This post was written way before the published date. Haven't gotten all the photos yet, but I figured I shouldn't delay this any longer, so here goes...
So I just came back from my 8 days Korea trip with my volleyball team at 1am today and I was wondering if anyone missed me...HAHAHA, right. I was unpacking my luggage halfway and I gave up, so I used my macbook till I dozed off at 4.30am. I woke up surprisingly early at 1pm, cos really I had lack of sleep for the past 7 nights in Korea, but guess what, I fell asleep on my macbook at 4pm HAHA. I could use some time to get used to the time lag (which is only one hour difference btw) and the temperature. I learnt to not take Singapore's temperature for granted because the dry winter season made my skin so bad I'm having crack patches on my skin everywhere! Or maybe my skin just weren't used to the changing seasons. I do like the winter season, the scenery, the snow and goosebumps from feeling heat instead of coldness in SG, just that it makes my skin really bad. And I added something to my bucket list during this trip, and that is to celebrate X'mas in a snowing country.
So I just came back from my 8 days Korea trip with my volleyball team at 1am today and I was wondering if anyone missed me...HAHAHA, right. I was unpacking my luggage halfway and I gave up, so I used my macbook till I dozed off at 4.30am. I woke up surprisingly early at 1pm, cos really I had lack of sleep for the past 7 nights in Korea, but guess what, I fell asleep on my macbook at 4pm HAHA. I could use some time to get used to the time lag (which is only one hour difference btw) and the temperature. I learnt to not take Singapore's temperature for granted because the dry winter season made my skin so bad I'm having crack patches on my skin everywhere! Or maybe my skin just weren't used to the changing seasons. I do like the winter season, the scenery, the snow and goosebumps from feeling heat instead of coldness in SG, just that it makes my skin really bad. And I added something to my bucket list during this trip, and that is to celebrate X'mas in a snowing country.
Ok, I'll cut the crap and blog about the 8 days I spent in Korea ok!
Day 1
(I don't really know how to count the day thing cos we take an overnight flight and it's kinda confusing, so my Day 1 is from 1 Dec to 2 Dec.)
I remembered not being very excited for the trip. It's like I wasn't even halfway through packing my luggage on the day of the trip itself. I did last minute shopping just a few hours before fly off. Before the last minute shopping, I even went for a family gathering to celebrate my relative's birth of her 3 month old daughter. Not to forget I found out an AJC student that I see quite often in school happen to be my cousin, and it's not even that distant cousin, he's my grandfather's sister's daughter's son. Ok, I don't really wanna talk about it cos it's so funny and awkward, and I don't know how to face him in school.
It was when I finally reached the airport that I start to feel excited for the trip. I remembered vividly how all the rest of my teammates were surrounded by their family members while I'm alone. My parents didn't worry much about me probably cos it's not the first time I travelled myself without them. This is I think the third or forth time already. I managed to get a couple seat with Weisze right at the back of the plane near where the toilets were. I kinda like it cos it was much more spacious. I caught the movie Ted on the plane and ate Bimbimbab (Korean mixed rice).
It was when I finally reached the airport that I start to feel excited for the trip. I remembered vividly how all the rest of my teammates were surrounded by their family members while I'm alone. My parents didn't worry much about me probably cos it's not the first time I travelled myself without them. This is I think the third or forth time already. I managed to get a couple seat with Weisze right at the back of the plane near where the toilets were. I kinda like it cos it was much more spacious. I caught the movie Ted on the plane and ate Bimbimbab (Korean mixed rice).
(photo credits not mine)
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| My small luggage that I so regretted bringing. I should have brought a bigger one. |
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| AJVB GIRLS |
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| AJVB BOYS |
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| After we removed after contact lenses. |
After about 6 hours on the plane, we touched down at Incheon Airport in Korea at around 5am. Korea time is one hour later than SG time. We all felt the chilly breeze when we stepped out of the plane, and knew immediately this weather is not a joke. We had fun breathing out cold mists from out mouth though. HAHA
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| On the bus on our way to eat our first meal (breakfast) in Korea! |
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| Udon for breakfast. I don't really like it. |
After breakfast, we had a few hour bus trip to some memorial place that we are all not very interested in. The only thing we enjoyed doing was trying to throw pebbles into the frozen pond in an attempt to break the ice...and we failed terribly. LOL, after that we were all just really eager to get back into the bus cos the weather was too cold for us to bear. It was so cold we could barely feel our fingers and toes! Not forgetting our annoying long hair that keeps sticking to our faces due to some static forces.
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| This really healthy wine chicken soup thing. There's rice and ginseng inside the chicken. I found it quite tasty except the fact that the chicken bones were really annoying, but my team mates didn't really like it. |
And finally...we reached the hostel. I remembered it was night time when we reached the korean girls' hostel and they all rushed down to greet us immediately, then helped us with our luggages. They carried the luggages up a flight of rock stairs that takes approx 50 steps. We were all complaining about how dangerous and tiring it was to climb the stairs, but guess what, we climbed it for 8 days. HAHA, dinner was fine I guess, can't remember what we ate. All I remember was there were kimchi, cos they serve kimchi for EVERY meal. And I don't even like it. It was my very first time trying it though. And we had purple rice for all our meals. Our meals were all served in metal bowls and we had to eat it with Korean stainless steel spoon and chopsticks, and it's not easy to use the chopsticks cos they were flat.
Anyway the hostel turned out to be very different from what we expected it to be, and I was roomed with Queenie Weisze and Xinyi instead of Joey which was the original arrangement. I shared a double decker with Xinyi where I slept at the top (which resulted in my head banging onto the ceiling quite a number of times), while Queenie shared a decker with Weisze where Queenie slept at the top. This arrangement (both me and Queenie sleeping at the top) turned out quite fail as well, cos Queenie and I sleep alot and we could barely get up in the morning. When there's morning call, I'll look over to find Queenie still sound asleep, so I tell myself I still have some time to sleep. SURPRISINGLY, Queenie does the same thing and that's the reason why we both ALWAYS wake up last and end up rushing for trainings. HAHAHA.
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| We don't say 'no' to ice cream, even in -3 degree celcius. |
After we settled down in the hostel, the korean players brought a few of us out to the family mart nearby the hostel to get some snacks and we had ice cream in -3 degree celcius! HAHAHA, so cool and nice to slowly indulge on my ice cream without having to worry about it melting!!!
Anyway the bed I was sleeping on belonged to the setter in the korean team. The coached claimed that she's korea's number one setter. OK I don't know if he's kidding or not, but her skills is undeniably good. So I'm really honoured to be sleeping on her bed.
The first night's sleep was unbelievably good. Most of the time when I'm in an unfamiliar place, I'll have difficulty falling asleep on the first night.
This post on Day 1 turned out longer than I expected so I think I'll continue Day 2 on my next post.
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