26. SEOUL SEVEN NIGHTS pt1

I'm still here in Osaka, and since this is the last night of my little trip, I chose to make a little post for that!! And as i'll go back to Tokyo tomorrow night and only have 4 more days left in Japan, i can't guarantee another post before being back to Finland. Every single night is full booked with seeing friends and partying, saying the last good byes once again. For a while, i mean.

It's already been so many times I've had to leave important places and ppl and i can say.. you'll get very used to saying good-byes. It doesnt hurt anymore. it's just... okay, bye, see you later some day. Cause you know that day will come, and you know nothing's gonna change much. Or that's what it feels like when you think about all afterwards, even if you used to think nothing would be as it used to be when you'll meet again. Mostly it always will tho.

Kinda deep talk huh? XD Actually i'm on a great mood this night, having my own private party with Vampire Diaries' new episode i still hadn't had time to watch (it was so greatttttttt), and i bought some drinks from konbini that's next to jenni's home and yeah!! Now listening to good music and writing this~

So I'll give you a brief diary of the days i spent in Seoul, and include say 2 pics for each day okay? So it wont get too long!

May 1st
Got to the Kansai International Airport two hours before check-in even started, even once i was on time somewhere! Mostly thank's to the night bus but wellllll. Got to the hostel and it was more cleaner i had thought, took a quick shower and went out to explore the surroundings. The area i stayed is called Hongdae, known of its MANY clubs and lively student life, so it was a perfect place to stay! Bought shoes and 5 rings on the first day heha. Then to sleep as I was very tired after travelling for so many hours.

Leaving home at Soshigayaookura station on the 31st.

Shinjuku at midnight before getting to the bus, love this pic (took with the iphone tho!!) and i hadnt took any pics of the hostel room (basically just the beds XD) so take this instead.

May 2nd
On the breakfast i met 3 japanese employers staying in Seoul too, and got invited to walk the city with them!! It was a good deal, since i really had no idea of Seoul and they even had a co-worker with them who was Korean, so she showed us the places pretty well and we had someone to tell us what we were gonna eat etc :DD First we took the subway (cheap cheap cheap) and went somewhere near city-hall station, there is an amazing river (which's name i forgot..... :----)) ) and some office buildings and shops, then somewhere quite near a tourist place called Unzadon or something (these all are the names japanese are using so there might be mistakes XD), bought some souvenirs (=food). Then it was time for the lunch, so we took a taxi to a fine dog-meat restaurant. Yummy, but if you ask about the taste it was kinda.. it didnt have any specific taste :o expected something more of it..! After having eaten we tried to go and see the imperial palace but it was closed, so after walking myongdong a bit (popular shopping area for young ppl) we went up to the Seoul tower to look the city lights and aaaa it was fucking beautiful. Here i had already fallen in love with Seoul and seen pretty much since it's not that a big city after all, and still had the whole holiday before me. iinaaa.

At the river, you can see one of the jpn guys i was hanging with in the corner.

A korean little boy

I hope my baby dog will forgive me this XD

On the bottom of the Seoul (N) tower, there was also a light show shortly after this pic was took!!

7,068.98 km away from Helsinki, above the city lights.

We still went to see the Nandumon(??) market at night before heading back to the hostel, but there wasnt too much anything. And yeah, more than 2 pics.....

May 3rd
I slept longer than others and then met them up at the subway after the lunch time, we went to the fish market in the south side of the city. Was so worth of going!! You could choose the fishes you wanted to eat and they 'cooked' them for you at the market restaurant, but we ate it mostly raw, actually it was only cut in small pieces so the fishes/strange-shaped-creatures were still moving when you put them in your mouth. Mmmh. After that the rest of the group met up with some foreign friends and went to watch a musical, but i went to see the Idae station, where my friend Anna had told they'd sell cheap clothes, and i really wanted to shop. Actually i ended up eating for the whole time but it was good food so :DD In the night an Indian man (who i personally strongly disliked and really had to work hard to keep my mouth shut and stop saying some very arrogant comments) joined  us to have a lunch and then we went to walk the Toodaemon market or something. Well well.

