Victory Korea

I didn't bother to watch the girl bands' World Cup MVs because they look ridiculous on the thumbnails. This one by Super Juniors caught my eyes in the major red outfits and the Dae-Han-Min-Guk wording on their T-shirts. More about what is attractive about the T-shirts after the video:



Dae-Han-Min-Guk is the name of Republic of Korea in their native language. It literally means the "great Korean nation (state)". What intrigues me is the use of Hanja (aka Chinese character 漢字) for the first word "Dae" which means "great". Why not using their hangul (Korean language/alphabet) that they are so proud of consistently in printing/spelling the name? Instead of 대한민국, they use 大한민국. Well, actually they do have all-hanja name: 大韓民國. Despites the little mystery in the use of word, I have to say the T-shirt looks very good and I bet my red-color-loving friends would love these T-shirts, or, the tank top XD
Or love it for the sake of Super Juniors, LOL. 


By the way I like the fact that they use their famous "Sorry Sorry" dance moves in this World Cup song (for people who click on the link to watch the MV, prepare your stomach for the pronunciation of the word "Sorry" XD). I can imagine the other girl bands are incorporating their famous dance moves in their World Cup songs as well^^ And yeah, imagine how funny/irony it is: if they lose, they can blame the 'sorry' dance moves that is incorporated into the 'victory' song, hahaha.

I admit that I like the beats of this song but when I attempted to listen to it for the second time I started to find I don't really like it. May be it is because of the typical-all-nation-craze-patriotism portrayal in the first half of the PV that got me, haha.

Okay, now I'm gotta off to study about Korean strategic issues instead of Korean pop culture.

Reading in Starbucks?

While I was still residing in Kuala Lumpur I heard from my friend about how tranquil and artsy (a high class feeling? LOL) to read a favorite novel or book in Starbucks, sipping coffee and enjoying the classic music played in the background.

Typical Malaysian coffee shop, "Kedai Kopi" or "Kopi Tiam"

(Photo source: ChanChiewSoo's blog)

Starbucks is overpriced in Malaysia and practical people like me never sees sipping a cup of coffee which is less tasteful than local coffee shops but with the price 5 to 10 times greater (no kidding). I only went to Starbucks for the first time at the age of 25 (I'm a dinosaur) with my best friend who happened to settle down in KL and also because we had not seen each other for ages.

Chocolate Lounge at Southern Cross Station, Melbourne

I never visit any Starbucks in Melbourne because this is a city known for its awesome cafés and coffee culture so we rather enjoy a tea or coffee with friends in some nice Italian or simply Aussie cafés. I believe Starbucks is not happening in Melbourne^^

So now, here I am, in Seoul, very surprised to see American franchise mushrooming at almost every corner of the downtown streets. After being treated to a coffee at Starbucks by chance some weeks ago, I realized the price is very reasonable and thought of treating myself to a read-a-book-in-Starbucks experience and see if I would like it.

On one cool, after-rain afternoon, I decided to visit the Starbucks.

Starbucks in Seoul, in between the Central governmental Complex and Sejong Art Center.

Not far away there is another Starbucks -_-"

And many other cafés with glamorous names around.

I walked in, ordered iced coffee and a piece of black forest cake, and chose a seat at the window screen (Mistake 1 and 2, see below). 

The black forest cake that has only 3 blue berries and the tasteless iced coffee because of the far too many ice cubes.

Mistake 1: Don't buy more than a coffee. Because of the inconvenience of carrying a bag with heavy book and the coffee and the cake at the same time to go upstairs, I was left with no choice to choose a seat nearby unless I risk losing my cake or coffee while walking up the stairs LOL. OK, may be this is only me.

Even a motor bike that is parked right in the middle of between two trees can make me feel "oh wow this is a cool symmetrical scene!" and prompt me to take out my camera. Si beh wu liao LOL.

Mistake 2: sitting facing the window is totally attention-distracting, so many funny things happened outside that I could not pay attention on my book. And being a photo-snapping maniac, I can't help to take out my camera when something interesting took place in front of my eyes. More photos in upcoming posts for "Overseen in Seoul" series.

Mistake 3: People talking out loud in Starbucks. I know who comes and goes around me. Asian-looking man and woman were speaking in English to my right. A beautiful OL to my left was retouching her make up and snapping photos of herself afterwards, and then she received a phone call and left. Then a bunch of ajossis sit down at the table behind me and were talking and laughing so loud that the whatever classic music that was playing in the background was drowned to mere mosquito buzzing sound.

I also realized the girl who sat next to me cannot concentrate on her book too. She later gave up the book and staring into emptiness towards my direction.

I always brought papers and pens with me so I wrote a reply letter to my friend while gave up on book-reading. So this experience is not too bad though, at last I'm not wasting my time^^

Try again?

Yes, may be! Just heard from a fellow research fellow friend that a Caffé Pascucci nearby our condo is a good place to study. So I shall give this book-reading-in-a-café another shot, and will make comparison between these 2 cafés^^

Caffé Pascucci outside of Yonsei University.

The only shot and it's blurry X_X

Until next time, xoxo

Overseen in Seoul 3

I have no idea if it is intended or unintentionally spelled that way... T_T

If not mistaken, this coffee shop is opposite of Manchester United Cafe and Olive Young beauty shop, somewhere between Jongno 3-ga and Jonggak.

On another note, check out this post and MV about a guy who makes flowers look ugly and his perfect beautiful features can make a girl cry. It's really exaggerated, I know. But this is K-pop. Sigh.

Spring in Seoul 2010

Didn't have time to update much about Spring cherry blossoms like other Korean bloggers did. Now that most cherry blossoms are no more (some are still in full bloom in some areas), only then I have time to upload the photos here T_T

All photos' copyrights by me.

At National Assembly (國會), Yeouido (汝矣島).

The "cherry blossom road" outside of the National Assembly, where the Spring festival is held.

Feel like eating the petals XD

Teacher shows the children: "this is 벚꽃". Yes, don't say "sakura" in front of the Koreans, haha. Nor "櫻花" XD

Class photo~

It's beautiful, isn't it.

Beauties with beautiful flowers.

Ajossi and ajumma also taking photos of flowers with their cellphone or camera. It's trendy to do so.

Unlike our experience in Australia, if we snap a close-up photo of flowers by the roadside or food on our plate, old gentlemen  will ask "why are you taking the photo of the flower/food?" like we're some freaks, LOL.

I'm not sure what's with magnifying the cherry trees.... o__O

But it's cool to have class outside of the classroom^^

Individual graduation photo? They even have the professional photographer to take photos of the students, how nice! 

Korean magpie 韓國喜鵲

They are in black-white-blue color, how interesting!