Books I read in 2023..
1. This Woven Kingdom by Tahereh Mafi%20by%20Tahereh%20Mafi.jpg)
After our not-so-pleasant experience when renewing Eugene’s passport in April. We wanted to try using online renewal this time around.
1st, we got Emmett's photo taken at an old photo studio near our house. Just a passport photo, shouldn't be that difficult, right? Wrong..
Then, I uploaded his photo to the online portal; for child below 18, you have to upload their birth certificate too. Payment must be made before you can submit your final application. Got an email on the next working day saying there was an error in the photo. No specific reason was mentioned. I suspect the orange color collar or the over-edited photo by the photo studio.
So we went for a 2nd photo taking, this time at a reputable photo studio in Satok. The photo was professionally done, not overly edited, and a dark jacket was also provided. I uploaded the new photo to the portal again. And I got another error email on the next working today. Again, there is no indication of what’s wrong with the photo uploaded.
So, what should we do next? Go take another photo? We already spent RM45 so far on the 2 photos. Might as well just go to the immigration office to find out more.
So on Wednesday, after picking up Emmett from school, we went to UTC Kuching. We reach UTC at around 3:15pm. All documents are ready in my beg pack: laptop in case they need the softcopy of the previous photos, extra floth in case Emmet’s shirt in case the one his is was wearing not dark enough. My IC, Emmett’s IC, birth cert, and his old passport. All has to be in original and also a photocopy.
There were not many people when we reached there, maybe around 20. I explained our situation to the Abang immigration at the reception counter. The Abang immigration was so helpful, he said these things happened. And he said why didn’t you just come here for the renewal? And I informed him of our not-so-pleasant experience before.
He said not to worry, we can complete the process here and take the photo on the spot. Pheww I was so relieved.
Every time there's always a drama when renewing our passport. I guess there are many things in life that depend on luck. There’s no point dwelling on it. Luckily for us, the whole process in UTC took less than 50 minutes.
Now that all our passports are valid, where should we go this year end?
I spent 5 days and 4 nights at the Hilton Garden Inn, Puchong earlier this month.
Everything about the hotel was excellent - clean room, fast check-in process, and yummy breakfast. However, the only downside was its
location. Despite being supposed to be connected to a mall, the mall was
virtually empty.
My room was on the 16th floor, Room No. 1621.
The view from my room was facing the housing area. Can you see the LRT Puchong Perdana Station, with the white roof in the middle?
My daily breakfast.
And on the morning of my last day there, I had a good swim in the pool on a rainy day. It was so calming, with no one else sharing the pool.
Will I be staying at this hotel again? For personal trips - no, but for business trips, why not, when you only need a good place to sleep.
This pineapple is a pleasant surprise.
Last week, while taking down the laundry from our back, I saw this pineapple almost lying on the ground. It was all orange/yellow, subtly peeking out amidst the sugarcane leaves.
Since it would rain soon, I quickly grabbed my parang and chopped the pineapple's stem.
Look at how big this pineapple is.
Dongdaemun district is known as the largest shopping district
in Seoul with a total of 26 shopping malls holding over 80,000
stalls.
We visited the Dongdaemun area on two separate
occasions.
The first time we went was on Monday late afternoon. We
took the train from Myeongdong and reached there at around 7pm. Our main purpose
was to go for an evening stroll along the Cheonggyechoen River.
While walking to the Cheonggyechoen, we were amazed by the
beautiful architecture of Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP), the well-organized row
of shopping malls along the main road, and even the 3D display screen looks for different here. We fell in
love with this area.
Back to our walk that evening, the weather was great, with a
beautiful orange sunset, we took plenty of photos at DDP, Cheonggyechoen, and
Heongginjimun gate.
We had our dinner at 9+pm at Dotta mall, and most of the
shops were ready for closing at that time, we knew that we had to come back here for more
shopping.
So the next day, we went there again at 3pm, this time mainly for shopping. Much of my Korean shopping was done here, and I
was overjoyed to have discovered a haven for exceptional, locally crafted
leather goods. I bought two handbags, a purse, a card holder, and a
pair of leather shoes, all were Korean Handmade. Besides leather goods, we also
bought some clothing items.
