Hongdae Hair SOS - Ootchatsa

 The other week when I went to the exposition of My Love from Another Star, I kept two bitter souvenirs: 

The SBS photograph's exclamation of surprise as he asked. 

- What in hell is this? You got hurt? (looking at the still-healing injury covering my thigh) No worries we'll just photoshop it out. 

It was the first person to ever verbally comment on my injury, and also probably one of the only person I'd actually care if they did: He worked for SBS. I can't really blame him though, I had been sick the previous night and the morning, so my body was still in fighting mode and the result was that my scar was redder than usual.

The second thing he said was: 

- hm.... there's got to be something to do with that hair, as he tried to flatten the frizz all over the place. 

Then:

- Well nothing to do sorry about this...

My hair was in a very very bad state of hey we are splitting up everywhere because it's fun. So it was decided. I'd remedy to at least one of those two, the one that was humanely possible to remove quickly: hair frizz.

Angles. Angles are really important in taking a picture....

My friend in Mokdong had told me of this place where her friend worked where they did the Miracle Treatment, a hair treatment imported from Japan, that greatly improved hair. She was afraid it'd make my hair lack volume, as it usually helped flatten her too voluminous hair-mess, so she suggested I'd do a perm then do the treatment, so the curls would just be a natural looking wave. But I was skeptical about the perm. My hair was way too damaged to stand a perm. I haven't coloured or permed my hair since 2009, but I've been growing it since so I often wouldn't cut it for years at a time and the split end had finally come up til my ear level, making it super frizzy and ugly. 

So I opted to do the treatment and cut out the intensely damaged parts, then, if I want more volume, in 3ish months or so when I'll redo the treatment with the perm before.

 So in the end she curled my hair as I went out so I did not really get to see how volumeless or not my hair would be right away. Anyways. The treatment is amazing. My hair is soft and nice and - indeed - a bit volumess, but if I really bother I can always curl it. The plan is still to keep growing it anyways 

My friend and I met up in Hongdae where the hair salon was and walked around. We had plans for the evening so we just wasted some time walking around, and each got a $8 caricature made. It was really fun. 

Me derping drinking water. Waiting in line and
being taken picture of by my favorite papparazzi

So the appointment I had with my friend was to go to a TV show called Oottchatsa (people looking for a good laugh), a gag concert. We went with two of her friends, one I had met before, the other I hadn't. Knowing that Korean humor often is racist and childish I didn't expect to like it, but the skits were all really fun and I genuinely enjoyed most of the performances. 

Here are some picture of the show, but they are not really good quality material. Enjoy!

My Love from Another Star

So a few months ago I saw that SBS had opened their My Love from Another Star set to visitors after their big hit last winter and I had plans to go visit it with a friend from Sanbon whom I had contaminated with my Korean-drama-watching disease.

However timing never worked out and she was in Kenya that week, when I realized that the expo was only going to be on for another week, and the next week, I'd be in Gwangju for a Nexen game. So much for chilling time in SBS sets. 

So I went fishing.

And got my big sis from Mokdong to come along. I had been sick the previous day, so I was taking it easy and was not all sure I'd stand being up for more than an hour at a time, but then. 

I wanted to see the place:) 

So here we are.

I really like that office. I wish we could have wandered around it more. That place was one of the sets that were closed from the outside. We were allowed to go in some sets, but other sets were closed so pictures were to be taken from outside. However, I paid a big $20 to get photographers to take pictures in two sets of my choice and so I got to get into them yay. Not all the pictures turned out to my liking but I suppose I can't ask for more in such a context. 

It is frankly a cool way to make the "TV dream" available to people by bringing the set to people. I liked the experience. The site can be visited in roughly 2 hours by taking your time. I really enjoyed myself and I hope they will do this kind of thing more often. 

Anyways.

Big sis and I rocking the Love from another star kitch milky way caps in a trinket store near the exit of the site, as we wait for our photos to be printed.

So I go to the set on Saturday and chill out with big sis, then on Sunday it's Japanese class with Alyssa, and getting hungry, we get delivery. What is not my surprise when I find a My Love from Another Star chicken place pamphlet in my pile of delivery things. Obviously we went for that. And surprisingly it was good.

And came quickly.

There was some weird green chicken, and a salad, plus cheese balls. The cheese balls had some buttery sweet crunchy caramel taste to them that I can't really describe. After going past the unexpected first impression they were amazing. 

Rouyn

Man it's been a long time.

It's almost sad that the last time I've written was when I saw the worst movie of 2014. The should totally not have been worth writing about cuz eh? Writing a review, even bad, is still publicity. Might entice people to actually go watch it to defy my warnings.

Did you go see it after reading that entry?

Yes?

