Rant 1092 / Too Much, Too Late

Timing. I just cannot get the timing right.

I have too few sweaters in the last few months; now I have too many. I'll have to space out my future orders for now.




















This year's Steam sale has been disappointing so far. I've seen nothing that I want and I don't think I will be buying anything.

On the other hand, even GOG has something I'm interested in: a fantastic bundle of classic RPGs.

75% off on all if I buy the bundle!

Journal updated!






















Went to IMM for the 40% off at Giordano only to find that they no longered had my size for the $20 plain polo shirts! The cheapest I could get were over $20 each despite the discount!

The other thing I was planning to check out was the Watsons members-only sale today but there was nothing I was interested in.

Took a bus and train to get to Jurong East MRT hence I went to the Watsons at JCube before taking the free shuttle bus to IMM.

I thought I was going to go home empty-handed, and this made me explore the rest of IMM just to see if there's something I could buy. Buying absolutely nothing after coming all this way would really suck.

My target was $15 per polo shirt at most, and none of the shops offered it until I found Bossini. Minimum 3 pieces was easy, although the colour range wasn't that great. Not enough dark colours and I didn't need black. In the end I just settled for what I thought was burgundy, in addition to navy and light grey.

Bossini calls it "plum", not burgundy, probably because burgundy is a shade or two lighter. On the other hand, I had thought that plum was closer to purple. According to Wikipedia, Persian Plum is probably what Bossini meant. However, I still feel that wine is closer to the colour of this shirt I'm holding.

Anyway, what a relief! Bossini was really the last shop I was going to try - it's the last clothing shop along the route to the taxi stand in that mall on that floor.

I also checked out the membership but there is no way I'm getting it. At the counter, a sign said I needed to spend $150 for it. When I asked how long I had to accumulate the $150, the cashier told me I needed to spend all that in a single receipt.

What??

I'd have to fill my entire wardrobe with several to spare (10 shirts) just to get that!

No way I'm doing that.






















Finished Geneforge. It's pretty good, so no wonder it spawned 4 sequels.

Took me far too long to realize that this game was meant for Shapers to use many creatures. I tried to keep my creations to the minimum as a Shaper and focused all the points on 1-2, but this was apparently not the right way.

I did not know that the points did not scale well that way.

By late-game I was getting blocked everywhere I went by mobs that I couldn't defeat with a drayk and a glaahk, both the most powerful third-tier creatures I could get. Today, I tried to have crappier, cheaper versions of this two... plus two crappy terror vlisks, mere second-tier stuff.

The game was so much easier after that. Couldn't make even more inferior versions of them because I needed them to be tough enough to take a 2 hits from enemies minimum.

Anyway, it worked, and eventually I upgraded the glaahk to an ur-glaahk which made things even easier, and I finished the rest of the game that night.

The ending wasn't really what I expected though.

Rant 1091 / Generally Not There

I'll admit that the greatest flaw of the game is that it is impossible to have a consistent leadership, if at all, in the game, causing it to be an uncoordinated clusterfuck most of the time. Therefore having the game to assign leaders to each faction this way is IMO a great idea.

The problem is, how will they coordinate all the forces among so many servers?

One leader per server per faction would have been better.

...

Anyways I still feel that 50 certs a day is a little slow. I can't wait to get a better primary weapon for my Magrider. Or maybe I should get a better weapon for my Heavy. I don't know.

300 certs and counting.

I'll decide once I hit 750. I'm tempted to get the 750 cert weapon for my Magrider, but I also want the Lasher for my Heavy. I like to use the Magrider but it can get boring sometimes during sieges when we're dominating the ground but the enemies are still clinging on at their final line of defense way inside the base which is inaccessible for tanks.

I use the Heavy more often than the Magrider, so over the longer term it could be more cost-effective.

Hence my dilemma.


























Whoa, the body butter I tried at Vardi & Migdal lasted pretty long on my hands - I could smell it even at night.

Anyway, after reviewing what happened there, I think that the salesman was the best I've seen in a long while. He was so smooth! Like instead of waiting for me to tell him if I wanted it after he let me sample the body wash and body butter on my hands, or directly asking me whether I wanted something, he would open all of the different bottles and let me smell them before asking me which bottle I wanted.

That's good. That's really good.

And that's not the only thing I noticed.

From my google search, I discovered that this shop is indeed known for its sales tactics.

One of Vardi & Migdal's regular customers, Ms Christin Lok, a 40-year-old sales manager, said she appreciates their 'sincere efforts' to explain and demonstrate their products.

Ms Lok, who has spent at least $600 on Dead Sea creams, gels and scrubs, said: 'Our locals should learn from them.'

I know right? I'm definitely keeping that visit in mind for quite some time.

It also helps that the products are actually good. No idea if this Dead Sea minerals thing actually works but the products do feel better than the standard anti-bacterial stuff I usually use.























Snow is overrated. I thought it was just me but my ex-teacher also agreed with me during the conversation yesterday.

She had been spending the last five months in Boston because her daughter-in-law just gave birth to her second grandchild, but returned this month to escape the winter.

Turns out I'm not the only one to realize that snow is hugely overrated by people like me who have been living most of our lives in the tropical zone.

The first thing that annoyed me wasn't the slipperiness but the fact that when I'm walking into the snow-laden wind, it frigging itches! I'd rather have rain than that. I was scratching my face every so often whenever I walked against the wind.

The slipperiness was the more major problem though, hence it deserved a mention previously. The half-melted sludge really made me appreciate the wonders of rough concrete pavements. Since I don't have snow here ever, I usually walk quickly outside.

Hence I keep almost slipping there. It's just a habit of mine to walk quickly when I'm not browsing through shops. I think it took me a day and a half before I started to walk slowly by instinct.

She was having trouble with snow too outside. Worse, since she was living there, she had to deal with the snow problems of people who actually live there. Things like cars and hardened snow aka ice.

Cars can be parked outside normally and when there is only a light snow, but when the media announce a snowstorm incoming, that's when the cars must be moved into a garage, or else they're doomed.

That's because snow hardens when pressed by more snow on top. This brings me to the other problem, ice. I've seen people scrape snow and ice throughout my Korea trip, and I don't envy anyone of those who held a shovel in the streets. Fresh snow looks easy, but those that were stepped on and compressed and refroze looks pretty different. It's easy to tell because snow does not crack into chunks.

No wonder everyone was so generous with the salt sprinkles everywhere I went.

Now, I very much prefer rain to snow. All snow has over rain is appearance.

Rant 1090 / Epoxy?

Tiring business, this Christmas Eve thing.

Nah, not really. I just made it tiring.

I had actually been searching for the address of my english teacher from my primary school but no one seemed to have it. The one who organized the last trip to her place only had a road name and her email.

After waiting for a month for a reply, I decided to find her place on my own.

It just so happened that a few days ago I suddenly had this idea of looking at my old photos (I used to take a hell lot of photos every time I go out with friends) to search for clues about her address.

