Korea Travelogue: Tips for a free & easy trip to Seoul!

I've mentioned before that I'd do this in my travelogue entries and also doing this just in case anyone needs help to survive in Seoul lol.

Please note that all these are based on my own personal experience so what may work for me, may not work for you.

Peace y'all and have fun in Seoul! :D

1. Download the Seoul subway map onto your phone

Honestly speaking, I really dislike taking the subway in Korea because it's so freaking complicated!

Take a look at this map: 

9 lines all together. Plus this is just Seoul alone (ok, you can get to Incheon too). And you say Singapore's MRT lines are bad?!

So while we were there, I was constantly trying to figure out which station we had to switch trains at etc until I downloaded this app from the app store because it was driving me crazy alighting at the wrong stations and wasting so much time. Time is so precious especially when you're on vacation no? Agreed right lol.

The app is called 'Subway Korea' and totally free.

How the app looks like and please admire my GRi background too xD

OPI Big Apple Red + Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Set The Stage

Hey all :) I painted my nails yesterday after sooooooooo long!

Ok a couple of weeks at least because my nails were very brittle after I removed my previous nail colour and I wanted to condition them even though they were in a very cui state D: ('cui' means bad condition in Singlish lol!)

My toenails are in even worse shape hence still letting them recover to their former glory haha!

I trimmed my nails down to the bare minimum because my nails were breaking and all.

Usually do that only when my nails started to crack about once every 2-3 months and I knew I couldn't prolong the length of the nails anymore.

So had to go 'naked' literally with my nails for 2 weeks and that's like very rare for me because I love my polishes!

Couldn't tahan ('tahan' means endure in Singlish) it yesterday and decided to paint them even though they are very short right now.

Went with a simple and bright red colour - OPI Big Apple Red NL N25 - because red is my favourite colour!

Layered Sally Hansen Hard As Nails Xtreme Wear in Set The Stage because I wanted to layer some glitter over the red colour.

This glitter polish is one of the few Sally Hansen polishes I own and is a polish with large and small gold glitter in a clear base.

Very pretty although more glitter would have been better!

Had to literally 'fish' out the glitter to pack onto my nails else the glitter wouldn't show up.

Nail 'ingredients'

Final outcome:

 

2 coats of red and..... alot of glitter which I had trouble taking it out of the bottle lol

This OPI polish is one of my favourite reds and goes on smoothly.

I had no trouble putting it onto my nails and could have made do with 1 coat but I'm the sort who likes to put on a minimum of 2 coats just to be safe haha!

OCD la, cannot help it.

Base coat from Poshe, top coat from Seche Vite.

Ok that's all folks, till the next manicure adventure!

Life so far...

Hey all!

Sorry for the lack of posts, I've been really swamped at work T.T

No wait I should just say I'm really busy outside work lol.

So many things has happened and can you imagine that June is already coming to and end?!

WHERE DID ALL THAT TIME GO?! Oh gosh 岁月不饶人 I'm telling you.

So June has been good thus far in my personal life aspect, not the working aspect.

That one has been on a downhill since... I dunno when.

The bf and I celebrated our 7th anniversary a couple of weeks back.

No special celebration because we had to attend a poly classmate's wedding that day plus he was flying off the following day back to Taiwan.

He even told me that we'll celebrate in July during my birthday la since the dates are so near.

Ok lor >.< /emo one corner/

Big date it was cos we realised another couple who are friends of ours went through their ROM that day too and it was Huat's birthday that night too lol.

We dress up pretty well when need be haha! Please pardon his stupid face lol

Yup so our first ever 'red bomb' - Yimei's wedding!

It was good to actually meet up with the poly classmates after so long and all the stupid nonsense never change please hahaha!

And here's the joke of 2013: Eelin and I wore the same dress in the same colour. Plus we were sitting at the same table.

Ok can lol. Megagamie want to give us free clothes anot? We're very big fans lololol~!

It was shocking for me at first.. then I got over it... maybe. I was quite pai seh la to be honest but... nvm la hahaha! I did wear the bf's jacket for the photos so we didn't look like we were wearing the same dress.

I was telling Eelin we now look like Yimei's bridesmaids and coincidentally, the 3 of us were actually in the same FYP group back in poly.

 

Pseudo bridesmaids + Cass and me! :D

Some of the classmates! Whom I haven't met in ages too.

Old habits never change HAHAHAHA!

See what I mean D:

 

Yimei and her husband Raymond. Congrats girl, happy for you :)

Wedding started a little later as do all chinese wedding dinners and food was nice!