We're truly grateful we made our way to Dongdaemun-gu;
otherwise, our trip to Korea might have been a bit of a letdown with not much
shopping done.
Dongdaemun Design Plaza (DDP)
We visited Bukchon Hanok Village on a Wednesday morning.
As we did not plan to explore any palaces or temples during our stay in Seoul; Bukchon Hanok Village seems to be the best alternative for us to leisurely experience the traditional Korean architectural style.
We took an Uber from Myeongdong at 9:40am and reach the village at around 10:10am. Upon our arrival, the place was relatively quiet with not many people around. After look look, see see, and capturing photos, I went shopping at the souvenir shops nearby while hubby and kids had their cold drinks at a convenience shop nearby.
There are a few souvenir shops by the roadside, and there's also option to rent traditional Korean
attire available there. I bought several souvenirs here, earrings, fridge magnets, mail openers,
most of which have a 'Made in Korea' label.
After spending about 2 hours enjoying the village's charm and the weather getting hotter, we took another Uber ride to return to our hotel in Myeongdong.
From Noryangjin Fish Market, we took the train back to Myeongdong.
The weather was exceptionally delightful, with bright
sunshine. We decided to take a leisurely walk to Myeongdong Cathedral. It was
quite a journey, going uphill most of the way from the train station.
Once we reached the top, the view was absolutely stunning.
We took a moment to appreciate the breathtaking sight before proceeding to the
cathedral. We spent some peaceful time for prayer in the cathedral.
After more photo-taking, we strolled back to our hotel, finding our way through the bustling street market. Along the way, we tried 3 types of ice creams, oreo churros, shaved ice, and a super-high ice cream cone.
After enduring two days of rain, seeing Myeongdong packed with people on a sunny day was a refreshing sight.
Our vlog..
I think we got scammed here.
We paid 50,000 won for a king crab, 3 scallops, and a few sea shells for free. The cooking charges including plain water for drinking, few salad leaves and kimchi, cost us 45,000 won. The steep price for the cooking alone made us question the fairness of the pricing here.
We also purchased a big plate full of ready-fried tempura prawns + baby crabs + squids, at 20,000 won.
We arrived at the market early, a little past 10 am on a Monday morning. We had seafood for our brunch that day. Luckily the weather was fine. We took the train and we have to walk for about 500 meters to the market from the train station.
At the market, all the fresh seafood was sold on the ground level, while the second floor was meant for cooking and serving the seafood. We requested for steamed king crab and baked sea shells. The scallops and sea shells were delicious, so fresh with a hint of sea salt flavor. The king crab was impressive, but I think I prefer snow crab better. I miss the Sankaku fish market, Otaru, Hokkaido.
Despite these the high cooking price, it was a great place to experience the local lifestyle. Most of the staff here can speak Chinese, so not much of a language problem for me. This is where you can really see how the locals enjoy their meal. There's one table not far from us, 2 middle-aged men were drinking soju and eating fish sashimi, I think 1 of the man is drunk, his face was red and he talked and act like a Korean gangster in Kdrama. That is an experience worth paying for :)
After our visit to Starfield Library, we took the train back to our hotel in Myeongdong to take a rest before exploring another district. Initially, we considered taking an Uber back to Myeongdong, but we could not one, likely due to the rain and heavy traffic. After waiting for nearly half an hour, we canceled our Uber and search for the nearest train station.
To our surprise, the train station was conveniently located
just a short distance away from the Uber stand. We only needed to turn to the
other side of the building, and there it was. That was our first experience
riding the train in Seoul, and it was so easy to navigate with seamless connections.
At 5 pm, we took on another train journey from
Myeongdong to Hongdae Street. The ride was quite long, and we had to make
a transfer at one of the stations.
Hongdae Street offered a fantastic outdoor shopping experience. Unfortunately, the rain restrict our movement, we could only browse the shops briefly. Nevertheless, I managed to purchase one top and 3 skirts in Hongdae district.
Waiting for train at Myeongdong station.
So we visited the Netflix-famous Gwangjang Market in Seoul in May 2023.
Gwangjang Market also spelled as Kwangjang Market is one of the oldest and largest markets in Seoul selling mostly traditional Korean food.
