Korea Day4 04/07/2013

Woke up, had some instant ramen for breakfast, havent had instant noodles in such a long time, maybe over a few years now. I loved the korean Jajangmyeon instant noodles, so delicious.

We decided to go to the palace today, forgot the actual name, but some place that the emperor used to live. We got there walked around randomly and aimlessly, had no idea what was going on, but i guess its pretty similar to those chinese palaces that ive been to in china and taiwan. Even the building styles are pretty
similar. Took some random photos of random shits that I dont even know. Then we headed to the actual Palace where the emperor lived/worked. There was this square thing in front, and we pretended that I was king, and everyone started kneeling as I walked by, it was so much lols. Some random people were looking and laughing at us like "wth are these retards doing". Kept walking around to kill some time before the secret garden tour. The secret garden is only for the royal family, no one else was allowed to go in at that time. its pretty similar to 故宫and圆明园in beijing, and the ones I've been to in shanghai and suzhou. 

The tour was boring, and the tour guide was too fob to understand, so we were just like meh. the whole tour was supposed to go for like 3 hours, we left after 1 hour, cause everyone was bored, and hungry LOL. I really dont like going to historical sites, unless we have a pro and interesting tour guide to explain shit properly. 

David was planning to take us to the banquet thing for lunch, and I think he got a little annoyed because people kept asking the same question. We didnt know where insdaong was, we thought it was really far away, so we were like lets eat something first, so we found this random restaurant in the middle of no where and ate some noodles and octopus stew and other random stuff.  After lunch we kept walking to insadong, and it happened to be like 10minutes away from the restaurant that we ate at. There was this street full of random shops, brandon calene and jess went to buy some souvenir, Pua, megan abd bryan went somewhere I forgot. Me and david was just walking around randomly, then we saw this place that specialises in  all kinds of tea, there was this big as banner/advertisment thingy outside for some kind of Green tea dessert, me and david wanted to try it out so we went in. We got this greent tea snowice, and a green  tea cheese cake. I loved the ice, was so good and refreshing in such a hot weather. The cheese cake was good too, not too sweet, and the bitterness of the green tea complements the sweetness of the cheesecake really well. David ended up shouting me, because i shout him noodles in the aritport lol.  After a while, Megan and Bryan came too, they ordered the set as well, after a while everyone came over. Some people decided to get some tea as pressent for family and friends.

We left the tea shop, it was pouring outside, I didnt have an umbrella, so i shared with David. We were walking in front, not sure if we walked to fast, or the others walked too slow, we lost them after a while. So we just kept on walking, and David suggested to try out this Korean tea house place which was apparently really traditional. We went up, got a seat, I really dont sitting on the ground, too stiff for this shit LOL i ordered some random and weird as korean tea, think it was called Sujunggwa David ordered something as well, i forgot what he ordered though, we also had some ricecake sticks in covered in sesame seeds, and some kind of traditional korean cake called yakgwa. The tea tasted really weird, but i liked it, it's a little spicy and sweet. I didn't really like the yakgwa though, too sweet for my liking, and also really greasy, kind of like the Chinese mooncake, but alot sweeter, but i guess it goes well with the tea, since most of the tea are really bitter. We were there for a while, chatted a little bit about life and random stuff. Then the rest of the group came up to find us. Everyone had to order something, because there is a rule that you have to order a drink once you get in. The drinks were quite expensive like $6-7 each, but meh #YOLO #SWAG, since we are already here might as well try right? We stayed there for a long time, because it was pouring outside, like a few hours maybe LOL, we chatted and calculated how much we spent etc. I didnt really give a crap, cause i YOLO.

