Shopping in Seoul

Seoul is a shopping heaven!
Beautiful clothes, shoes, bags and cheap cosmetics.
When u are tired of shopping, just popped into one of the many cafes to take a rest.
If u are hungry, just go into one of the many restaurants for delicious food.
What more can I say?! WOW! :D

Myeondong
Is a shopping paradise.
Familiar brands like Forever 21, Zara, GAP can be found here.
Korea cosmetics brands like Innisfree, The Face Shop, Nature Republic, Missha, Holika Holika, Tony Moly are all around. We almost went crazy. Hahaha. :D

My friend and I love this place. Good shopping and food, but I think my friend and I look too foreign. Everyone can tell that we are foreigners. Usually outside those cosmetic stores, there is always one or two ladies welcoming everyone into their stores.
"안녕하세요! 안녕하세요!"
But when those ladies saw us, they will always say "欢迎光临" or "Welcome".
I think I also heard "Sawadee krap".

Insadong
Is a beautiful place. The shops' names are in their korean characters without romanticization. Look at the 2 familiar shops Missha and Etude house

Haha.. and it is a good place to buy touristy stuff.. for friends and relatives and colleagues. hahaha.

Dongdaemun
If u like shopping centres or if u want to go into a place to bargain, this is the place for u. haha. You can find fortune tellers here too, although we didn't go to any because of our limited korean vocabulary.

Namdaemun
Hahaha.. my friend and I had an interesting conversation with an old woman, probably in her 80s selling chilli powder. Hahahaha.. surprisingly we actually understood what she was saying.. especially when she asked if we had a calculator. XD

Our first experience taking a taxi

Before I arrived in Korea, I know I am going to take a taxi there...
So before I departed for Korea, I went to youtube to search for some videos on "How to take a taxi"
hahahaha..

Where should I catch a taxi?  택시 어디서 타요? (taxi ordisor tayo)
How much is the taxi fare? 요금 얼마예요? (yogeum elmayeyo)

Our first experience taking a taxi
was at the seoul station on 03/02/2012 around 00:30am. So early right? haha.
We queued up and waited in the cold. It was -17 degrees celsius. Can you believe it? Just 12 hours ago, we were in a sunny (and humid) city with a temperature of 27 degrees celsius.

When it was our turn, we bought the taxi. The driver had a super long hair, at first I thought he was a woman. I think he asked where we wanted to go several times in Korean because I kept hearing the two words "어디" in the sentences he said. hahaha..
So I took out the address of the hotel and read the address to him in a heavily Singaporean accented korean.. and obviously he couldn't understand me. So I handed over the address to him.
He squinted and took out his glasses to read the address. After several minutes, he still could not figure out the address of the hotel. I guess his longsightedness is quite serious.

Fortunately, my friend had the map of the hotel.
With the help of the map, the GPS and after receiving several honks from other drivers, the taxi driver finally brought us to the right place. haha.

Welcome to Kaohsiung

When we reached Kaoshiung, we were greeted by a woman in sunglasses, and the words 'welcome' and 'Kaohsiung' on her forehead and lips.

The first thing we did was to head towards the first bubble tea we saw - 50 Lan. I

Super cool! It tasted like the KOI bubble tea in Singapore, bu the price of a cup of bubble tea in Singapore!!  This is awesome :D 

Land of Bubble Tea

Welcome to the land of Bubble Tea, the land of idol dramas, talented pop stars and soap operas. haha.
Arrived in Taoyuan Airport - 13 May.
Here is our Bubble Itinerary! :D

Since our flight landed at around 11pm, we checked in at Luckynews classic hotel near Taoyuan before leaving for Kaohsiung the next day. I was amazed by their service there. Airport pickup (if you book the rooms with them directly), friendly and courteous staff, nice room, comfy bed. Breakfast is also delivered right to our door!

Munich - in four hours - 3rd Jan 2011

First time in Germany, first time in Europe, and I am alone. I can't believe it!
19 hours of transit time in Munich - what else to do but EXPLORE! :D

Plane landed at 10am Munich time (5am Montreal time) & I was sooo sleepy..zzz.
- I left my hand luggage at the left baggage corner.
- Headed straight to the information counter to grab the map and asked for directions to the city.
- Changed all my Canadian dollars to Euros
- Bought the train ticket (10 Euros)
And here I go.. with a map, my backpack and my camera. ;)

Munich is a really nice place!
 And I picked up some German words too - Ausgang, Danke, Guten Tag, Willkommen.
After 4-5 hours of exploring, I went back to the airport to sleep (jet lagged).

My test paper

Yesterday, my professor finally gave us back our test paper.
She was calling out each person's name so he/she can go down to collect his/her paper.
"Philip.. Nicholas... Jeremy..."
Suddenly she paused and asked "how do I pronounce this?"
After the professor gave out everyone's paper, I realised I haven't got mine. I went down to the professor and then I realised that the "how do I pronounce this" paper was mine.

I thought my name is easy to pronounce. Similar to Wellington right?

Skiing

Skiing was a horrifying experience for me.

It was my first time trying to ski at Mont Tremblant. Unforgettable, but don't think I want to try it again.