What's going on?

Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right thing.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm meeting the expectations of the people around me.

Sometimes I wonder if I need to care about meeting the expectations of the people around me.

Most of all, I wonder if I need to care about meeting the expectations I set for myself.

I'm constantly caught between caring for my own sanity vs caring for others.

I'm a worrier, a worrier about everything. I stress, I stress about everything.

I plan, I plan everything. I plan Plan As, Plan Bs and Plan Cs.

But life, life is not about plans.  Life is going with the flow, going with the unexpected. And I struggle, I struggle to fit into the unexpected.

I struggle to find my place, I struggle to meet the expectations I set for myself.

I struggle because I'm not perfect and I struggle to be.

And I feel like I'm failing. I have failed, so many times before, and I always get back up. So why do I still fear it?

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What's going on?

I have a choice

Life has its own way of teaching us lessons. Recently, it has been teaching me that life is short and we need to live it to the fullest. That phrase has always been so distant for me but recently I'm starting to get it and I can only hope that I'll remember it well. 

We only have 86,400 seconds of each day to spend, and every day, that timer resets to give us another chance to choose how we want to live our lives. Today, I got angry about something but after remembering this, I stopped. Why should I let something superficial affect me when I have the choice to be happy? I chose the latter and the anger faded.

I was also on a movie marathon at home today and I watched "The Devil Wears Prada". It's an old show and I watched it before but this time, the lead character got to me. Her job forced her to become somebody she wasn't and in the end she chose to leave, even though it meant losing something everyone else would die for. It is such an apt reminder for me to be myself, to live my life the way I want to, to do things with heart and not just out of obligation and to give the fullest to the people (and not things) in my life that matter. I hope I'm given the clarity with each choice I make in life and am constantly reminded of my purpose. I hope I keep these life lessons close to my heart, always.

Xoxo.

Seoul Part 2

Back in Seoul after Jeju and Busan for the last leg of our holiday.

We changed our bnb and decided to try another which was just across the road from the station. Behind the apartment was a restaurant which served yummy budae jjigae! We really wanted to try this after looking at so many tempting videos on social media and this proved to be the right choice for 2 hungry people!

Korean Army Stew - budae jjigae! 2 thumbs up!

After lunch, we headed to Myeongdong in search of more food and potential gifts to buy back. Didn't find any gifts we liked but definitely found a lot of food! Snacked and walked so much that day. 

For dinner, we headed back to Bukchon Hanok Village in search of this famous ginseng chicken restaurant that we couldn't find the first time we went to Gyeongbokgong palace.

Ginseng chicken soup from Tosokchon. Baby Eeyore eyeing the tasty hot soup!

The next day, we weren't sure what we wanted to do so we decided to visit the Namsan tower! 

Trekked uphill to the Namsan Cable Car station. Was pretty fun I must say - got to work for what we want! 

Spent a lot of time here because we didn't have anywhere else we wanted to go. We queued to go up the tower with 2 little children in front of us. We just couldn't help but be amazed at how cute they looked in puffy winter clothes, never get to see this in Singapore!

View from the top!

At night, we were out of ideas of where to eat - mostly because all the places we opted for were either closed or had moved, so we picked this random western restaurant that had a decent number of eaters. (Singaporean mentality - got many people means good)

Seafood marinara from dunno-whats-this-place-called... I thought it was really delicious, was cooked perfectly al dente! 

After dinner, we had gongcha. Gongcha in Korea is probably more popular than in Singapore, they have huge seating areas in their cafés! Their drinks are not cheap though - twice the price of Singapore's. 

After chilling and using free wifi at the gongcha cafe, we met Kyung Eun and went for drinks. 

It was our last night in Korea and of course we couldn't miss out Chimaek - chicken and beer! I really wanted to do a My Love from Another Star scene where Cheon Songyi would order chimaek and chill at home but it was not to be. We still had the real deal at the bar itself! Tried some beer but I had two sips and that was it, too disgusted with the bitter taste to continue. We ordered a mix of spicy and original chicken. The spicy was a lot nicer - though I was suffering from my burning tongue. 

That was our last night in Seoul with Kyung Eun! Shared a cab back after because we talked so much and so late into the night that there was no more public transport operating anymore. 

The next day, we ended our last day in Seoul at Apgujeong with lots of snow fall with big snow flakes! Having snowball fights with Sam was pretty fun (and brutal because we both no give chance!). We were the only two kukus running around the streets without an umbrella, perspiring inside our thick layers and getting drenched outside once the snow melted. But it was a really fun way to end our stay in Korea, I wouldn't have exchanged that moment for anything else!

Can't believe that it's been 6 months since we left Korea! Miss the snow, skiing  and of course the food! Can't wait for our next trip, whenever that will be! 

Xoxo

Feeling a little down today so I decided to think about things that make me happy. And I thought of this moment!

