickets online.
Yet another Korean girl that saved the day.

We went to the entrance and it was CROWDED and so hot everywhere.
From that moment on I knew we weren't able to see everything in one day or even 2.
And we only had 4 hours to spend.

We went into this marine civilization centre and got an english tour.
It was about how mankind was able to build boats and how seacraft worked.
Also a lot of information about trading and selling goods overseas.
And seacraft in the future and being to live on the water with luxury.

I'm so impressed about how they were able to build all these things.
Screens and little machines everywhere. I mean. They even had an aquarium (which we weren't able to visit because it was extremely crowded and the line of people was just insane)
Amazing exposition.
Even if I didn't got to see much.

We met up with Jooyoung at 16:00 (she works at Yeosu Expo) but she couldn't find us so it took another half our.
At about 16.30 she finally found us and we had just an hour to walk around with her since she had a job as a interpreter. 

So we visited the Netherlands pavilion.
Look, there is even dutch tv on the television screen.
I was so suprised to see dutch tv in Korea.

I got to see a lot about our country (I almost knew all of the things that were in there but that's no suprise.)
Almost the whole pavilion was about our dikes and our polders.
Also a little artwork from Vincent van Gogh and Rembrandt.

But this was the coolest thing ever :

Even though they didn't sell Frikadellen or Kroketten.
They actually put applepie pieces on sticks and put it in there.
HOW CAN KOREA KNOW SO LITTLE ABOUT OUR COUNTRY!?
We don't put those things in there at all.
We like to put greasy things in there instead!

So then we visited the belgium pavilion.

There was this cartbord picture of the Belgium football team and all I could do was laugh.
Let's be honest.
That team doesn't even get to play half of the time and when they do.. they suck.
They should've put waffles or belgian fries instead!

After visiting both the pavilions it was already time to go back to the bus terminal and go back to Daegu.
So we took the shuttle bus back to the terminal bought something to eat and something to drink and went inside the bus.
I slept half of the time and for some reason the bus drive took only 3 hours to get to Daegu.

Good deed of the day in Daegu : Gave a homeless person my tuna sandwiches since i didn't wanted them anymore and he looked really hungry!
So instead of throwing it away in the trash I gave it to him.
He said : Are you from America?
I said : No, Nederlandeu.
I didn't think he understood but whatever.
He looked happy.

 Annyeonghi gyeseyo!

Meeting June in July

Today we had to check out of our guesthouse.
We set the alarm for 8 AM to pack our bags and get ready.
We were done at 9 and after that cleaned up the room a little.
So then we decided to call Mr. Ko and told him we were leaving.
He said he would be right there.
We waited for 15 minutes but he didn't show up.
No picture with Mr. Ko. Too bad!

It was so fustrating to carry those heavy bags around to Seoul station but luckily the metro wasn't that crowded so we actually could sit down.
When we arrived at Seoul station we had to transfer to the KTX (the train to Dongdaegu)
We boarded the train at 11:30 and after a while the train started to get really full.
They even put packages in the train (mail from Seoul to Daegu)!
Since I really don't care to sit down to Korean people so I chose to sit apart from Bert and Samantha.
People are so impatient here sometimes.
They want to get out of the train as soon as possible to move on.
Korea is all about the ppali ppali (quick quick)

After 2,5 hours we arrived at Dongdaegu station.
We got out and looked around for a while.
Then we saw this hilarious scene.
This boy came out of the elevator and he went into the train.
I heard him sigh really loud and then he pulled 3 large packages out of the train.
All at once. So strong!
Then he waked back to the elevator and another guy with huge packages came out.
They had to put those the train.
So the guy walking back screamed out of frustration because the train was going to leave soon.
So they quickly ran and put them into the train.
And were so satisfied after they were done.
The guy and I shared smiles a few times.
See.. I'm getting better at this.

ALSO : Daegu people, so much nicer than Seoul people.

THERE, I said it!

We went from the KTX station to the metro and had to go in the direction of Daegok.
We got out at Daegu station to find out that our hotel is just 2 minutes away from the metro station.
We checked in and got our keys.
The rooms are absolutely wonderful and AIRCONDITIONED.

I'm really satisfied with this hotel.
Glad I booked it.

