Starting of AIESEC's activities (SM Town, Sojukdoo, Seoul Global Cultural Centre, Global Village, Pottery making)

So, like the previous updates, this will be a long one. This post will probably be more interesting than the previous one as the AIESEC's activities started on the 19th of Jan. 

19th of Jan

The first activity of AIESEC SNU was visiting to SM town!! Although the purpose of this project is to introduce different sides of Korea besides K-pop, yet the K-pop culture in Korea is unavoidable. 

Cute EXO dolls

It has a total of 6 floors and we visited each floors, except the top floor. The first floor is the welcome stage (the EXO dolls above), and the second floor is the souvenir shops. On the 3rd floor, we visited their studios. However, the tour of the studio is not free. An individual has to pay 30000 won for the tour and it comes with 2 Polaroids, in which the individual can take 2 Polaroids anywhere in the studio (very expensive!!) and this fee is included in the service fee we paid during the induction seminar. 

MV shooting studio

The 4th floor is their cafe. It sells artist printed macaroons, drinks, cookies and sweets (they are all so cute but expensive!! >.<). 

The tables and chairs in this cafe are valuable (at least to those fans) as some of them are signed by the artists themselves.  

The 5th floor is their theatre. I am not very sure how the theatre works as I did not enter it but outside the theatre there are posters, holograms, trick arts (a bad one...), galleries and etc.

Trick arts....
Photo credits to Justin Tan

Hand Printing Galleries

After the visit, we went to Lotteria - Korean fast food in Coex Mall to have our dinner. I ordered a normal chicken burger but I immediately regretted it. As I should not order just a normal burger in a foreign country. Originally, I wanted to order the burger where there is an "unbreakable" cheese and I had no idea why I did not order it. My friend did. So, you'll have to wait until I finish editing the video to be able to see it. 

This tour was below my expectation as I have never thought that the activity organised by AIESEC SNU could be done by other tourists as well. I was expecting doing something that will not usually be done by others or at the very least be more involving in it. At the end of our tour, when we were asked to give feedbacks, we actually gave the most honest opinions as we all want our experience in Korea to be the best, an unforgettable one and not a long usual vacation in Korea.

20th of Jan

Today, we went to a dessert company called - Sojukdoo, direct translation will be small red bean. And thus, the store main product is red bean. As we arrived in Sojukdoo, we were given a brief talk by the founder of this restaurant. According to the founder, red beans have a long history in Korea and its nutrients benefit women and because of the love of making delicious food, push him to open Sojukdoo, despite failures in the previous businesses.

After the talk, we were served with red bean delicacies by the founder. Some of the delicacies are red bean porridge, red bean buns and breads, and some drinks. We were told that this was actually not part of the programme and we were so grateful that the founder treated us to this sumptuous dinner.

Red bean porridge but there is no actual rice in it. The name probably derives from the thickness of the red bean soup.

Later, we had a chance to make our own red bean Bingsu (though it was done in pairs, where one does it and the other watches it).  The bingsu, though not much hands on as my teammate was actually held by hands throughout the whole process, tasted really good. I was not expecting to taste anything other than the plain cold ice, but the sweetness of the red beans and the condensed milk were just right to make it a perfect dessert.

Red bean bingsu

After we were done with the visit in Sojukdoo, me and one of my exchange mates proceeded to Golden Disk Award!!!! I did not have the tickets but my lucky exchange mate actually won the tickets through lucky draw. She won 4 tickets in total (2 for the first day and 2 for the second day). As we (7 of other exchange mates) wanted to go as well, the owner of another 2 vacant tickets were picked through lucky draw and I was lucky enough to be picked!!! I was really excited as I had never seen an artist in person until today so I was practically jumping throughout the whole day.

As we arrived, we found out that our sits were not very far from the stage and that added to our excitements (a clearer view of our favourite idols).

The blurness was because of the bad camera of my phone

My friend and I was prepared to take loads of pictures. Unfortunately, we were told that pictures are not allowed. Though the audience was told about it, some of them did take some pictures and were stopped by the security guards. They were really strict about it. I was told that the security was stricter in the second day as the audience were not given a second chance (tore their tickets) if they were found taking pictures. However, we still get to have a chance to take the pictures at the very end as the security guards had no control over the audience.

And here was what I got, a blurred picture of Big Bang !!!

Of course, I get to see some of my favourite idols, like Gfriend, Big Bang, Sistar, Taeyeon and etc. It is definitely a memorable day for me.


21th of Jan

Remember that we were told to give feedbacks after the visit to SM town? We actually received a quick response from our OCs and they added our requests on today's schedule. So, we went to Seoul Global Cultural Centre where we can experience Korean's culture all in this place, such as cooking traditional food, K-pop dance class, traditional art painting, trying hanbok and etc. The best thing is that they are free!! We only did 2 of those activities, which are traditional art painting and trying hanbok.

The first activity we did today was traditional art painting. We were given 2 templates to choose, one is a picture of lotus and another is a picture of probably roses. I choose the lotus one as I do not like strong red colour and I find the lotus painting to be more peaceful, more zen~ It went perfectly with my mood today.

