We had Korean street food last night, it was been a long time since we had them, way back in downtown we have street food every week but since we moved here we always have BHC chicken.  Anyway I went to the nearby canteen where street foods are sold, there are already plenty of customers most of them are students buying their snacks before heading home.  I waited for my turn to give my order, with the help of a tong I am able to add the food I like when the owner can’t figure out how many I wanted.

Cheese sticks are my husband’s favorite, we usually buy bags of cheese sticks in supermarket and we cooked it ourselves but when I discover that cheese sticks were also sold in the street and they taste better than the cheese sticks in the supermarket we stopped buying bags of cheese sticks and if we are craving for it we just head to the nearby canteen. I also bought 2 sticks of fried tteokboki.

Aside from cheese sticks I also bought fried sweet potato, stuffed peppers and dumplings (mandu) as it was already getting late only few are left in the tray so I took them all, my husband told me not to get over board but dunno if I did.

It is holiday in Korea since yesterday because of the celebration of Seollal or Lunar New Year, my husband and I shopped for marinated pork meat to grill at Nonghyup supermarket like what expected the supermarket is giving food trays to every shoppers. We are asked to get one but we declined because we are moving soon and we can’t use it.

[Image from Google Search]

Korean New Year is the first day of the Korean lunar calendar. It is one of the most significant traditional Korean holidays. It consists of a period of celebrations, starting on New Year’s Day. The Lunar New Year celebration lasts three days.

The three day holiday is used by many to return to their hometowns to visit their parents and other relatives, where they perform an ancestral ritual called charye. It seems most of the occupants in our apartment building went home to their respective ancestral homes because it is quite empty unlike the normal days, most shopped are closed as well.

Last Sunday I went to downtown Icheon and after shopping at Daiso I walked through the shopping street and look around what’s on sale. When I reached Watsons I was tempted to go inside but thinking I just spend $30 in Daiso and shopping in Gmarket is cheaper it stops me and I continue walking until I reached Naughty Cat accessory store. I was also tempted to go inside but thinking I don’t need anything from the store I continue walking but seeing a newly opened shop beside Dickies stops me. The shoe store was gone already, the last time I passed it is under renovation and now a new shop is already opened. Within four years in Icheon I already see how shops closed and new shop open, business is not good all the time. I just took a picture of the newly open ARTBOX shop and go, but after a few steps I walked back and went inside the shop, the impulsive me can’t control myself again. I have thought from the shop name I can find Korean art inside like cards, stationaries or other items to display.

There’s  a lot of shoppers and curious shoppers inside, I took a small shopping basket thinking if the items are cheap, I can buy a few but I have already reached the end of the store I can’t find anything good it is basically like Daiso but the items in Artbox are more expensive and most of the items have no prices written on them which is quite a turn off,  I will not pick an item I like and be surprised of the cost when I have to pay, I should say Artbox is more about Olive Young, Naughty Cat, Daiso and Barunson combine, which are all few meters away from Artbox.

Artbox have beauty and makeup section, accessories, school supply items, bags and luggages, candies and even few house supplies like in Daiso.  I have to walked twice on the shelves to see what’s good, when I found scented candles I took two of lavender scented candle. My husband wishes the other night to have a lavender scent in our apartment so he can sleep, there are times he can’t sleep and it makes him grumpy in the morning.

I continue checking the aisles again I maybe missed something, I went to perfume section and try the tester. I tried four different perfumes and I am about to buy the scent I’d like when I found the cheaper perfume below the display cabinet, it has been just too bad there’s no tester for them. Oh well, I just follow my instinct and  pick the purple box and went to the counter, service is not that great, a little slow. I spent about $18 for my haul after paying I left, while walking I saw Missha on holiday sale and it didn’t stop me to check what’s for grab, I spent too much already for one day, it should be enough.

Looking at the photos I took, it seems I missed to visit the second floor section of Artbox, I’ll probably check it next time I went to downtown.

Since we moved in Shinha-ri I seldom go to Icheon downtown, I only visit once a week when there’s no frozen chicken breast anymore for my husband daily meal. Unlike when we still lived in downtown Icheon, I can wander around three or four times a week to shop, go to the gym and pay the bills.

If I felt like walking the long way I get off at the Seolbongsan bus stop and from there I walk to the shopping streets back to the bus terminal where I should get off on the first place.  That’s what I did last Sunday, I walk through the traditional market to shopping streets, every Sunday is market day so the market was full of people, selling and buying local food.

When I am around the market I always went to Daiso to check what’s new and if there’s an item that interests me, when I saw bubble wrapped displayed outside I immediately took one roll, I need it for wrapping my box and probably could use it too to wrap our windows to avoid cold air entering our apartment.  Daiso was quite busy there’s a lot of Christmas shoppers and just ordinary shoppers, every time I visit Daiso my first stop is the school supplies aisle. I picked some oil pastel colors, my godson’s in the Philippines will like them, I will include them in the box I need to send home in a few months time. Aside from oil pastel colors I bought other stuff like color sand, clay, pens, shoe laces, colorful makeup case comb and earphone.

