Bookmark Day

Gotta start with a good breakfast. And it was! The dried seaweed is pretty good...... I really like the spicy sweet flavor. Mmmm... yum!

So in class today, a classmate got this doll from a friend:

We're all like... awww... it's so cute. It's holding a fried chicken.

And our teacher was like... do you guys know what it is? We're like... umm... no? And she said, it's fat. We're all like....... what the heck? And she showed us a few videos on YouTube.

Oh my goodness......... And our teacher is like, yeah, if you don't know the Korean stuff, you'd never know what this is. My goodness.... and she told us the name is 지방 (脂肪), which is clearly written on the doll, but we had no idea what that word meant until now. Oh my goodness.... it makes a lot of sense why it's holding a fried chicken now -_-. My gosh, the things you mistaken for good stuff if you don't know what it is.

Class is getting harder for me :( We're getting to the point of learning things that I haven't learned before. Sigh. My friend and I were studying after class and I had her test me on dictation, where she reads a sentence and I had to write it down. I made so many spelling mistakes. It's really really bad. Our teacher takes off points for spelling and grammar errors, even if they are not within the grammar stuff she teaches currently. Sigh. The quiz is tomorrow...... and I've just only started practicing writing and memorizing the spelling. Oiy.

For culture class today, we went to Insa-Dong to make traditional bookmark. Insa-Dong is a bit way away from our school, so we had to eat lunch really quickly and get there. My Singaporean classmate (her Korean name is Hye Min, so I'll just call her that from now on) made some lunch for us since she lives in an apartment. It was quite good!

Mmm.... kimchee fried rice with egg and cheese and spam. Yum!

Oh, a side note. Since subway transportation is so convenient in Korea, a lot of people will choose to meet at subway exits instead of stores (at least for the ones with no cars). So we're often told to meet at "Sinchon station, exit #2", or "Anguk station, Exit #2", etc. It's really interesting how the school just expects us to know how to get to these stations by subway. It's a bit like throwing us in the water and wanting us to learn how to swim.... which I really don't mind since this is not too hard (and we have classmates to consult if we're super lost).

Alright. Back to the culture class.

So we met at the Anguk station in exit #2, and it was SUPER HOT. There was actually an alert sent to one classmate's phone to let us know not to be outside at 11am because it's too hot. OMG, it was sooooo hot. And we had to walk from the station to the shop for 15 minutes, and some of it was uphill.... we were sweating (at least I was sweating like crazy).

However, our teacher was so nice.... she got us to all go into Paris Baguette and bought each of us an ice cream!

We finally got to the place after 15-20 min of walking and realized that this is a traditional house and there was NO A/C!!!

The class was conducted outdoors and thankfully, after a few minutes of sitting down, it started to become cooler. Phew.

The whole process of making bookmark was really cool and traditional. So the first step is to pick a stamp and then brush some glue on it.

Then you want to heat up the glue for about 5 seconds from above the hot plate to soften the glue, and then press it down really hard onto the bookmark.

Then, take a gold foil (he said it's fake gold that we're using this time) and press it onto the bookmark. He said to dab it gently between the forefinger and thumb to ensure it sticks onto the bookmark (this is my practice round).

Some of the gold foil will stick to your finger, thus removing the negative parts. Then take a cotton swab and in gentle circular motion (counter and clockwise), rub the bookmark so more of the negative gold foil parts come off.

Ta-da! Not bad huh? This was my second try though.... the one on the top left was the first try. It obviously did not have enough glue. The second time was much better.

The teacher told us to choose three things to stamp on the bookmark because three is a good number, meaning sky, earth, and people. He also showed us that each stamp has a meaning. Each flower stamp is a particular flower and each flower has its own meaning.

After we finished our bookmark, he came around to explain the meaning behind what we just made.

It felt like going to a fortune teller -_-. Hahahahaha... it was really funny. I really don't remember what he said except that he said the "fu" word is representing happiness, and the gold means that I'll have good happiness. And the peony means graceful or royalty (or something like that). I really don't remember... I just thought it was so weird, haha.

Here are some more pictures taken by our teacher:

I visited Insa-Dong before and I really enjoyed being there. So since I was there already, I decided to stay later so that I can shop around when it's not so hot. Hye Min decided to stay with me too until she has to meet her other friends. So we went to a cafe and got some drink. OMG, the cafes in this area is super expensive! The binsu is 8,000 won for one person and the coffee is like 5,500 to 6,000 a cup!

Since there really was no way to find a cheaper place anywhere, we settled for this place and got the drinks. My drink, a citron something smoothie, was 6,900 won. Sigh. It's not bad, but super inflated price.

Hye Min got omija with pomegranate, which was pretty good, although it was also pricey.

After it cooled down, Hye Min went back to Sinchon and I walked around Insa-Dong to buy some souvenirs.

I ended up spending 30,000 for everything I bought. I would say their souvenir stuff is a lot cheaper than I expected in a tourist area. Which is one thing I find really strange here.... that things I would expect to be cheap are pricey, and things I expect to be pricey are cheap. For example, ice should be the cheapest thing... since it's just ice! But it's super expensive. While clothes, souvenirs, and things like that are really cheap. A lot of the really fancy cards are only 2,000 won each. I'm just thinking Hallmark cards, which can run up to $4 in Target, and just to think about highly decorated and in a tourist place, I can't imagine how much it would cost.

Aren't these so cute?! I love it! I really wanted to buy a lot of them.... but that would also break my wallet. :(

After that, I came back to Sinchon and ready to go back to dorm. Before that though, I decided to go to Grand Mart to buy some Homerun Balls. What are they you ask? Only the snack that Jinyoung from Got7 asks his members to buy all the time. Haha. So I just wanted to give them a try, and since they were on sale for 1,000 won each, I bought two flavors.

They look and taste like the one from Taiwan:

Except I think the Taiwanese one is tastier. The one I got (I'm not sure if it's always like this) was kind of soggy and soft. The chocolate had a bit of a hazelnut taste. Not bad, but I think the Taiwanese one is definitely better.

Alright, that's it folks. Time for me to sleep and get ready for the quiz tomorrow!