Yah. Sorry man gotta believe me next time.

A lot has been going on lately. And then not that much. 

I have been busier and still had managed to blog about randies (randomness + goodies) meanwhile. But this time I just feel crazy tired by so much stuff.

By the way. The Pope is in Korea. Hi Pope :)

♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥♡♥

So I went to Canada for a trip that lasted as long as hi I'm there. Bye see you next time.

I did get to get a glimpse of lots of people I hadn't met in a long time and saw my new born niece ♥ and my 5 years old princess when I visited my brother at the summer house they rented.

Me in my amazing backyard, chilling with a cucumber that my mom grew. And no it was not meant to sound dirty. :) I just love the food my parents grow in their gardens.

So on the 8th of September last year, I became a good friend's baby's godmother <3 and it was the first time I got to see her. It was brief but they had dressed her up in the Hanbok I sent her as a baby shower gift. She is sooooooo cute! But she is not going to be a girly girl if I'm ever right about gut feelings. She will be driving a F1 car. I have rarely seen a baby enjoy speedy baby cart racing and being turned upside down as she did. Doesn't she look like she's 2 years old? She's only 10 months old. I was so surprised when I saw her.

I mean it was not hard to be flabbergasted by the size of her after seeing my brother's 2nd daughter (guess who is the fairy godmother?) who was only 14 days out.

My flight took some 30 hours back and forth, plus 12 hours ride back and forth by car to my hometown. Thats more or less 45 hours if I include the flights layovers and delays.  So two full days of transportation.  And 4 days home. Not much. But enough for lots of hugs and love.

The only positive point about such a short trip is that I got to enjoy only the best of everything, and didn't do it long enough so I'd be unwilling to come back to work in Korea. My best friend came back from Montreal with me so I got to spend a lot of time with her. I had missed her a lot.

Me, rocking up the Nexen jersey in a French-Speaking 45,000 inhabitant town in Quebec.

Since it was not my first time in Asia, when I came to Korea I was not expecting such a big culture shock, and I was right. However, I was really surprised by the amount of small coffee shops, all looking tiny and neat, with each their own cuteness to them. 

All with free wifi.

I love Korea.

I was thinking how boring it would be when I'd get back to Quebec eventually, and get to have to restrict myself to a single coffee shop per town I visited...

But then again, life is never so stable as to never change, so back in Quebec for my quick vacation, we went through a city called Mont-Laurier, that is a city that basically lives off people taking the high way between region towns like mine and the metropolis, as it is situated right by it, and there it was, a coffee shop. A flower by the trash. A coffee shop by a dirty noisy highway. 

And not just a coffee shop. 

A nice one, that can probably make Korean coffee shops jealous. Wooden structures everywhere, coffee roasting machines in sight, chocolate covered coffee bean jars. And to add to the special, a place where you can paint on ceramic wares and figurines. In Korea, it'd be the perfect spot for couples to make couple samezies of cups and the like, in Quebec, I think it's more of a family thing. 

Still.

I was positively surprised. I should not look down on Quebec. It can do nice things out of nowhere :)

Naengmyeon and Saturday time Wasters....

So on Thursday afternoon I am told that I'll need to attend a seminar on the coming Saturday from 9am to 1am. I was sort of annoyed to get the information on such short notice, especially since the place was set to be about an hour from my place by metro. That implied I would need to wake up at 7am to get there on time. I was not happy. But what can I do. It's apparently a mandatory seminar for all teacher in Korea, and they - F them - make US pay for the books and material used - WTF.

Anyways. I went to sleep early on a Saturday but I didn't set my alarm. Hell with being on time. I was not being paid for that - I was actually expected to pay -so I did not feel happy about it. Man it's easy to get all pissed up when you think too much about things. 

So I head out with a coworker and we head out.  

I have always had a very good eye for useless stuff. I'd find the smallest piece of trash on the floor in a second, and be able to find the exact one yet an hour later in seconds had it not been removed.

But don't ask me to find my needle when I drop it on the floor of a coffee shop when I work on a doll......

Anyways, this theory was proven right again Saturday, I looked at a kid park in the distance as we walked and went oooooohhh look it's shaped like a cute whale! Remind me to take a picture with it when we get back. 

How the hell did I find the time to notice that whale from between the trees....

So.

When I said I wanted to take a picture, I didn't expect to get to take it so quickly. 

Apparently we were told the wrong dates for the seminar, and it was next week.

FML.

One of those things that piss you off. Like wasting 2 hours of your life on a rare day off in Korea when you could be doing ANYTHING else and it'd be better.

Still.

I refused to be angry.

It was too early morning to be angry.

There had to be something good about having gone there for nothing...