We were getting really hungry so we decided to go to downtown restaurant district.
So we went took the metro and got out after one stop.
We walked around a big market with people selling lots of fish, squid and these scary kind of seasnakes.
But we weren't able to find the district and found out we were walking in the wrong direction.
So we stood still and took out the map.
At that moment a girl asked if she could help us.
We told her where we wanted to go and told her we wanted to eat something.
So she took us back to the metro station and gave us some good recommendations on food.
Her name is June.

We talked a lot and she asked us if she could come with us.
So she did.
There was also an english friend joining us.
A british guy.

I really like Daegu's downtown district.
It's really cozy and fun.
As I said.. I think people here are much more friendly towards foreigners.
I'm really loving Daegu so far.

We entered this really cute restaurant with the most enthousiastic waitress i've ever seen so far.
She was so cute!
Waitresses should all just be like her.
Polite and energetic.

Anyways.
I ordered a dish with spicy pork, rice, salad, kimchi, fried shrimps and fried bell peppers.

It was really good and also really cheap!
I paid 7900 won for this dish (5,62 euro)
We should have cheap food like this in the Netherlands.

So we talked and talked until closing time and June said I knew alot about Korean culture.
So I'm really proud!
I wish my korean was a lot better though.
I will study hard!

They walked us back to our hotel and said goodbye.
It was a random fun day.

( Good deed of the day in Daegu : An ajumma dropped a can and I picked it up for her! )

That's it for today.
Annyeonghi gyeseyo!
Byebye.

Old people parks and Renaissance River

Today was going to be a exciting day for me and Samantha.

Our first appointment at a korean hairdresser.

We both wanted a straight perm.

Basicly means : have straight hair until it grows out.

I never knew that this sort of magic existed until my friend Yvonne told me.

We had our appointment at  10.30 and Bert would do the laundry since we would be gone for 3 hours and we were suppose to visit soms parks and Renaissance river with a friend aferwards.

So we went there and had to wash our hair first. After that they put this stuff in our hair (probably the stuff that straightens your hair)

And the weird thing was : Samantha had to wait a bit more for tit to work while the hairdresser was already washing my hair (While her hair is shorter than mine).

Then they blowdryed and straightened my hair and put some kind of serum in it.

I had to wait 10 minutes and after that they washed it again.

Then she straightened and blow dried it again.

After that they cut off a bit of my bangs and DONE.

I couldn't believe it.

My hair was NEVER this straight before.

The process took about 3 hours just as we expected.

Me and my straightened hair:


After we were done at the hairsalon we went back to the guesthouse and found out that Bert's friend canceled our meeting.
So we went to Changdeokgung and checked out some palaces.
A beautiful park with a lot of traditional palaces.
Too bad we couldn't go into the secret garden without a tour.

All the english tours were already over at that time

 We wanted to go to Gyeongdokgung but we found out it was closed.
And the National Museum of Korea was also closed because they were renovating.
So we decided to go to Kwanghwamun gate instead.
On the way there we found some kind of immitation of a ''cursed gate''
If someone were to walk through it that person would not grow old and die young instead.

''Cursed gate''


Here is a picture of the gate:

We also saw a statue of King Sejong.
He created ''Hangul'', the korean writing system.
I think he's also the man on the 10.000 won bill!



We also found the other object on the 10.000 won bill.
I think it's a device for telling the time?
I'm not sure about this.

We saw a lot of cool things in this street.
There was a whole part dedicated to Yeosu Expo.
It's an expo for everything that has to do with water.
We're going there on Thursday and i'm quite excited.
We're also going to meet Bert's friend Jooyoung!

We didn't even visit Renaissance River yet and it was our last day in Seoul so we had to get moving.

Bert wanted to visit some famous park ( i forgot the name) but it was also closed.
20 minutes too late to be exact.
So we just went on to River Renaissance.
I really wanted to see it since i've seen loads of pictures already.

The river.. AND SAMANTHA.

Beautiful Renaissance River!
I could just stay there for hours and relax :).

After that we ate some mandu and kimbap at the restaurant we visited with Heelim and went home.
We had to pack our bags and leave early the next day.
Because we are going to Daegu!

