131224 Express Bus Terminal

i was told the shopping was good here, so i had to come. i made some bad buys at incheon, because the same stuff was cheaper here, but oh well... =_=

we had a nice lunch at a mall just next to the terminal~

this spicy cheesy thing is good!

after that we went over to gangnam. wanted to also catch a movie but didn't see any suitable titles. there was a phototaking booth where they print your photos out though. interesting.

we also saw a place that seems to have cheap and good sushi so we couldn't resist.

thought the prices were all the same... but it wasn't. oh well, how can anything this good be cheap!

on the way back, spotted a group of christians preaching publicly. not even singing. oh well.

130212 SMLJ CNY

because i forgot i had to go malaysia... i left my passport with the embassy and ended spending the first few days of CNY by myself. no reunion dinner too. T_T

so i spent my first day decorating our lovely new house with all the wallpapers we bought from taobao. here's the living/dining room. took about 3hours to stick all those individual twigs and leaves.

 and here's my sis' toilet. cute eh!

then i spent my second day trying to dye my hair but the color didn't turn out very obvious (duh). oh well. i was so bored i also tried playing LoL. my id is 0iljimae0 for anyone who wants to play with me, but i'm really lousy at the game. lost at the first pvb game T_T

so i'm glad SMLJ made up my lack of CNY with our very own CNY gathering at denise's place! we ate lots of CNY goodies, curry and even had herbal chicken soup. and we sang non stop karaoke for almost 6hours. omgggg. think we were quite a nuisance to her family but we had lots of fuuuun~~

my dear laogong bought yusheng so we had a good toss as well... although it seemed that the fish was missing. but it's ok, we threw lots of ikan billis in anyway. as long as it's fish, who cares~!

since some of us had evening plans, those who didn't went for sushi dinner. alvin's great recommendation.

and WOOOOW. the sushi express at city hall is really awesome. $1.50 for every plate and they have so much sashimi! i especially like the big fat scallop.

and we ended up eating...

which isn't so bad for 5-6 person eh...? hahahah. and i'll definitely come back again~

Day 9 Lotte World

to be honest i don't really know what i was doing for the better half of the day.

but now that i'm typing, i remembered i was washing my socks.

sometimes i don't mind waiting, but give me an accurate estimate of when you will be done, so i can occupy myself with things while i'm waiting. if you're gonna take half an hour, don't tell me 10mins. because i could have finished an episode of my anime instead of watching the crowd go by. and if you're gonna take 2 hours, i'd sooner go watch 2 episodes of my drama. that kind of thing.

so we woke up, headed over to the office and i was told to wait 2 hours. i mean after yesterday's endless waiting, at least now i've learnt to ask before i wait into nothingness. so since it was such a long time, i decided i would wash my socks. my socks don't exactly stink, but it's stuck with random dirt. the good thing about winter is nothing you wear will stink because you just don't sweat. so you can wear the same pair of socks for a week and it will still not smell bad. not that i'm gonna do that... =_=

so we set off around 2pm thankfully, and reached lotte in time for the 4pm entrance.

it was surprisingly, super crowded. every ride requires at least a 20minutes waiting time, even the lamest ride of all. so we started out by eating popcorn. ahhaha. shucks. think this was a lotte food trip more than rides.
after we watched the very super short and mini parade, we decided to go for viking.

and it is a 20mins ride. and we got the middle seats (which is so not fun). the kids were all so not scared.

ooh but there was this very cute guy who looked like a mini jung il woo sitting just opposite at the corner. the camera can't quite capture him. he seems about 15. SO YOUNG.
we went to get the magic pass for sindbad while queuing, which is later on, not very necessary. but still.

we then went out to magic island to take the rides outside.

but horrors of horrors... everything was closed!!! except this 3D theatre. and we had to wait like 15mins before the next show started and it was freeeeeeeeeezing. perhaps that's why all the rides were closed.guhhh.

so this theatre is where you look at bizarre scenes (that are supposed to be scary) through a cat's eyes. but the storyline is just not interesting at all =_=

went back in thereafter since there's just not much to do. ooh passed by this mirror maze. this was the girl 00 went gaga over the last time!

and korea really has a lot of these visual interactive panels. here you can write your notes on their samsung notes, and it gets projected at the bottom layer screen.

we went on another 3D ride that's in the egyptian period, where cleopatra appears frequently. zz reminds me of my isis cos.

and it seemed that sindbad's queue was really short so we joined the queue when it's like 10 mins to 7pm. (magic pass starts at 730). managed to get in within 5mins, and came out just in time for the parade!

took a clip of almost all the floats here:
the onslaught of LEDs were really dazzling. i particularly liked the egyptian wings.

there was also this very cute dog running in front of us. just looking at it makes me laugh. hahaha.

right after the parade there was a kpop musical so we sat down to have a look.

they performed pieces from SNSD, Big Bang etc and had soundracks from Queen Seon Deok, F4 etc. it was pretty hilarious! i like the last singing/dancing battle, where they used synchronised with the digital background to enhance the effects. pretty neat!

since there was not much further to do and the good rides still needed at least 40mins, we decided to head out and have dinner. didn't get to take a single roller coaster! T_T oh well.

spotted lotte mart and did all my ramen and kimchi shopping there. ended up with a hell lot of stuff to carry. we also ate our dinner there, at a sushi conveyor belt. at just around 10+ plates (less than 15 plates i'm sure). however the total went over 36k. omg. remind me to never have sushi again in korea, even if it's nice!!!

with all our plastic bags, we went to search for our bus station (oh why do we always end up doing this?!). i bought a pair of boots on my way out since my sole was falling out, and threw the old pair away. then we walked out and back and realised we were lost. finally managed to find the bus stop after like 15-20mins to walking/running about. T_T i must remember my route next time...

i ate the spiciest cup ramen that night - yes, you finally get to torture me, so happy eh... =_=

6th september
managed to get about 2 hours of sleep before i realised i was late!! it's hoeman's last day in tokyo so i quickly changed and went over asakusa to meet him about 1030am. (where he thought i was going to kuramae and waited at the wrong place instead.) eventually we managed to meet around 11am, where stella and jiayi was already on the way anyway.
but we did get to walk kaminarimon and i encouraged hoeman to get an omikuji, which is some luck charm. hoeman really had very horrible luck. it's the middle bad luck charm. i almost died laughing reading the contents

and for bad luck charms, you have to tie them to this rack so your bad luck goes away

then we met up with the taiwanese and headed to a kaiten sushi for brunch. hoeman ate all that he wanted - sea urchin, fat tuna

i had some horse sashimi (it says horse, but maybe it's really fish?)

then we went to where hoeman stayed at - j-hoppers hostel and slacked there for a while, before we sent him to the station.


around 1pm, it was goodbye tokyo and welcome america for hoeman.
i spent the rest of my day walking around asakusabashi (for zephyr and some craft beads), then at akihabara with stella and jiayi (since it was all within walkable distance) before i headed home around 6-7pm since i was getting a headache from lack of sleep.

the next day i went over early to asakusa to look around kappabashi - the food street. if you want to start a food business, it's good to come here cos they would have everything you'd every need - food clay art display, utensils, furniture, shop name, etc etc

some museum display along the way

huge curry rice!

huge campbell soup (edible...)

and huge sushi

it say 1,2,3,4... 10

see the ghost?

takoyaki comes alive!

tdbits!

uniforms

and a huge beetle... but it's nothing related to what they sell!

some other stuff




symbol of the street

went to eat at this damn expensive sushi kaiten place with many kinds of sushi we've never seen or eaten before.






i think this is sea urchin.








that's about all we ate!