Cherry Blossom Festival + Girls Night Out in Gangnam

Sorry for a late update. I've been stuck with reading for midterms. Half of the semester is soon over! Times goes fast!!

A week ago I went out to meet some of my friends to go to Cherry Blossom Festival here in Seoul. It's great for celebrating spring with friends and so some picknic. There are many places in Seoul to watch Cherry Blossom but one on the most popular choices is Yeouido Park located by the Han River. This day was actually very cold and windy. So we were debated a long time to go or not, but cherry blossoms only bloom for a short time so we were afraid to miss it. Therefor we went even if it was freezing outside.

Because going to a cherry blossom festival I felt like dressing up a little. So I chose to put some flowers in my hair and wear pastel clothes. Pastel clothes is my favorite trend this spring for sure!

 

At the exit stop for Yeouido Park it was so crowded with people. I had to go to the bathroom, and it was around 50 females in the line. Also had to wait for some of my friends to arrive,and waiting for someone inside a super crowded subway is kinda stressful. 

 

When my friends finally arrived we were all starving so we hurried to the park to try to find a place to sit. We did manage to find one empty spot, but it was so small that we all had to squeeze together on my and my boyfriends small blanket.  We bought chicken, snacks, sushi and beer for our lunch. I also bought coffee to keep warm, but the coffeeshop spent like 20 minutes to make coffee! Slowest coffee shop I've ever been too. 

After eating all our yummy stuff me and the girls decided to go out for a walk to look at the cherry blossoms while the guys protected out blanket from blanket thieves.

 We walked for maybe a half hour watching these beautiful trees. Sadly some had already turned green because of cold weather the few days before we went. But still we got to see some pretty trees. But because of the really cold blowing wind did not walk for so long time, we all wanted to just hurry back to out blanket and find another place to go. Too bad the weather was not good, if not we could have spent many hours in the park.

 

On the way back to the boys we found this funny sign for truck selling japanese food and coffee. The name of this outdoor food truck was called "Let's Go Hungry Fxxker" and had a "Hungry Fxxker" meny also.  Walking along the park you can find many places selling food, drinks and other things for the festival. Yum!

When we got back to the boys we decided we wanted to go somewhere else, because we were half death already. The boys decided to go home both of them, and we girls decided to have a girls night out. 

 

Out first stop on out way to Gangnam to party was the next subway-stop where it is a hugh shopping mall.  As the girly girls we are we wanted to go to a cupcake cafe. We all ate cholate cupcakes, and I tried Sakura Latte, Cherry Blossom Latte.  We also walked around in the mall for many hours to it was close to dinner time before we went to Gangnam to have a real girls night out!

Gangnam at nighttime is pretty fun. Its known for many eating and drinking places. But mostly for its exclusive clubs where the young, pretty and rich people go to enjoy their weekends. We did not go to any clubs, but we went eating and drinking. 

Our first stop in Gangnam was this pasta restaurant. Its the best pasta we all have tried in Korea so far. Korean pasta is mostly not so good, but this place was awesome! The owner also gave us all free wine and said we could come and get more if we wanted. Great service or what?! If I knew the name of this place I would tell everyone to eat there, but I dont remember. 

We finished out awesome meals and we went to a bar where we drank some few drinks and danced with a group of korea females that also enjoyed their saturday night. Fun to make new friends whike going out. Sadly, I dont have any photos because I was too busy dancing and drinking.

When we left this place we wanted to drink more and have fun, but not spend so much money on drinks in bar. So we decided to go to a norebang, karaoke place to continue. What we always do when we go to norebang is that we go to a store and buy some drinks and snacks to bring there. But this is not really allowed, so if you do you must hide your stuff in your bag. Most of my friends do the same.  And the staff at norebangs don't really care as long as you clean up after yourself when you leave and don't show them your stuff when you enter the norebang. So thats my small advice for you party animals out there that have plans to visit Korea.