The tools we used and my colouring template

My artwork~

It was actually easier than I expected. Basically, it was just filling the blanks with colours and because I learned from my sister about colouring, I had a little knowledge about it. I thought we will have the chance to draw those traditional painting like bamboo and sorts... Yet, it was still a fun experience.

After the drawing, we got to try the traditional hanbok. Unfortunately, they only gave us 10 minutes for photos... It was not enough for photo freak like us. On the bright side, it was my first time wearing Hanbok and I totally love it!! My face was flushed with happiness (I don't even have to put blush on it XD).

Picture credits to Erica

For dinner, our OCs brought us to a restaurant to have steamed chicken in Hongdae. It looks like this:

This dish is not only chicken, it has noodles, potatoes, and carrots as well. The types of noodles can be chosen - thin and thick. Since the menu is all in Korean, our OC helped us to order and we had 1 and half chicken and thick noodles. It is quite spicy for those who can't eat spicy but they are quite good. The noodles, however, are quite tough. They are hard to chew and hard to swallow but they are well-seasoned.


22th of Jan

We had Global Village today. It is basically exchange our own country's culture to the others and we can bring our own things from our own countries. For this activity, we were encouraged to cook the food from our countries and we were brought to a supermarket near Seoul National University to buy some ingredients.

After buying some ingredients, we took a bus to SNU's dormitory and were brought straight to the kitchen. We immediately prepared the dishes we cook best and since I was not cooking anything, I helped one of the exchange mates to cook fried rice. While we were cooking fried rice, other teams were cooking hot pot and another exchange mates was preparing meat. We also had some fried oysters cooked by exchange mates from Taiwan. After finished cooking, we shared our dishes to other EPs as well as OCs. Since we prepared too much, we gave some to SNU' s students who were in the kitchen.

After the lunch, we did a presentation introducing our home countries to other people there. During the presentation, we also introduced some of the snacks brought from our respective countries and that meant more eating. It was about 8 when the Global Village ended.


23th of Jan

We went to Express Bus Terminal for shopping today. I was told that this place sells the cheapest clothes of all places. Indeed, the clothes they sell are quite cheap. Although most of the starting price of the clothes are 10000 won, yet there are some clothes that sell less than 10000 won. While I could get quality tops for 5000 won, skirts in Korea, however, are more expensive than the tops and pants.

The food in this underground shopping is more expensive than those of the street food. Probably because this place has become a tourist area or they have heater in it.

As the prices of the things here are more affordable for me, me and some of my friends stayed here for quite long. That was how the day ended.


24th of Jan

Today, we went to a church recommended by my friend's friend. Although I am not a Christian, I have always wanted to go to a church to see the activities they do. So, I followed my friends to New Philly in Hongdae. The activities were done in this order:
- Praise
- Corporate Prayer
- Tithes and Offerings
- Sermon
- Announcements
- Benediction

Later, we went to a supermarket near our guesthouse to buy some cooking ingredients as we spent too much on the underground shopping mall in the bus terminal and we have many days to spend in Korea. This supermarket is smaller than the Lotte Mart we went to, and they do not have most of the ingredients I want. So, if buy chance I were to go to Lotte Mart, I might buy a lot of things to cook.


25th of Jan

Today was the day I waited. It was a pottery making day!!! I have always wanted to make potteries and after watching Goddess of Fire, I have deep interest in Korean pottery and thus requested OCs to include this activity as well.

We were told to hang our clothes and wear the aprons provided. After a brief explanations of pottery making, the master distributed the tools and clay to us. Before that, we were given 3 choices to choose: cup, bowl or plate. Most of us choose cup, but I chose bowl and one of my exchange mates chose plate.

The tools

I thought we got to use the spinning wheel, but I had no idea that there are the manual ones and the automatic ones. You probably guess it right: we used the manual ones. As we used the manual ones, the pottery we made were not even and smooth. We were also allowed to colour the pottery, but were not allowed to colour the whole pottery. And my pottery:

This is not the complet one. They have to be burned and after a month we will be getting our potteries back.

Later, we settled at a famous deopbap restaurant - Gogi Cafe Gae Mi. They are famous for their steak deopbap. Since I do not take beef, I ordered a pork deopbap. It was so delicious (especially the meat) but the portion is really big for me. I wanted to take away but they do not allowed and I forgot to bring my tupperware T.T. It costs 7900 won for this dinner. The deopbap is accompanied with an udon soup tasted like miso soup.

I also tried my friend's salmon deopbap. For the first time, I think the raw salmon is really good even though I don't eat raw salmon (had a little trauma after the last one). Anyway, this restaurant serves really good food, if by chance you pass by, you should go really early to avoid the queue.

Later, we went to Hongdae for a walk and tried Osulloc - a really famous cafe specialised in green tea. We ordered a green tea swiss roll and a green tea latte. The swiss roll was good but the latte was not that good. They also sell the green tea milk spread, which is really famous for green tea lovers.

26th of Jan

Today, I did not do anything as I do not want to spend a single won at all and all I did was blogging and watch Kdrama.


That's all about what I did in the past week and I might be posting more regularly and again the videos will be posted very much later.