#sollal

February 5th

Iiris came to Seoul to spend her Lunar new year holidays! And since I have been quite bored most of the time I’m extremely glad she came here. Anyways, on the day she arrived we went to this International “party” she had found about online. Should not have gone tho, it was very lame. The first time we went to see the pub it was held at, there was literally no people and we decided to just spent some time walking around the area. And when we later went there it was still very lame, we were tabled with two Koreans and one of them was juts boring and weird, he kept on talking about politics and such, not particularly my fav topic to discuss about. The party included entrance tickets to a club but since it was rather late we ended the night there and just headed home.

February 6th

Some previous time when Iiris was here she wanted to go see this area in Dongdaemun selling pet animals, and since we didn’t have time last time, we did that on Saturday. 

We had really bad luck and we started to walk the wrong part of the long street that was full of... everything basically. The street remind me of a craft and hardware store and there were tens if not hundreds of small shops that sold basically one item per store. Eventually we gave up on trying to find the pet area and returned to our starting point and took some pics. Thankfully we did decide to try one more time and walked the other half of the street and we did actually find the area selling pets!

It was my first time seeing something like that. There were maybe 4 stores almost next to each other selling various kinds of pets and equipment. And as you can see from the pictures most of the animals were outside in cages stacked over each others. I’m sure that kind of pet stores would never get permission to operate in Finland tho. The cages were packed with animals, the cages were quite dirty and sometimes didn’t have solid floor but just the cage floor that can’t be good for the feet, not to mention the temperature was lingering around 0 °C so the animals were all packed next to each others to stay warm.

I was surprised they sold so many different kind of animals tho. There were some squirrels I have never seen being sold in Finland. They also sold chickens and roosters, kind of weird. In the picture above you can also see they are selling some kind of small lobster looking things, I wonder what they are, like, are they actually kept as a pets or is it just d.y.i lobster meal?

The pets were ridiculously cheap tho, I think bunnies were sold at 10,000 wons which is about 8 euros. I don’t know how much pets cots in Finland but that seemed a bit cheap and I’m just worried that that encourages people here to buy pets on a whim without actually knowing how to take care of them properly. I mean, the pet culture here is quite new thing anyways...

I think later that day we went to Insadong, where Iiris was staying for the trip. If you don’t know yet, Insadong is the traditional/one of the tourist areas of Seoul. I’m so gonna buy all kind of crap from there to send home later on. I mean they have pretty legit, beautiful looking things there, even though some of the stuff reminds me more of Gran Canarias tourist shops than traditional Korea. There is also this kind if, apparently famous, shopping mall(?) with full of all kind of small cute shops.

I think this map shop was adorable and I really would love to have some cute world/Korea map at home some day...

February 7th

On Sunday a miracle happened! I woke up before 8am! Not just for fun tho, but because we had reserved buss tickets to take us to the Nami island. We started our ride around 9:30am and rode the buss for about 1,5h and arrived to Nami island. In the picture bellow it might seem there were a lot of people but actually it was rather quiet there since there’s a lot of room and since it’s definitely not the season to visit the island. Or well, I don’t actually know, just my guess.

Nami island is kind of known for these pathways surrounded with trees. They were pretty tho, can’t deny that. I think it would be gorgeous in the summer evening when they (probably) lit up the lights. Unfortunately or luckily we left before it got dark and cold. It was cold during the day too, not to confuse. Thankfully there were bonfires here and there where we could warm up and make sure to soak our jackets thoroughly in the smoke. I swear, my jacket still smells like the smoke....

In the Island there’s not toooo much to do during the winter, there were these ostriches we spent good time to stare at as well as some kind of tour train to take around the island, which we didn’t ride.

That picture below makes it seem it was such a winter wonderland, doesn’t it? Well, it wasn’t but for some reason there were some spots with snow and ice to play with. I guess would be impressive for tourists coming from warmer countries but as a Finn I wasn’t too excited about it.

