Rant&Vent: Seoul, Korea. [Day1]

If you didn't know, I went to Korea for 5 days last month. This post is extremely outdated. I'll try to make this post (and the upcoming 4) as concise as possible. :)
Hopefully this blog will be here forever so my friends and I can come here to look back at the past memories we had in Korea. KOREA WAS REALLY FANTASTIC. I wished I could go back!

Sin Joo's parents came over to my house's car park to pick me up together with Richard before that. Then we made our way to Changi Airport. I was weirdly unexcited about the trip. However, I could tell that all my friends were super excited. Haha.
We reached the airport at around 9pm. We were supposed to meet our lecturer at 9.45pm. So we just sat at the meeting place and talked about what's in our luggage and what we brought to Korea, clothes that we will be wearing and everything.

This trip to Korea was organized by our Conventions & Events Management lecturer. It's an all-play trip, no academic requirements or objectives on this trip whatsoever. I LIKE. Before the final details of the trip were announced, everyone was pretty excited to know what flight we are taking to Korea. Is it Korea Airline? Or is it Singapore Airlines?

SINGAPORE AIRLINES ECONOMY CLASS. Well, it would definitely be much better if it's business class right, but we would definitely be paying so much more just for business class which I think would be more enjoyable than economy class. Economy class doesn't seem as bad especially it's Singapore Airlines, I thought. Since it was a midnight flight, and we had to sleep because the tour starts immediately when we land in Korea.

The flight from Singapore to Korea is about 6.5 hours. We took flight at around 12 midnight. The recline on the chair was like 20 degrees or something. I tried sleeping, but I couldn't. When I finally fell asleep, at around 3.30am(Singapore Time), the flight attendants served breakfast. WHO IN THE WORLD EATS BREAKFAST AT 3.30AM?! I was like WTF seriously. Nevertheless, I ate the breakfast. It wasn't that bad. Most people ate the fried noodles, but I had the spinach egg roll with ham. Wish I could have that for breakfast everyday. LOL.

This was the fried noodles that some of my friends had for breakfast at freaking 4am in the morning. Ridiculous. I tried sleeping again after breakfast. I failed miserably. The seat belt button keeps turning on because of the turbulence and I had to put my seat upright. I still managed to sleep a little. Just a teeny tiny little nap.

Then we saw light! We noticed light coming from the right side of the plane. What was it? IT WAS THE SUNRISE. OMG. THE SUNRISE. So beautiful. I could stare at it forever. I could stare at it until I die. LOL. Love the thought that we were above clouds. Felt so peaceful.

...and we reach Incheon International Airport.

This is Sam being all prepared for the cold. With her scarf and finger-less woven gloves. Seriously. We collected our luggage and went to meet the Korean tour guide.

Joo and I with almost no sleep. My eyebags get worse by the day. They look like friggin' dumplings. This was when I started to get excited about the trip. About the trip, not about my eyebags.

We went out with our luggage to wait for the coach to arrive. This is the thing about Korea's autumn weather. When there's sun, it's really HOT. When there's wind, it's really cold. Yeah. Other than that, when there's no sun or no wind, it's just cool and NICE. It was quite hot because the sun was shining at us, so Richard and Sam went inside some room to hide.

Our first stop, Cheong Gye Cheon Museum.
We had a 5 minute video presentation first, then we walked around the museum and tried to listen and understand what the guide was saying. It was quite pointless. We could only understand or hear number that she said. I feel bad for her:/
There were a lot of visual information so I believe I kinda got the story about the Cheong Gye Cheon River. It'll be really cool if Singapore could do that, but it's never gonna happen. WE DON'T HAVE SPACE.

I think they are very detailed at their visual information. Super interesting looking at all the scenario they re-made. I have to add photos of the guide because I really feel that she deserves credit for trying to explain to us about the history behind the river.

Actually I think she's super cute and funny! LOL. She would stop talking for a while and laugh and say something in Korean and continue again. She tried so hard! <3

Part of the Cheong Gye Cheon River! So pretty.

Our very first meal in KOREA! We had this huge steamboat thingy with shabu shabu and bibimbap. the shabu shabu was in a huge plastic container, passed around in our whole group. We were a group of 24 people including the Singapore tour guide and our lecturer.

After lunch, we went to the Korean Tourism Organization for some talk. Before that, we had time to hang around to take photos with some life-sized cardboard cut outs of Korean celebrities. I only recognized Rain. LOL

Richard has a dream. Of rice paddy fields. He wants to be a farmer. HAHA.
Korea has fantastic scenery that you'll never ever, ever get to see in Singapore.

It was a 4 hour ride from KTO to our first resort. We had a change of resorts 3 times in this trip. It's because of the different places we were visiting each day, and because Korea is not like Singapore, so small. The size of Seoul itself is even bigger than Singapore.

Our first resort that we stayed at. Every room has a pantry area, a living area, and a sleeping area. How cool is that! It's super spacious and we even have an area for us to put our luggage. After putting our things in the room, we went for a hot spring experience. There are no photos of it because, 1. The camera will get wet, 2. Everyone's naked. Of course I didn't go in naked, I wouldn't go in naked. It's so embarrassing. I don't want to see other people naked, I don't want to see my friends naked, and I don't want anyone to see me naked.

Some of my friends went down naked though, and they said that the locals there were laughing at them. However, the hot spring was really cool! There's this area where there are 4 different tubs, each with the digital thermometer so you'll know what's the temperature in the tub, and each tub has different medicinal properties. It's actually quite relaxing in the hot spring. However, you can't stay too long in there otherwise you'll feel a little light headed.

After the hot spring, we went for dinner! This meal was one of the best in Korea.

After dinner, we went to the entrance of the resort to take photos!
Without the flash, it looks like fireworks. Actually, they are just lights hung on round cut tress!

Then we went back to the rooms to wash up and have some chit chat time before sleeping.
I was the pink bunny for the first few days. After I got used to the weather, I stopped wearing my long pants. By the way, my pajamas are not a set. They were bought at 2 different places at 2 different times.
You should know, I'm very high when I don't get enough sleep. I didn't sleep the night before. I was practically crazy.