Drables

Haven't had much to pen down in words because my life has been kind of smooth sailing, in a way, with no troubles or anything much since I've gotten rid of the annoying people in my life. A quote I've come across often on Instagram is 'Spend time with who makes you happy, not who you have to impress' and I really agree with it. If you find that you need to impress the people you're around, then those people don't like you for being yourself, but for you being able to act like someone you're not. Ultimately, you lose yourself. I guess I've been reading too much Joy Luck club. Too many themes of identity, or the loss of it. 

I still do think of the what ifs now and then but nothing good ever comes out of those thoughts since whatever happened for a reason and I'm not one to regret so I just look forward to the future. After all if things were to happen, that's where they will take place. But it's most important to live in the present, I feel. Since we'll never get back the time that we've lost everyday. So cherish every moment, or at least try to, because most people tend to get caught up in our (their) daily lives trying to succeed in whatever we want to do but don't get to enjoy the nice moments in life. It doesn't have to be something extraordinary. It can just be a nice scenery that you fail to notice when you're in a rush every day. And that moment belongs to you, and you only. 

Photos of food again! My grandma decided to cook nasi lemak last week because we still had coconut milk leftover from the making of the pandan chiffon cake. I was strongly against the idea because it was coconut milk and even told her to cook just white rice without adding the coconut milk, but of course, it was to no avail. So my rice intake for that day was just two spoonfuls. The normal spoon you use for eating, I mean, and not the rice scoop! Haha to compensate for the huge amount of saturated fat. Okay I know Amanda doesn't like reading about all these kinds of fat and has returned everything to the FST prof, but I really can't help it! For the rest, it's good to know the nutrition facts and good for changing lifestyles and not just simply diet! Trying to justify my own actions on my own blog. Hahaha. I helped with the frying of the eggs and luncheon meat slices! Not the fish because when frying fish, the oil has the tendency to splatter onto my arms and I'm too afraid. 

I'm not a fan of cucumber, and I don't take cucumber at all, but to make up for the amount of fat I ate that day, I ate a lot of the cucumber. Because cucumber has negative calories and I was hoping to take some off my lunch and dinner that day. Don't think it helped much but every little action counts, right! My mum commented that my life is very sad, because I need to think so much before eating something. Yes it is indeed quite difficult, but I don't find it sad because I know I'm being healthy and it's for my own benefit when I get old, like in my 50s. At least I hope I can slow down the onset of chronic diseases.Kind of far fetched I know, thinking so far, but after learning the onset of atherosclerosis, I'm so compelled to do this.  

So much unhealthy food but they taste so good. Still, do not succumb to temptation! I'm far from being super healthy, but at least I try to cultivate good habits!

Spontaneous day out

Didn't have any plans last weekend to go out, but I got to go out when my grandaunt asked my grandma out to shop for a bit and just walk around town. It was so spontaneous. I finished breakfast and was told to go and bathe and change to go out. I had fun nonetheless! It was my first time out with my grand aunt and I was kind of afraid of how it'd turn out but it was all good in the end.

I think the day consisted of mostly eating. I felt so full at the end of the day and was really scared of how much my weight would increase the next morning. We first went for lunch at Paradise dynasty at Ion. My first time there, and before that I only knew it was the place that serves colourful xiao long bao. But we didn't try those because we thought it would taste weird so we stuck with the usual original ones which tasted good. Get ready for more food photos!

This is a three-egg chilled dish with salted egg, century egg and normal egg. I must say it tasted really really delicious! I, for one, don't eat and have never eaten century egg, but after trying this, I realised that it doesn't have any weird/funny taste. I'm not very adventurous with food and once I find something I like, I stick to it till the end, so I've never tried century egg. It's worth a try if you don't dislike any type of egg. Rather unique I say.

 Soupy xiao long baos! I love dipping them in ginger with vinegar. I think everyone does, right!

My grand aunt and grandma. My grandma says people have commented that they look alike but she doesn't think so. I can see a little similarity although it's not very obvious.

A pastry filled with radish. This was really really good! It's super nice, both the outer and inner filling. I think it was good that it was three of us since most of the dishes were served in threes, so we could just have one each, which means more space for other varieties of food. My grand aunt kept telling me to take photos of the food before eating it, and would wait for me to finish taking photos before eating, which reminded me of my Mum.

Look at the filling! Okay I know it looks plain from the photo. It was so hot and the pastry was so crispy. It's like my favourite type of curry puff.