Some bunny aunt on the subway.

The fish market was nice experience!! Only when i went to the toilet and there were rats it wasnt that nice :_D

These are the guys we ate.

For the japanese ppl last night (see the indian man in the corner).

My beautiful nameless river at night.

May 4th

The first day alone in the city!! So it was time for some shopping at last! I also went to the Lotte hotel to book a trip for DMZ (demilitarized zone between north and south koreas) for the next day! But this day i only shopped and ate :D

Under the hotel there was a duty free where i went for a walk but couldnt afford anything

Myongdong, bought that top!

<3<3

Some rndm commercial at myongdong :_D this is for oona or someone if it's someone you fancy.

I still havent uploaded the rest of the pictures, but there's some hard core partying coming so hang on :DD I'll put the four last days to the next post!

Oh, I also confirmed my university place in London for the next autumn so i guess i'm going then...!! Here I come, british accent and new adventures!!! It will be fun to learn more about the western culture after having got to know the japanese one.

Here two songs that are just like my mood right now~ The first one i just discovered today, and the second one (selena gomez, i know... but listen to it the lyrics are good and actually it's the first song i ever heard from her :_D) i got linked in facebook some weeks before!! So listen to the both and cheer for the night.

never let your fear decide your fate

I say ya kill your heroes and

fly, fly babe don't cry

No need to worry cuz everybody will die

Every day we just

go, go, babe don't go

Don't you worry

Things you swear you'll do before you die

But you're too damn scared to fly

Come alive, let the moment take you, lose control tonight.

25. Exploring the world: Korea and Kansai

note: i wrote this on the 4th May, and am back to japan right now, staying at my friend Jenni's in oosaka. im not having my laptop connected to the internet so im using her friend Ansku's one, and am therefore not able to add any more pics D;; but now that im back to japan i promise more posts soon!! and more specific posts of the things i've been doing lately


May 4th, Blu Guest House, Hongdae, Seoul
Absolutely too long time after the last post passed, but i've really been very busy. My little sister came for a week's visit, and 4 days after she'd left two of my friends came to tokyo too, and during the whole time i've also been seeing my japanese friends and planning next year and huhh it's just been busy times. After the two of them went back to Finland, i only had couple of days left before this trip and every day was full-booked. So yeah, sorry. Since i've been doing that much it's hard to decide what to write too.. and to be honest, lately i've just not been in the mood of writing, or at least in the blog-writing mood. I think the blog should be a thing you cant wait for getting to write, and normally i feel like that but now i just had to force myself to do this >,<"

Yah. So i've been running around the city, trying to show all the greatest thing of my dear tokyo to the visitors. so much has happened it kinda feels i could tell nothing without leaving something 'important' out... or actually, it's mostly been drinking three times a week during the whole month, so nothing too interesting i think XD rndm pics here

another kapibara i happened to won when i bought some food in konbini ;w;<3 welcome to the family!!1

in a ghost bar in kichijoji

in our schools new university building ft mami

hachiko and cherry blossoms!!

in odaiba ft irisssss

statue of liberty

more sakura

umm... just some jpnese men in harajuku.. in school uniforms.. with stocking in their heads...

tidiiiiiii found this on my jpn phone when i looked the pics through

purikura ft salla and emmi

we went to the fujikyuu high land near mt. fuji! it has many world record roller coasters and was a looooot of fun!! tho it was clody so we couldnt see the fuji D:

haunted hospital that left me some serious traumas D::

Eeerm so I already tried writing this post once, the day before I left my apartment and came here via night bus and Osaka, so I just post the thing i wrote back then and continue after that!! yoroshiku.

April 28th
Actually i'm leaving tomorrow night (the night bus to osaka), so today i have to pack all the stuff and clean the room etcetc choose what to take with me for the trip since i'll be away for over 11 days (i dont have that much stuff anymore since my sister was kind and took 12kg with her back to finland XD) and more importantly, to get a new insurance for my luggage since the one i had when i came here has expired. And i still havent looked for any places to stay in kansai, nor figured out which days ill be in which city, nor which cities ill visit nor the bus ill come back with :____D leave alone the korea part, i havent even checked how to get to the hostel from the airport XD so its kinda a big mess, and today will be busy! but i like it that way, im seriously thinking of not booking any hostels before hand at all, and trying to just go with the flow.... to stay where i feel like! but well, always better late than never we say in  finland, that could be my life motto...


