Picture Frenzy

Some photos of my days in korea so far...

Oh man...the BBQ meat here just rocks la...check out the spread:

Night lights in Korea

Some street food! chicken!
Dongdaemun!

Inside on the shopping centres at Dongdaemun

Tired from all the walking

Gyeongdeukgung palace



Soju! tastes horrible! ywucks

haha joke man

whyyy

Im feeling so emo now...listening to Yiruma's Kiss the Rain piano piece..

I'm thinking to myself now...why did i choose to go for SEP? Putting myself out of my comfort zone. Putting myself in a foreign place, a new place, new friends, new culture..with hardly any friends im close to...with a language barrier that i will have to fight very hard to overcome or make it easier...and worst of all, why did i choose to be so far away from my Grace??? To be only able to see her on a computer screen..to hear her voice with alot of static? whyy??

I could just easily not entertain the thought of going for an exchange program. but will i stop thinking about it? will i not regret after my uni days? Will i envy those that took the challenge? Will i inhibit myself from growing, from learning more about myself?

Im totally awed at my courage la. maybe i like to take risks? maybe i have a hunger for new things? to experience a different lifestyle from tiny singapore? im not sure, maybe thats what i tell myself. I just hope that its worth all the effort and discomfort.

A temporal pain for a lifelong memory.

yup, it's definitely worth it. Fighting!

SHoppinggg!

What a beautiful morning it is today. Bright sunny and not hot. Weather here is pretty good now. :)

Yesterday i really had a super tiring day. We went to the Gyeongdeukgung Palace and after that roamed around the streets in Insadong- finding nothing much, we decided to head straight to a shopping paradise- Dongdaemun (in chinese its supposed to be North big gate literally).

The Gyeongdeukgung palace is a UNESCO registered world cultural heritage site and it totally deserves to be on that list. Not only does it look extravagant, it is also very well preserved. I learnt from the English guided tour (we were not allowed to roam ourselves..), that the chinese words inscribed on the nameboards on the palaces had quite a lame reason. The koreans were very influenced by the chinese at that time (abt 700 yrs ago) and so their temples, official buildings all had dragons and roof shaped like the chinese style. they even spoke chinese. But after King Taejong invented the korean language, the officials who were the more educated ones, refused to use it. Because the korean language is supp;osedly easier to learn than chinese, more of the lower class peasants could learn and master it. The officials, not wanting to be just like a peasant class, decided to stick with chinese and show off. Haha..this just proves that since all of us know how to speak chinese, we shld actually be super proud of it! hehe..

At Dongdaemun, wow man really a shopping paradise. They have 3 shoppings complexes over there, two opens up to 7pm and one start their business at 7pm. crazy right? haha..outside they even have macham pasar-malam shops. All these shops sell clothes, accessories, boots, hats...all the fashion stuff. Their style is somewhat similar to what Singapore have but sometimes when i say this, i think SIngapore style is very much copied from other countries. we have little or no style of our own la. MAybe the only difference i can point out is, they can play around more with their clothes esp when the weather there turns colder.

Today, Euwin plans to go to the beach coz he says summer is ending soon and after that, the beaches will be closed. Hmm we'll see.

i love korean food la.

I'm finally in Korea! Haha.. The plane ride was okay...couldnt catch much sleep coz of the not-so-comfy seats...so watched Ironman instead. haha. They served us a choice of either Egg & sausage or Korean rice. the former was quite horrible and i shld have chose the korean rice. Funny how they serve korean food on board. well actually 90% of the passengers were korean. good thing the air stewardess know how to speak very good english. :)

After we touched down, we chilled out at a cafe while waiting for the Airport Coaches to send us. The bus ride to Anguk (where the Banana Backpackers were located) tok approx 1hr! and it took the expressway. This really made me miss how pampered we are in spore!

It was quite horrible after that. coz it was raining and we were kinda lost. okok..we WERE lost. We asked for directions here and there, all the while being drenched under the rain, and finally we reached! argh..painful la..my bag was super heavy la..30kg is no joke to drag ard..