La mian with black fungus. Not a fan of noodles or rice but it tasted good as well. Their service was rather good.

Red bean paste pancake! I liked it because it's so crispy. I only recently started eating red bean paste because of jollibean pancake! Because I felt peanut filling was too much and too fattening though I love them, I chose red bean as a healthier choice, although not much healthier, I guess!

 Huge gyozas

Doesn't seem like a lot (or does it?), but I was quite full after having all those. Probably because we ate it really slowly. The service was rather good as well. Because the red bean pancake is supposed to be a dessert and they were very prompt in serving it once we finished our main dishes.

Shopped around in Orchard after that. Haven't done actual shopping for such a long time that the prices of clothes outside turned me off. I very much prefer shopping online since the quality is so much better and prices are much lower, although they're not from high street brands.

Dinner was at Swatow restaurant in Toa Payoh! I went there previously for their buffet. But it was my first time trying their normal menu. My grandma and grand aunt went there previously so they just ordered what they knew to be nice so I got to have the nice food!

This was a fish soup with seaweed and mushroom and fish maw. Quite a lot for three people. I think we had about 2 bowls each. The fish slices were really thick and nice! Excuse the half filled pot, since we already had half of the soup and my grand aunt said I forgot to take a photo so I just took it like that. So funny of her right! Because her children also take photo of their food before eating so she's used to it! So hip and cool!

Cereal prawns. I LOVE! They asked for it to be de-shelled and it was such a good decision. No oily fingers, just really nice and non overcooked prawns.

My grandma refusing to smile because she was self conscious about her new set of dentures. Hence the closed mouth look.

My grandma and I! My grandma just changed her dentures and somehow it just looks different compared to the old one. I wonder if a person's teeth can really make such a difference on someone's appearance. But I guess it's just a matter of getting used to. Still, that would mean that the person looks different and you need to get used to his/her looks right?? I think my grandma looks better with this new set of teeth! Just need to get used to it!

Garlic vegetables, with a lot of oil. My grandma says. I'm an advocate of healthy eating so when I cook, I use very little oil, in my grandma's words. So they don't look as good as what she cooks, she says when I lament that the food I cook don't look nice. But healthy eating trumps all, right!

Noodles which I didn't get to take a photo in its original plate because they split it for us.

Omg I was really really really  full from the lunch and dinner. It's been a rather long time since I had Chinese food outside. Most of the time it's western food, but I like Chinese food too, because it's in my roots after all. If I could choose something to eat everyday for the rest of my life, like I told my friend, I said I would choose to have minced meat noodles, the dry style! Although not healthy, but just a hypothetical thought!

Cheese, cheese, cheese, I love you

The title says it all. It's all about cheese, cream cheese, my favourite!
We baked chiffon cheesecake, a less calorie chiffon cake compared to the pandan chiffon cake that we baked 2 weeks ago. Trying to stay off coconut milk as much as I can because it's the highest in saturated fat!

I came across something recently and found it really meaningful. The person said that dieting is a very horrible word because it means that it would only last for a period of time, like a period of eating lesser and cutting down on food intake for the sake of weight loss, and once the weight goes down to the desired weight, people go back to their previous lifestyle. Hence, the proper way is to change eating and lifestyle habits for a healthy life, and not go on a 'diet'. I'm quite proud to say that I've been eating healthily, like having 2 servings of fruits daily in addition to the vegetables as well as trying to have wholemeal bread or rice as often as possible. I really hope to be able to keep this up for the rest of my life. Okay this is sounding too ambitious, I shall just think of the rest of the year and the next first. Although I'm also guilty of 'dieting' by cutting down on food because I don't exercise regularly.

So here are the photos of our hard work in the kitchen for about 3 hours!

Chiffon cheesecake! The taste is actually similar to the Japanese cotton cheesecake but the texture is rougher, like the texture of normal chiffon cake.

And do you recognise this? This is the Japanese cotton cheesecake that I failed once at. My mum told me to try it again and I succeeded this time! It was so amazing as I watched the mixture of egg whites and sugar turn into cream-like texture. Forgot to take a photo but I'll make sure to take a photo the next time I bake something similar.

My favourite cheesecake!

I'm always posting the same photos because we always use the same recipes, but I promise to try new recipes involving peanut butter which I have a whole kilogram of. Maybe I shall start with the peanut butter pancakes that I've been meaning to try, or peanut butter cupcakes. But the thing is, I don't really have a problem with baking, I have a problem with finishing the cupcakes. My family doesn't really like cupcakes or cakes for that matter. They take better to cookies instead. Still, I shall not be deterred and bake something so I can bring it when I meet my friends!

