Jeju Island, Korea 1.0

Finally, like finally, I pick back up the mood to blog about my recent travelings again! This year March, the bf and I made it to Korea! We were leaving on 15th March and the trip was only considered 100% confirmed on on 13rd March all because of the bf's fluctuating schedule. :S But anyway, thanks God we managed to make it.

It was my second time to Korea but first time to Jeju. I used to have the thought that all islands are small and can be done in a day or two but I was so bloody wrong with Jeju. Maybe given another 3 days extra we would complete it but too bad we had only 2 nights there. 

 Upon arrival at Incheon airport, first thing I did was to ditch my pair of boots the bf got for me and bought a new pair of shoes because the boots are hurting my feet badly! I can barely walk maybe because they are new or I don't know. Anyway, got this limited edition Skono at the airport and cost me around 300+ (RM) after conversion. Was a good purchase anyway since it's limited edition? 

Then we took another flight to Jeju. Rushed all the way to Gimpo Airport, I thought Gimpo and Incheon was near but then again, we were wrong. =) It's not like from KLIA - LCCT!! It's like double the distance or more.

We then checked in into our hotel - Little France hotel in Jeju. It was a really comfortable hotel except that the escalator can only fit 2 people at one time. First thing we did upon arrival was to take a quick shower and started to tour around Jeju as we have wasted quite an amount of time transiting here and there. 

The bed size was just nice for the two of us except that we had some blanket fight in the middle of the night and I won!! 

One of the best thing to do during winter would be eating ice cream. Fuh the ice cream was so so as it taste a little bit weird for me. Probably because of the milk the use. The bf had to buy for me because I ordered without even asking him, without a cent and he was giving me a dafuq face LOL.

First destination in Jeju would be visiting Cheongjiyeon Falls which also means as "God Ponds" for the Korean. It was okay for us as we had seen something even more spectacular than this. Entrance was 1000 won and we actually walked there. Took us more than one hour to walk there and I have to do sign language asking for direction along the way.

Jeju, as compared to Seoul, is like a serene village so please do not expect the people their to understand even the simplest english like most of the people in Seoul do. Be prepared to do sign language like a monkey or just get lost and take a taxi and you miss all the nice scenery. 

Anyway, this fall is not my favorite part of this trip yet. 

After getting lost here and there and visited the fall, by the time we left it was already near dinner time. So we walked around hunting for some awarded restaurants serving nice dinner. That's what the bf and I normally do when we go traveling: looking out for awarded restaurants or restaurants with super long queue. 

As we do not understand even a bit of korean, we gave up and gave in to a BBQ black pork shop in Jeju. Turn out, that restaurant was awarded twice by the Korean Government and is damn famous. Omg, how lucky were we. 

The appetizer. Bf is not a big fan of kimchi or rather, he dislikes kimchi. So I finished the kimchi all alone and it was like so super yummy for me. 

The infamous bbq black pork in Jeju. Black porks are from black pig of course. I'm not being racist here but definitely the meat are so much more tender, juicy compared to normal pork.

5 stars ratings for this!

Yours truly in a super packed restaurant

bf's favorite

With the owner of the shop. He thought that we are some stars from Taiwan hahaha and was so happy to take pictures with us. :P

See! The restaurant was small but it serves the best bbq pork ever! Anyone visiting Jeju please find your way there.

The front look of the restaurant, where people are lining up waiting to be seated. 

And as a glutton, I bought this snacks on the way back. Fried sweet rice cake. Best snack in Jeju so far. Yum.

Till my next post. x

And so april comes and goes, but my insomnia remains fml.

As time goes by, I'm slowing wrapping up my university life, though another 4 months to leaving this lousy place. I'm really excited with no tinge of reluctancy. One thing I'm sure of: I will not bloody miss this place, except for some really great friends I have met along the way.

Have been giving a lot of thoughts on my future lately. All I can conclude is I do not want to be in the engineering field for long. I've longed to run a coffee house myself, where its serve really aromatic coffee/latte/frappucino all day long and together with delicious cakes/cupcakes/toast/waffles/pancakes/pastries/scones. The coffee house will be three storeys with three  different themes for each floor: modern, vintage, the french style. Omggggg dreams but I will make it come true one day, hopefully not too long away but soon.

I'm not those type of person who can do the same thing for long, what's more with things which I have almost no passion in it. I love photography, but I do not have time for it because of my studies and other commitments for example, relationship. I love traveling but I find it difficult to find a partner to travel with except for the bf. What more it's tied to his working schedule. Speaking here, I think we are going to burn our Japan tickets. Damn work.

