Flights, panic, fever 29.6

Today I did absolutely nothing. My fever had gotten worse and I just wanted to sleep so it would go away.
The morning was horrible, Maiju woke up at 9am and her flight was at 10am.. Needles to say but she missed her flight and was in a panic. Me.. I was only sleeping and didn't help her at all because honeslty I didn't even know what was going on.
Well in the end she bought herself new flights for the next day.

It's not fun to be sick when you are in Seoul. :<

~Choko

... 28.6

... Hangover, that's all I have to say.

Oh wait, in the evening we met with our new friends how worked in the Ho bar. We didn't drink (or at least I didn't, because I had a slight fever) but we still had a lot of fun. We played a lot of different games and watched a movie and so on.

I don't have much to say about this day.

~Choko

A boring Wednesday that turned into heavy partying 27.6

Today Erika couldn't come with us anymore because her school started. So me and Maiju spent the begingin of the day by just sleeping and hanging around in our hostel. My friend then send me a message and said that he wanted to show us around Seoul with his car. We said ok but told that we had to be back in Hongdae by 6pm because we were meeting with our friend later in the evening.
So my friend took us to a small cafee in a quiet area and we just talked there and drank cofe. When we were trying to get back to Hongdae there was a huge traffic jam and in the end we arrived at Hongdae at 7pm. Luckily our next meeting was at 8pm in Iwa.
At 8pm we met with our finnish friend who had been stydying in Korea for a year now. We want to buy some clothes and shoes. Then we ate a bit and went to a coffee shop to talk about.. well nothing important. :D
Our friends asked if we wanted to go with them to a Ho bar for drinks and we were like why not. But it turned out to be the wrong choise because in the end we were drinking with some locals and let's just say that we drank a bit too much...

Note to myself: Don't drink too much next time.


~Choko

Nails and Namsan 26.6

So today we visited Itaewon and I have to say that there is absolutely nothing. I didn't like that place and neither did my friends. We decided to go to Hongdae and get a manicure in a nail studio. I got a bit carried away and now I have gel nails. :DD So like me... And that is how boring our day was.
But luckily for me and Maiju we met with our new friend and went together to Namsan. It was a bit strange at first but then we just started to talk and everything turned out fine. Me and Maiju paid for our friend so that we could go up the tower. The view was really beautiful like it was before, but this time the weather was better and you could see more. From the tower we went to eat chicken together into a restaurant near the subway station. And of course we orderd soju and played some drinking games. I bet Maiju has bad memories from this place...
Me and Maiju wanted to play Tekken so we went to an arcade in Hongdae and played there against each others. I won agains Maiju but lost against our friend. :<
The evening ended when we started to look for a place where our friend could sleep, because he already missed the last train. kkkk.

A small update~


~Choko

On a sunny Monday 25.6

Today we went to visit the Trick Eye Museum here in Hongdae. Erika came to our hostel to meet with us and she really wanted to see Jelly, the dog who lives here.
So we headed to the museum and...
I don't feel like writing at all. Well we just went to the museum and had fun joking around and everyone else was looking at us really wierdly. :D
We went to eat in the same restaurant again where we had been on our first day. The owner was really suprised and happy to see us again. She kept chatting with us and said we should call her ahjumma. ^^
In the evening we went to walk along this little stream in downtown. I never remember it's name. -___- But it was beautiful and full of couples. The whole South Korea is full of couples. -___-