Woke up early on Sunday morning to fry pancakes for my family, and I love days like those when we cook and bake something together, then enjoy the food happily as compared to days when we just mind our own business at home as we face our respective laptops, desktops, iphones and ipad and what nots. 

TCL hooked up floral top

So I bought a floral top again. The last 3 items I bought were all florals, if I recall correctly. I guess this will be the last floral item I'm buying since I already have a floral dress, floral top and floral shorts. And I doubt I'll want a floral skirt. I love this top so much! I liked it the moment the closet lover uploaded the preview photos. Many blogshops have come up with hooked up tops but I didn't really like those until I saw this with sleeves. But still, I hesitated about getting this because I didn't want to keep spending but when I saw that it got sold out in size S, I panicked and put myself on the waiting list for it and kept checking back. When I next saw that it was available again, I bought it immediately. And yes, this was the last piece in S that I got, that I mentioned in my 'what makes you happy' post! I would suppose this is quite okay for work. Tried it on immediately after I got back from an interview and thought it looked quite alright with a work skirt. It's quite a fitting top, since it's meant to be fitted to look nice, so I'm quite glad that I bought S. The material is indeed quite stretchy as mentioned on their site.

Funny how I like this top in red florals and the lilypirates dress in blue florals. So I now have both red and blue florals! I think it's because both prints have a combination of bright colours and not just one tone or shade of a colour.

Tried it on with a more casual skirt that I bought but haven't even worn out once before. Rather conscious of wearing a bandage skirt. Can't wait to wear this out and I'm going to the next time I go out! My mum commented that it's nice and even asked if they have it in her size, but really sad that they don't.

On a random note, I showed my mum ASOS and she has been browsing it quite often. We just submitted an order and I bought a top (omg, again) :X. Really hope it arrives soon!

Hatched, again

So..this is going to be another food post. I know right, getting fat from all the good food I'm having. Starting with Hatched on Friday with Amanda, Huizhen, Joanne and Suxian! We finally managed to meet up all together to go to Hatched, but the food was rather disappointing and not worth the price at all. But the photos of food always look good. I decided not to have fried egg/poached egg/scrambled egg and try something else since I was craving for something sweet and salty at the same time. I'm just weird like that. I like having a little bit of each. 

My 'The sleepover (hatched special)! Fulfills my criteria of something sweet yet savoury because of the bacon and bananas and maple syrup with bread in french toast style! I ordered the chef's recommendation again! I know it's very fattening but I couldn't stop my hands from putting all the bread into my mouth and by the time I finished, I felt so guilty about finishing everything on my plate. It tasted rather nice, but I felt it's not really justified for the price since it cost $12 and it's just bread, banana and bacon. 

Huizhen and Amanda's Eggs royale. Haha Huizhen told me that she liked the mashed potatoes and the mushroom sauce more than the main dish, the egg and smoked salmon more. So I guess that's saying something. I notice this is a favourite for people who visit Hatched, but one thing to note is that this is not a chef reommendation!

Suxian's pork ribs atop mash. No eggs at all! It really really isn't worth it for the price of $18 and it's really small. The brown sauce is teriyaki or barbeque sauce so if you don't like it you shouldn't order this! And I think it wasn't filling also!

Joanne's beef pot pie. I think this looked the nicest of all that we ordered. Haha but Joanne, as usual, just had the eggs and beef and skipped the bread bowl altogether because carbs are the most filling of all!

I don't think I'll be going back to Hatched anytime soon, was our conclusion after dinner. Everything with fries anytime (when we're in Holland v, that is!)

As always, dinner in Holland V ends with Island creamery. We had quite a hard time choosing which flavour to have since we have tried so many of the flavours already. So we just chose one that we didn't try before. And usually before buying we'll try the flavour, but we didn't for this time and it tasted surprisingly good, like real apple pie! Sounding a little silly here since it's replicated after apple pie.

And here you can see the black specks of cinnamon powder (I'm guessing here), and the brown bits which are digestive biscuits. Another unique flavour that I like! Might buy this home for my family to try the next time, since my favourite Teh tarik was not favoured by them. It still sits sadly in the freezer compartment a month after I bought it.

We usually leave behind the container after eating it there. If we were to take home the container each time we eat there, I think we would have ended up with a lot of containers! Haha just a random thought!