Most of the items I bought I don’t need like color sand, the makeup case, shoe laces, clay and pens. I just bought them because  I found them cute, cheap and colorful, hopefully my family will find a use for them. If you will ask my husband about my shopping loots these are junks and I am just wasting my money.

When I went out last Wednesday to workout in the nearby M2 gym I was surprised to see snow in the ground and even blurted about not knowing that there is snow fall.  My husband who’s with me told me it snowed at night which I regret because I was not able to see the first snow fall this year.

So when it snowed yesterday, I didn’t let go of the chance not taking photos of the ground.  When my husband go to school, I walked with him thinking he can snapped few photos of me in the snow but I was not lucky because he was in hurry. So I just snapped photos around and went to bus stop, I went to downtown to buy frozen chicken breast at the Korean Mart.

Instead of going down in the bus station stop I went down at Miranda Hotel and walked to the nearby park to take some photos and have some adventure. I walked around for few minutes before walking down to the bus terminal.

The snow fall was heavy, every one around me has umbrella and all I got is a camera.  I went directly to Korean Mart to buy the chicken and went straight to bus stop, while waiting I decided to buy  잉어빵 (Bungeoppang) it is a sweet snack sold in the street in the shape of fish (carp), made of flour and bean paste. While waiting I tinker my phone and got an email from my husband telling me to buy donuts from Dunkin Donuts if I am still in downtown and if I am already at home ignore it.  So I waited until I got my order and walk back to bus terminal, there’s a Dunkin Donuts in the terminal it is nearer to buy there than going to the Dunkin Donuts near Watsons.

When I went inside the Dunkin Donuts I was overwhelmed because they have a lot of flavors unlike the one near Watsons where they only have few flavors and it is always the same thing every time I visited the shop. I immediately took a tray and started to pick the donuts I desired. My husband asked me to buy a dozen but I bought 6 more additionally using my own money of course, my husband will not be happy if I go overboard on what he asked.

I went back to bus stop and luckily within few minutes bus #8 arrives, the bus is full and the entire trip is quite slow because of the snow in the road.

What is amazing living in Korea is you just wake up one day and there’s already a church in your neighborhood.  Last Friday, when I look outside our balcony this is what I see, men busy fixing something  at the nearby building where NKIDS English School was situated, M2 Gym was also in the ground floor of this building.

When I zoomed my camera to see what’s happening or what’s new store/club they are working, I was surprised to know it’s  a church, Good Neighbor’s Church as it reads.

When we go to the gym that night they are still busy fixing something in the rooftop and when we went out everything is ready, the cross is well lighted up, definitely the church is ready for service/mass soon.

When we we out for the gym tonight I was surprised to see Christmas decorations adorned in  trees in our neighborhood.  In our old neighborhood we can’t really feel it is Christmas because there’s no decorations like this, we will just be reminded that Christmas is coming when we happened to walk in the shopping street where few stores has Christmas ornaments other than that, it was just  a normal day or celebration.

Well, we can’t really feel Christmas in Korea because every Christmas we are out of the country but not this year I guess. This year was our last Christmas in Korea as we are leaving in a few months time. 🙁

Life became so busy for me these past few days, I have client to attend, writers to wait and bloggers to follow-up and when I am finally free from stress I felt so tired and exhausted.  I had a terrible headache that cause me to vomit what’s in my stomach, looking at my laptop causes eye strain and add more pain to my head.

When I can’t take it anymore I went to eye clinic near us, I took the single chance that the optometrist  maybe can speak English but I am not lucky he can’t speak and understand English, same as me I can’t speak Hangul nor understand. Oh well thanks to Google Translate installed on my phone and everything went well, honestly before I came in I have already translated “eye test, eye check-up” in my phone so when I have asked if he can speak English I just handed my phone and he guided me to the machine to check how bad my eye problem is.

I was told that I have many visions which mean my eye problem was not that severe but I really wanted to have an eye glasses when I am using my laptop so I have told him about it, we tried different lenses while reading the ABC’s. Every time he changed the lenses on the eye glass that he asked me to wear, he will ask me “Bright?” well I think he speaks little English ah.

Anyway to cut the story short, we choose the frame that will look good to my face. The optometrist was very helpful when I asked him if it looks good or not, I choose an eye glass with square frame, light and scratch free. I pay 100,00o won for the lenses and frame, discount is included.

These past few days the temperature is getting colder and when I look outside our balcony window the color of the trees changed rapidly from the last time I have seen them.

The leaves of the cherry blossoms turns read during autumn season, I have asked my husband if we could do autumn hiking so I could get pictures of the beautiful trees.

I have finally taken a photo of the newly painted Shinha-ri Elementary School,  the painting of the school was started a month ago but I am always in bad time whenever I tried to take a photo, if not humid or mist on my lenses I forgot to bring my camera with me, I can’t use my phone because  I don’t know if I can zoom it.

Last month my husband informed me that the air conditioning unit on his class was not working, not because it was broken but because the school control the power and it was always off.  It was very uncomfortable to teach when it is hot so my husband requested for a stand fan, we both thought that the school implement the policy of no air con, and I even told my husband maybe they are losing funding because they just repainted the school but it turns out the order came from the authorities requesting workers in government offices to turn off the air-conditioning and avoid using elevators to prevent shortages of energy/power because of the heat wave.