Day 2: Myeong Dong

I spent most of today in Myeong Dong but before I go into that, let me tell you a few discoveries I have made about Korea.

1. There are at least 3 types of buses. Not 3 companies (not too sure about that) but there are at least 3 types:

(1) The 'village/district' buses. These are like buses that go around a specific neighbourhood. Like theoretically I live in the Mapo district so there are buses that I can take to travel within the neighbourhood.

(2) The ones that travel outside the district itself

(3) The Airport buses (I think these are NOT the airport limousine buses, but I'm not sure)

Since it's a much bigger place than Singapore, I'm sure the system is a little more complicated and beyond my comprehension at the moment. But it's fun and recommended for those of you who are traveling alone to try out some of the 'village/district' bus just to familiarise yourself with your area. Take the one closest to the subway station to your place then you will realise that you don't have to walk so far to reach the subway station.

2. When you order food at the normal food places (i.e. not the fancy restaurants, the traditional types run by ahjummas) basically you are like paying for a full meal. I don't know if there are people who goes in and just order a rice since the side dishes sort of comes with it. It was quite funny when I walked in and the first thing the ahjumma said was something to the effect of "one person only?" and not exactly to me. I think part of the reason she said that was because most of the other people who came in at that time seemed to be workers from a construction site (they had on heavy-duty shoes).

So, anyway, I ordered a dwae-jang chige which is basically soybean paste soup and I had the side dishes. Now I'm used to the chige having meat inside so I was a little taken aback when I realised there isn't any. I was like.. I want meat. Then I found it in one of the side dishes-fish. It was nice~ heehee ^^ But I do wonder if people do go in and order JUST the rice? No right?

Side dishes

Side dishes with dwae-jang chige

3. I do not have to do the LONG way to get to Myeong Dong.

It was with some level of amusement that I realised that I ended leaving Myeong Dong this evening at the same station that I got off to wait for Christina yesterday. Though she did tell tell me that EulJiRo is part of Myeong Dong, my image of Myeong Dong is mainly from You are Beautiful (when Mi Nam was stranded at Myeong Dong).

When I walked out of the ACTUAL Myeong Dong station and the right exit, I saw MYEONG DONG as I know it. It was crowded since it's a Saturday. But it was still manageable. Maybe I do surf G-Market quite a bit so I have seen the items online before so not much fascination. I haven't gotten round to trying all the street food. That's the other thing I realised about myself: I can probably understand Korean better than speaking it. Or maybe I'm just afraid of making a fool of myself. Oh well, so I haven't really had enough guts to buy the street food. The thing about the people is when you start speaking to them in Korean, they think you know the language and GO REALLY FAST!! So after a while, it was just "ne, ne, ne, a-gae-sup-ni-da, gam-sa-hap-ni-da."

Myeong Dong

So in the end I ended up with

1. 1 mascara and 1 eye-shadow palette from Holika Holika (if you think it sounds like a spell, I think that's the whole concept.)

2 Korean Grammar books + 3 English-Korean screenplays of movies!

I used to scold a friend of mine who went to Taiwan and bought books back and now I'm doing the same thing. But I have a good excuse: I will NEVER find these books in Singapore, especially the screenplays. I like the idea because the translation are side-by-side. I have seen Shakespeares' text done this way and it definitely helps. So here's hoping *crossing my fingers*

The other highlight of my trip to Myeong Dong today: Nanta.

Esther, Nikki and Irene all said I have to go and watch one of the non-verbal plays when I'm in Korea. So I did. For me, it was interesting to see how the production was done, meaning I like the production value. But personally, if you ask me again whether I would pay 40,000 won to watch it again, I won't. Not that it's bad, but the part that I enjoyed the most was when the performer actually said something to the audience. I thought it was an interactive play based on what the tour guide for the group in front of me and the introduction done in 4 main languages: Korean, English, Japanese and Chinese (video clip) but the only part that was interactive was towards the end and that was the part I like most. I laughed at some parts, I was amazed by the acrobatics but that's about it. To sum it up, I call it 'STOMP WITH A STORYLINE'.

After walking around for a while and after buying the tickets for Nanta, I actually went to Starbucks for coffee and I sat there alone with my dad's iPad reading my own fan fiction. I know it's not what tourists would do but it felt good like I was just spending a leisurely afternoon doing something that I like and want to do. On some level, it feels like it's a place I know well and I am comfortable not doing all the touristy things. But I got excited about Krispy Kreme. I was a big fan of Sex and The City so I have been wanting to try one for a long time. So I was a little disappointed because it's not much different from J.Co in Singapore (or Indonesia for that matter).

I was supposed to go join Christina and friends at Guri but I decided against it since they were going to party it up all night and I'm an old woman. I want to go to 2AM's concert early tomorrow. So I gave that a miss and took a little bus ride around my district and passed by KBS Media Center. I don't think that's the one where Music Bank is recorded but well, yea~

I ended up eating cup noodles and I added one of those sausages that Director Kim (from AML) always eats. It was passable. I was thinking of going out to Hong Dae like now (1am) guess I won't.

2AM CONCERT TOMORROW~ WOOHOOOOO~~~ EXCITED just thinking about it. But I'm a little worried about the IAMs who were going to fly in. I hope they are alright even if they are not coming for the concert. They didn't email me or contacted me so I doubt I'd see them tomorrow.