Baking and food again!

So in an attempt to do something everyday, I got down to baking cheddar biscuits! My brother watched someone baking it on tv and found the recipe online and it seemed pretty easy to bake. My first savoury biscuits. It's a really fattening and high calorie food though! The amount of butter used was so much, about 350g of it. And cheese which has high saturated fat content. Unhealthiness aside, it tasted really good when it was just out of the oven, crumbly, buttery and of course cheesy. My brother had the idea to make them so huge because the recipe said to cut into 8 pieces, but of course I wasn't going to do that, so we took half the batter each (we made double portion) and made them our own style. I made them into round patties so it wouldn't be too much to consume at once, and my brother made them into giant pieces.

 Before going into the oven

 My brother's idea

And mine. I really like how the biscuits turned out, with a crackled texture at the top because of the egg wash that we spread at the top before baking.

And the next day my mum wanted to bake chiffon cake so I helped her with the basic steps while she beat the egg whites and sugar. Don't be fooled by the small innocent looking slice of chiffon cake. It is so full of saturated fat, sugar and calories. I calculated the amount of calories from the coconut milk, sugar and butter and it amounted to more than 100 calories for just one slice of cake! Definitely not a good choice for breakfast since it doesn't make you full and it seems so 'light'. Although it tastes really good, I need to cut down on the consumption. Bulk of the calories come from the sugar even though it didn't taste very sweet, so one thing to note is that even though something doesn't taste sweet, we must never assume that it doesn't contain a lot of sugar! And always remember that cakes/desserts always contain a lot of fat/sugar although it doesn't fill you up. Sad fact because I really like desserts. 

Photo of the innocent looking chiffon cake. I actually really really like chiffon cake or any other cake that has no fresh cream. This must be the reason why I gained so much weight over the years unknowingly.

And speaking of desserts, how can I leave out the TCC high tea set that I had with my mum and grandma after a trip to gardens by the bay. I loved the set! Quite value for money since it's $13.90 for tea and the set below. We initially wanted to order one to share and then order other food but in the end we decided on one set each. So I got to taste all the nice pastries and cakes! A combination of sweet and savoury snacks which I enjoyed. I loved the scones which were so crumbly and the jam that came with it. The dumpling looking thing is actually red bean which I don't really fancy, but tasted quite nice. And the prawn and scallop pastries were really good. Actually the portion was quite small so I was trying to eat them as slowly as I could so that I would feel fuller.

This was the mid autumn special set so I'm guessing that they change the items on the high tea set regularly. Wouldn't mind trying more of their sets if they have new ones.

Met my mum for lunch at Jcube on Monday because she told me there was one-for-one pasta at some restaurant there, but we were so unlucky to miss it by one day. So we settled for the 20% discount promotion that they had.

I had the seafood aglio olio since my mum's colleague said it was nice. It was rather nice! Well cooked and not too salty. Though it was quite oily towards the end

Couldn't help but compare it against my gold standard (hahaha using biology terms) of tcc's seafood aglio olio! The photo below is the one from tcc. No idea why the photo turned out portrait instead of landscape because it clearly was a landscape photo. If I were to compare, tcc's one definitely beats it hands down. It's spicy enough and the prawns and scallops are well cooked, just really good. You need to try it for yourself, really! Told my mum I'd treat her to the one at tcc next time so she can understand why I like it so much. One thing's for sure, both these pastas win the one from pizza hut. That one was too salty, too garlicky and just meh.

Beautiful writing

'You can meet the love of your life. You can meet them in a bookstore, in a coffee shop, at a party, at a bar, through friends of friends, on the Internet, whatever. The trick to finding this person though is to never resign yourself. Never let the lonely days swallow you up, never accept that you’ll just be one of those people who doesn’t get to be loved. Because the second you start believing it, it can become true. That’s the scary part. How quickly days can turn into years. Just like that. I’ve always said that the whole “love comes to those who aren’t expecting it” is BS. Who ISN’T expecting love? I didn’t expect love for two solid years and guess where it got me? Celibacy. You should always expect to be loved, you should always expect to find somebody to love because if you don’t, you do get your worst fears confirmed and then you’re a goner. Then you’re denying yourself what you deserve. What you can certainly have.'