Well at least after we checked in at the backpackers, all was okay. we had a hot choco, a warm bath and sleep! haha..shiok la..when i woke up i actually thought it was night time when it was only 3pm! lol..pig

After the nap, we took the subway to Myeongdong, a place with many shops selling clothes and bags, just like a more complex version of Bugis street. Over there, we also chance upon Starbucks, Coffee Bean and Krispy Kreme! haha the supposedly best donut in the world. The interesting was when we went in Krispy Kreme, one of the staff actually offered all 3 of us a free original glazed donut each! haha..so as kian peng singaporeans, we happily accepted the free donuts! haha..eh of course we also bought more la. how can stop at only one! the donut was really super nice. crispy and sugary on the outside and soft on the inside. haha i feel like eating one now already. :)

Next we went to the shopping malls, namely Lotte Plaza or bldg. (i cant rmb haha) INside was mostly the same as SIngapore's malls...many shops, department style. But the style of clothes or should i say fashion is a bit different as compared to spore. More daring, more mix of bright colours and of course, there could afford to play ard with sweaters and jackets coz of the cooler climate.

When we were on the way back, we realised how tired our legs and butts were. I guess it was from climbing all the stairs when taking the subway and using the underpass. Not like spore, escalators were only seen in looooong flight of stairs..and yeahyeah, the koreans are made to stand on the right of the escalators. Singaporeans are made to stand on the left. but then driving is the other way round. Korea: left hand drive, Spore: Right hand. Soo confusing. i wonder who made all these rules.

It's really amazing you know if you think about it, how can 45 million pple reside in one country and speak only one language - korean and very little english. I mean, can u imagine not knowing a single word of english when the most common language in the world. 45 million pple speaking a special language - korean that maybe only they understand. Funny when u think about it huh.

Oh and the most interesting thing that happen today was during lunch at a korean house restaurant. We daringly went in, not knowing a single korean word that relates to food, and sat down. How stupid we mnust have looked la...esp when the woman asked us in korean what we want to eat. We looked ard for some picture menu but sadly couldnt find any. We even resorted to taking out the phrasebook for some help.HAh. it was embarassing but no choiee. In the end, the woman recommended us food. Bulgogi = beef (this we could understand) and all 3 of us ate the same thing due to the lack of words we knew. haha...

ANyway the rain here is really dampening la. Hopefully it wun rain tmr. then can go to the palaces. hehe

Pre-departure thoughts

One more day before my departure to South Korea! Last night spending in Singapore and sleeping on my own bed. Haha. Im now at Grace's house, just send her home from my brother's 21st bday celebration. Simple one, no fanfare coz we celebrated at The Glass House on the past weekend.

Well, it has been a whirl of hectic hectic days. Had to do the millions of admin preparation for the Seoul National Uni side: dorm registration, course application, buddy application, student ID card application and more...also went to buy all the winter wear i ever needed. haha..but that was fun..never did get a chance to shop for this kinda stuff coz of singapore climate. Talking about money. i spent so freaking load of money for this trip. First, its the winter wear-down jacket, gloves, long johns, wool sweaters, beanie..then i bought a bag to store my laptop coz i didnt want to carry it in my arms like in Spore. (speaking of which, i took super long to find a perfect bag..haha wei juan, feifei and joyce can testify to this. of course not forgetting Grace :) )
Then i also had to re-stock my first-aid kit. many stuff missing since army times. Then i had to buy travel insurance...apparently, many companies dun provide travel insurance for more than 3 months. All except AIG. I also had to buy a webcam..shucks..there goes my intern pay for 2 months...

Next it was the packing challenge. How to pack so much thing in ONE bag?! luckily i had the help of my gf..haha sweet right. She came over one day and helped me out with most of the packing. I was excellent. Within a few hours...most of the stuff i needed was in my luggage. I thought hey...thats not so bad..i dun have that much stuff what...but in actual fact, i still had alot of things i havent packed in. over the next few days, i remembered stuff and just kept stuffing into the luggage. Lo and behold..today, when i tried to lift it up...it was so heavy that i swear i tore a back muscle. haahah...20kg is definitely not enuf. My brother did a little carrying on his own and he too swear its at least 28kg. OOPS. i hope tmr the airline pple will be kind enuf..or else i have to do last minute packing. argh.