Then I found one that showed us walking passed a house number 42. Searching for this house number with that road name on Google Maps gave me an address. Through the SingaporeMaps app, I found a way to reach it by bus.

Then I alighted one stop early. Then it rained in short bursts. I found the address between the bursts but it did not look right at all. The house looked completely different from the one in the photo. Moreover, even if the residents had done some renovation work, the fact remained that the house was at the very end of the road, ie we couldn't have walked passed it on our way to anywhere.

Yet I knew it was in that area because I recognized the bus stop and one of the roads there from my photos. Since I couldn't understand why that was not the right house, I just went for the one that had the same rock tiles and grills in the photo. Unfortunately it was really not the right place and the person living there did not recognize the name.

I walked around that area three times before giving up and went for the other method - brute force. I just combed the area systematically and soon found that there were at least two houses numbered 1 along the same road. Clearly, the numbers repeat.

However, when I looked at the photos more closely during one of the rain bursts while waiting under a public shelter, I saw that directly opposite of her gate was number 40. Walk past 42 and opposite 40, now these really narrowed down the list.

While searching, I was wondering how many number 40s and 42s I was going to have to try until I got the right one, but luckily it only took another one. I found the correct 40 and 42 after 15 minutes.

Even double checked by looking at the photo again just to confirm. Sure I have no qualms with asking strangers if there was a person with her name living there, but I know how it's like to have your afternoon nap interrupted, and it was around 3pm then. A rainy late afternoon is perfect for that.

Next thing was to find her doorbell and that was easy. And when she got out, it was clear she was indeed having an afternoon nap.

Oops.

I just pretended that I didn't notice and waited while she got dressed.

All the walking was tiring, but after the chat and stuff I still had to go to Giordano for more shirts, since it was having 40% off for all polo shirts in all outlets.

The plan was to go to a nearby mall for it and get some turtle food from a nearby well-known pet shop, since my terrapin loves the dried shrimps my bro got from them.

Then halfway through the journey I suddenly realized that mall was not under CapitaMall. That was important because CapitaStar members are currently getting double points. In that case, I might as well go back to the one I went to previously, the IMM outlet.

But since that was so far away, I decided to postpone it and just get some stuff from the Guardian pharmacy in the mall near my home instead. I had checked the Guardian website and saw that there were some promotional stuff that I could use. In addition, I wanted to make sure my supply of health supplements could last until June while the sales were still on.

All that walking and wandering were tiring, but then I got pulled into this Israeli shop that sold body wash and stuff. That made me stand even longer, but at least the salesman took the bags off my hands and put it somewhere else.

I like that gesture. In fact, I'll keep it in mind in the future when people visit my office. As for the products there, they're actually pretty good but the prices are way too high. Too luxurious for me. But I did buy a few anyway, just to see what that Dead Sea salt thing was about.

Also got a wooden floor varnish thing that is supposed to protect it. I remember my mother used to get it for the housekeeper for a while when we first changed to this floor, then she stopped for some reason.

Now that some of the boards are warping, I think it's time I start this habit again. Who knows how many years it's going to be before we finally get a new flat?







I think I'm getting the hang of this ache. I mean, I get it often now and it's always due to the sudden change in physical activity. My work is highly irregular compared to my school days, so I can go for weeks without doing much walking. My trips to and from work require minimal physical exertion because I take cab.

It's only when I go shopping or if I decide to do anything out of impulse like today that I have to walk much.

I got this ache too on every first day of my overseas trips, so it's getting really familiar.

The ache is mostly in the shin area, ie it's from my weight and the walking.

Rant 1089 / It Is Not That I Have Nothing Better To Say.

Been lazy and not buying anything for food at home. I think I haven't cooked any vegetables for an entire week and my bowel movements have become noticeably different lately.

That, however, wasn't enough to get me off my ass because of Geneforge, Dr Who and Stephen Chow.

But today I had no choice. The wet market's closed on Mondays and it's Xmas on Tuesday. Meanwhile, my fridge and freezer have been empty for some time. The last two dinners I made were chicken soup and beef stew.

The soup was made from bones that had spent at least a month in the freezer, together with an onion, some ancient shallots I had forgotten about (picked out the rotten ones) and the two cobs of corn I had bought before my Korea trip. The corns were just somewhat shrunken from dehydration, not spoilt.

The stew was more interesting. The beef was definitely expired - the expiry date was a month and a half ago. Even the freezing couldn't save it, although I didn't find out till after the stew was done. There was no discolouration. The stew did not taste funny and the hours of boiling killed everything. However, the beef did taste a little off. For beef that's this old, I was glad it wasn't all mushy or even dissolved completely.

Anyways, I ended up still not buying any vegetables and decided on getting a whole watermelon and a bunch of grapes instead. They don't need cooking.

And the chicken vendor somehow removed all the skin even though I stated that I wanted them on :(

Not really important since I've never really cared. I only ask for the skin to be left on in order to speed things up - it takes forever to debone 10 chicken torsos.

Bought some fishballs as usual.



Then later in the afternoon I finally got the motivation to go down again to Shop N Save for some laundry powder. After checking the website for the promotions, I added dishwashing liquid to the list.

Also found out that there isn't 3% cashback on Saturdays and this promotion had ended last year.

Derp.

So now I don't have to shop there only on Saturdays.

Had a whole shopping list here next to my keyboard and I forgot to bring it with me. I ended up missing the sweetener and coconut milk.

Bought some kang kong though, so I will still some vegetables after I finish the fruits in 3 days.

May be a busy week next week, so I also added a lot of ham and bacon since they're all on promotion at the supermarket this week. And bread. My food supply is now set for the week :D





















Geneforge is so hard now. It's almost impossible for me to reach the Geneforge at my level. I've already changed my strategy from relying on a single drayk plus lots of mana for heals to having a drayk and a glaahk. Not really getting the synergy I hoped for but I love the drayk and I needed a second creature that could take at least two hits from any enemy. I'd get a vlish but it looks really weak.

Them Sholai are so tough!























Planetside's player population has been dropping despite the coming major event. Probably for Xmas.

During the daytime in my timezone, the VS is constantly getting raped by TR, yet we somehow retain at least one continent everyday.

Not really fun when the TR zerg us to death, so I haven't been playing it that much.
























I can't make a system image nor a backup of my hard drive.

For some reason, it gives me some error every time.

Fortunately I've already backed up the important folders on various cloud storage and my external hard disk, so if shit really happens, I'll still be able to cope with having a competely new OS.

Rant 1088 / Ne Ne Chicken Delivery

So Ministry of Supply gave me a response on my request for an exchange.

Not only do I get to keep the shirt I wanted to change, I was given enough credits for three shirts.

I hope this wasn't a mistake on their part.

This is remarkably generous if it wasn't an error, which really makes me wonder about their profit margin. It must have been a lot bigger than I had thought!

EDIT: he replied to tell me it WASN'T a mistake. Holy crap!





















Tried Ne Ne Chicken, a Korean fried chicken store that specializes in fried chicken soaked in sauce. Eating there completely removes the need for ketchup or chilli - everything has been completely soaked in a vat of their own sauces or have pots of them poured onto them.