-Ryan O'Connell at thought catalog


Read more at http://thoughtcatalog.com/2012/how-to-meet-the-love-of-your-life/#SMtzuIJt6Ffow4MI.99

Once again, they always manage to put into words how I feel. I'm envious of their ability to write and string words together so nicely. Something I find so hard to do, for the lack of reading extensively or my inability to emulate this sort of writing method. But I will try. 

In the meantime, I will just relish in reading beautiful writing. 


The mooncake festival is looming upon us, in about 10 days or so. But I've been having mooncakes since half a month ago. Seems like it's taking too long to come this year. Hahaha. This is so random but I wanted to post a photo of this box of mooncakes from TWG I bought for my family. Adhering to my secret thought of spending more so that I can get a job soon. Just excuses to spend, really. The colours of the mooncake and the flavours were so unique I knew I had to buy it when I saw it in the Sunday Times. I love snow skin mooncakes with egg yolks but the ironic thing is that out of these four, only one has just a single egg yolk! And these mooncakes are not even snow skinned. I hope to buy a box (or boxes) of mooncake(s) every year for my family. And this shall mark the first!

Happiness

What is happiness to you?

Happiness to me is..

1. Buying the last piece of a top/dress from a blogshop. You know how good this feels? Especially if you've been deliberating for a very long time. And if you had not checked it out, someone else would have beaten you to it and you'd have missed buying it. If it were me I would panic. Hahaha, shopaholic talking again.

2. Having nice food. Not necessarily expensive, just nice/good food.

3. Company of family/friends. This is really important, because even if you have good food, you might not enjoy it if you're with people you dislike. Well, not that you go out with people you don't like, but sometimes there is no choice

4. People telling me something I made/cooked/baked is nice. Because I'm not that good a baker/cook, I need reassurances from people to tell me if it's good. I don't really like asking, since people may feel obliged to say it's nice. So I'd like it if they take one bite and say 'Oh it's really good!' But of course I need to reach that level first, right?

5. The feeling after exercising. I really feel very happy and accomplished after exercising. But of course before that I would need to drag myself out of my chair to change and get out of the house. And during the duration I would feel like dying but towards the end I get so motivated. If only I can save up those feelings after exercising and release them to motivate myself as and when. Hahaha talking nonsense now. Of course that isn't possible.

Failllll

The title says it all. I encountered my first failure in baking this year. I knew the cake would fail the moment I added the egg white and sugar to the other batter that it would fail. But my mum didn't scold me, lucky for me. Haha check out my cake that failed to rise. I was trying to bake the Japanese cotton cheesecake that sells for $10 for one small cake. My mum was telling me that it's so easy to make, like it can never go wrong. But I still failed because it involved the beating of egg whites and sugar which is always tricky. 

. 

Look at how flat my cake is! I was so upset because it failed (although I already knew it would). The only consolation was that it didn't taste horrible. How can you go wrong with cheese anyway.

Yes this is how it is supposed to look like! My mum whipped these up in just a short span of 45 mins of preparation time. You know how long I took to prepare? I took 2 hours thereabouts!! This is the difference between the amateur and the expert.

This is to show how thick the cake is supposed to be. This cheesecake is not really unhealthy because one small slice has only about 30-40 calories. I Google-d. Apart from the cream cheese and the very small amount of butter (25g for 2 cakes), there really isn't anything not good about it. My favourite (healthier choice) cheesecake! The texture is so much like cotton.

Stacking up my 2 pathetic cakes can't even compare to one of my mum's successful cheesecake sigh!

I've got quite a phobia of beating egg whites and sugar so I won't be attempting this alone without any supervision. Someday I might attempt this again, but not for now!

Make every day count

So now, I have decided to stop counting the days and make the days count instead. I might not know it now,  but God must have His reasons for me to be staying at home now, and I will not waste this time by lazing around like a bum. Life isn't long and there really isn't any time for regrets. Whatever I have been through only serves to make me stronger.

1. Exercise
Yes you read correctly! I've started exercising again after two and a half months. But with a combination of swimming and jogging. Hopefully I can keep this up!

2. Cook/Bake
I hope to make something everyday, be it making something from a recipe or helping to cook meals, I want to learn something new everyday. So that at least my brain will not be filled with only lines or scenes from dramas.

3. Volunteer
Haven't began any volunteering work yet, but I'm hoping to and trying to find some volunteer work to make a difference in the lives of others. I can't make a difference in others' lives through my work..yet, but I still can make a difference with what I can do now, right?