There's something i have done for preparation, tho XD yesterday i downloaded a hangul application into my iphone and learned the korean alphabet, so now i'll know i can read the names of places and not get lost at least :_D i've always thought korean is a fucking hot language and sounds intriguing, so maybe it would be nice to learn it some day!! i heard that it is very similar to japanese too, so i think it wouldnt be too hard ;3 no kanjis at least!!

back to May 4th:
Well, I ended up packing in the next morning before the Nekotalo-scary-woman came to check my room out, the last ten minutes before her coming were stressful, i had to vacuum and do the dishes and pack some small stuff and clean the toilet but i made it haha! And my friend Jenni promised i can sleep at her place in Osaka, ill be staying the whole time there and do day tours to kyoto and nara etc~ thank you thank you thank you (o^,^o) have already bought some candy for u yey. problems tend to solve themselves so i always think like that and stop stressing too much :D

Also, i booked the bus ticket just before leaving the house (i went back to my host family's and left my stuff there before the trip, i'll also stay there for the last few days of my stay in tokyo ;_; so soooooooon..!!). Have to admit i was kinda terrified of taking the bus, since in the same morning there had been two accidents caused by sleeping bus drivers, many ppl were dead and so on, so i couldnt sleep well during the ride lol. well, here i am, alive. at least before the next ride >,<"

So about Korea, then?

I love this fucking place!! Seoul is nothing i had thought it would be, it's a lot more western than tokyo o.o" not many high buildings or big crowds and the city is full of green, it could be an european city..!! inside the city there's a very beutiful river that you can walk along, many parks and FREE SEOUL WI-FI in many areas and streets. Then the prices....!!!! 15 minutes taxi ride costs about 3 euros. 3 euros!! one morning i bought a bottle of water, an onigiri and a cinnamon roll and it was about 1,2 euros lol. Some of the shops are open till 5 am, so you can do shopping very late at markets, but even the shops that close earlier are open like til 10pm. So ppl live at nights too!! goes for me :DD

What else...?
Oh, the ppl. imo koreans are much more stylish than japanese. So it's horrible to walk around, cuz every second person on the street draws your attention with their good looks :_D They're also taller and have bigger shoulders etc, look more 'western' by bodies. Also the atmosphere is more lively, ppl show their feelings more open (many couples for example, and these guys do more small talk). So actually there are many unexpected differences between Japan and Korea, as far as i've noticed during these couple of days.

For the negative side i have to say it smells like kimchi in here. The smell comes to you and stays in your clothes for the whole day, I didnt like myeongdong, the youth shopping paradise, at all cuz the stink was unbearable there >,<"

That's the only negative thing coming to my mind! but basically, seoul's stolen my heart. i would come and live here any time. seriously. the city isnt big, but it's so amazingly energetic, beautiful and classy at the same time, that i just cant not-like it in here! if it was a person i'd be in love by now.

Now that i've got this hard first-post-after-a-longer-while done (and ppl this was written on 4th, i just couldnt get myself to press the post button...), i can probably post again soon and tell all the things i've been doing here~ i can say the weather has been amazing (slightly too warm with humid 30 degrees on some of the days) and continues sunny until monday when i'll head back to japan :D i just have to wonder why i did took my mittens with me.....

Anyway, this night ill go out and grab a drink somewhere, just came back for a couple of hours since the morning was early and i havent slept too much. So that's about it, i'll give you the detailed report when i'll be back in japan after few days! aaaaa i just love my life right in this moment, i really have been happy during the recent weeks and enjoying every second. Life should be like this, you should take your stuff and head off much more often to some city where you know nobody knows your name and just walk the streets and eat. ah.

note: a little bit jumpy, ecxuse me. hope you got even some joy of it lolol