Yea, not a very positive description.

Although they tasted good, it was practically eating the sauce with the texture of fried chicken.

I don't know about everyone else but I thought this beats the point of eating chicken.

Sauces are supposed to compliment the meat it is dipped in. Here at Nene Chicken, the chicken is supposed to compliment the sauce it is covered with.

Then again, there are plenty of things that are not the way they were supposed to be and still are popular.

Moreover, it's not expensive. For S$45 I can get more than enough for my bro and I. These days, it isn't common among food delivery services.

So I guess I could give it another try next time.

However, this is definitely not recommended for anyone who really wants to know what their chicken should taste like because they are meant to be eaten while still crispy, which is impossible by the time it reaches anyone's home.

For mine, only the larger pieces of chicken still had some crispy parts within, but all the wings and were complete soggy.

Regardless, the sauce is the main point of eating Nene Chicken. Everything else is, ironically, just gravy.

Hmm... maybe they could give me the sauce separately in one of those disposable containers meant for the sides. I'll ask them next time.




















I really need to clear up that big shelf outside my room and get a new wardrobe. Most of the clothes we wear regularly are hung right next to the east-facing window due to the convenience of it being right between our two rooms. The housekeeper irons them nearby and hangs them. Great for everyone.

Except for the clothes, that is.

I've thought about it but have always been too lazy to do it. It just never seemed urgent and thus has never been high on my priority list.

Then today, as I was searching for my pants (which turned out to be still wrinkly probably because it was still too wet when the housekeeper arrived), I found 3 pants of varying sizes hung at one edge of the bar.

They were hung on top of each other, and the top one had been slightly bleached by the sun.

Or it might have been the dust.

That pair was so new the price tags were still on, and it was Goldlion.

The pain!

It was only bleached very slightly so it's not visible in the shade after some rubbing to get the dust off, but I think I'll need to wash it to know for sure if it's just dust.

As for the other two pairs, I left the smallest one for him and kept the other in my own personal wardrobe that contains all my lesser-used clothing like jackets and army uniforms.

My bro didn't even bat an eyelid when I just left it back in the sun.






















Suddenly felt like watching Stephen Chow's old movies and found an entire collection of his movies from 1989 onwards, including those in which he was only a supporting actor (ie all his movies in 1989).

Now I don't have to worry about finishing Dr Who, which I've already watched till Season 5.

It's actually kinda hard to resist the temptation to watch all the episodes in a single marathon. I think what differentiates this series with American TV series I used to watch is that it always has some kind of continuity, like the crack in the fifth season. Moreover, a number of Dr Who episodes are halves of single episodes (part 1 as one episode and part 2 in another) so these forms of continuity makes viewers want to keep watching.

This makes we wish I had discovered Dr Who later, but at least I'm not one of those fans who started watching when the pilot episode was first broadcasted. That would have sucked.




















Other than Dr Who and Stephen Chow, I've also been spending a lot of time on Geneforge 1.

The game plot was designed quite well and overall, it's very nice. My only gripe is that the difficulty level is old school and thus isn't really a smooth slope up. Often, I either gain access to really difficulty areas or I find myself not gaining a shred of experience from almost an entire zone because my level was too high.

The former is easy because in such areas, I save after every single fight. The latter is a little annoying though.

The game is unique in that it keeps throwing surprises at us. First, just when I thought there were only serviles on the island, I discover there were also humans. Second, the humans weren't as united as I thought they were. Third, the Geneforge wasn't the only mystery in the game (at least where I am right now in the game anyway).

It's not a single surprise after a long period of building up like most games are today.

Rant 1087 / Gmail, I Am Disappoint.

The Grant of Administration is finally done. Now I can go on to change everything still in my mother's name to my bro's and mine.

It's been about 7 months since I went to the lawyer, so I wonder how long it will take before everything is settled.


Some of them are going to be easy - the insurance companies, although technically should ask for the Grant of Administration before handing me the money, have already done so when I asked them months ago.

The rest are going to take much longer.

First, I'm supposed to set up a bank account under the name of the Estate of my mother.

Next, CDP just replied my enquiry with a rather lengthy process that I have to go through to get the few hundred dollars' worth of Singtel shares (the freebies the government gave all Singaporean adults years ago). That's going to be a pain because it requires my physical presence at some parts.

Our home is most likely going to be another difficult part. I had already call HDB a long time ago to ask about what I should do, and the answer I got was the reason I went to a lawyer to help me get this Grant.

From what I can remember, I will need to bring this to the HDB office and then, I'll see what happens then.

And this bank in Hong Kong, I have no idea what to do with it. I think I'll pay them a visit next year. Hopefully they will be lax with the rules and not ask for a Resealing of the Grant.





















Oh crap ION Rewards changed its requirement for membership renewal (and new applications) from a minimum of $200 spent to $1000. That's huge because I don't think I can renew mine anymore.

Oh well, I'll just have to shop elsewhere after it expires.

Holy crap! We got all three continents! VS is now OP as fuck!

...

And then it took 2 days for TR to get 2 continents back.

NC is still fucked.




















Tried Curiosity on the iPad. Didn't know it was released until yesterday.

An extremely simple game.

It's all about getting to the core of the cube by smashing the tiny cubelets that form layers of the gigantic cube.

Each layer has to be cleared away completely before the next layer can be touched, so we can't just mine a shaft down to the core.

Each cubelet gives the player coins. Coins are also awarded for clearing the screen (screen size is up to the user but the award is proportional to the cubelets cleared) and for having multiple successful taps (wasted taps that don't affect any cube break the chain and taps are gradually worth more as the number of successful tap rises).

Coins can be used to buy tools like special chisels so that your taps break more cubes, or bombs.

There is only 1 cube for all Curiosity players, therefore only 1 player will receive the reward at end by having the last tap. Nobody knows what is in the core but that's the point of the game.

Very boring, although when one is bored enough, erasing stuff can feel like fun too.





















Got Geneforge 1-5 because the set was at 75% off on GOG. It's one of their daily promotions for the season and I somehow stumbled upon it.

Heck, I didn't even know what it was about until it was on sale.

Basically, it is a classic Western RPG with turn-based combat. System is simple because the spells are simple, and back then, games in general were simple anyway.

So far the first game has been quite interesting. The protagonist is a Shaper initiate on what can be considered his "final examination" which involves travelling to certain areas to complete tasks.

A Shaper is a user of some kind of life magic. He/she studies and practices this magic which really sounds like genetic engineering. In the field, a Shaper can create lifeforms designed for specific tasks.

In other words, summoning.

Three class are available actually - the Shaper (summoner), the Guardian (warrior/summoner hybrid) and the Agent (rogue/wizard hybrid).

In his journey, our protagonist was attacked by an unknown ship. Both were sunk in the short fight but he was brought to safety by his dying living boat.

"Safety" is really subjective here because it was an island that was marked "Barred" by his guild, and this meant nobody was allowed to go there for unknown reasons, usually good ones.