So, if you're like me, stop counting the days and live each day to the fullest! Let's not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry for itself. And you can't change anything just by worrying alone, but if you do something today, you might actually be able to change the outcome of tomorrow.

Wow I actually sound optimistic, and it's a good thing and I hope to remain this way.

Words to live by

Does anyone of you have a phrase to live by? By now you all should know that I live by the phrase 'Always keep the faith'. Since it's always on the header of my blog. Actually I didn't believe in it for that many aspects of my life initially. It began when dong bang shin ki split up in 2009, and Micky and Jae had these words on them. So it became a phrase for Cassiopeia to hold on and believe in the 5 of them. Go to any DBSK video or JYJ video on Youtube and you will mostly see 'AKTF' or 'Always keep the faith'. But that's a story for another day, if I might.

I always knew about faith, but I never really understood the meaning of it until I took pure literature in Secondary 3. It was from Joyluck club, my favouritest book of all time. There was a comparison between 'faith' and 'fate' in one of the stories. And in the book it was said that although both sounded quite similar to the Chinese mothers, they meant completely different things. (At this moment now, I feel like watching the movie. Shall do that after I finish this post)

Fate was kind of like giving up, believing that you have no control over your life. And that everything is fated to happen even without you doing anything. I used to, and still believe in fate sometimes. Actually it feels kind of like Faith, but this has a more nonchalant feel towards life. Like resigning yourself to something.

But Faith was something different altogether. Faith is having complete confidence in something or someone, that things will turn out fine, or even better than fine, good, I would say. It's not easy to have faith. Sometimes it get so difficult to keep on believing in something when things turn out so bad, threatening to erode the faith that I have. When things don't occur in your favour, you might question 'Why? Why? Why?' like I have so many times. When you have put in so much effort into something that you really really want, and yet you don't get what you want, not even close to what you want at all. In such times, my faith wears really thin and at many times, I have been on the verge of giving up.

But we need to understand that when life (God) doesn't give you what you want, it's because He's preparing something even better for you. All those failures are just lessons to make us stronger and more prepared for the future. Although yes, you might find it difficult to accept that you haven't gotten what you want and can't see what lies ahead since we're always too focussed on what we don't have rather than appreciating what we have in our hands. We keep thinking of the failures and blaming ourselves for what we have done (or not done), and brush off our successes as luck. Failures hit us so hard that it gets so difficult to believe and continue having this faith.

But what we need to do is just pick ourselves up and remind ourselves that we need to keep on believing. For one day, everything will turn out fine in the end. And if things are not fine, it's not the end. So I guess my faith came from God, from reading the daily e-mails I receive from God's minute and Bible gateway. And it has made me into who I am today.

I don't know about you, but I always feel better knowing that someone (of a higher power) is watching out for me. There are still days when I feel upset and lament over why things are not going well for me, but I take comfort in the thought that faith is all I need.

A phrase I've been seeing a lot of recently is 'Live by faith and not by sight'. It's from the bible but many of my friends have been posting in on their walls on Facebook. Trying really hard to live by faith. Not an easy process but definitely enriching and fulfilling at the end of the day.

So there, that's how my 'Always keep the faith' came about. It's funny how it all began with being a fan of DBSK and how it has turned out to be such a pertinent phrase in my life, isn't it?

7th

So I guess this is going to be my last post on Korea because day 8 was pretty much just a journey to the airport and me crazily trying to squeeze all my buys into the luggages. I even had to borrow space from my brother's luggages, lol. I told my mum I wanted to overspend and I really did! 

Breakfast for the day: Bokkeum kimchi and rice bought separately. We previously bought a bokkeum kimchi and rice set from the convenience store and it tasted really good. So I acted smart and bought the 2 separately. In the end it didn't taste as good because the bokkeum kimchi was too sour and the sauce wasn't enough for the rice. Kind of sad because I was really expecting the same taste. Note to self: In future, don't act smart! Haha and I managed to work the microwave oven though there was nothing in English and the Korean was nothing I understood. Just pressed the buttons ramdomly and hope it worked and it did.

The outside of the guesthouse. The 2nd Pencil guesthouse.

Photo of my outfit in one of the our daily must-go-to convenience stores. I bought the furry top for 5000 won in Namdaemun. It's one of my best buys in Korea because first it's so cheap. Secondly, it's so comfortable. It was from a shop that sold everything at 5000 won. When I saw it I knew I had to buy it. It looked really lovely with little balls to create the texture. And when I was paying, I was so afraid that the guy would suddenly tell me there has been an error and it actually costs more. But nothing of that sort happened. Haha.