So this was my short update. I'll update the other too. :D

~ Choko

Back to Seoul 24.6

Today we went back to Seoul. But before that we met again with one of our friends in the morning. She brought one of her friends with her, who had said that he wanted to meet us. It feels like we are becoming a local attraction. :-------D Anyway, we were supposed to go eat cold noodles but the place wasn't open yet so we went to get food from Family Mart and sat in a park to eat. Me and Erika were talking with our friend when she suddenly started to laught really hard. We asked "what, what??" and she said she over heard her friend asking from Maiju if she has a boyfriend, kkkkk, we were laughing so hard after that. We laughed to the question and to our friends good hearing. We decided to try going in the restaurant again now that it was open. The cold noodles were soooo good, but the portion was too big for me and I couldn't finish it all. :<
It was time for us to leave and our friend (and her friend) escorted us to the bus station and helped us to by the tickets. It was so sad that we had to go. ;____; I didn't want to leave. I wish we had stayed there longer.
The bus ride back to Seoul was boring. I just listened to music and tried to write more to my blog but as you can see it failed. XD
In Seoul we met again with our friends from the hostel. It was their last day so we went to eat together and too some photos. This day was a bit sad, I had to say goodbye two times. :< But I'm sure that I'll meet my friends again sometime. ^^

~Choko

Busan~ ! 23.6

As the title says we went to Busan with one of our friends today. We met again infront of the police station and took a taxi to the train station. It took about one hour to get to Busan. We spent that time by looking at our photos from yesterday.
In Busan we took the subway and went to see the fish market. They had so many different fishes that I hadn't seen before. We just walked around the market and found a place wher we could eat grilled fish. It was really good! We hadn't eaten fish in two weeks so I missed it a lot. And they had a cute waiter there, kkkkk. ^^
From the fishmarket we took a taxi to a nearby park and went to visit the Busan tower. The view was nice and when I spotted the sea I was like " OMG IT'S THE SEA~~! I missed you!" :----D Next to the tower was a place where they had love locks, those were so cute. We didn't go up to the tower because it was a bit expensive.
Me and Maiju really wanted to go to the beach so the took a bus and our friend guided us to one of the beaches in Busan. When me and Maiju saw the beach and the sea we quickly took of our shoes and we run into the water to play with it. The water was so warm compared to Finland. We were just splashing it over each others. After pressuading Erika for awhile she also took her shoes of and played a bit in the water with us. ^^ And of course our friend played with us too. Maiju splashed the water a bit too much and his jeans got a bit wet. :----D I got a bit bored just staying in one place so I said that let's walk along the beach to the other side of it, I wanted to explore it. And so we did. I noticed that Koreans don't really use swimsuits or bikinis. They just "swim" or play in the water with their clothes on. To me it was a bit strange but I didn't really care about it because I was playing with the water. ^^ When we got to the other end of the beach we turned round and started to go back. We made plans to go eat ice cream to Baskin Robbins. While we were walking along the beach me and Maiju saw that two boys were following us from afar. I said to Maiju that let's wave to them when tehy look at us again. And Maiju did what I told. XD I wasn't looking at the boys but Maiju was and saw that they were looking at us so she waved to them. They got so confused! Poor boys. XD But then I saw that they went back to their group... I group of at least 10 people, kkkkk. Well we just walked forward and I said that let's draw a heart and write the day and our names to it. While we were drawing the heart one of the boys suddely asked us if we could take a picture together. We said ok but the ALL of the boys run from different directions and in the end we took a photo with 12 guys. XD I laughed so hard at that time. I really wanted to get the photo to myself so I first asked for their email but in the end Maiju gave her kakaotalk ID to one of them. And then all of them suddenly disapered and we continued our way to Baskin Robbins.
The ice cream was really good! I eat chocolate ice cream (surprise, surprise my favorite) and while eating it I realised that I really really missed chocolate ice cream. ;____;
When we got back to Daegu our friend showed us a sushi bar where we could eat. He had some plans with his friends so he left to meet with them. We went to the sushi bar and oh the shock when we saw 2 good looking waiters welcoming us and guiding us to the table. The sushi was good, but I think we spent most of our time just looking at the waiters. XD What a good day it had been so far!
Suddenly Erika got a message from our friend. He said that his friends wanted to meet us in half on hour. We just agreed and went to take purikura pictures to spent some time. If you haven't noticed I'm totally in love with purikura. <3 We didn't look at the time at all so we when we did we were almost late from our meeting. We stared to run so that we would make it to the meeting place. We made it just in time. They asked if we were hungry or if it was ok to go drink soju with them. So in the end we didn't eat but drank a few shots of soju with them. We had to wake up early the next morning so we didn't stay long.