Thus the game began.
























Damn Gmail!!

When I use the Gmail app on my iPad with my mobile broadband modem, it somehow becomes impossible to send emails that have photos attached.

Next, I would try to use Safari to send it, except I'd discover that the draft wasn't even saved at the end, only the incomplete version saved from way back.

Even if I complete the email, I'd then find out (because I always forget... until now) that the mobile browser version of Gmail does not allow the attachment of images, only pictures drawn by hand on its MSPaint-clone within the Gmail itself.

Fortunately, I never have anything really urgent, so I can usually leave it till I get home before sending it at home.

Today, I was lucky enough to have left my PC with exactly this sort of crap in mind, so I could use Teamviewer to access my PC to send it.

Gmail, I am disappoint.

Rant 1086 / Of Blood And Shirts

And this is how you can have something for nothing.




































Planetside 2.

Just when I was thinking that maybe the Terran Republic (TR) were overpowered, two things happened that changed my mind.

First, I spoke to my bro and what happened in my server didn't happen in his.

Basically, I logged on one day only to find that 2 of the 3 continents on my server turned red overnight, leaving one for us and poor New Conglomerate (NC) had nothing.

The next day, NC had one and us, the Vanu Sovereignty (VS) had nothing. 2 continents remained under the control of the TR.

What else was I supposed to think other than that the TR was so totally OP??

But on my bro's server, the 3 were split evenly among the 3 factions and had always been that way.

Not very exciting but it also meant that the TR wasn't really that OP.

Today, things went very differently on my server.

When I logged on, we already had one and was about to take another. I joined in the fun and watched as we got the bonuses for conquering two continents.

Maybe the TR wasn't that OP after all.

It was mostly about teamwork, about those platoons that stayed around really long to do organized raids.

Logic says that this just shows that the TR may have more of such players than the rest of us. However, at least for today, the VS is the most organized faction.

Anyways, I'm now spending a lot of time driving a Sunderer since it's fun and it's a great support for raids.

But because it's so hard to see anything below and behind, I keep rolling over my teammates in crowded areas.

The good thing is that when I'm not doing that, the Sunderer is a 12-seater van that can be deployed as a spawn point.
 
This means I am both a mobile spawn point and a transporter, but only one in each attack. The thing about these two roles is that I can only be one of them at a time.

To be a spawn point, I have to get to the destinations first. This is due to the fact that the Sunderer can only be deployed a certain radius away from other deployed Sunderers, and being a well-positioned spawn point is extremely rewarding. When I'm the closest spawn point to the important targets, the whole faction would spawn at me, giving me tons of exp just for being at the right place at the right time.

Hence, Sunderers tend to rush to the good locations. Other than racing each other, some would even go as far as to roll over anyone and anything just to get there first. I've seen Sunderers flipping light tanks over during the course of the races and that's really terrible.

Still, they can't do anything about it. Teamkillers get only warnings for friendly fire on the first few deaths, so they got warnings and not much else. Finding them over such a huge map and the huge mess at the raids is close to impossible and is not rewarding at all.

Personally, I have run over quite a few people but only because I didn't see them. Once I got killed by one of my victims for it when he spawned back (coincidentally at my Sunderer). I didn't fault him for it since I could also spawn back at the same location and I knew I killed him.

But I've also wasted a lot of ingame currency over upgrades that I can't use. For example, I got the repair upgrade (for repairing tanks around me), ammo resupply upgrade (also for any tanks around me), armour upgrade and a mine defense upgrade, only to find that I could only use one of them at a time.

That was about 200 certs spent and 100 of them wasted.

I only had 300 at that time.

That was a painful lesson that I now remember all the time.

Anyways with this increasing proficiency at using Sunderers, I'm making about 50 certs a day. I don't play that much, so 50 certs a day is enough.

























Visited the dentist. Surprisingly little blood. The dentist also used a saltwater spray which I don't remember from my last visit.

I had stopped flossing and brushing twice a day about two months ago, so this was not what I expected at all.

In addition, I was not prescribed any special mouthwash, probably because of the lack of bleeding.

Because of this, I was charged only S$65 this visit. Really didn't feel like it was worth the price but then again, it was probably worth the good news.























Showed this person whom I might as well refer to as my mentor my harvest from Korea. Most of them were good, the rest merely acceptable.

Good, because this means I didn't waste my time and money. The flights and hotel cost S$1k already, and the clothes and food and stuff another S$1k.

$2k spent over four days is quite a lot IMO.

The only problem is that I did not get any men's clothing and my current stock of men's stuff is pretty low.

Still, I'm glad the 240k-won jacket was good. At first I liked it, then I got a bit of a shock when I saw the price tag. I stared at them and walked around for a bit over this little dilemma and eventually left Lotte Young Plaza without buying.

That night, I just couldn't get it out of my mind, so I decided the first thing I would do the next day would be to get back there and buy it.

Hence I got there too early the following morning.

240k wons is probably almost S$290 (also around US$240, since 1k won is US$1). I have never, in my entire life, paid that much for any single piece of clothing, much less one that I was never going to wear.

But buy it I did, and it was not wasted.

*Commencing hip-thrusts*






























My shirts have arrived...

and they were too tight for me.

Clearly these were meant for slim men so now the two meant for me could fit my bro while the one for my bro is going to be exchanged for their biggest (the ones for me were the second biggest).

The problem is that even though the lengths were right, they were too tight around the torso.

That's a bad problem. Obviously they had too much engineering talent among them and not enough tailoring experience.

Still, I like them, but only if they fit me.





















Doctor Who is such a great show; I just can't stop watching it.

But so far I've only watched the first three of the new seasons. At my current rate, I'll need to find the old 20-over seasons soon. Shouldn't be a problem, given the apparent popularity of the series in the UK.

Basically it's about a time traveller. I can't believe it took me this long to find out about it.

Rant 1085 / First Trip To Seoul

Mon

So it happened that I really almost forgot something: my handkerchiefs. Though I don't expect to sweat much in that kind of weather, perspiration isn't the only thing they are good for. Like tissue paper, it's never a bad idea to keep some on myself at all times.

One thing I did forget, though, was that my flight time required that I travel during the morning peak hour. I don't recall why I didn't choose a cheaper time but I hope it wasn't because I forgot. Regardless, I will never find out now.

I am going to try to be as alert as possible to watch out for Murphy's Law, as I always do when I fly, but also like all the other occasions where I had to fly to a place I have never been to, I didn't sleep much last night, so I may not even realise I did anything wrong till tomorrow.

But last night's lack of sleep wasn't purely caused by anxiety; I was just too busy with Planetside 2. That game is a giant continuous match so there were no breaks to remind me to check the time.




And I just remembered that I forgot my earphones. Unfortunately I was already past the immigration when that happened. Couldn't find the padded earphones I use in the shops there.

Looks like I may have to use the iPad's poorly positioned speakers if I need the sound.

I had even made a list of things to bring last night, and I completely forgot to look at it this morning. At least l remembered to blog about it.

