Sunday 29 June 2014

Ewha Summer Studies Day #00 - #01: Flight x Toksokchon x Juno Hair

Hello guys! Sorry for the lack of update for the past week, I was really busy exploring Seoul and hanging out with our peace buddies here in Ewha University! Peace buddies are local Ewha University students who are matched with international students like us to help us adjust our lives better during our time here! :)

But me and my roommate have decided that every Saturday will be our rest day so that we can give ourselves a good rest before going out to explore Korea further haha.

I'll start off with Day #00 first :)

We took a night flight with Singapore Airlines this time :) It's been a long time since I've taken SQ for traveling because their airfares are always very expensive. But honestly speaking, after having tried Malaysia Airlines during my last Korea trip in January (before the MH370 incident), I would say Malaysia Airlines flight was more spacious and comfortable compared to the flight I took for this time with SQ. >_<

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Selfie before taking off!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel


seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Good thing they have USB port here for us to charge our phones/devices haha

seoul korea trip SQ menu summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Beverage menu. You can order alcohol for free on SQ flights! :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

I ordered a cup of Singapore Sling before I sleep but it still didn't make me able to sleep in flights easier. I always have a hard time sleeping in flights :/

seoul korea trip SQ menu summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Food menu!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

I chose the duck noodle menu :) The duck tasted quite good!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

YX, my travel mate hehe, ordered scrambled eggs :) Taste good as well

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Landing soon!

As soon as we got passed customs and collected our baggage, I went to find KBooks to collect my SIM card which I've pre-ordered from EGSIM so that I will have data services while in Korea :)

You can pre-order the SIM card from here: http://egsimcard.co.kr

korea seoul egsim card kbooks incheon airport guide lunarrive singapore travel

KBooks is located just at the right side of Gate C if you're thinking of pre-ordering your sim card before your travel to Korea :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Pre-order will be cheaper compared to purchasing the SIM card from local GS25 stores. :) The data speed wise is pretty fast as well and with purchase of 500MB or 1GB data services, you will have access to OllehWiFi for free as well :) OllehWiFi is widely available here in Korea, even in their local trains!

Moving on to Day #01:

After we've checked into our hostel and settle our luggages down in our room, we went out to get some food!! :) It was raining pretty heavily on our first day and when it rains, it gets chilly and it's only around 20 degree celcius which is considered pretty low for a Summer season. So be prepared guys!! We were so under prepared as it's our first day here >_<

Taking the train to Gyeongbok Palace station (exit 2) to go to the restaurant called Toksokchon to have my favorite Samgyetang a.k.a. Ginseng Chicken Soup!!! :D:D:D:D:D

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

This is how their train stations look typically around the downtown areas. If you go to the stations nearer to the Gangnam area, it will look different :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

Selfie while waiting for the train :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

At the restaurant!! Selfies before the food is served!! :) We had to queue for a short while before getting in though >< Luckily we managed to avoid the lunch hour which have a high chance of forming a snake-like queue which is just so crazy :S

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel toksokchon

Side dishes! Their kimchi is very good too :) Every restaurants' kimchi taste very different!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel toksokchon samgyetang

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel toksokchon samgyetang

Our soup! :) TASTE HEAVENLY AWESOME GOOD HAHAHA

After we had our meal, we went to MyeongDong as I need to exchange money haha.

Anyway, just a tip for you guys, if you're looking for good exchange rate, please don't change in Singapore (including those really famous money changer areas)!! Change it in Korea! The rate here is better!! :)

The moment we reached MyeongDong, it started raining cats and dogs and we just had to get into a cafe to avoid the rain! So we happen to encounter Hollys Coffee!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel myeongdong

Once you've ordered, they will give you this alarm/beeper which will beep when your order is ready!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel myeongdong

View from the cafe! The cafe is situated 2nd floor onwards!

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel myeongdong

Our Hot Citron Tea! Perfect for a cold rainy day! :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel daiso

Then after that, we visited Daiso to get some necessities items for our stay in the i-House hostel :)

And after which, I suddenly have a urge of cutting my hair!!! 

So I went online to search for a good hair salon in MyeongDong area and I encountered this one:

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel juno hair salon

It's Juno Hair No. 1 store! 

Read a review from another blogger about this particular hair salon, especially the hair stylist name Kang Hoon so I decided to go with this hair salon! :)

Do note that there are 4 Juno Hair salons in MyeongDong! I went to the No. 1 store :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel juno hair salon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel juno hair salon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel juno hair salon

Interior of the salon. Pretty nice and well furnished ;)
It was a good thing that Kang Hoon knows how to speak English pretty well so I had no difficulties in terms of communications. :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel juno hair salon

And this is how my hair looks after the hair cut!! :) I chopped off quite a lot this time as my hair is now around my chest area! Previously it was around my belly area! :) It's been a long time since I chopped so much of my hair off!! I felt a little 不舍 when Kang Hoon was cutting my hair but after I've seen the end result, I really like it a lot haha

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

This photo shows my current hair length more clearly :)

Kang Hoon has really great skills and he easily achieved this cute hairstyle in a rather fast period of time!! :) I'm really loving the hairstyle!! ^_^ He gave me slight curls at the ends of my hair to give a softer look!! :) Really easy to do this style myself as well so I really love it!

The hair cut cost 30,000 won in total which is a rather reasonable price in my opinion for a salon haircut as it would have cost even more for me to do it in Singapore as old hair length was pretty long!!

But do take note that they will try to persuade you to go for other services like rebonding, which he did in my case but I firmly told him that I only want to do haircut, so you will need to be firm with them if you are really interested in doing a haircut or etc.

I've read several blogs saying that they ended up getting more services (which they did not request in the first place) done on their hair and they had to pay a pretty hefty price at the end of it. So please be firm and try your best to communicate with them (use sign language if speech does not work)!!


Moving on!! After my haircut, we went back to Edae to explore around our university area and we actually ended up walking all the way to Sinchon hahaha

Sinchon has a lot of restaurants, bars and cafes where college students hang out very often haha. After all, there are two universities (Yonsei and Ewha Universities) near this area so the ambience and environment is very youthful :)

Picture spam time!!! :) Sometimes, pictures just speaks louder than words haha 

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

Megabox - this is where locals normally watch movies ^_^ Will be trying their movie theatre out soon hehe

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon


seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon


seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

We had dinner at a random ramen store haha :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

We shared a bowl of Miso ChaShu Ramen cuz we were still pretty full from our lunch with Samgyetang. 
Pretty yummy haha! :)

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel sinchon

seoul korea trip summer studies ewha womans university singapore lunarrive travel

That's the end of our day!! :) It was a pretty fulfilling day and YX is all tired by the end of the day HAHAHA

Do follow me on my instagram for daily updated posts on my life in Seoul as a Summer Studies exchange student here in Ewha University hahaha 



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