Since it was raining that morning, we decided to Uber our way there. But we would have taken the train if we had known that the train station entrance is right in front of the market. It is so convenient.
We reach there at about 10am, and we have our brunch at one of the restaurants there. Not sure of the name of the restaurant, but there were photos of the Running Man team having their meal here, so it should be good.
Here’s what we had. The best one for me is the beef tartare bibimbap. It was surprisingly good. My 1st time eating raw beef.
We tried the potato pancake, but it was too oily, and taste something between hashbrowns and cucur sayur. I think our crispy cucur sayur taste better.
I also wanted to try this rice wine, and it was so good, sweet, and had no bitter taste. I prefer this to the Soju.. Makgeolli raw rice wine is a Korean alcoholic beverage. The milky, off-white, and lightly sparkling rice wine has a slight viscosity that tastes slightly sweet, tangy, bitter, and astringent.
I also tried the marinade raw crab, I had the spicy type. This is I don’t really like, I had a stomachache after eating this, not sure because of the raw meat or because of the spiciness.
We spent about 2 hours there. All in all, it was a great experience, thou there are few other foods we wish to try, we were just too full.
We have been to Japan 3x and Seoul x1, maybe if I have been to Korea 3x, my opinion would change.
1. The Bakery. The bakery in Japan smells heavenly. You can smell the fresh pastries from miles away, ok I was exaggerating. But seriously, I spent so much in Japan's bakeries because of their smell and tasted so goood. I didn’t even stop by any bakery in Korea cause I didn’t smell anything. Japan 1 - Korea 0
2. City Train. Seoul’s train is better. Lots of entrances, and easy connections. Clear signage and announcements. Japan 1 - Korea 1
3. Food. Generally, I prefer Japanese food. Korean food is more like an overpriced home-cooked meal. Japan 2 - Korea 1
4. Surprise elements. Japan offers more surprises for me. I really felt like an alien/culture shock when I first arrived in Japan. Which is a great experience for a tourist. So many wow elements. Japan 3 - Korea 1
5. English speaking. Generally most younger Korean can speak English, and some older ones can speak Mandarin. So not much language barrier for me. Japan 3 - Korea 2
6. Shopping. When I travel, I prefer to buy local, especially locally-made leather goods. It was so difficult to find in Korea, and not easy to search online. In Japan, they highlight more of their locally made product, in Korea, they highlight more LV, Channel, Prade, etc. Japan 4 - Korea 2
7. Pricing. In short, I trust Japanese prices more. I feel like somehow I got scammed in Korea, my bargaining skill is not good. Everything is just fixed price in Japan, easy. Japan 5 - Korea 2
8. Street food. This one Seoul wins big time. Myeongdong on a good day feels like a food festival street. We can hardly find street food in Sapporo. Japan 5 - Korea 3 (I totally forgot about Dotonbori, Osaka, when I wrote this. Gomenasai)
Seoul, Korea - May 2023
Sapporo, Japan - May 2019
The long journey to renew my son’s passport.
Day 1
Reach the immigration office UTC at 10:30am
Officer: Number dah habis, esok datang awal la, pagi tadi orang pukul 6:30am dah datang.
Me: Datang pukul 6:30 dapat ambil number terus ka?
Officer: Tak, number buka pukul 8am, tapi diorang dah beratur di luar.
Me: ok.
Day 2
Reach UTC before 7am, at 7:40am..
Officer: Buku passport dah habis, di Simpang Tiga ada lebih 100 buku tinggal, di Miri ada xx, di KL ada xx.
Ehhhh
Ke Simpang Tiga lah kita.
Berjaya dapat number dalam pukul 10am.
Selepas pembayaran pukul 1:30pm
Pukul 2:30pm saya datang seorang konon nak collect passport yang dah siap.
Officer: Kena bawa anak sekali, dia kena sign.
Adoi, what was I thinking, lost betul.
Day 3
Pukul 7:10am dah sampai Simpang Tiga office, notice board cakap counter buka pukul 7:30am, tetap kena tunggu sampai pukul 8am juga.
Dah pukul 8am, terus ke kaunter penyerahan, Eugene signed, siap, boleh pergi Korea sudah.