So if anyone were to ask me: "Are you excited about the trip?" i cant really say yes coz im not really THAT excited. Maybe coz i have been thinking about it ever since exams ended in May...and have been looking forward to it. I just cant wait to get out of the plane in Korea and breathe in the air and say "oh...so THIS is how korea smells like. haha..finally im here" :)

Pre-holiday mood

Finally the internship is over. Have been surviving with 5 hrs of sleep everyday over the past week.
1. Workplace was very far- at Changi south need to take MRT all the way to Expo.
2. Went out everynight - had stuff to settle before the Manila trip

I was so tired that i just heck care and slept later and went to work later. I only reached office at 930am and sometimes 10am! wahaha but nobody found out - at least not my supervisor. To make matters worst, i had practically nth to do. Except the occassional photocopy and admin job. So i decided to complete my PTS report during my last week. And im glad im done with it! :) - good to get work out of the way before my holiday.

Speaking of which...im finally going for a holiday overseas since.......omg i cant remember. Well, the last time i went overseas was during army overseas training and that hardly counts as a holiday. And to add the icing on the cake: Im going with my Grace! haha...and of course with another of Grace's friend, Kymster. If it wasnt for her, i dont think either me or Grace can go for a holiday together. So Thank God! :D

Acutally, Grace and Kymster are supposed to be flying over for a conference called the AMIC conference. Its about some international media association that has many members. They have a conference to update each other on individual country's media progress or sth. Not too sure. And this time, they are holding it at Manila, Philippines.

Well, we kinda planned our itinery over there in Manila already. Not much time to look at much but gonna cram as much sight-seeing places as possible. Like the old monuments - the stone churches, the famous parks named after Presidents that died..and we also planned to check out the night-life there! woohoo..heard that the drinks there are dirt cheap as compared to taxtaxtax singapore. yup and not forgetting handicrafts shops - Grace's favourite coz she always like those quirky things. Im very sure she gonna buy lots of accessories over there too. haha.. hmm we staying at a hotel called the Bayview Hotel its beside the Manila Bay so hopefully we can get a room that has a view of the sea! that will be just awesome la. Im so looking forward to it. Flight is tmr afternoon! woooot

3-in-1 entry

woohhh..it has been ages since my last entry! and i thought i would have more time for blogging since there's no school! Well, the last few weeks has been super busy with me barely catching 6 hours of sleep a day. It seems that a healthy balance of work and play while one is "working" is rather hard to achieve. Work although ends at 6pm, but because it's at some ulu place at Changi Business Park, it takes me forever to reach home. Like 2 hours maybe...haha. then on occasional days, so as to have a decent bit of some life, i would arrange for dinners and such at City Hall..which will put me back at ard 9-10pm. then by the time i reach home....it'll be 11plus. And the new day is about 7hours away. crazy right. YES.

And to add to that "misery" i had a pageant during SDE annual D&D. Courtesy of course goes to my beloved SDE friends for their fevent voting. haha. and not forgetting Grace. She was my personal stylist aka date aka personal photographer aka No 1 supporter. haha. Hey, why did u think i won Best Dress couple? hahaha..she chose the shirt as well as the skinny jeans. As for the verrryyy "impromtu" performance, i have nth to say la, except that i was really singing my best. just that u guys cant hear me coz of the stupid mic which was working perfectly well just before we started. sigh manz. me and huiling practised quite hard for it. and of course, the music didnt played as planned. we had actually planned a dance for u guys right before the song ended, but becoz there wasnt music, i had make the music with the guitar, so since i cant strum and dance at the same time, viola! u get a half-baked perforemance! hehe...Anyway, the entire DnD was rather good albeit the less than sterling management of the actual event. :S Although personally, i think they should allow more time for the pple to have some chat time. after all, it's supposed to be a catch-up/network session right...

AND now! the reason why im blogging! i wanna show to all the photos i took today at the construction site that im stationed at now! woohoo...it's a sight to behold man. never before will u get this insight photos from an actual piling work! haha ok enjoy. All were taken in a span of a day! :) guess i was lucky to be able to see different stages of the piling work.

(1) Boring drill bit (2) Cleaning bucket, boring bucket and the drill bit (3) Boring the hole for the pile (4) Ultimate Load test for the test pile

Lifting and insertion of the steel casing for the bored pile. Can see the crane lifting the vibro-hammer also. Last picture shows the final position of the inserted steel casing with the vibrohamer on top. The green thing vibrate quite violently. Ground was shaking underneath me!

(top) Cast bored piles (btm) pilecap on the grp of piles with the starter bars for the column stump