when did I come back? It was sometime in Nov. Let me think. Nov 11. Ever since then I can't recall a single moment where I had enough time to blog. ~gasp~
I've been wondering what to write. It's been such a whirlwind of pure fun it's so hard to put 'em in words. So here goes nothing:

2 days after I touched down at the airport, Dad offered me a job at his office. I was getting bored as. So why not? For 4 days I was the professional editor for this national seminar programme book that was held by UPM. Sat staring at Macbook everyday trying to nut out how to use Mac word and excel. It wasn't too bad actually except for the annoying mousepad. After a few tweaks, the speed of the cursor was bearable. Dad had to do some major re-editing for one of the tables that I stuffed up. But overall it was worth it coz I am now waiting for my pay of 50 ringgit short of a thousand ;) Not too bad ey?

The week I finished working was the week mom and I went to Korea. We barely had time to pack all our stuff. Only some food that could last us the whole winter (like d'uh mum being who she is ;p) but since my sister wasn't going, some of the essentials like lotion we totally forgot to bring. That night, we waited at the airport for 3 hours. An extra hour coz the airplane was late.

Getting to our hotel from Incheon airport took us 2 long hours. I really liked the bus (Hyundai). They've got major tech in shock absorbers. Super smooth ride. It was only me, mom and this Korean guy with a briefcase that took the same huge bus. Olympic Parktel must be really famous (pun intended)

Arriving, we could see the 5 circles that made up the olympic logo. The name of the hotel suddenly made sense. It was just beside the Olympic Park. The moment we stepped off the bus the full force of how cold it was just sank in. The jacket I bought for mom in Melbourne was too light. Thank God I had an acceptable sweater on. I reminded myself to kill my friend who said it was ok to just bring a light jacket, next I saw him. Annoyance!

Wait, I haven't told you about how big Seoul was have I? It is humongous! There's all of these freeways linking each other to other broader ones. Beautiful bridges, humble homes, cramped cafes, super stores. It was just awesome. It struck me how different Korea was from Australia. Especially the sky. I really miss the bright blue of Tasmania. At that time of year, winter to be exact, Seoul's sky was just grey. People were all wrapped up in scarves and warm clothes. Some even had gloves on. But this weather did nothing to dampen our spirit of shopping!

You could say that it was a shopping trip for my mum more than an educational one, which it was meant to be. I tried going through one of the sessions in the conference. I can assuredly tell you that I can give a better speech than that professor from Japan. His English was not as bad as the Korean professor. But it was bad enough to make me start yawning and start to play yahoo games on mom's macbook. Don't even let me get started on his slides. Awful. It was an absolute snore-fest. People were nodding off left, right and center. So after that me and mom swore not to join in again after that. Besides, like mom says, the presenters are all students. It's just not interestng enough. Ha!

The rest of our one week stay saw our hotel room occupied mostly by housekeeping missies. The 2 people who were supposed to stay there were only spotted by the bell hops and concierge hurrying out of the hotel entrance towards the Mongcheon tosong ( I swear mum never gets it right) station every single day, except for the day when they arrived where they felt so exhausted they had to get a bit of shut eye where upon waking up, they immediately ransacked the mini store (buy the way, nice play on words there, ahjumma) that was within walking distance (a long one albeit) from the hotel.

It was on the 2nd day, after pouring through all the guidebooks to find the Seoul Metro map, that we realized our hotel's location was the ultimate strategic place in Seoul. NOT. We were literally on the outskirts. Everyday we had to walk maybe 5 km to the said station to transfer to Jamsil(Chamshil- oooh I sound Korean now!)
From there we could map out our route. Being the good little sister that I am, I followed my big sister's advice on practically EVERYthing. From where to haunt for bags and clothes to places to eat. I'm glad to say that I covered all of them. Except for the Geong bok gong palace and Nami Island. That I'm saving for some distant day in the future when I'll finally be able to save up that much money for the air ticket. sigh.

This post will be long. I can feel it. Heh. 2nd day was Saturday. We met Lela at Hoeyon station. Moved on to the BROOCH heaven. Mom got so caught up with all the pretty, dazzling things so much so that I found myself wondering why I wasn't doing the same. I mean, I'm a girl right? What's wrong with me? I literally dragged my feet the whole way. All in all: I scored 5 brooches for the day as opposed to mum who had more than 20! After that we had some Korean food which burned my mouth so bad but I didn't stop eating. It was too good.

3rd day was Sunday right? well Sunday was a really good day. The night before, I was making plans with my former primary schoolmates. We finally decided on a time and which station to meet up. Lemme see it was close to 10 years since we'd last seen each other. 10 years! can you believe it? and we're still friends! hehe
So we met up at Itaewon station. Mom and me were late by maybe half an hour. We warned them we would be. (the breakfast at the hotel was too yummy to be left alone like that).

I was kinda worried that we were late. Hoping a bit that we beat them to it. But that was not to be. I saw Jihad and Liyana even before the ticket booth thing. Awh man, we ARE late. Dang these punctual Korean students! I didn't remember Liyana being that petite. I felt like this giant or something. And of course the stick thin Jihad was painfully anorexic as usual. Leaving me guessing what sort of diet and exercise was he on? How can you not put on any weight in 10 whole years? how? Me, I blame the genes. But anyway, it was really fun getting to see your childhood friends again. Happy :)

First we devised this plan to go to Itaewon, Gangnam and then maybe to Insadong if we had the time. My little sister's list determined our destination. Went to Itaewon first to find the eel handbag and wallet Camelia's mom wanted. I sure as hell hope that she will like it. If not I'm gonna scream bloody murder. And then keep the stuff to myself.

Okay I'll skip the nitty gritty stuff and give a condensed version of it. Went to Gangnam back to Itaewon and then to Myeong dong. By the time we reached our hotel, mommy just lied on the bed, didn't move an inch. So tired was she. Poor mommy. Thank you for indulging your daughter's whims. You did leave it all up to me anyway. huff

The next 2 days: shop shop and shop again. I just love Korea.

I think I'm getting tired of hearing myself write. I'll just stop here for a moment. Just flip through my memories. Aaaah what a great time we had mom. Thank you so much. Love you!