We left the tea place, and some people wanted to check out the $10 bag store, so we waited while they went inside. Then we decided to go grab dinner, David wanted to show us this banquet thing, so we followed him into this dodgy looking alleyway. David asked everyone if we were fine paying maximum $88 dollar for the banquet, I was fine with it, and everyone else was fine with it too, since we are already here in KOREA #YOLO. But i think david forgot to ask brandon, after brandon heard about it outside the restaurant he was like WTFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF FUCK THAT SHIT, and got really mad. I kinda expected that, since Brandon isnt a big spender. But in the end we ended up getting the $44 banquet, since everyone werent even that hungry from all the snacks. We got our little separate room, and had lots of fancy stuff, raw beef, sashimi, bulgogi, this sweet thingy with ginseng, pancakes, pork, OMG SO GOOOODDDD. Its defs worth the money spent, we had so many varieties and high quality food. I really loved the raw beef, but the serving was too small, only enough for each person to taste. THE TOILET WAS SO FKN DISGUSTING, one of the worst toilets I've been to in Korea, similar to Chinese toilet standard LOL. We walked back to the train station, on the way we say many small restaurants on the side of the road, some of them were really crowded, and makes me wanna eat again. LOL
One thing i noticed abour korea is that the exterior looks really fancy, like all the big and main streets. Inside the little alley it's really dirty, almost like another place compared to the outside. Like the rubbish was stacked on the side of the road etc.

We went home, did some research on CABI and deciding whether to go or not, then we were like #YOLO might as well since we are here. 

Korea Day3 03/07/2013

Decided to go to hello kitty cafe today, it was really close to where we lived, like around 10min walk? It was SOOOO PINKK AND CUTE inside, i think my manliness level just dropped down by like 100%, cutness level over 9000, im too manly for this shit lol, but its pretty nice inside. Went downstairs to order some food, all foods are hello kitty shaped, i got a waffle and a mocha again. The waffle was actually good, i thought that this place is just for looks, but the food is actually not bad.

Then we headed off to lotteworld, its inside a station which was very convenient. the entrance fee was like around $40 aud, which is a reasonable price for a theme park.

first thing we went to was this horror ghost house, we had to pay extra $5 because it was apparently not a "ride", it was really disappointing nothing even that scary, megan wasnt even scared, thats how bad it is. 

we came out, and it was time for the parade to start, we found a place to sit and watch the parade, it was pretty interesting, but im already too old for this shit LOL. the good bit was when the chicks with bikini came out LOL, i kid, but i was surprised there were alot of white Caucasian performers.

then we went to the outside bit of lotteworld. first we went on a roller coaster like ride. It didnt go upside down, but it accelerated super fast at the start, and it was actually pretty fun. 

I didnt go on many rides, me and calene waited while they all went onto the giant round swing thingy. we walked around, and found bumper cars, because thats the only thing calene wanted to do, so we followed. I love bumper cars, so fun, and not even dangerous at all, Im good at driving too LOL. 

The other guys went on this gyro drop as well, i was like wtf is this shit, im never going on that crap, looked scary as fuck. Me brandon and the girls were just waiting down there, i almost shit my pants just watching from the ground.

we also found this shooting game, where you get an air rifle and shoot capsule like bullets. I was really bad hit like 1/5, brandon was good he hit like 3/5, bryan was just too good i think he hit 4/5.

We went back indoors, and lined up for this indoor hot air balloon thingy, we lined up for ages, it was such a waste of time, nothing special at all. just can get a full view of the litteworld, pretty gay imo. Afterwards they wanted to go for the indoor rollercoaster, which i already cbs, so i waited with calene and brandon. We saw this guy drawing caricatures, i was rally interested, but calene got her drawn first, then i was like yolo, so i got one drawn as well. Lucky the guy who drew spoke english, he was a funny guy, asked me if i have anything in mind that i want him to draw, i said no, and he ended up drawing me like a tarzan, was pretty funny though LOL. After we finished our caricatures, they were still lining up for the roller coaster, so we went to this indoor bumper car, had nothing to do anyway. after we finished they just finished as well, we met up and starting to leave lotteworld, but then brandon got a blood nose again, so we were waiting while he was cleaning up his mass.

After brandon was done, we decided to eat at this folk museum thing at lotteworld, they had traditional korean dishes there. They served this traditional korean fermented fish, I've always wanted to try it, apparently it tastes really bad, and even koreans cant stand it. I ate some, it wasnt that bad, just tasted a lil weird, a lil like alohol, and ammonia. but its ok when you eat it with kimchi and pork. We also had alot of other stuff, chicken soup, stews, and other shits cant remember. 

Lotteworld was already closed after we finished eating, we didnt know how to get out and get back to the train station without going through lotteworld, so we just randomly walked around and found the trainstation lawl.