And I was right. Yes. Positivism you little cutie pie how I love you. So hungry we were, morning it was, Naengmyeon (cold buckwheat noodle) restaurant there was beside us. I felt like in this choking hot weather that was the best we could hope to eat. I had a pancake appointment with a friend later on so breakfasting on waffle was not appealing to me. Naengmyeon it was.

Those were the best naengmyeon I have had in Korea. 

Man it was good. 

Usually, you need to add vinegar and a sort of mustard to you liking to add some taste to the pretty blend broth of the meal. However, this place was incredible. I didn't add anything. The broth was a bliss for my tastebuds. I had never finished a bowl on naengmyeon in Korea; it's good cool and refreshing, but you usually get bored of the taste before the end, and let's face it, it's a lot of noodles.

I didn't leave anything.

Coffee Shops are not just places for Couples and the Lonely...

... they are places for the unexpected.

Who said that hanging out in coffee shops keeps lonely people lonely?

...hm.


....


Probably me.


Well I was wrong and now I am pretty smug about it.

I met this amazing girl at a coffee shop I like to go to during weekdays. It was a day where I had been expecting to get lots of work done cuz my foot didn't allow me to go to the pool outing with my kindies. I had planned on using the time to prepare my final exams, but in the end I came to school and bumped my nose on a locked door: no one had told me that there would be no one until 2h30pm that day. Had I known I'd have planned something else to do. But there I was, already around the school, slightly annoyed and with lots of time on my hands.

I went to buy lettersets and sat at a coffee shop I like around my school. I will need to blog about that place, it's really nice and I always end up there at least once a week...

I started doing my things and the girls working there, a cute girl with a short brown hairdo, always smiling, that looked 22 years old. We exchanged a few sentences and I thought that would just be the usual as when I get to coffee shops in general.

- Long time no see! I was just wondering where you had been!

- Ah, yes, I was in a car accident so I couldn't come around...

- Oh my, are you okay now? 

- Yes, I was very lucky!

- That's a relief!

- It's really fascinating how you can speak Korean so well!

- Thank you, I worked really hard for it.

...

That is usually it. Korean curiosity usually ends with the usual gossip they will be able to tell their later customers: you know, we have this beautiful *cough* foreigner who comes to this coffee shop and she speaks Korean! Maybe next time you come you will see her.

So after the usual exchange I went back to my letter writing. 

But she didn't stop.

We ended up talking about really random things. No one else was in the coffee shop, and the boss had not yet come so she didn't mind talking as she was prepping the coffee shop. I only got two short letters done but it didn't matter: I had a new friend. On an unexpected long weekday morning. 

On the following weekend, we went to  eat at my Pancake place in Mokdong...

 I say my pancake place because apparently, even for people who have always lived in Mokdong, no one seems to know about the place I discovered while looking for a coffee shop to chill at.

... hang out in Hongdae walked around and shopped a bit, but I tried more random stuff than I ended  up buying. 

Yes.

The loser cap really completes my style. I have always known I have talent for fashion...

It is that day that I finally got to understand why Korean love to drink so much that alcoholism is only seen as a bad drinking habit. Apparently "THE LIVER IS EVIL IT MUST BE PUNISHED". So that is their very efficient way to get at it. 

Never knew Korean were so thorough in applying rules...

Me totally stealing my unni's ice cream cone for the picture. I don't like the messiness of ice cream cones, while they are much prettier to use in pictures, so I had opted for the other style (you can see my ice cream on the side). Those were ... man what's the word. It's not ice cream. It's.... damn it. I forgot the word.

OH gelato! That's it.

They were amazing. I don't like ice cream because it just tastes like an overdose of cold milk that is overly sweet. Gelato feel more like a bite of cold amazingness of the actual fruit/flavor you chose. If you get a strawberry gelato, it feels like there is only that one ingredient in it, no other taste, no overwhelming sweetness. Doesn't taste artificial. 

Now I have no clue whether gelato actually have artificial flavour or not. I'm just talking about taste here.

Regardless, we had amazing stuff at the store. I had grapefruit and yogurt gelato, she had blueberry and milk tea. I wouldn't be able to tell which combination was best, both were amazing. I just have a soft spot for grapefruit.

Just beside the Pancake place there is the impressive SBS building and a nice park, both of which I walk around during my lunch hour at work every week, or on my way to Mokdong stadium. I never dared going inside, thinking that outsiders were not allowed, but I was wrong. The first floor has a small coffee shop and anyone can go in when they want. 

The building has an impressive structure in an out. Majestic bit bright empty spaces with lots of light (and probably lots of work to keep clean...). God it would be amazing to work there.

Ending this entry with a picture of the HI I'M IN YOUR FACE building of the Hello Kitty coffee in Hongdae.