Good job Pan Pacific! Only thing was that more attention to refilling of drinks please?

Had to wave like crazy to get the staff's attention.

Not many pics of the food cos I was just giving Adabelle live updates via Whatsapp lol cos she's in Australia still and couldn't get back in time.

  

With the SPBP Mentoring peeps at Yimei's wedding. Not all of our batch but it was good to see all of you! :D

After that a group of us (Cass, Huat, Alan, Qf, Marce and myself) went to MBS to have a round of drinks.

Simply cos we haven't met each other in ages and it was Huat's birthday so go and celebrate a little with him LOL!

The things they do when together. Esp Alan lol

Stayed for probably a round of beer before heading back home.

Mad exhausted and I had to wake up for church the next day.

Nevertheless made it to church and we were suppose to go to Gardens By The Bay but the bf was lazyyyyyyyyy! Grrrrrrrrr.

He ended up playing games the whole time I was so mad angry!

But nvm la it's over already.

Anw he's like already back from Taiwan so that's how backdated this entry ok.

Shall try and be back with more makeup reviews!

I reorganized my makeup mess!

Tons and tons of things to share with you guys HAHAH!

Ok bye!

Love-hate relationship with you :) LOL

My Revlon Colorburst Lip Butter Collection and Swatches Part 1

Hello! I'm here to talk about some make-up simply because I've been trying to document my ever expanding make-up collection before I 'destroy' it by using it.

And ever so often all the make-up companies come up with really pretty and intricate patterns on their products to entice customers.

I just get sucked in all.the.time.

I'm a closet make-up addict I admit /sigh/ I'm also addicted to buying pretty nail polishes and recently my tastes have taken a turn for higher end brands FML and my wallet's life.

I like seeing really pretty make-up products that have whatever girly patterns or details to just make suckers like me fall for it and purchase it.

Look at my Instagram (@paulalogy) and you'll see everyone always asking me how many faces I have i.e. why do I need so much make-up whenever I post all  my hauls.

Someone "fainted" literally when they saw my nail polish collection >.<

My answer is pretty simple: I have 1 face but if all the pretty make-up make me happy, makes me feel good about myself, why not?

If pretty make-up makes your heart flutter like mine, you'll know what I mean :P

Ok so enough chit-chat, I was at the Watsons members sale just last week and I saw the 4 newly released Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters on sale and I was like... YESSSSS MUST BUY!!!! 

If you have no yet heard about how awesome they are, go knock yourself in the head now.

They are that good tbh!

Now these lip butters have been on the market for a couple of years already, easily close to 2 years or more but they hit Singapore fairly late compared to the States.

I remembering watching all my favorite Youtube makeup gurus raving about these lip butters and I was itching to get my hands on them!

I did cave in and buy a few of them locally because when I wanted to order them from the drugstore website some colours were out of stock.

But most of them, I got them from drugstore.com.

So yah, back to the Watsons sale. I saw the 4 new ones, bought them and decided I should just do up posts on all my lip butters since I have so many of them (9 from my original stash + 4 new ones = 13 altogether WTF)

But I will split them up because the 9 that I'm featuring here have all been out for awhile.

From 2012 at least haha! Will feature the new ones in a separate post once I've used them to see if I like them as much as I do for the 9 I have here.

I do have to say, because I have used them before, they may look abit gunky and for some other reasons as well that I will mention below.

And I do think by looking at the pictures you'd know which are the ones I've worn more often heh xD

So here goes!

Here are the 9 Revlon Colorburst Lip Butters I will be talking about in this post

Korea Travelogue: Day 9 - Last Day in Seoul and back to Singapore

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 9 itinerary

• Kimbab Heaven (Brunch)
• Zoo Coffee (Tea break)
• Heading back to Singapore

Sigh. Welcome to the final day of the trip in Korea.

So depressing because time flies when you're having fun.

I didn't even think about anything back home while I was there and it was really very fun!

Guess that's the purpose of a vacation right? To relax your mind and all...

Alright so we were all packed up and ready to go by.. 10-ish in the morning?

Check out time is 11am at Namsan Guesthouse 3 and the staff even came by at around 10.30am to remind us.

My stuff.. not including the 26kg I shipped back the previous day *gulps*

Sad to say, I overbought once again and had to EMS everything back.

The good thing about living in Myeongdong was that there's a post office there (opposite Shinsaegae) and I could easily EMS everything back to Singapore.

Yup, just like that.

Paid approximately $100SGD to ship everything back, yes $100 for 26kg, good deal right?

Better than paying the airline excess baggage charges lol.