Here is the beauty! Our drinks and snacks inside the norebang.  The photo is very blurry, sorry. It looks like I took the photo while being drunks, but its just the disco lights. Not lying!

 

And as a group of Scandinavians you cannot leave the norebang before you have been singing "What Does The Fox Say" at least 2 times.  We rented the room for one hour, 15,000 WON. But we got two extra hours for free. Yey for free minutes!

After finishing singing Ylvis and no minuts left we went to a coffee shop. And with out good kucj this night we ended up sitting right infront of the filming of "The Avengers".

I guess thats a good way to end a girls night out, seeing the filming of a hollywood movie with our V.I.P seats. Scarlett Johansson so close, but so far.

The importance of makeup and hair

Hello again!

Had to make a video for my class at school. I take videoblog class this semester, and I did my first assignment today. Criteria for the video is that it have to be under 60 seconds and contain many different shots. So as the honest person I'm I decided to play around with my webcam. Showing the importance of makeup and hair, for people like me who maybe dont look so good when waking up in the morning, buhu.

Here is my video, I hope you enjoy it.

 

What do you think about my first video for my blogging class? I suck at edition and making videos, it's my first time so I'm sorry. But at least it shows what I want it to show, that I enjoy makeup and changing my look. 

 

This is me before starting doing my makeup, not really a beauty queen right?? Sometimes I think about how I should have survived without cosmetic if I lived 2000 years ago. I would probly look aweful and have no man near me what so ever. At least now I can try to make myself look half normal and half human before I walk out my door. 

 

This is me after makeup. Some different right?. To get this look I must contor my face so it will look slimmer.  Add blush. Color my eyebrows. Use three different eyeshadows. Eyeliner. Fake lashes. Lipstick and use circle lenses for bigger eyes.  For everyday use I mostly tone it down, and I don't wear lenses everyday. But doing my makeup don't take long time even if its very similar.

What is your routine before going outside? Are you trying to look more human also??

Rasicm in Korea??

Today I wanna adress a new topic, which I should not maybe speak about. Thankfully there is not many people who I know, know about my blog. Sometimes I feel like my worst mistake in my life is going to Korea. I know many people say there is no kind of rasism to white people, but I just wanna take a second to tell you about my experience in Korea. 

First of all, I wanna tell about my university. I been a student here for now two years. Guess how many friends I got? I got one female friend. Guess her nationality? Not korean. Since I started to university here I learned fast that koreans in my class did not want foreigners to join their activities.  Whenever there is a event where students get to hang out and know each other, foreigners are not invited at all, or if they are they will speak korean all the time even if they know english fluetly and lived most off their life abroad. I study international studies and all should be in english, 1000% english. But even the office which should know english give out all the important info we need in korean, and say we should learn korean, Which I understand, but kind of hard when everyone ignore us.

I now been here for 2 years without making any friends. I tried really hard my first year here, but I gave up. Some koreans wanted to spend time with me on the campus. But even then some korean professors told the koreans to not hang out with me, because I'm not korean, and most likely dangerous and criminal. From that time I knew no one wanted to hang out with me.Professors even said out loud in class that all white females with blonde hair is super stupid, while all my classmates looked at me knowing he was right. ?
We also had the debate in class why Korean is better or different than other countries. All agreed on one thing. Korea has "pure blood". Meaning that there is no foreign mixed people in Korea, something they are very proud of. But actually 1/5 koreans are mixed, mostly with other neighbour countries.

When Im out and about I often get the question if Im a prostitute or not. Old man wanting to take me home with them. Like all white females are prostitutes. Here, if you are not korean woman, you are a sex object and you love having sex with random boys and getting paid. 

Not to forget to mention. One time I got hit with the fist by a random Korean man because I was not same race. I was walking home from school, all alone, when this korean guy spotted me, and started to walk against me. I though not much about it, but two seconds after he punched me really hard. I did not know what to do. Should I be angry at him and yelling or hurry home ??? I decided to ignore it and hurry home. It did hurt. But I was to shocked to do anything about it, and I was to close to home anyway. So I hurred with the man following right after me. 

