Adventures with me~ Hongdae

                    

(Short hair day because its too warm to wear extensions, and they should be washed, buhu)

Today I met up with my friend Sanna to go Hongdae together. It's one of the few times I've been to Hongdae during daytime, and not at night drinking with my friends.

 
We decided to meetup to eat lunch together and do some shopping. We ate at Sushi in Sushi, a famous sushi buffet (always a long lone to get a table). So if you ever are in Hongdae and want some sushi, go there! Its close to exit 9. When you see Etude House turn right and walk for 2 minutes. Its always crowded at Sushi in Sushi because its very cheap and has alot of food! Not only sushi, but also potato, salads, different Korean foods, cakes, fruit, beverage, waffles,soups, ice cream and so on. All these foods, and you get 1 and a half hour to eat as much as you are able to.

After eating and talking for an hour we went out on our shopping mission. Hongdae has alot of great stores, and one of the few places that sell alternative clothing style. Our favorite that we always visit together is Ultra Fashion. When we saw it first time we were confused if it were a clothing store as it said on the sign or a club. The whole store has a club feeling about it, disco light, neon light, club music and the whole package. "Is it a club or is it a store?" Why go to one if you can go to both?

After the awesome club store we just went for a long walk. And today was super hot outside so we had to sit down to relax. On our way back from the clothing store to the main shopping street near the sushi place we went to a small cute coffee shop where we bought some ice coffee and brought it to the Hongdae park to relax.

Our fun day together ended up with going to a condom store. You know Hongdae is alternative place when you find a store that sell those kinda stuff. These things are very tabu in Korea, and other similar stores here are well hidden without any windows and in weird places.

I ended up buying two tshirts, both on sale, cheap student here!! One for my boyfriend, a coke shirt, because he loves drinking coke too much. And a shirt for me with a unicorn print on. Maybe some have already seen my sweather which is almost same. Finally got the tshirt version! Yey!



If you want to check out the club store they do have a online store also.

http://www.ultrafashion.net/

Adventure with me~ Shopping

From today and on. I've decided to start with something new and exciting! (or not so exciting maybe...).I realised that I've take too many photoes, and too many videos and I share them with no one what so ever. So now for the first time I made a video blog. And before I show you my first ever video. I just want to warn everyone about my sucky english in this video. Because it's the first time I record when I'm all alone I feel so awkward talking to myself that I also start talking with a weird english accent, forgive me everyone! Weirdly enough, no one on the the street looked weird at me? 

So without more introduction to my first video blog. Here you go:

         


 

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

Just checked what people search for to find my blog. These are the most trending sentences on google when people find my blog. I thought my blog was for those curious of my life here in Korea. But I guess pedofiles are those who visit my blogs most often.

 

I just had to google myself to find out why 13 year old is the most searched. And Tadaaaa. Here I am. 

Well, I guess the reason why I got readers everyday are because of old guys looking at my photoes thinking I'm 13 years old. But....Im turning 24 years old tomorrow. I take it as a compliment that people think I look younger than I am. At least when I'm like 40 I will look 30.

Whats the most random people have searched to find your blog?

Cafe Drama~

I guess many of you already read my entry a long time ago about me going to Princess Cafe to dress up in beautiful wedding dresses? This time me and my friend Rebecca decided to go to a similar cafe named Cafe Drama, also located in same area as Princess Cafe.

The difference between Princess Cafe and Cafe Drama is that in Princess Cafe its only wedding dresses and Hanbok while in Cafe Drama you can also find costumes from different Korean dramas and also some historical costumes beside Hanbok and wedding dresses. The choices of gowns are bigger than at Princess Cafe.

Meny:

Same as with Princess Cafe you have to order a drink. I chose iced choco, the drink is included on the price when renting a dress. In Princes Cafe you must both rent a dress and buy a drink. This place had all kind of prices for the gowns, all from 15,000 won to 75,000 won! Me and my friend chose the two white gowns in the second photo, stunning dresses right? so Rococco! 

The price for our dresses was 30,000 won with a drink. We could wear them as long as we wanted, hours if needed! In Princess Cafe it was maximum one hour.

Dressroom:

 

After you chose the dress of your choice you will be taken to the dress room. Here the staff will help you with getting you dressed and also add accessories you want, like a tiara, or headpiece for your Hanbok. You can also pay extra and get your makeup and hair done also if you want some extra fun. 

Set:

 

In the cafe they got three different places you can take your photoes, you can use them all freely. If you don't have your own photo camera there they also have a professional there to take your photoes for you, but its pricy, but a fun luxery for those who got some extra money, or for tourists who want want professional pictures taken.  Me and Rebecca used the two rooms except the one for korean costumes.  

After getting dresses it was finally our turn to take some photoes (actually too many, guess we ended up with 500 photoes). Because we took so many photoes, we did get alot of bad onces. I will show you my favorite photoes of me. Be ready for some spam. 

My photoes:

 

 As you can see, the dress was sooo heavy,big and hard to breath in. Thank god I'm born 1990 and not thousand years ago. Puh

 Looks so royal right? This was my favorite background!

Just relaxing on my sofa...

Now some closeups in the pink area.Too much face...

Less face, alot better! 

Hiding behind a mask. Who is this mysterious female?

It's Marita!!!!


So anyone tempted to also go there to take some photoes? New Beautiful pictures to show on Facebook?

How to go there: 

 Finding this place is not so hard. Just go Ehwa Womens University subway station, go to exit  1 and walk for five minutes to you see a big intersection, then go right. You will see the entrance to Cafe Drama pretty easy.

When we went there we were the only onces there, but we went there early and in a weekday. If you are going in a weekend or with a big group of people you should just in case reserve time. To do so, and to check out their dresses, prices, meny and so on you can go to their webpage:

 http://cafedrama.cafe24.com/main.php

I would totally go there again if I get female visitors or something. Its super fun to do with some close friends. And I will keep these photoes forever as a good memory in Korea.

Long time no see

This blog have been dead for like 2-3 weeks now, wops....

I have been so busy with midterms. Sadly, I have gotten some of the midterms scores back already, and some of them is really bad. First time I've got a C on any test in Korea before ( a C in Korea is like super bad, idiot bad). Well, at least I tried even if my test scores suck badly.

After I finished my midterms I had another test waiting.  On saturday I had to take IELTS test, english test for those who don't know. Reason why I'm taking a english test is because I want to transfer to another university, but still same major and in same country of course. 

The test lasted like forever... It started 8 in the morning and at 12, four hours later I had a 4 hours break before my last part of the test, the speaking interview part. 

During my four hour boring break I walked around Dongguk University where I took the test. It was superhooot on saturday, at the warmest it was +28 C. When I woke up that day it was not that warm, so stupid me wore a long-arm sweater. I almost died while walking outside.

I had to save myself with going to the nearest coffeeshop I could find.

And oh boy was I lucky. I found a Tous Les Jours not far from the university. Mostly this coffee shop, bread store chain got very small shops. But this one is the biggest Tous Les Jours I have ever seen. I took some photoes because I wanted to show my boyfriend, but my phone battery died after taking just a few.

So much deliciousness right??

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.