So, when I graduated, I really really want to do something which I have passion in, something which I love, something which I will be looking forward to waking up doing it every morning. For now, what I'm sure of is, engineering is not my cup of tea.

Maybe it can be a good start of savings but I won't be involved in it for long. 

Present, Past, Future

I have been really busy with my final year project, tests and assignments for the past 2 weeks. Even though in between, which some of you may know, I went back Miri just to see my family and to celebrate the boyfriend's birthday. 

To the curiosity of many people, how on earth can this girl whom is yours truly, me, spare the time to go back home with the continuously piling up workload while you yourself don't even have the time to take a puff, a proper shower or even a proper meal? So because of my frequent going-back home phenomena, I have been giving people an impression that I care less or do not even bother about my studies as much as other people do, or my course is simply freaking mad free compared to other courses. 

What I can tell you is, you are so wrong. So wrong that you should really face-palm yourself. I was busy and still busy. But I'm not that kind of person who can be productive or even work under stress. I have to work to study in a relaxing mood then only I can absorb the knowledge and theories behind every subject. 

To juggle with my going back home, studies, traveling and etc, I have been study really hard whenever I can, whenever I have the time. I go to bed at around 2am everyday, wake up at 10am if there is no class and earlier if there is class. I must have sufficient sleep. Then once I wake up, I would just sit in front of the laptop doing my work with full concentration, study, do notes as early preparation for final so that I do not have to read the same thing twice but read my own notes. In between that, I need to take a 15 minutes break so I would facebook, youtube a while which are my favorites. And if I completed my work earlier than I expected, I would watch some series. 

As I have the least interest in sports when I'm in the university, I do not do sports which I have another extra 2 hours studying when my friends go sports. I barely eat out which save me another 1 hour as I eat in room and do my project in the same time. I do complain to my boyfriend and my close friends that I feel suffocated being in room for too long a period sometime but I always tell myself:

This is what you have to pay for if you want to balance out between going back home, traveling and studying.

My batch mates do go back home every single weekend, some maybe every alternate week. But for them, I shouldn't go back at all because theirs are 2 hours of driving distance while mine is a 4 hours driving distance from the uni to airport, 2 hours flight, minus of the waiting time I have to spend in the airport, it's 6 hours, maximum I have ever spent in the car, bus, airport was 12 hours. But I feel worth it, definitely worth it to be back home for home-cooked, to see my family my cousins and my boyfriend. Its always good to be home.

So I always opted for midnight bus to the airport where I can sleep in the bus, wake up morning in the airport and with my laptop I'm able to complete another assignment while waiting for my flight, back home showered, took a 2 hours nap then lunch with boyfriend then visited my baby cousin and had fun with her. Even though it sounds really tiring but I'm pretty used to it.

Some may ask won't it affect my academic performance and etc? No. For me, no. Last semester I travelled really frequent here and there but manage to get all As and only one A- for final exam. So, I proved to certain people that they are wrong for saying that studying has always been my last priority in my life. 

I do admit that I have not much interest in engineering currently and studying for the sake of studying. I do not have the intention of working under people's orders for my entire life. I'm not that kind of person who is suitable to be a follower, I want to lead my own life my career myself. I want to be able to make decision on certain things. I want to do something which every morning waking up, I'm looking forward to it but not going to the office reluctantly. Life is meaningless in that way if you are to do something you are not interested in for your whole life. 

Then again, to become successful, I MUST learn how to be a good follower and a good leader in the same time, which I'm still learning. Today my friend threw me a question asking me.

"When you are old and at your 40s, looking back at your university life, what could be the most fun most interesting thing that you have done?"

He gave me a hard time thinking. And I still do not have an exact answer. But I know I enjoyed my university life a lot when I was in foundation, when everyone was very close. 

Me and another 2 females coursemates ever threw our bags outside the windows during lectures without lecturer noticing and sneaked out, went for lunch and went back room. Thats the first crazy thing. Me and another 4 friends: Jv, Meili, Arvin and Wison ever drove all the way from university to Ipoh just for a cup of mcd iced milo then drove all the way back again at 2am. Thats the second crazy thing. A bunch of us ever went out for a big night walk group and took pictures in the middle of the road outside the university. That's the third crazy thing.

I can keep going on and on. I did appreciate my university life but thats not enough for me yet. As we grow, we are becoming more and more mature. We stop doing all these things and be serious with our studies our relationships. What's driving us apart is the ultimate goal that each of us is chasing is becoming different and also bad rumors, really bad rumors. 

Something has to be done to change all this. As much as I miss the past, I know there is no reverse gear in the present, all I can do is to appreciate the present so I would not regret in the future.