Peanuts for sale along the road. I wonder if hygiene is an issue since the air there wasn't really very clean. But I wouldn't know because I didn't buy these peanuts. Just walked past this lorry everyday.

Day 7 was really slack. My younger brother decided to stay in and watch tv, so my youngest brother, my mum and I headed to Ehwa Womans University. There isn't much to see there, so you don't see much photos of the scenery. I went mad shopping over there. I think majority of my purchases were from Ehwa Womans University. The clothes there were much much cheaper than Hongdae or Dongdaemun so the next time I go, I'm definitely going back there!!

 Photo of the University. I like how big it looks.

Streets

More clothing shops. So envious of them who get to shop even when they're around school. If I were in Korea and in this University, I can totally imagine going out to shop during lunch breaks. But then I would be broke and probably skip meals just to shop. Not a good thing. Hahaha. In Singapore, NUS is so far away from all the shops. As my Korean tutor said also. Haha!

 Bags my mum and I bought! I think we bought a total of 5 bags. We chanced upon this shop run by a young man in his 20s, and he designs his own bags, and coincidentally was having a one day event where he was selling his bags for 25 000 won each! The usual price was about 60 000 each so my mum and I went mad trying to choose which to buy. And his designs were all so unique that I liked almost all of them. And all of them were of really good quality as well. Not the kind with the cheap and thin leather that will peel if you don't carry it out for a long time. I was really really impressed. But too bad we couldn't buy them all. That's his label: Ranson. I was asking him if he could bring his bags to sell in Singapore, but he said it was difficult and told me to look for his designs on Kakao story, an iphone app. But after I downloaded it I coudn't find a single thing. My mum was so good at bargaining that I got to buy a bag that was originally 95 000 won for only 70 000 won. My favourite bag of all, though I still like all others that I bought. They are all different. Haha okay I realise I'm sounding like a hopeless shopaholic. I'll post photos of that bag if I take photos and the bag happens to be in it.

After buying the bags, I chanced upon many shops selling dresses for just 10 000 won and tops for 5 000 won. So needless to say, I was so excited about browsing through the racks and came out of the shops feeling very happy, because I didn't really buy a lot in Dongdaemun, and I was still raging over my 49 000 dress.

Actually we planned to go to Itaewon, but we decided not to and head back for lunch with my brother. So this was a restaurant we passed by everyday and never got to try. The only thing we had from this shop before this meal was the kimbap which I ordered to-go. I guess it's a family restaurant. How nice to have a family restaurant, so you can choose to help out if you have nothing to do like me now. I've been trying to make everyday count by doing something everyday and not let each day just pass me by, and still trying hard.

The Kimbap counter.

Side dishes which tasted really good. I liked the white radish that looks a little like tau-gay. It tasted a little like potato. Anything starchy, Sam likes. Okay not really. I only like potatoes and radish.

만두 만두 만두 만두~~Like how they always chant in Running man. This was so good we ordered this twice! I think this was the beef one. For only 3000 won per tray! So cheap!

My bulgogi stew. Tasted really good. And the price was really reasonable, though I can't remember the exact price.

The dumplings were so good we ordered the Kimchi one to try. And it didn't disappoint! 3 trays of dumplings in total and only around $10. Guess we'll never find such good deals in Singapore.

I thought the soft toys hanging from the top looked quite interesting. No idea what it's for though! I wonder how the petrol comes from the top, since you don't see the big machines in these petrol kiosks. 

Visited a bookshop near our guesthouse. It's actually a shopping mall, but with nothing much. It was just a huge Uniqlo which we didn't bother looking because well, we have in in Singapore as well. Bought books in English! Haha their selection of English books were really limited, and I was tempted to buy some Korean language books back to improve my Korean but I didn't in the end. The books were really much cheaper over there. A paperback only cost about 8000 won which is less than S$10. My brothers bought quite a lot of books there since they didn't have much places to spend on apart from the convenience stores.

Stopped by Angel in-us coffee for a drink. I ordered some Lemon yoghurt ice blend. Their prices are comparable to Starbucks if I recall correctly. Or maybe slightly cheaper. They have a wide variety of non-coffee drinks so if you're not so into coffee, you can give this a try.

Haha my brother pretending to sleep.

After I told my brother that he must take photos from a high angle to look slimmer, this was what he did. Can you tell this was taken from a 'higher' angle?