And my items arrived on Tuesday in Singapore!

That's how fast it is la homg.

Back to the travelogue.

We wanted to eat Korean food before going back to Singapore and our choice was... Kimbab Heaven LOL!

Super no creativity once again even though I was secretly hoping we could go back to Yoogane to eat again.

But we went to a bigger outlet within Myeongdong (near Clio) and this outlet had more variety of food!

River Safari to see Kai Kai & Jia Jia!

Excuse me while I interject this random post in between the travelogues.

I haven't had time to actually load the pictures of the last day to the blog and finish the series.

Am actually contemplating another trip in August back to Korea... for fangirling purposes >.<

We'll see how this works out hahaha ;)

So somewhere in the middle of March (I don't remember to be honest OTL) the bf and I headed to Singapore Zoo to see the pandas! Ok, River Safari. Fine.

Same la, they are side by side and since the River Safari isn't fully opened yet (I think they are still in the soft launch period even now), let's just call it the zoo.

Planned this randomly because we wanted to have a date before he headed back to Taiwan for vacation.

The downside of living together is that we never have quality time for each other :(

Ok, enough digression.

Had to pick my bro up from camp because my dad was overseas that morning so no one to pick him up when he booked out.

After sending him back we were hungry, so... we headed for brunch!

  

Selca and my face LOL! Ok la, I made the effort to put on more make-up (I know right go zoo only still put so much -.-")

Him enjoying dad's Lexus which is now... gone -.-

Korea Travelogue: Day 8 - Butterfinger Pancakes, Noryangjin Fisheries Wholesale Market and N Seoul Tower

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 8 itinerary

• Butterfinger Pancakes (Brunch)
• Myeongdong Shopping
• Noryangjin Market (Dinner)
• Namsan Tower/N Seoul Tower

I was very excited for Day 8 because we were going to Butterfinger Pancakes! :D :D

Butterfinger Pancakes is located in Gangnam and serves brunch items all day long.

After 7 consecutive days of Korean food, I was beginning to miss all the western food and local food in Singapore so it was refreshing to not have kimchi on the table for a change.

OOTD for our 2nd last day in Korea

At one of the subway stations. Juyin died and went to Minho heaven lol.

Korea Travelogue: Day 7 - Siloam Sauna and more shopping in Myeongdong!

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 7 itinerary

• Siloam Sauna
• 홍기와집 (Lunch)
• Myeongdong (MORE SHOPPING!)

2 more entries till I end this Korea Travelogue series D:

Do check out the other days' itineraries if you haven't! 

So Day 7 was a chillax day. I think we were extremely sleep deprived by then that my eyebags grew bigger and bigger as the days progressed.

I'm fairly amazed I managed to stay awake and not grumpy cos I'm the sort who requires at least 10 hours of sleep a night to function well.

But sad to say that kind of life does not exist anymore T.T

We headed to Siloam Sauna at Seoul Station after we woke up.

Gave up on putting any form of makeup (not even contact lenses were worn) and just went there with half-closed eyes.

Directions 

You may look at the map from the website and try to navigate there but here's how we went. Exit at Exit 1 of Seoul Station and walk up the stairs towards Lotte Mart. Instead of turning right to the mart, walk straight ahead till you reach a flight of stairs going down. Walk down and then turn right, following the pathway till you reach the traffic light junction. You should see a Kimbab Heaven opposite before you cross the traffic light to know if you're on the correct path. Next just cross the road and take a left turn. Walk ahead till you spot the sign on your right. Follow the signs and you should reach the sauna in a jiffy! :D

You should see this sign!

Entrance

 

This place is a mini mall please. Food, karaoke, gym, bath, sleeping areas. Everything also have lol

Korea Travelogue: Day 6 - Myeongdong Shopping

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 6 itinerary

• Korean Porridge (Breakfast)
• Shopping at Myeongdong
• Kimbab Heaven (Lunch)
• Shopping at Myeongdong
• Two Two Fried Chicken (Dinner)

If I had 1 word to describe what we did on this day in Korea, it'd be this: SHOPPING

And if I had another choice to choose, it'd be either MAKEUP or FML. You'll see why later on OTL

So when we were planning for the trip right, we hadn't factored in any days for shopping at Myeongdong because it's so near us, we figured we'd probably not need that much time there.

WRONG. I tell you, if it's your first time in Korea and you're travelling with girls, just allocate 1 entire day there.

We shopped from morning till 10pm D: NON-STOP.