I'm going to have to write the list on paper next time.











Iran is going to send military personnels to North Korea's test missile site. That totally changes my impression of the purpose of the missile.

Strengthen cooperation my ass. These missiles are meant to be sold, with at least Iran being one potential customer. We shouldn't be judging the missiles' range by the distances between the DPRK and other countries in Asia; we should be looking at Israel and the US instead!

This is far from the first time North Korea is selling such things to Iran, so the real experts must have seen this right from the beginning. What is curious is that this link has been rarely mentioned together with those missile tests in most media.



















Now that I'm on the plane, there was an announcement telling us that they are now waiting for instructions from the air traffic controllers.

This is certainly more eventful than most flights I've been on in recent years.

It's not just this delay but also the lack of tap water in the washrooms due to a breakdown of the water system. Yes, that's right, no tap water.

How fucked up is that?

They announced that while we were waiting at the boarding gate, adding that wet towels will be provided instead. Using hot towels instead of rinsing our hands after visiting the washroom actually sounds more luxurious but if I were taking a shit, I'm not sure if the luxury is worth it.

It's not like the towels will be left in the washroom in a gigantic pile.

The other thing about not having tap water is that we will also not be having hot beverages.

I only slept for 4 hours last night so I was really looking forward to the coffee.

Not anymore.

Looks like I'll have to settle for Coke instead.


















Inflight ads. I thought these were all limited to the magazines and between the inflight movies but this airline has taken it to the next level by hanging and pasting them in front off all the passengers. One is printed on the disposable headrest cover while the other is pasted on the table. There is absolutely no way we could not notice them during out 6-hour flight to Shanghai.

IMO this really cheapens the image of the airline. It now feels like this airline is somewhere between non-budget and budget. A budget airline that isn't?





















Apparently they did manage to find enough warm water to make tea and coffee.














They served the drink and then served the meal. The food looks nice.

They hand out the rolls separately, maybe to save costs, maybe because the mainlanders often skip it.

Anyways, this is fish steamed in black bean sauce with rice plus a side of shrimp salad.





















That was gay. I typed a whole load of stuff and they all disappeared. Lesson learnt: never try to blog when it has been having trouble uploading. Instead, I should just turn on Flight mode before doing it.

The Shanghai airport wifi is horrible. There are only over 100 devices in the network and it already feels like it's overloading.




















Boarded the plane and it feels bloody weird to be sitting here where everyone speaks languages that I don't.

But kind of exciting still.

I think most of them are speaking Korean but there were some Japanese too. And I wouldn't be surprised if some of these older people here are speaking Shanghainese.

This is definitely a Korean meal. That's beef and the salad is very mild kimchi. The meal also came with a packet of Korean chilli sauce instead of butter. The butter, however, was handed out later just like the rolls on the previous flight. I thought that packet I had was butter until they started handing out small packets which made me look at what I had to see if they were giving us the option of using two packets of butter.

Strangely enough, the rolls were given out together with the meal set.

Do Koreans like to eat their rolls as is?


















Dinner's over. I was kinda wrong. The crew and plane seems to be from Korea Airlines but they also speak Mandarin and the videos are in Mandarin too.


















They ARE Korean! The crew, they speak Mandarin but with a strong accent.

I know because I just got the arrival card from one. And fuck, the declaration card ( it's printed separately) is completely in Chinese.

Took me some effort but fortunately, I didn't bring shit so it was "No" all the way.

Filling the arrival card also made me notice another problem - I thought I had the hotel's address in Korean but it turns out I took a photo of the address of the wrong hotel!

Now I will have to show the cab driver the English transliteration of the address as provided by Expedia or try to pronounce the words.

Do I pronounce "ae" like the "ey" in "grey" or the "uy" in "guy"?


EDIT: It's "ey". "Dongdaemun" is pronounced dong-day-moon. My confusion comes from the fact that Dongdaemun is 东大门 in Chinese, and "大" can be pronounced the same as the English word "die" in certain dialects like Cantonese.





















Didn't have to worry to much. Luckily the driver understood the English name when I read out "Chung muro". I didn't know how to say the numbers but he understood them when he read them on my iPad.

The trip cost me 52k wons but it was ok. He even played the closest thing to what Anglophones may listen to that he had - retro songs from the 80s and before.

Good thing he understood "receipt". I wasn't actually looking forward to pronouncing "yeongsujeung" because I don't know how I should pronounce the "eu".

I didn't think he'd like listening to me ruin his mother tongue either.

EDIT: the "eu" is really pronounced the way it appears to be, like the English exclamation "Ew!".




















Tue

Didn't blog much last night. Too busy exploring the hotel, explaining my situation to a few important people and felt tired after an entire day of travelling.

Since you're clearly not one of the important people, I'll explain to you only when I hit that "Publish" button for this rant.

The issue is this: I am now almost completely uncontactable.

I tried it rent an iPhone at the airport but I need an actual credit card; debit cards are not accepted, and neither is cash.

Since South Korea uses different frequencies, this means my roaming doesn't work too.

At least I have the hotel wifi, so I'm still reachable through whatsapp and email. But no calls, no SMS.

And about the wifi, it's the same as the one in Shanghai - it's an Ethernet cable. I'm so glad I brought my portable modem this time, so I could plug it in and set up my own WLAN.














The verdict is in: it's better to buy Korean wons in Korea instead of Singapore.

Unless, of course, the won weakened against the Singapore dollar during the course of the day.

SG: 850 wons per dollar
KR: 852 wons per dollar

But for most people, this difference is really nothing. 2 wons out of 850 is only 0.235%.




















Anyway, at Shanghai, I finally learnt about something I was always wondering about.

When I reached my boarding gate 2 hours early, the opposite gate was calling out for some guy by name. I think they spammed his name for a full 10 mins before stopping.

Then 5 mins past before some dude came and tried to enter.

The guy blocking him sounded a little pissed. This latecomer tried to explain that he was not intentionally late and the airline guy just told him he can't give him special treatment. When the guy gave up, the airline guy told him to give his name to their office and they would find another flight for him.

So that's what happens if I'm late, although I'm not sure if its the same for all airlines.

Neither do I know if the airline will charge extra for this, or worse, charge the full price of the second ticket.


Anyway I had to spend like 2.5 hours waiting for the connecting flight. It's was actually supposed to be 3 hours but the flight from SG departed late and landed even later.

At least the airport had free wifi, although it still kinda sucks because China is still blocking Google, causing my Blogger app to be unable to save despite having Internet access for my games.




















The hotel is fantastic. Not perfect but still way better than what I'm used to.

The room is smaller despite all being a double bed room, roughly 2/3 the size of the one I usually stay in Shanghai.

Amenities are nice but a little weird.

While there are most of the basic stuff, they omitted the toothbrush and toothpaste but included toner, moisturiser and I was given a free facial mask when I checked in.

I mean, what?

If that's not enough, they have a business desk for us to print stuff and etc covered with ads from this beauty product company.

The Etude House business desk. Etude House seems to be pretty big in Korea.