~Choko

Boys over flowers university?! 22.6

Hiya!

Today we met with two of our friends. ^^ (the two that we didn't meet yesterday) We met one of them in front of a police station and from there we continued our way to the others university. We took the subway and walked a bit and then we saw the university... Waaah, it's so big! And really beautiful. Our friend told us that the drama Boys over flowers was filmed in this university. We went to the arcade to wait for our friend. Maiju was really good in Tekken.
After our friend arrived we went to eat some local food. It was really good, I think it was chicken. It was nice to see that type of restaurant too, because I know that I wouldn't go there by myself.
We went to visit our friends university. It was the same uni where they filmed Boys Over Flowers. So beautiful! We were just walking around the uni campus. We visited the cafe and then we went to sit in the international lounge. One guy there asked us to write a message in finnish to his girlfriend for their 100 day anniversary, how sweet~ !
From the university we took a bus and went to a park to ride bicycles. When we where in the bus one customer got into a fight with the busdriver. o____o The bus stopped and we had to wait for the police to come and get the customer away. It was a bit.. scary. But anyways, it was fun to ride bicycle even though it was a bit hot.
In the evening we went to eat in a local restaurant. But you don't want to know what it was that we ate... Let's just say that the taste was ok but when you know that you are eating intestine you don't really care about the taste so much. :D

~Choko

To Daegu! 21.6

Today we left Jeju. We had to wake up early to make sure that we made it to the plane. In the end we had to wait for an hour at the airport. -___-

Back in Seoul we transfered from the airport to a busterminal. We were right in front of the terminal but we still got a bit lost... Now how is that even possible? Anyway, we found our way inside the terminal and bought tickets to Daegu. The bus ride took about 4 hours. I spent half of it sleeping and half by listening to music.

When we got to the end station our friend was there to meet with us. We took a taxi to our hostel but there was some kind of misunderstanding (because they over booked the hostel) so we had to change our hostel. Well it's the same hostel but another building. We went to a Italian restaurant to eat with our friend. Maiju wanted to have some western style food. But how can risotto be that spicy!?

After we had eaten we dropped by our hostel and Maiju went to sleep because she wasn't feeling well. Me and Erika still went out with our friends. They took us to a coffee shop and we ate patbingsu (green tea ice cream) and cinnamon honey bread. They tasted sooooo good. ^^ From there we went to noraebang~ It was really fun! Why don't we have those in Finland, why? T___T

~Choko

Jeju part 2 ~ 20.6

So today is the second day when we are in Jeju, and also the last day. We’re leaving tomorrow in the morning. We met with our tour group again in front of the same hotel as yesterday, but today we headed to the eastern part of the island. Our first stop was for souvenir shopping. I bought two chocolate bars, one for me and one for my family. It was local tangerine chocolate so of course I have to try it. XD

After shopping was Jeju art land. We were so immersed with the paintings that we didn’t notice the second part of the area but then our guide told us that we should visit it too. And I’m so happy we did. It was a little bit like a trick art museum! We had so much fun and we were running from one picture to another one because we didn’t have much time to look around. ^^”

We made it in time to our bus and went to our next destination; Mongolian Show.  It was a horse show and told a story about the Genghis Khan. Maiju was so excited about it but me… well not so much. :D But it looked cool! And all of the riders were men~ ^^ When the show was over we were able to pat the horses and Maiju basically run there when she saw the horses. XD And luckily for her at our next stop we were allowed to ride an obedient pony. I didn’t like it so much but it was still fun.

LUCH TIME!

Our next stop was at a small local village. To us it was a bit boring because we didn’t understand what the tour guide was talking. We only understood a few words from here and there. And it was scary when all three of misunderstood that the villagers used to kill all the smart people… Yes, that has to be a big misunderstanding. ^^” At the end of the tour we got to taste some honey, strange medicine (again) and I think it was water with honey. They all actually were quiet good. The honey was really sweet.