Another big lawl happened tonight, we were heading home from hongdae station, pua calene and jess was walking super slow, so we ditched them. bryan and megan was walking at the very front, and got home first. me david and brandon decided to get some street food, while we were waiting for the street food, pua and them are still not back yet, so brandon decided to check on them, and said to meet back at the street food stall. Me and david thought he wanted to meet us back home, so we left after getting our food. Me david and bryan wanted to scare calene and them, so we went upstairs and hid for a while, calene and them came back, and started doing random shits, and jess started dancing, we were watching every single bit LOL they thought we werent back yet, then brandon called, and calene said we were back home yet, so brandon was still waiting downstairs at the street food stall for me and david, but we were already back home LOL then we showed ourselves, and we were like OH SHIT brandon must be mad when he comes back finding us already back home. As expected when calene called him to come back, brandon was super pissed, it was funny but scary at the same time. 

Korea Day2 02/07/2013

We woke up early, megan suggested that we go to the hello kitty cafe. We arrived there just to realise that it opens at 11am, we got there at around 9:30ish? We cbs waiting, so we just headed off, and looked for some other place to eat. We found another cafe, called Angel In Us, which is apparently pretty popular in Korea, its everywhere on the streeets. got a spicy chicken burrito and Mocha, I really dont like any other coffee other then mocha. Other people got his huge thick bread thingy with whipped cream and sauce on it, i had a taste and it tasted pretty good.

Then we headed off to myongdong to exchange some moneyzzzzz, i exchnaged $800 aud, about half of what i had left.. Started going around make up stores, and buying shits, the girls went nuts, i was just like meh what are these shits. Brandon bought these aloe gel thingy for his mum, so we bought a big pack to share. Alot of people can speak chinese at myongdong, i was actually pretty surprised, they spoke pretty well too, really fluent, but still with a little korean accent. The girls kept looking at make up and shits, me, pua and david decided to go to juno hair and get a haircut, apparently juno hair is famous in korea. i got a nice and short hair cut, which turn out really nice right after, but when i try to do it myself, it turns retarded. Pua dyed his hair red again, and david got a perm. i only spent $25 aud, they spent shit loads, pua about $200 david about $100. cheaper than i expected, a hair cut in aus is around the same price anyway.

Someone said that mandu is good in myongdong, so we headed there, ate some dumplings, it's really different to the chinese style dumplings, the fillings are different and the shape is different too. The mandu is shaped like a siumai , but it still tasted good.
walked around, girls bought more shits at artbox, i was just looking around and bought some hersheys chocolate there LOL. We had nothing else to do, so just walked around, and we saw this cat cafe, which seemed pretty interesting to us, so we decided to check it out. There were so many cats running all over the place, maybe around 10ish cats were running around freely, some were still inside the cages. We had to pay like 5000 won entry fee, which includes 1 drink, i forgot what i ordered, some juice i think? we had to sanitise our hands, and wear slippers. cats were so cute, running around everywhere. I still prefer dogs though. pretty interesting experience

Afterwards we headed off to dongdaemun, which is like another shopping place. there were 2 buildings there, one is like the super fancy one, with all the big brands, the other one is a little bit dodgy but sells cheap shits. we decided to pass the luxury building, since no one can afford anything there anyway, actually maybe david can, but since majority rules, we decided to pass. We also gave calene her birthday money to use for shopping. she seemed so happyz LOL
So we separated, cause we'll be buying different shits. David followed the girls, and we went upstairs to check out guys section. Everyone was so desperate there lol, calling us and asking us to buy shit, and asking where we are from. We remained silent until david came LOL. so we started looking for shits, david and pua bought a few shirts, i bought a shirt, a pair of shorts, and a pair of pants. Shirt was around $20, pants and shorts $40. Korean sizes are so TINY, i had to get XL and it could barely fit me, well i guess all korean guys are pretty slim and no one was as big as me. after shopping at other palces a few day after, we realised we got ripped off hard at dongdaemun, the shirt we saw at some palces were $15 without even have to bargain, and pants were also cheaper. Those people at dongdaemun are sure good at acting, acting like they lost shit load of money.
we finished shopping, while we were waiting, we went upstairs to grab some food, forgot what i had, ate something really simple. then we headed down to buy some idol shits, and then went back home.