I'd already experienced this the last trip and was mentally prepared already. Even got my wallet ready because if I had to list all my vices, it'd be these: K-pop, makeup and nail polishes. Oh and Scrump and Woodstock.

Wah lau then Myeongdong's streets already had like 3 of my weaknesses everywhere. SOBS.

Ok, enough talking, not much pictures for that day. Had to kope alot from Lirong's pictures because I think by then I'd given up on taking pictures, just chiong for my stuff.

Now if only I'd been that enthusiastic in my studies :/

OOTD! Dress from Agneselle from one of their CNY collections and my layering top which I abandoned at lunch cos it was damn warm by then. No makeup too because I wanted to like ensure all the makeup to come will match my skin colour to a T.

Korea Travelogue: Day 5 - Changdeokgung, Insadong and Lotte Mart

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 5 itinerary

• Korean traditional food (Breakfast)
• Changdeokgung 창덕궁
• Miss Lee Cafe 별다방 미스리카페 (Lunch)
• Insa-dong 인사동
• Natuur Pop (Tea break)
• Lotte Mart

Back with Day 5 of this Korean travelogue. Hope you're enjoying what you're reading so far!

Do check out Day 1, Day 2, Day 3 and Day 4's posts if you haven't :D

Starting off with... bread (no la! I don't really like bread.)

This greets us every morning without fail when we step out of our guesthouse because a bakery is situated opposite.

Looks very nice and fluffy right? ^^

Waking up to the smell of freshly baked bread can be very tantalising...

Ran out of ideas of where to eat breakfast at so we decided to just have traditional Korean food at Kimbab Heaven round the corner of our guesthouse.

More kimbab for us!

Korea Travelogue: Day 4 - Everland and Gangnam

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 4 itinerary

• Twosome Place (For our coffee!)
• Everland
• Yeolbong 열봉 (Dinner)
• Jaws Tteokbokki (Dinner No. 2)
• Gangnam Underground Shopping Mall

Wah today super hardworking lol /pats self on back/

Day 4 was a 'xiong' day for us haha! We planned our trip in such a way where we had 1 very packed day while the next was more relaxing and then the cycle repeats.

So Day 4 was our 'xiong' day because the day before we went shopping till super late.

Early morning and the first thing we did was... Get coffee!

I'm such a caffeine slave I could barely function in Korea without my daily cuppa because I was so exhausted.

Holidays are not meant to be like this T.T sobs.

Ok, nevermind, let's go for Day 4!

 

 

Korea Travelogue: Day 3 - Ewha Women's University, Hongik University

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 3 itinerary

• Bonjuk 본죽 (Brunch)
• Ewha Women's University Street (이화여자대학교)
• Caffe Bene (Teabreak)
• Hongik University Street (홍대)
• Haha's Pal Ja Mak Chang Restaurant 팔자막창 (Dinner)
• Hello Kitty Cafe (Hongdae Store)

Ok, Day 3 let's go!

Remember we ended Day 2 on a very late timing due to late night shopping at Dongdaemun.

Think my room slept at close to 4.30 am or 5am.

MAD TIREDDDDDDD T.T crazy siao char bos hahaha.

Selca in the lift! See my white top to keep me warm during the day. Weather was still cold! 5,000 KRW only super cheap!

Walked down to the metro station and of cos, we got sidetracked by food once again.

This time, by the croquette store beside 7-Eleven at Exit 3 of Myeongdong Station.

Ordered the pumpkin and cheese one to share! xD

Korea Travelogue: Day 2 - Myeongdong Cathedral,Bukchon Hanok Village, Jump! and Cheonggyecheon

Update Feb 2015: I've moved my blog over to paulalogy.com. Hop on over there for my trip to Korea in Dec :)

Day 2 itinerary

• Myeongdong Cathedral
• Paris Baguette (Breakfast)
• Lotte Department Store (Main Branch)
• Korean Lunch at Bukchon
• Bukchon Hanok Village
• Jump! Show
• Cheonggyecheon Stream
• Bulgogi and samgyupsal BBQ (Dinner)
• Dongdaemun Market

Day 2 고고고! Check out Day 1 if you haven't!

All of us felt very refreshed after a good night's sleep :)

...and I overslept for Sunday mass because I was too exhausted. Le sigh.

But we decided to just go and take a look at Myeongdong Cathedral since it's so near to us and also because I wanted to visit the church.

 

With the new banana & toffee nut milk we bought the night before. Tastes bad! :(

It was still drizzling and freezing cold. Erratic weather please go away!

We walked down from our guesthouse to Paris Baguette just right outside one of the exits of Myeongdong Station on our side of the road for breakfast.