At some point there was a traditional music performance and I have seen those before too but omg there was this small boy performing with the rest of the crew. I’m sure that the boy didn’t add anything else but cuteness to the show but it was just so adorable how he tried to do everything as the others did. I was glad to notice there were some other younger performers in the group too because I think it’s so important they keep traditions like this alive. And like, even though the traditional music isn’t that much of a joy for the ear it’s amazing how much detail and skill they put into playing, dancing and performing.

February 8th

From traditional dance we can smoothly change topic to our visit to Gyeongbokgung palace. Since it was the main(?) day of Lunar new year and the enterance was free there were quite many people, which didn’t bother that much tho because it’s surprisingly large area.

We managed to arrive basically when the royal guard change show was going on. It was cool....Well more cool fact is that that’s actually someones job. I wonder how they end up there.

Since it was the new year there were quite some people dressed up in hanboks. These particular ones were supper pretty in my opinion. Anyways, we walked around the area, went to the museum there and the left to Hongdae since we were supposed to meet some other Finns for dinner later on. It was fun as always to meet other Finnish people and I feel its always so easy to click since there are not that many of us in Korea after all.

Escaped to the country side for 2012's Chinese New Year! Or as a matter of fact, Korean new year haha. Must thank my awesome onni for allowing me to spend it with her own family! She has been such a great help, always finding every means and way to help me settle down comfortably in Korea. My guardian angel from God really. It was probably the bestest best weekend ever since i came to Korea. So good to escape from Seoul to breathe fresh air. I felt so alive! Sat on the normal trains to the end of line 1 which clocked up a total of almost 3 three hours. But it seemed to have passed in a flash cause I had a catch up session with Juae along the way.

Juae onni's two cousins! Super duper shy at first because they thought I could only speak english but they warmed up really quickly with me. So pretty these two darlings!

Well, this festive season is all about angpaus FOOD! It's the same be it in Singapore or Korea. We all love to eat, eat and eat. Perpetually eating beings. I think I ate like 6 meals on new year's eve. The homecook foods were beyond awesome.. All the recipes and skills passed down from generations.

Koreans love variety that's for sure. Colourful side dishes and mains!

Finally, i've been waiting to try this! Dddokguk! (Korean rice cake with some wholesome broth). Eaten mostly during this festive season!

Everything tastes better with Korean seaweed.

Jeon (Pancakes), another popular dish mostly served during such major occasions as it takes alot of time and skill and patience to prepare! And also twiggim (fried finger foods) ranging from vege to squid to fish to meat patties. Can't stop at one after popping it into your mouth!

Home made japchae. Can cry so good!

Then I was introduced to their family tradition of making dumplings! But first, pictures! haha

Working hard to make perfect dumplings. Filling it with love.

Roll, fill, mould, done!

Mandu (Korean for dumpling) smile!

Playing with (precooked) food!

Every member of the family chipping in. So heartwarming to witness :) So much lovin going around.

We filled 2 of these humungobungo plates! With the head of the house, grandmama!

End product. Drooling? Mmm

It's the Korean culture for the eldest in the family to start eating before anyone can lift up their cutlery and begin eating. Haha this little girl is the youngest, probably bored waiting, can't wait to dig in already!

I bet they were trying to resist haha but i forced them to take a picture first.

My daddy came to visit me here a week before chinese new year so I told him to bring along some Singapore goodies so that I could give them as a thank you gift. Mummy packed kueh bakit and love letters! And not forgetting..

Lapis lapis kueh lapis!!! I think I was more excited than them about this hahaha

So glad they love it! Gone in a few seconds.

I was taught how to play Go-stop! Have always wanted to learn it after seeing it in Korean dramas. Kinda like the korean version of mahjong. Need to get a deck before I head back to Singapore.

Next, the most important part: Bowing ceremony! In Korea, the younger generations must bow to the older generations to signify their respect (or maybe just to get their new year's money haha). Juae's parents bowing to the grandmama

These two princesses waiting for their spending money!