Korea Day1 01/07/2013

We woke up early, checked out and took a taxi to airport. Nothing much happened at the airport and on the plane.
Got to korea at around 3pm ish, we were all hungry as shit, because they didnt give us food on the plane, so we walked around to look for some food, david suggested lotteria, which is a korean fast food chain. So we walked around the whole airport just to find the place right next to us........ had some bulgogi burger and chesse sticks and cheese fries, bulgogi burger tastes nice, a lil different to the typical australian burgers. Cheese fries tasted weird, but its ok, cheese stick was super cheesy, but pretty tasty too.

After eatting some food, we went to pick up Brandon and them, we waited a lil bit, and they finally arrived. we went to rent a pair of mobile phones, just in case anything happens, and then left the airport. we took the airport shuttle bus straight to hongdae, checked in at our nice little cozy apartment like accommodation. It's a really nice place, and super cheap too, like maybe around $20 aud per person per night?  Its a double story room, upstairs was really tiny, so we moved the mattress downstairs. There's a kitchen inside, and a fridge, they even provided toast, butter and jam for breakfast. Super nice place.

After we unpacked a lil, we headed off for dinner. we walked around, and found a korean fried chicken place, that was apparently pretty popular. We ordered heaps of food, korean fried chicken, sausages, Pan fried chicken with cheese, and a HUGE jug of beer. They were so strict, and had to check our IDs, didnt know Korea is so strict about alcohol.

After dinner we walked around a lil bit around hongdae, looked at some street performers, then we decided to go to a bath house. We looked around for this apparently super fancy one, but apparently it disappeared. there happened to be one just on the side of the street, so we just went in. it was very similar to what i expected, very similar to those chinese bath houses, not as fancy though.
we paid $10 aud for entry fee, went in and changed into bath robes, then went out to the public sauna place to meet the girls. there were different saunas with different temperatures, tried them all, and i liked the hottest one, which i believe was 50 degrees? and there was this iceroom right next to the saunas, TBH it wasnt even that cold, mayb around 10ish degrees? it felt super awesome after hot sauna, and go straight into the iceroom. We cam out, had some tea eggs? and some kind of super sweet korean drink. Then we decided to go in and take a bath, while brandon and the girls just got changed and waited outside.
The bath was pretty good, pretty similar to the Chinese ones, they had a greentea pool, ginseng pool, and a super hot one. I dont know why brandon and the girls doesnt like it, its just being naked right? not a big deal at all. maybe im just used to it lol, cause ive been alot of times. but its just penis right? no one is gonna judge. o well, its his own choice, but it was super fun especially with friends. there was this super hot sauna which i believe was 80 degrees, HOT AS FUCK, stayed there in 2 mins and almost died. we couldve stayed inside for longer, but we were worried that the girls and brandon might be waiting for too long. Took a shower and came out, everyone was tired so we headed home.

HK day3 30/06/2013

today the biggest LOLS of the whole trip happened....... Im still surprised how stupid we are....... basically we thought today was the 01/07/2013 and thought we were supposed to head off to korea.

on the previous day (day 2), we thought our flight was today, and got all excited about heading off to korea, we packed all our shits, and set an alarm super early at like 5:30 ish. So we woke up, getting all pumped up about leaving HK. we were about to check out then realised there was no one at the front counter, so we put the keys in a piece of paper, and wrote something to the boss saying we are leaving. we got to the airport by the airport shuttle train, which was quite expensive at around 20aud if i remembered correctly. David was talking to megan at the airport, and he said megan told him that they r still at home chilling, and david was like nah shes just trolling, pretty sure they are at singapore already. we proceeded to check in, we gave our passport to the staff, then she said, "your flight is tommorow, would you like to change your flight?" we were like WTFFFFF, then we realised megan wasnt trolling us, we were trolling ourselves. Then we were laughing our asses off, and facepalming the entire time, then david and pua took out their phones and checked the date, and it was 30/06/2013.... and they all started blaming me, cause i was in charge for the HK part. I admit it was mostly my fault, but i did tell them my phone's clock and date is screwed up, so i cant tell the date. I even booked the little shitty motel for 3 whole days, till 1/07/2013. I even planned the itenery for 3 whole days, but david told me that we were apparently staying for only 2 whole days. I dunno what we were thinking, words cannot describe how retarded we were.