Only 5 in case anyone wants to steal them for whatever? Also, the wireless wifi can be used from my room but the signal isn't as great as my WLAN's.

A closer look.

Nail polish and remover samples. Seriously, at a business desk. I guess women paint their nails while working at their computers.

Water dispenser is available even though there is already a kettle in every room and Seoul's tap water is potable. The last point, however, is debatable, according to my google results.



It's like this whole place is somewhat designed for the ladies. Still, none of these interferes with what I do so they're alright. Regardless, I feel that all the effort has been wasted on me. All that entropy caused in the Universe for nothing. What a waste of resources too.

One thing I must really point out is that the front desk last night was exceptionally helpful. When I asked where I could get certain stuff, instead of telling me how to get them, she told me if she could do it for me instead.

Holy fuck! Mind blown.

Like the phone. I asked her if there was any way I could get a phone without a credit card, and she apologised that she couldn't and explained that the rental could only be done at the airport, where I had already tried.

Next, I asked her if there was some kind of phone directory for food delivery services. If you google for this, you may notice that these delivery services don't seem to have any online presence themselves. In fact, the only data I could get about them was from other blogs.

Yet instead of giving me the simple "Yes" or "No" that my question was meant to get, she tells me it's a little late for that ( it was 10.30pm). When I said it was for tomorrow, she told me to call the front desk and THEY WILL FIND AND ORDER FOR ME!

Shiiiiiit.

And I was expecting to have to ask her next about how I should pronounce the hotel name and address in Korean. The taxi driver didn't recognise the name "Hotel Skypark 1" when I said it before showing him my iPad, so that felt necessary.



Back to the room itself, though its tiny, I can feel that they really tried to maximise the space, eg the mirror in the bathroom. It's totally unnecessary to have a large mirror at the toilet bowl because I don't really want to look at myself take a piss, but it gives me the illusion of space.

And since I'm talking about the bathroom, I should add that this is my first time using this computerised bidet. I knew about the bidet function but it also warms the seat and water too!

 Instead of hanging the card on the door handle outside, I simply press the button for "Do Not Disturb" or "Please Make Up The Room". Nice!

 The room, as seen from the doorway. The door to the right leads to the bathroom.

The bed, now with my jacket and bag.

The desk. Comes with 2 versions of the same issue of Shilla DFS catalogues (one for right-handed peeps and another for left-handed), the standard hotel-issued stationery folder, a nice TV, a phone, an air-purifier (ioniser) and a 500ml kettle.

The wooden structure next to the desk, at the upper middle of the image, is the tiny wardrobe.

The power sockets were a problem. The absolute lack of space allowed only 1-2 plugs to be used at a time.

 Just enough space for unpacking.

This I haven't seen before. An emergency torch. Also, that's the light switch for the entire room plus bathroom.

 Bathroom is tiny but has a huge mirror spanning the entire length of that wall.

EDIT: I forgot to explain the four tubes just below the mirror. There were moisturising shampoo, moisturising soap, moisturising toner and a pink tube of Etude House shower gel.

 The throne, complete with a computerised bidet.

 You can even control the water temperature, water pressure, water direction and seat temperature (because it's heated).

 The shower, on the other hand, was a little disappointing.

I KNEW IT! JUST LIKE SHANGHAI! Good thing I brought my own portable router, so I could make my own WLAN.

 Outside my window is a fake scenery. This is probably better than having no window.

They even had spotlights placed there to make it look better.

Free coffee and tea. No sugar and creamer provided though. I think Koreans only drink kopi kosong (black sugarless coffee).

That's the ventilator, otherwise known as a "fan". One is placed in the room while another is in the bathroom.


















It was snowing when I arrived, but it was just a few flakes here and there. Only noticed it when a little piece of what I thought to be dust fell on the windshield and formed a wet splatter instead.


















Even foreigners think I'm from China. On the plane when I was getting the arrival card, I spoke English but she thought I was from China. During the hotel check-in, when she was filling the last blank on the form for me on nationality, she asked," China?"


















Went out for a few hours. So many shops!

Came back partly because I needed to visit the loo.

But as I was looking for my way back, I discovered that my Wifi-only iPad can triangulate my location even without actually connecting to any network.

I was really just going to use the maps offline like a conventional paper map, but when I opened one of my map apps, it zoomed in to my location and the Maps 2 Go app even displays the direction I'm facing in the map.

At first I didn't believe it, thinking that maybe it was some kind of bug or it used my last known location in the hotel, but it moved as I walked and eventually led me back to my hotel.

I don't have to worry about getting lost anymore.



Also took a photo of the first real snow I've ever seen in years. It's snowing!!

This was taken at the Lotte Young Plaza. I was walking out after buying something when I saw this. I got out and decided to take a photo, only to realize the snow might blur the camera. So I went back in, took out my iPad and snapped this.

Other photos I took:

There was also Din Tai Fung but I didn't take a photo of that big place.

A couple crossing the road while I was trying to take the photo.

Lotte isn't just big in South Korea; it's huge. I think those two guys on the right in coats are Lotte employees, but I'm not sure. Either way, it's a pretty big thing to have people directing road traffic for a mere department store.

The entrance of Lotte Young from the underground market. Check out the opening hours. I reached at 11am and almost tried to pull the door at the main entrance open until the security guy raised his voice and said something in Korean. Then I noticed the emptiness inside (except for the employees) and all the people around me just looking at me.

Also tried this at a stall in Myeongdong. Can't buy takeaway because there's no cover for the cup.





















People once spoke of "Americanisation" like it's a bad thing. In a way it was, for the cultures it displaced.

But now I think another term needs to by made for the influence China has on other countries, and "Chinafication" sounds right.

It's just the feel I'm getting after all the browsing and street-food-sampling I did today.

There are people who can speak very bad Mandarin but not English; there are salespeople who asks,"你会讲国语吗？＂ when I say,"Sorry, I don't speak Korean."

Clearly, despite the American military presence in South Korea since the Korean War, it is the newcomer China that is having the greater influence on its people.

Of course when the term "国语" was used, I thought she was Taiwanese, but her accent revealed her mainland origin.

I don't know for sure but maybe she thought I was Taiwanese since I spoke better English than the average mainlander tourist.

Still, I feel that this is a sign of things to come that there is at least one country where hawkers and salespeople reply in Mandarin when I try to talk in English despite the latter language being part of the national school curriculum and not the former.

It's obvious why this is so - I've been hearing quite a number of mainlanders during my walk just now. Just like how we were all encouraged to learn English above all other languages in Singapore, people here are simply going where the money is.

And the most common currencies displayed at the money-changers? USD, JPY, EUR and CNY.

This may be old news but now I've seen with my own eyes the importance of learning Mandarin, and this is particularly true for the younger generations.

It used to be that English is where the money is, but now, English is old money while Chinese is new money. Both are equally important in this era of change we live in.

The street food takeaway spread.

The five sausages alternate between beef and another red meat, most likely pork. The beef sausages also contain a large piece of what I believe to be tendon. The one on top is just a hotdog with bacon.