Other than that I have been told by people in public to get the fuck out of their place, to get the fuck out of Korea, to die etc. Or old people looking  But at this time Im used to it. I'm used to people calling me bad things, I'm used to people discriminate me. I have had korean guys break up with me because I did not have the right skin.I know I will not be able to get a job here, I know I'm not from the right country. I know I'm dangerous and spreading some dangerous illnesses (Foreigners are carring AIDS with them) I know my boyfriend when he says I should get used to it, but I know I should never let people talk trash about me..

 

I just want to show this video very quick. Its a video shown by biggest tvchannel in Korea MBC. Its a story about how dangerous foreigners are for korean (mostly foreign guys and Korean females). "Victims of foreigners".  I find this video tragic because it shows mostly footage from district in Seoul with many foreigners, which are in weekends a drinking place. They film guys hitting on Korean females, and say that all foreign guys are taking adventage of Korean females, raping etc. 

This photos is taken from a korean humor show on tv. Many find "black face" humor to be funny. I have also seen kpop stars doing the same thing, like Big Bang G-dragon. I'm not saying every person here finds "black face" humor funny, but showing it on tv shows its wrong.


But It's of course not only white, dark skinned have problem here. Many Korean discriminate other asians. Like Chinese or Japanese. Many Chinese have problem and get bullied alot in school by other students. Chinese are seen as animals and criminal by many students. I remember one class, we had a chinese student who fell asleep during lecture. Professor said out loud that he is a typical Chinese, bad behavior, Chinese can't behave like humans etc. I was shocked listning to my professor talk out loud in class about him while he fell asleep. It's scary how someone who is a professor can behave like this at a university.
I also remember when the tsunami hit Japan. I had some Korean friends at that time who wrote on facebook that they were happy, and "Yey! They deserve it. Die!" and so on. I'm not friends with them anylonger. Many Koreans also boycot Japanese products or brands. It was also on the news, "Boycott everything Japanese!", while filming they burning japanese products. Also on big national tvchannel.

Other than that. There are also people who are curious about foreigners, but maybe not in a bad way.  Like people commenting my nose, asking if its real or fake (got taller nose), that my nose is so pretty and tall. When I had long blonde, curly hair (my natural hair is supercurly) people tended to touch my hair in the subway, mostly older females touching my hair without asking, it's kinda awkward, but it did not make me upset or anything. I guess they are just curious. Its hard to see so curly hair here.
But I remember when I was out with one of my best friends, she left Korea some years ago (miss her so much). She is from Kenya, so her skin is dark. When we took the subway together it happend a few times that people wanted to touch her skin, and rubbing their fingers against her arms and looked at their fingers after(seeing if any color came off?). Touching my hair is one thing,but rubbing someones skin is another. Thankfully my friend is the sweetest girl ever, and she just laughed it off.
Children are also very curious about foreigners. Its normal for children to say "mommy, mommy, look its a foreigner!!" But, I think Korean children are super cute. So I mostly reply them with "hello!" and a smile.  

I just wanna end this entry saying that regardless of what I've seen I don't hate being here. Korea has also gave me some of the most happy times also. Korea are still not so used to foreigners compared to other countries. Just recently people have started to come to Korea, and to travel here. Going on vacation in Korea is fun, It's a good place to travel. I think this issue will be better with time, now that Korea is starting to become more popular to travel and live. Compared with 2009 when I first came here, I have already started to see more immigrants here. Maybe it will still continue to improve and become more openminded in the near future.

A date with my boyfriend

Last Saturday me and my boyfriend decided to go somewhere new to eat dinner together. Lately we have not been out and having fun together, most staying inside our home everyday. This day my boyfriend suggested that we should go somewhere else to eat dinner. The weather was great, and Saturday, so why not?

We decided to go to Hyehwa, not too far from out place. Maybe 20 mintures by subway? Hyehwa is very good for haning out and drinking with friends. So if you are in Seoul and bored of Hongdae, go to Hyehwa.