So we stayed at airport for a lil bit thinking of what to do, the staff told us that they'll find a seat for us, but we'll have to pay $50 aud extra, we all agreed to that, but unfortunately there were no seats left. So i felt bad because it was kinda my fault, so i shouted them breakfast. After breakfast we decided to look for a hotel, because we were too embarrassed to go back to the shitty motel, even though ive already paid for the last day. Then we were like YOLO lets go find a 5 star hotel, since its the last day. We searched for some hotels nearby, and found this Intercontinental Hotel near TsimShaTsui. We took a taxi to the hotel, it was the same price as the shuttle train, so we decided to take a taxi instead.

We got off, then checked in at the 5star hotel, and they told us the room will be available at 1pm. At this stage im kinda running out of money. It turned out to be $80aud per person per night, not even that expensive.
we left our luggage in the hotel, and went out to grab some lunch. We found this yum cha place, which seemed pretty crowded, if its crowded it must be good right?

after lunch we went back to the hotel to chill, took a nap, watched some tv, went to gym, took a shower and just stayed inside for the whole afternoon. Then its dinner time AGAIN, we went to the same place, we saw that they have all you can eat hotpot there as well, so we decided to come again. We told pua to get select a soup, and he chose some retarded apple pear and snow fungus soup. It was so plain, had no flavour at all, and we had to pay for extra sauces, so we decided not to get any, just used the soy sauce they gave us for free. All the dishes were so good, so many thins that we havent tried before in a hotpot, E.g. frogs, glutinous custard balls, all kinds of fish balls, and meat balls etc. The soup tasted pretty nice and sweet after all the flavour went into the soup. After dinner we headed back, and just chilled and slept early, so we can wake up and head off TO KOREA!!!!!!!!!!

HK day2 29/06/2013

We woke up pretty late, at around 10ish. We all wanted to have yumcha, so i searched on my phone for a place close to where we are staying, apparently there is one around 10mins away from us. according to reviews they have good dim sims, and its also a buffet. So we walked there, its located inside a quite fancy building/shopping center (the mira), we got there pretty early at around 10:30 ish, and it turns out the the restaurant opens at 11. So we went to a nearby starbucks, and had some coffee/drinks.
at around 11ish we went to the restaurants we were told that they dont do buffets on weekends, so we decided to go in anyway since we were there already. They brought out the menu, and we had a look, and HOLY SHIT it was expensive as fk. but YOLO, since we are here already too late to back off now, and plus it wasn't that expensive mayb just around 10aud for 3 prawn dumplings. Seriously the taste was amazing, not like any ordinary yum cha place, the dumpling was full of prawns, and tasted very fresh. even though it was a lil pricey, but  was definitely worth it, service was nice too. we spend maybe around 50aud per person.
after eating breakfast we found our way to ocean park, we took a shuttle bus from the central. It was SUPER CROWDED, even the entrance was packed full of tourists, especially mainlanders. ocean park was nothing special, just like any other theme parks, but 10 times more crowded. I lost my roller coaster virginity here, Ive never been on one before in my life. the line was super long, had to wait around 1 hour to go on, and i was super nervous, heart was beating super fast. it wasnt actually that scary, it was actually kinda fun, but i wont go on it by myself, its only fun with friends around.
you'll have to wait probs 1hr for every single fkn ride, so annoying, especially on such a hot and humid day. we bought maccas ice cream, and drinks and ice creams, but they dont even help. then we finally found some stalls that sells small water melons, omg they were life savers, even though it wasnt that chilled, but still soooooooo goooooooddddddd omggggggg.