Annyeonghi gyeseyo

Everland

So on monday we decided to go to Everland, Korea's biggest amusement park.

We got up early to get to Gangnam and take the bus there.

The bus goes almost straight to Everland and it is not expensive at all (Even though it's a 50 minute drive.

So there was no place for me to sit since there were some arrogant korean people who decided to put their bag in the ''window seat'' and sit on the seat next to it so no one can sit next to them.

So luckily I saw a spot in the front.

I went to the front ( when the bus was already riding ) and took place next to an awesome lady.

Who was not being an arrogant korean person.

Since I got to sit in the front I saw a lot of the Korean traffic and highways.

One of the things on my to do list was to ride a korean bus.

I know.. it's really simple but.. I enjoy little things like this.

I took a few pictures of the traffic and wondered if i could post them on facebook.

So I looked up and saw a WIFI ZONE sign.

God... they have internet EVERYWHERE in Seoul? So weird.

I wish my phone could go on this wifi.. but it doesn't work on my phone.

So after 50 minutes we arrived at Everland.. or well.. at the parkinglot to be exact.

We had to take a shuttle bus to the park.

What's with all these shuttle trains and busses in Korea anyway?

We arrived at Everland, FINALLY!

We just had to buy a ticket and show our alien identifi.. OH i'm sorry.

I meant passport.

On the Everland website it says you can get a discount if you show your passport or alien indentification.

Apparently they have a lot of alien visitors.

I wouldn't blame em though.

Everland is pretty amazing!

Everland seems to be very simular to Disney land.

There are a lot of rides for kids and interactive games.

And don't even dare to forget the parades and shows!

Ofcourse they also sold bunny ears, cat ears, bear ears and even giraffe ears!

So you probably understand why I'm telling you this.

Yes indeed! I bought some bunny ears.

Here is a picture:

I also really like the ''soft'' ice cream in Korea.

It's extremely large but leaks like a foreigner visiting Korea.

Talking about ''leaking''.. I think I have never sweat this much before.

You don't have to go to a sauna or a gym to sweat like a maniac.

Just visit Korea!

Anyway. Here is my large ice cream.

The best thing about Everland is probably Holland village.

THAT'S RIGHT! Holland village.

Korea dedicated a whole section of our country in Everland.

For some reason they even mixed some french and german stuff in there.

But since there were flags of all 12 provinces hanging on to the pillars I will forgive them.

Holland Village!

Limburg! My lovely province.

HOWEVER!

There was also a big dissapointment.

The band that was playing on the ''Holland stage'' were NOT dutch NOR did they play any dutch songs.

This obviously was a waste of my time.

Everland has this attraction that looks just like ''The small world'' attraction in Disney.

It's basicly the same thing..

The only difference is probably that this attraction displays more countries outside Europe.

They even had our country, The Netherlands.

So they have this crazy wooden rollercoaster named the T-Express.

From afar it looks like a pretty basic rollercoaster but.. when your in it you will know that this is not an ordinary wooden rollercoaster.

It goes steep down, up and steep down again.

And has some crazy turns.

The speed is pretty crazy. Not like other wooden coasters I've been in.

Pretty scary.

Not my own picture by the way ( I forgot to take a picture 

There was also a mini zoo in Everland.

They had reptiles, monkeys, squirrels, butterflies and even polar bears.

Even my very favorite animal was there.

Vulpes Velox!

Cutest animal ever :)

After visiting the zoo we decided to go in a water attraction.

You know those round boats which can hold up to 8 people?

Yeah. We went in those.

Well at least me and Samantha did.

So we were in line for the attraction and behind us were 3 girls and 3 guys.

It was the first time I saw a girl fake crying to get what she wanted in Korea.

Why do girls always act so weird around guys.. I have no clue!

So after 20 minutes we were still in line and saw this crazy ahjussi screaming and laughing into the microphone. In Everland every attraction has a ''host'' that either sings or talks with people on the ride or anything entertaining. So when the ahjussi found out it was someone's birthday, he would freak out and clap really loudly while singing :'' SAENGIL CHUKHA HAMNIDA! '' (korean birthday song)

So the guy behind us tried to prank him by saying : ''Ahjussi! it's also MY birthday!''.