Coming soon:

Park + Cave

Women diving museum thing

~Choko

JEJU~ 19.6

Today was our first day in Jeju and this is how it looked like:

Well luckily the weather got a lot better and the sun was shining in the mid-day. We had booked a two day tour for us and were waiting for our bus in front of a hotel. When we saw our bus it was huge and it was some kind of a VIP bus. And well, let’s say that we got a shock when we saw how the bus looked inside. We absolutely didn’t expect our bus to look like THIS:  

Our first destination was a butterfly exhibition and gallery. There were a lot of different bugs and they had made artworks from the bugs. I don’t know how to explain it but it was interesting. There and also a small house and inside it were mirrors that made you look different. So hard to explain this in English. It’s just something that you have to experience yourself  ^^.

After the butterfly gallery we had a lunch break. There was a buffet of Korean food where other tourist groups also went to eat. In the queue there and a guy who started to speak English to us but I didn’t understand a word he said to me. XD When we had eaten we went to Dwarfing land. There were a lot of miniatures of famous buildings and monuments. We had so much fun just running around and taking pictures of almost everything. ^^ Oh and I got a lot of attention today and few people said hi to me and asked where I was from. Oh why do I have blond hair, why?

Our next stop was at a local farm. They explained us about tangerines and about some healty mushroom thing. I didn’t really understand much because it was all in Korean. But we talked with this nice ahjumma who was also on the tour and she translated us a little what the guy was talking about the medicine. Her English was really good! And she was so nice. It felt like we were on a trip with our grand mom. ^^

It was time to leave the strange mushrooms behind us and go to a small trekking. It was really hot and I was sweating like pig. Good thing that no one noticed that. XD The walk was quiet long, about 40min. The path was right next to the sea and the view was so beautiful!

From the trekking we went directly to a cruise on a ship. We were so lucky that the weather was on our side that day. ^^ We were sitting on the deck and just watching the sea and taking photos. It made me feel like I was back in home, in Finland.

 

 

Our last stop was at a waterfall, but we didn’t have much time to look at it because we went to buy food.  :-----D We were really hungry after the long day and there was a Family Mart right next to us so… XD But we still got photos of the waterfall!

Oh and I forgot to mention that we went to watch a motorbike show in the morning, but I don’t have any photos of it. :<

~Choco

Incheon chinatown 17.6

Today we met with my friend on Incheon. It had been two years since we last met so I was really really happy that I could meet him again. So we went to chinatown and because Maiju and Erika were hungry they went to eat so me and my Korean friend were walking around the area for a few minutes until we decided to go to eat too. He said that he would pay the food for me, how sweet. :) After that we went to our meeting place to wait for Erika and Maiju. While waiting we went to this small cafe that sold bubble tea. Th tea was good but... I didn't like those "bubble" things in it. ^^" Later Maiju and Erika also came to the cafe and after a little break we went to explore around the area. We were just walking whitout a destination in the area and we found a lot of funny or beautiful things. A pipe, birds, pictures, fountain and so on... We also found a small baseball course(?) and my friend wanted to try it. Oh we also found this small park where they had different fitness equipments and ofcourse we went there to play with them, especially Maiju... hahaha! :D When we were walking back to the station there was a fountain where a lot of kids were playing. They looked so cute! And guess who of us went to play in the fountain too... MAIJU! kkkk ^^

So in Seoul we went to Hongdae and drank a cup of coffee in Dunking' Donuts. We spent there a lot of time just talking to each others. Maiju said that she needed a new bag so we were off to Bag Hunting. At firts it looked lik there weren't any good shops where she could buy a bag but in the end we found a really good shop where also me and Erika bought a bag. Now everyone of us girls was happy with a new bag. ^^

After that it was time for us to depart from my friend and me and Maiju went to wash our laundry. The guys from our hostel asked us again to go party with them but I was too tired and feeling sick so I stayed at home and went to sleep early. Later I found out that I had a slight fever. :<

~Choco

LAG, off to Jeju 18.6

Today we did absolutely nothing. We just packed our things and got ready for our flight to Jeju. I wss a bit sick so I spent most of my time resting.
When we arrived to Jeju it was raining. How nice... And our taxi driver was a "kusipää". He didn't help us at all with our luggage and asdfsnvl. Yes, that explains everything. Now time for some photos.