while we were lining up for the cable cars to go down, some mainlander tried to push in lane, a lot of ppl in front got super mad, and starting telling them off, but they just ignored and kept walking. such disgrace, now i kinda get why hongkies dont like being recognised as chinese. most of the mainlander tourists are fkn disgrace to chinese ppl, even i feel ashamed.
so we left at around 6ish, tired and sweaty as fk. so we went to this street food stall near the SOHO street to eat some street seafood. The dishes were cheap, and actually was pretty dam good. had some goose intestines, tofu and fish, some kind of shells, and garlic prawns.
we went into lan gui fang, which is like a street full of bars, pubs and clubs. we seemed so out of place with our "beach outfit" everyone was suited up with nice shirt and sexy dresses and all, and we were just walking around casually in our shorts and short sleeve tshirts, so we decided to leave and stop embarrassing ourselves lol.
Then we decided to go up to the victoria peak. Line was freaking huge, everywhere in HK is crowded and have to line up for almost everything zzzzzzzzzzzz so annoyed. we lined up for around 20mins, then i saw there was another palce selling combo tickets for the peak and madame tussads museum, so we all came out of the line and asked them how much the ticket is etc. Then we were told that they will close soon, and we probs wont make it, and i asked if we can buy the peak tickets here, but apparently not. Since we came out of the line already, we went alllll the way to the back and started lining up again....... it probs took us more than 2 hours to get up to the peak..... the nightview of HK was AMAZING, definitely worth the time and money spent.

HK day1 28/06/2013

On the day before we left, we had a catch up dinner with everyone, since we were all done with exams, and we will be leaving the next day. After we had dinner I went home, then david and pua came to my house for a sleep over, because our flight is at 7:30 in the morning, and we'll have to wake up super early, so i thought it'd be better for them to sleep over at mine, since my dad is taking us there. Pua and david both came at around the same time, we checked our luggage, and did some last minute packing. Then i asked my mum for some moneyzzz, then she was like super worried that im bringing too much cash, but then there is no other way lolzzzz. then we played some games, PS3 until like 2ish, our plan was to not sleep at night, and sleep on the plane.

Woke up at around 5ish, ate breakfast, and drove off to the airport. everything was going well, checked in, went to our gate, and pua bought this emu jerky thing, which tasted pretty weird, but we still finished it all. Pua and david were all watching movies on the plane, i just slept through the whole thing, typical snorlax LOL. we got to HK at around 3ish, got a cab at the airport to bring us to our little shitty guest house. the cab didnt drop us off at the exact place, so we were walking around randomly trying to look for our place, and it turns out to be right in front of us, such retards....... So our guest house was in a very old but tall building around tsim sha tsui station. The building had a really weird atmosphere, alot of Indian, africans, arab, muslims, and various other dark skined people. not being racist or anything, but it felt weird, not sure if we were in HK or India. there were a lot of indian restaurants in the building as well, the whole building smelled like curry. It didnt feel really safe at all...... but i guess at least the location is good, and its super cheap around $20 per person per night.

So we took a lift to the 13th floor, even the lift didnt feel very safe, it was super dodgy, i was scared we were gonna get stuck. as we went to our guest house, this Indian guy came out and greeted us. Went into our room, and it was SUPER FKN TINY, there were 2 single beds (maybe a little bigger), and no where to walk around. Lucky there was air con in there, we left the air con on for the entire time. Bathroom was fkn tiny too, o well cannot complain, i kinda expected this, i was told by my parents that its normal in HK. we took a shower, chilled for a lil bit in the room, and went out to Tsui Wah cafe for dinner. I ordered a pork chop rice, which was really nice, pork chop was massive and the sauce was good too, and IT WAS SO CHEAP, ok maybe not that cheap maybe around 10 AUD. Also tried out the HK style milk tea, IT WAS SO AWESOME, i guess Key was right, hk style milk tea is actually better than most of the milk tea u get in melbourne. Tea flavor was very strong, and was super smooth. we drank it pretty much everyday for every meal lol.

after dinner we went down to the subway station to figure out how to get to ladies market, we walked around and asked a few people, lucky they were all able to speak mandarin. So we took a train to ladies market, and walked around and bought a few shirts, hats, and other little shits. We also had heaps of street food, was so full afterwards LOL. we had coconut juice, egg waffles, curry fish balls, ALOT of mango desserts. OMG the desserts were FKN CHEAP FOR REALSSSSS. So for the FULL SET IT WAS ONLY 15 AUD OMGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG. too good to be true seriously, they all tasted so gooooooood as well, alot of fresh mangoes. after eating shit load of food, we kept walking around the market, didnt buy much after that. Went back to our place and slept.