Sam... made me the happiest girl ever a few weeks ago. (:

After I stopped grinning to myself on that day, I asked him "Eh, you put a ring on me, I'm gonna annoy you for life, ok ah?" He answered "Sure!" -- hahaha I'm not sure if he can answer with the same confidence 10 years down the road but we'll see. <3

After the initial shock and excitement was over, I asked him how he afforded it, and then... I started crying. He didn't tell me how he did it, but I know how financially stretched he is to imagine how hard it must have been... )': 

Thank you love, for treating me like a princess the past 4 years, yet keeping me grounded at times. I never thought I would find someone like you. You have impacted my life in so many ways, and let me into every aspect of yours too. I just can't help but be super duper excited to spend the rest of my life with you. (: Love you baobei. 

Xoxo.

Jeju Part 2

During our time in Jeju, we stayed at this inn called Breakfast at Tiffany's. The owner, Mr Chung, was very kind to help us plan what to do after finding out what we generally like to see and how much time we had in Jeju. 

For a start, he recommended this viewing point, 1km up Hallasan. As we drove higher, the scenery started to change and trees turned from green to white. It was beautiful, cold, but just what we liked. 

Once we reached the viewing point, we took a stroll on the boardwalk. Frozen streams, swamps, and trees branches were layered in snow - presenting a brilliant snowball-throwing opportunity for the bf where I was the unfortunate victim.

This was taken just after he threw one at me. It probably hit me while I was taking this shot. -.-

After Hallasan, we went to the Jeju stone park. I found out that we had to pay and we didn't want to so we walked to the carpark, climbed up a small wall and took this shot. This was only a small part of the stone park but this also affirmed our decision to not pay to go in.

According to the description, each of these stone structures represents past generals in the army. Not sure why there were so many of them though. Go google.

After the stone park, we made a visit to the Dongamburi crater. I think Iceland's volcanoes fascinated us (since we had 2 just behind school) so we wanted to see how a volcano in Korea would look like. (Sorry no volcano pic, the crater looked like a forest)

Since we already jammed packed our day with site visits, we decided to go for one more - the Seongsan sunrise hill.

It was a really nice peak to visit, especially since we climbed up when the sun was about to set. 

My handsome boy and me! ^^

What a view!

Descending

The next day, we decided to have seafood soup! This soup was sold everywhere in Jeju and this particular restaurant was generous with their abalones, clams and crabs too - that's half a small crab in the soup. I think this only cost us $15. How awesome!

Next, we visited the Teddy Bear Museum, the very place we failed to visit on our first day in Jeju. 

Mona Lisa

Goong

Einstein and Sam

Steve Jobs and I

Bf was hungry so he bought some dried tangerine snacks to try.

Then we visited this place called the Jusangjeolli cliff. I was fascinated by the geography of the rocks with columnar joints. Just thought it was pretty cool to have natural rock formations that could form cool shapes repeatedly - tessellations! (Ok I shall stop the lecture here)

Of course, we also visited one of the waterfalls - can't remember if it was Cheonjeyeon or Cheonjiyeon, both sounded the same. It was too dark and there were no visitors left so we didn't spend a lot of time there. 

During our stay in Jeju, we got to experience teenie weenie drops of snow at our bnb resort and heard a woodpecker at his job on our last day too! The owner of our bnb brought in superb orange juice and even made their own jam. We just had to buy some back! All in all, we really enjoyed our stay in Jeju! Will share the last leg of our Korea trip soon! 

Xoxo.

Mid-week

You make me happy (:

Come home soon, I miss you!

Jeju Part 1

After skiing at Alpensia, we flew to Jeju the next day from Seoul. Our full day of skiing and travelling to and fro the day before, due to the ski resort being 3 hours away, made us really tired when we had to wake up early for our morning flight.

Grabbed some banana milk and bread to go in the morning. Felt like a kid drinking banana milk with one hand while pulling my trolley luggage across the street with the other. I didn't eat my takeaway because I felt sick with a headache but thankfully we both managed to catch some shut eye on the short flight and I felt much better after eating my dabao-ed burger when we landed.

Unlike me, Sam ate his bread as soon as he bought it so by the time we reached Jeju, he was really hungry. Hence, the first thing we did after renting a car was to eat the famous Jeju black pork! I was a teeny bit grossed out by some remnants of hair still stuck to the skin of the pork - I never ate those parts. 

After driving a long way south to get to our inn, we thought we could visit one attraction in the evening - the Teddy Bear Museum. But it was closed! Oh well, I think this only reflects our absence of planning for this trip hahaha. We googled some more and found that the Alive museum was still open so we decided to visit that instead! 

Van Gogh and I

Lisa and A-lisa. Get it?

Bf trapped by the tentacles of a giant monstaaaaa

Bf made sea levels drop from a painting

Stuck in each other's reflections

Who is terrorising who?

Practicing what I would probably suck horribly at

Bf's amazingly easy one-hand hand stand 

King Kong's budae jjigae was obviously not tasty enough.

Someone barely trying to save me...

Literally on top of the world! This somehow reminds me of the Game of Thrones' moon door

This ends our Day 1 of Jeju! More up next!