Kim Soo Hyun the CF king of the moment at that time. Practically saw his face everywhere. Y not JYJ/DBSK?? Haha okay not that I don't like Kim Soo Hyun. Jung Il Woo was also the face of many brands. I like:D

This is the bakery that we visited so often. Pourtoi bakery. It's not so cheap. More expensive than Breadtalk definitely, but everything is handbaked on the spot. Okay I know Breadtalk's is also. But they have a wider variety of pastries, and not so much of bread. Just did a Google search and nothing much came up, so I guess this is not a franchise, so it should be just a one of a kind bakery. I think we spent almost or more than 30 000 won over there because my brother bought a lot of pastries while my mum bought the biscuits/cookies in the plastic boxes to bring back to Singapore. And they tasted really really good. We finished them all within a day or two. The lady gave us quite a lot of free stuff seeing that we bought so much.  It's so exaggerated right, spending so much in a bakery.

Sale of produce just outside the bakery

Look at the 2 green bags. It's all the bakery stuff! My brother was always being diligent to help me/us carry the stuff back to the guesthouse. But he always told me it's a 'pay-per-hold'. Hahaha! Meaning I had to pay him for his service. With exaggerated charges, no doubt.

More photos of the guesthouse. It looks very nice and modern right! I told my mum it's a good idea to open a guesthouse. But definitely not in Singapore since land is so expensive. Okay maybe in Korea it also is expensive. But hey it's really a good investment. Cheaper than a hotel which is your selling point, provide tv, internet and aircon, and you can charge them for small packets of detergent/cooking utensils/shampoo if they didn't bring any. But first you need the capital to buy all the tv, washing machines, beds, and building of the guesthouse.

Looks like images from a comic book.

Loot from the bakery. Egg tarts and walnut tarts which all went into my brother's tummy.

My loot from Ehwa Womans University! I bought 2 pairs of shoes over there. Really good quality that would definitely cost more in Singapore. Hahaha and 6 clothing items! 3 dresses and 3 tops. And all of them cost me about 50 000 won. Which means an average of less than 10 000 won for each item. I think they sell good basics like black and white basic tees for really cheap. When blogshops are selling them for >$10. But of course, you need to take into consideration the quality so you pay for what you get.

From the bookshop! The little prince diary/planner only cost me ~S$18. And I got the shock of my life when I saw it in a bookshop in Singapore. It was $35 or so! We went back to the guesthouse and I tried to finish my bottle of soju. Soju tastes really horrible and disgusting to me so I had a really hard time finishing it. On first taste, it's a little sweet, but the aftertaste is bitter and a little like alcohol swab. Not that I have tasted alcohol swab (like my brother asked me), but the smell/taste is kind of similar. Anyway, I finished about 5/6 of the bottle and ended up feeling very dizzy. Then it was time for dinner. It's like we never stop eating in Korea. We just had drinks at the Angel in us place.

This photo was taken to see if my face was red. But not really, right?

This was the restaurant we had our dinner. The meat was so cheap! Much cheaper than the one we had in Myeongdong. It was so popular and was already packed when we reached so we had to take a number and wait outside. The wait wasn't too long, and they had seats outside for people like us who had to wait. Pretty good service.

The details on my textured top and my new bag that I just bought earlier in the day at Hongdae subway station.

The meat is so cheap! Nothing above 15 000 won. So we ordered quite a bit, I think one serving each of pork and beef. There was so much meat that the vege that they gave us to wrap the meat was not enough and we had to keep asking for more vege.

The sauce that I love so much! One portion each for each of us!

Waiting for the meat to come! Look at the corn salad on the right. Never had such a side dish before so it was nice to try it! But it was rather sweet rather than salty.

Taking photos of the restaurant. When I took these photos my mum/brother asked me who I was taking or if there was an idol somewhere. Hahaha.

I'm a paparazzi! Hahaha. .

We ordered quite a lot of food because it was cheap. This is dwaenjang jjiggae if I recall correctly since there is tofu. But it looks a little too red to be dwaenjang jjiggae. This was to share I think!

We each had one of this! Steamed egg! So cheap and nice.

And the meat~~

Some photos of our room. I think it's good that they made the effort to type the notice in English as well as Korean, but I couldn't help but notice some of their spelling errors.

Very self-sufficient like a small house. But pretty small. Most of the time I couldn't walk around without having to move something out of the way. But still, I liked this guesthouse!

Really hope to go to Korea again next year, or some time soon!