The crazy ahjussi went up to him and said ''aaaaaaah.. chukha hae yo'' ( oooooh... gefeliciteerd.) instead of clapping and going crazy.

He knew that they were trying to prank him :").

As we stepped in the boat we found out that there are some kind of curtains which protect you from the water.

That kind of took all the fun away.

In the Netherlands, we go into these attractions so we can laugh at the people who got splashed by water afterwards.

But. I was wrong.

Somehow I still got splashed even when wearing that curtain and ofcourse got laughed at.

Felt just like the Netherlands xD

It was a lovely day and we didn't really do anything other than visit Everland.
Next time I want to Carribean Bay ( a huge waterpark next to Everland )
Yeosub already promised to go with me.
So remember Jo, YOU PROMISED!

Annyeonghi gyeseyo! 

Dongdaemun sunday

So today we planned on going to some park but I really wanted to go to Dongdaemun.

Bert thought Heelim already took us there.. but when we arrived there you could definitely see some change.

Dongdaemun isn't like myeondong at all.

Dongdaemun seems like a really ''poor'' looking part of the city. But since I saw the drama Fashion King I really wanted to go there. I was sure it had it's charm.

To be honest.. when we got out of the subway I didn't really know where to go.

Stuff is everywhere and it's quite big area. 

It looked like Queensday all over again.

People selling old second hand stuff everywhere.

When I finally got at the part I wanted to go.

( I saw a huge Fashion King poster)

Samantha and Bert wanted to go eat somewhere so I couldn't see it.

But NOT in dongdaemun though.

I personally think you should not judge a book on it's cover. 

I want to explore Dongdaemun even further when I go back to Korea.

At that point I also realized that it's quite hard to see everything in Seoul in just a week.

When I go back, I will probably only visit Seoul for maybe 2 weeks or so.

So we went to Myeondong and went to Homestead coffe and had a meal there.

They gave us this device to let us know when our order was ready

Probably because the place has 3 floors.

I decided to order a really fancy looking hamburger.

Bert ordered this belgian waffles dish and Samantha had a chickenburger, if im correct.

I ordered a can of coke as well.

When we were done eating Bert had some cherry jam left and I dared him to mix it with my coke.

I didn't expect him to do it and yet he just mixed it without thinking xD

So I drank it and it tasted just like cherry coke. 

Wow! We totally found out about the cherry coke recipe.

We found some stand about the Summer sale in Seoul and the guys at the stand were really friendly and were trying to talk to us. So later we came back to get some info and talk to them some more.
They spoke really good english and one of the guys even photographed me.
Ofcourse.. with Super Junior's Shindong and Ryeowook! <3
Oh.. also Leeteuk and Kyuhyun.

Don't even mind the messed up hair and the cleavage.. omg.

So in the evening we searched around Hongdae.. to find a good restaurant.
Bert pointed at some wooden ski cabin looking cafe.
So we went up and saw a sign saying (no minors, 19 and below).
I already knew.. what was happening.
These are the type of places korean people get drunk at XD.
The menu was completely in hangul and since we were too lazy to translate everything I just pointed to a picture of fried chicken.
And.. ordered soju!
We all never had soju before so I was quite curious about it.
I loved how the korean girl at the counter only understood ME.. XD Bert and Samantha were not very clear to her aparently.
Anyway.. This is what we ordered:

SOJU!

FRIED CHICKEN!

So we all took a shot of soju.
I thought it tasted similar to Sambuca but less liquorice flavor.
So Samantha and me were struggeling a bit to finish the bottle.
Since we had to do it alone.. Bert didn't wanted any more Soju.
So I said : ''Samantha, we are never going to finish this''
AT THAT VERY MOMENT.
Bert picked up the soju bottle, poured his drink AND finished it in one shot.
WOAHHH! Oppa jjang! ( the best! )
Normally he doensn't even drink alcohol. XD
So I felt like laughing and I did .. for a pretty long time XD
Oh.. by the way.. the chicken was pretty good and for some reason was a great stomach filler too.

That's pretty much all for today.
Even though we haven't done a lot today.. I still managed to tell you a lot!
See you tomorrow!
Annyeonghi gyeseyo.