These are really just fishcake with carrot bits. From left: plain, with hotdog, with seaweed.

These look fancier than they really are. The big thing is just a corndog with fries. The other is a bigger sausage that was definitely not Taiwanese despite the similarity in appearance.

 This is the same set I had talked about above, just spread out better. The one in the middle is chicken and leek.

Random burger set meal from Lotteria, without the rest of the set. They was just fries and Coke anyway.

The burger used a sauce that tasted like the one used in the Samurai burger sold sometimes by MCD here in Singapore but mixed with mayo or something.

Dinner was ok. All those fried street food tasted the same after a while. They were all using the same fish cakes and sausages except for the beef one. The best was the chicken skewers that had leeks between them. I recognised it as a common Japanese food so if that's the best, I'm obviously not really heaping praises on the rest. Except for the beef one.

The Lotteria burger was bought mostly out of curiosity. I had thought Lotte only invested in malls, hotels and amusement parks, so I didn't expect the name in a fast food chain.

In Singapore, this would be like Capitaland getting its own brand of fast food. Capitaburger? Sounds... like the burgers would be made of money.

Anyway I couldn't finish the meal.























Wed

This is actually warmer than the -2 degrees on the previous day.



It's funny how the hotel provides free tea and coffee and then neglects to provide sugar and creamer. The tea is fine without those since its a local wheat tea but the coffee is a problem. So if I want to sample their coffee, kopi kosong is my only option.

I'm still trying it though. Somehow didn't sleep well last night and I feel that I need the coffee. Maybe I'll even fill my bottle with it instead of water. No sugar anyway, so I don't have to worry too much about it being hard to wash. At worst everything else after this will smell like coffee, which isn't exactly a bad thing.


















There's a restaurant not affiliated with the hotel that does brunch between 9-11am for just 9,900 wons. That's roughly S$10 only!

The hotel itself has even fewer facilities than the one I stayed at in Shanghai, seriously. This place only has 2 floors of hotel rooms and one for lobby. No wonder the front desk can volunteer to do things for me; she can't be very busy working here.

Too bad I can't. Yesterday it was because I took too long to get out of my room and forgot the time. I have yet to adjust my clock to 1 hour ahead and do not intend to for this short stay. By the time I was ready, it said 10am on my tablet. That would have been perfect if it had really been that time in Korea.






Anyway I must say that I really hit jackpot this time in choosing to stay in this location. I'm not just close to the shops - My hotel is literally located among them!

This hotel occupies the top three floors of this building surrounded by stores. The next two levels are under renovation. Fifth floor is the restaurant. Fourth floor is a music store. The bottom three are all SPAO, a fashion store.

The ground floor lift lobby is separated from SPAO though for obvious reasons, but even that area contains a jacket shop and a jewellery shop.

It really felt weird on the first night to drag my noisy luggage among all the shoppers.

Moroccan Mint Latte regular. Needed a break and this looked like a great location. This little Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf outlet is placed right in the centre of this half of the storey and completely surrounded by stores.
















Found this canal in Dongdaemun.

 Ducks! (I've never seen real living ducks before, only roasted ones)

Another street food I found at Dongdaemun. This stall is really different but a friendly local used a lot of sign language and a tiny sprinkling of English to show me how this stall works. I was trying to order one of each like I usually do with the ones I've tried before but the stall owner just stared blankly at me until the female customer corrected me.

This photo looks like this because it's really a screenshot. The weather, most likely the cold temperature, screwed up the iPad so it couldn't detect my finger and instead detected the snowflakes (hence the square on the upper right which shows where it is focusing on).

The stall has 4 large trays of food. Two on the left are non-spicy; two on the right are spicy. The four pieces of yellow paper on top shows the prices for the colours which code the sticks of food on the trays, ranging from 700 wons to 2000.

The woman who tried to explain the system to me translated the colours to English, the only English she used, but I didn't really remember since they didn't matter to me. That's just roughly $0.70 to $2 anyway. No big deal.

This is how you eat here:

Go in, just pick a stick and start eating. The food are all resting the the trays of soup which are refilled from the giant pot on the right.

On the left and right metal stands are tubes of paper cups that customers can take. Next to the yellow papers are the metal ladles customers use to pour the soup from the trays into their paper cups so that they can sip on the soup between bites.

All kinds of condiments are available on the table in those light blue plastic trays.

If you look closer, you can see the wooden sticks resting next to the blue tray on the right. That was how my meal ended. You take the sticks, eat, put them down and pay. The soup in cups can be finished immediately or brought out, although nobody really does the latter because the freezing temperature cools down the soup rapidly once it's out of the plastic tent.

The food are mostly fishcakes, so I guess they are really popular in Korea. Every street hawker seems to be selling them.


















The snow. One thing about snow is that they don't flow away. Instead, if I remain outside long enough, they pile up on me.

Check out what it's doing to my shopping bags.

They also pile up on our hair when we don't wear any headwear. I didn't and I've seen people walking around with lots of snow on their heads.












Automatic public washrooms - another thing I've never seen before.

No idea what that was across the road but it looked big and traditional.

There's a street at Dongdaemun that really sells seafood throughout. Outside of every restaurant along it are roasted fish and a grill.

Found this really huge market at Dongdaemun. Not sure where I was because I was getting myself lost.

Clearly a night market because it was late afternoon and some stalls were only just opening while others are closed like these. There were, however, some that looked like they have been opened all day.

Next to one entrance of this place is a stall that sells something that looks a lot like ramly burgers. Korean ramly burgers.

I just randomly pointed at one of the 1800won ones and she said "Egg and chicken?"

I said, "Yes" and she gave me one that had egg and... cheese. 

Egg with corn and carrots.

The toasted bread also had some kind of sauce spread on it. It's a sweet white sauce with bits of green like the one in Burger King's fish burgers. Pretty nice.

Ate this while standing in the snow outside just because I couldn't get enough of that. I was probably walking around with a potental avalanche on my head after that.

Neither did I zip up my jacket most of the time. The cold feels just right. Then again, I was wearing a t-shirt and a polo shirt underneath my jacket.














After some random wandering I think I got back to the same place, except a lot of the food stalls were opened.

I have absolutely no idea what the red things are. Maybe they're some kind of shellfish.

This is apparently how they pickle their crabs... I think. Crabs are so cheap they can be preserved? Or is that not a form of preservation? Crab soup?

Anyway I didn't buy any of these. I had to take a train back to my hotel and I didn't want to be lugging all these on my way back.

There were also some cooked whole pig faces together with pork tripes on sale but I didn't snap any pictures of those. I think they eat the pork cheeks.

Waiting for my second Lotteria burger. Its red LED lights lit up and the whole thing buzzes when my order is ready for pickup.

I went back to put down my shopping backs before coming back down to explore the neighbourhood again. More street food, most of them repeats of the first night except for the corndog. Now that's really just a corndog.






Since there were so many beauty product stores where I lived, and they were ALL having major sales, it was impossible not to be tempted. Some of the things I bought for people and not work:

For my bro. Shampoo and conditioner from LUSH.