Hähähähäh, I skipped one day...

Hiking, meeting friends and party (again) 16.6

HI~ !

So today we woke up really early because we were going hiking to the mountains. The train ride took about 1 hour, because we had to switch trains (and we got a little lost..). We went to Dobong mountain to hike. Everyone was so well prepared except us. We looked like.. tourist there, but then again that is what we are in here! hahaha~ ^^ First we went through a market and we bought some kimbab as a snack that we could eat in the mountains. After that we walked forward and found a map where we could see the whole area. It was HUGE. Well it was a national park but still. We didn't really know which route to choose so I said that maybe we should walk to this info stand and see if we can find a route from there. And so we went to the info stand and we did indeed find a better map. I chose a small route that wasn't too long. The only problem was that when we got almost at the top of a mountain we noticed that we had taken the wrong turn at some point buceuse we should even have been that high. XD Well it didn't matter because there was also another way down and we decided to use that one.

When we came back to our hostel it was already a little over 16 o'clock and I was supposed to meet with my friends at 18 o'clock in Myongdong station. I took a quick shower and changed my clothes after that I was off to Myongdong. I came there a bit late but luckily my friend was still waiting for me. We started to walk towards Namsan tower together. First we wanted to take the cabel car but the queue was too long so we just decided to walk there. It was nice and because it was already a bit cooler than in the day. We talked about a lot of things, I found out that she likes to take photos so I asked if she could help me to pick a camera. ^^ When we got to the tower we went to eat to the Italian restaurant that was in the tower. It was funny how the restaurant was only full of couples but we didn't really care. We orderd pizza and carbonara. It was soooo good and felt cozy. After we ate we went to the top of the tower to see the view. The line to the elevator was so long! But we got past the line because one of the workers made a mistake, hehee :P The elevator was... strage. There was a video that made it look like you were going to space. Only in Asia. But the view from the tower was so beautiful! It was already dark and you could see the lights in the city. We walked around the tower and went back downstairs (but we had to wait to get to the elevator again). After taking pictures we started to go back to the subway station. She made sure that I went to the right metro and we made plans to go shopping together next time. ^^

I was really tired when I got back to the hostel and was planning to go to sleep but nooooo, our new friends from our hostel decided that I should go to party with them. In the end I HAD to go because they left no choises but I was in a really bad mood and didn't have much fun. I went back quiet early and went to sleep.



That's how my day went. I'll write again!

Shopping 15.6

We met with Erika at Hongdae station and took the subway to Samsong where we walked to Coex shopping mall. We were just hanging around the mall. We went to Art Box and I bought 3 note books. The shop was so cute! I wanted to buy everything from there. Luckily (or not) we have Art Box right next to our hostel. ^^ We found a music shop and went to see if there were some good CDs, but didn't find anything. :<  While walking around we found a Starbucks and decided to take a break. I took an ice coffee, but forgot to ask for a latte so I didn't drink much of it. After we left the coffee shop we didn't know where we were. :D Well no big deal, we just went to shops and walked around until we found our way outside again. The weather was nice so we sat outside for awhile before we made our way to Iwa. We were getting a bit hungry so the frist thing we did in Iwa was; we searched for a reastaurant and orderd some food. The only problem was that it was so spicy that I couldn't eat a lot of it. XD When we had eaten we wandered around the streets and went to a few shops. It was getting late so me and Maiju decided to go back to our hostel. As soon as we made it there we went to sleep, because we knew that the next day we were going to go hiking and it would take a lot of energy.

In the end I bought only 3 shirts for me. :< But no worries, we're gonna go shopping next week too hahaha. :D

Bad quality T___T  The last shirt is green.

~ Choco