 This is how Hyehwa looks like on a busy Saturday night. Many young people out to have some fun. Its in a university area, that explains all the drinking places and shopping places in this main street.

But me and my boyfriend were too hungry to even think about shopping. So after walking this street for about 10 minutes we had to find a place to eat before dying.

I really felt like eating pizza, so we found this cute little Italian restaurant, don't remember the name, but the pizza was really yummy. We choose ham pizza as seen above. 

 We also drank beer to our dinner. Look at those cute beer glass! It looks like a jamglass or something, right? 

 

After finishing our pizza we went back to the mainstreet to take another walk, so full we had to walk it off. But on the street I found cotton candy! I love cotton candy, not so much for the taste, but mostly because it's so cute! Even if being very full, I got my boyfriend to buy me pink cotton candy. Super happy!

 

Also found a old man selling candy on the street, 3 different onces for 1000 won. Very cheap. These candy are "old" candy, the kind of candy my boyfriend ate when he was a child. I chose 3 different onces and brought them with me home for later.

 

Cotton candy and candy was not the only thing being sold on the street, but cocktails also. I love these kind of bar on the street. Would never find something like this back in Norway. I did not buy a cocktail this time, but I have done it before.

Im really addicted to hat these days. This summer I will be better at using cute hats as accessory. I would love to buy the pink one in the middle, but no money, buhu.

Cute cellphone covers anyone??? One thing I love about Korea, is all the cellphone accessories! My phone has never been as fancy as in Korea. If you go here, be sure to buy alot of stuff for your phone.

After eye shopping in the streets of Hyehwa for a long time we decided to go back to our place. On our way back home we wanted to take a drink, its Saturday night, so we need a drink! 

I wanted fruit soju so we went to a Hof bar. Hof bar is a place where you get your own private place to sit with your friends while you eat and drink to you vomit. 

We ordred fruit soju, like a soju cocktail. I chose kiwi, and yoghurt flavor. While drinking we played a guess number between 1-50 game. One person thinks of a number, like say, 23. The other person get to guess 5 times, if person are able to guess he /she wins and dont have to drink, the other person with the number must drink. Or if loosing the looser must drink.  One of the few drinking games I'm able to play here in Korea. Most korean drinking games are too hard for me. They either consist of numbers, or rythem. Which I both suck at. Why do you have to be smart to play a drinking game? Then its no fun. (Ok Im blonde...)

Thats how we ended our super romantic date, like two drunks. Here we have our yoghurt soju, and an extra bottle of soju to make it stronger. You know you have been here to long when you want to make drinks stronger with soju. 

Anime Marita

 

My friend made a drawing of me, cute right?? Must find a way to make it my header for my blog. Love it. Thanks 

Bought a new friend

 

Because I'm quite lonely I bought myself this new friend in Hongdae. Now I'm not the only pink hair girl, I will bring this friend with me everywhere. My new bff

A walk in Hongdae (picture heavy)

Did some shopping and coffee shop visits in Hongdae yesterday with my swedish best friend. Thought I would share some of the photoes I took. Enjoy

 

 Went back to Hello Kitty Cafe to drink a Cafe Latte

 Hello Kitty photoes on the wall of their coffee and desserts 

 Hello Kitty Chairs

 Hello Kitty huge doll

 The wall outside the toilet

Wall Hello Kitty Hole decoration

 

Hello Kitty cakes

 

Hongdae main shopping street

 

New cap for summer?? Love the "Coco told me to do it" cap 

YOLO- You Only Live Online. Story of my life

 Love alternative styles in Hongdae

 Entrance to a store. Looks like club entrance right?

 Hallway to store, UV lights and dico lights with a sign " follow the music" 

The eyes are watching you

 Seoul is Culture

 Went to flower coffeeshop for our second coffee round

And lastly, ate world best Macarons. Sakura flavor, Strawberry and Chocolate/Caramel flavor. YUM.

Go to Hongdae for hidden treasures.