EDIT: I thought this was from Nature Republic until the following Monday.

The marketing gimmick by this brand is that everything is supposedly handmade and they all have labels stating who made it. Except they don't state their last names so I have no idea which among the millions of Bens and Kris's made these particular bottles.

 For my staff. This purchase included 4 free facial masks.

 Man or woman? MAN OR WOMAN?

It's a guy. A GUY!! I'm not in Thailand, am I?


















I think MP Foo Mee Har is being groomed for high level positions in the PAP. Either that or there's a big scandal in the bank being covered up. Bank directors don't simply quit to focus on civil service. One does not get to that level in a banking career without being extremely ambitious.























Thu

The international taxis in Korea run on LPG. Is it the same for the other taxis too?
















The last view of Korea I'm getting this year.

The flight from Shanghai was bad. The plane was good but I don't know what model it was. Not a big plane and it used a 2-3-2 seating arrangement.

The leg space was awesome and there was even more leg space for the several rows next to the emergency exits. Very nice.

Also, this flight was particularly confusing because at the airport it was described as a Qantas flight operating under China Eastern. That was normal because China Eastern seems to be borrowing a lot of planes from a lot of airlines at Shanghai.

What made it different was that the plane itself had "Shanghai Airlines" painted on it while the crew wore China Eastern uniforms.

The flight was bad because there was like a big Chinese mainlander family probably spanning 3 generations on the same plane sitting across the aisle and behind me.

Being a family wasn't bad; being a restless family was. Even the grandparents were only slightly less restless than the children and they kept saying,"到了。" (We have arrived) when we haven't. It's like their way of asking,"Are we there yet?" incessantly.

Moreover, they keep walking and standing around talking to each other throughout the last 2 hours of the flight, and that includes a few of the older men and the little children.

When they weren't walking to each other to talk, they were trying to talk to each other while seated. Like in the 3-seat in the middle, the guys on both ends would shout at each other over the constant hum of the plane to communicate.

I'm not saying mainlanders are all bad, but that family was, all three generations of them. Yet I can't blame them because it's not their fault their country is so frigging backward that they don't even know how to behave on a plane. That blame would fall on their ancestors for helping to bring the Communists into power in the first place.

Most of the people on that plane were mainlanders, so they aren't all bad at all. Just that family.

I think that was exacerberated by my fatigue too. See, my first flight from Seoul was at 0855 Seoul time, ie 1 hour ahead of Singapore/Shanghai time. Since it's a 9am flight, I had to be there at 7am to check in. I always play safe and check in 2 hours before any flights unless online check-in is available. Unfortunately, China Eastern only offers that service for domestic flights.

Since I had to be at Incheon at 7, I had to board a cab by 6. If I had to board a cab by 6, I wanted to play safe and check out of the hotel at 5-5.30am in case they take long for anything.

But I found out that morning that another good thing about the hotel was that they don't check nor clean the room immediately when someone checks out. Instead, I just hand over the keycard and the front desk told me I could go.

Of course I didn't. I then handed over the survey form that promised a free gift for providing feedback and a membership form to get discounts when I book a room directly from them and discounts when I shop at The Shilla DFS.

Next year, I'm going to see if booking my room and flight directly will beat the prices of Expedia.

Anyways, since I had to check out by 5.30am, I had to get up at 4.30am latest in order to get a hot shower (great for waking up) and triple check the room after I'm done packing up.

Then I got too anxious and woke up at 2.30am. Made myself sleep longer and eventually got out by 3.30am.

By the time I got on the first flight, I was so tired I fell asleep even before they played the safety briefing video. However, I would never miss a meal for any rest.

Same thing happened in the second flight from Shanghai although I couldn't sleep about 2-3 hours before arrival. Somehow, I guess my night-person genes just made me alert by later afternoon regardless of how much rest I had been getting.














Told my bro I brought him some Korean 土产 (local product) before I unpacked, then later handed him the last complimentary bottle of water from the hotel. He was not amused.
















FRI


All in all, I think the trip would have made a female traveller very happy. I'm not, but I'm satisfied enough. I only feel pity for all the resources being wasted on me.

Still, I'm totally going back to that hotel just for the fantastic location. Right next door to SPAO is Uniqlo. Around the corner, H&M, The Body Shop and Lotte Young Plaza. And that's not including all those beauty product stores. I think Nature Republic and The Face Shop both have multiple outlets within a small radius around my hotel.

On the other hand, Korean stuff aren't really that cheap even with the crazy 50% off I saw for a lot of those cosmetic shops.

Also, there is a subway station at Lotte Young Plaza but that line is not the same one that goes to Myeongdong station which is closer to my hotel.

















Also, the floors were slippery. Counter-intuitively, the snow was actually safer to walk on than the non-snowy pavements, especially the fresh snow.

This is because the non-snowy parts may be covered by snow that was melted and refroze, aka ice. Extremely slippery.

The same can be said for the semi-melted snow, a sludge that can be found everywhere at night in Myeongdong around the hotel. Very slippery.

Throughout my stay I keep almost slipping, the split-second squeak from under the shoes kind of slip, but once I stepped on this really smooth floor at Dongdaemun that made me feel like I accidentally entered an ice skating rink.

At least I didn't actually fall.

But now I'm going to find something to prevent this from happening again the next time I go.

...

Apparently, that's not very possible. The best I can do is find a pair of shoes with good traction for icy pavements. Or get butt armour. I had already been walking very slowly throughout the trip.

Anyways, fresh snow poses another danger when it's piled high. It's really not a good idea to let snow fall into the shoes because wet socks causes cold feet, and it's not very nice to take off one's shoes in public to warm one's feet.

Hence winter boots. Now I know.

But for the rest of the body, wetness is actually a non-issue because of the dry air. All those shopping bags that had snow on and inside them in one of my photos were dried by the time I got back to the hotel.

Still, it's a good idea to wear a water-resistant jacket just so that the moisture does not get inside and freezes the wearer before it dries.

I've seen people wear only a sweater on the outside without a jacket but they probably bring umbrellas with them. Speaking of umbrellas, that's the normal way to handle snow other than wearing something on the head. Not everyone is as hardcore as me to be a walking avalanche.























Almost forgot to mention this issue I had about the tax refund. Some malls in Seoul offer tax refunds for travellers like we do in Singapore. The system can be quite confusing though (not sure about what we have here).

The thing is that I was too tired to do much reading so I did not know I had to get the customs stamp.

Step 1: Get the stamp and special envelope at the mall.

Step 2: Get the stamp at customs just outside the departure gate (it's the step after checking in at the airline booth and is before immigration where you get your passport stamped)

Step 3: Go to the tax refund counter in the departure area where all the duty-free shops are to get the cash.

I didn't know there was a step 2, so when I got to the counter, I couldn't get it. It wasn't important though; I didn't even plan to get it until I accidentally found the tax refund counter at the mall, at which point I thought I might as well get it. Free money anyway.

But I didn't get it in the end. Oh well.