Apparently I just had a dream. In black and white. Starring none other than Katherine Hepburn. With her full accent and everything! OMG!!!!

It was something about her being ostracized or something and then having a kid because later (main story) she opened a bar and had a kid about 7 years old (wish I could say Shirley Temple but no, someone more generic), and she (Hepburn) used to be a world class gambler so now this kid is a hustler, playing for keeps against people while mummy tends to her bar. Then kid got raided by policeman for hustling, and then they audit mummy’s home until late (looking for evidence? I don’t know – it’s a dream) and Hepburn came in and said kid needs to sleep and brought her to another room.

Then there is a part two – suspect it’s from audit findings and Hepburn was at this other place with a whole bunch of girls and they’re auditioning for more bank robbers. Turns out Hepburn was robbing the robbers! Held them hostage with a gun. In the end, the chief lady robber was held in a pool and Hepburn being an all-righteous woman, went to save her by swinging across the laaaaarrrrge pool on a rope then dropping in to save her but they dropped a very long way (dream-looooooooong way). Turns out Hepburn couldn’t swim and had to be saved after all. So now the chief robber decides to work with Hepburn and that’s the beginning of the story of how the bar got opened and the people from the robbers helping her tend the bar (hookers and stuff).

I (or Hepburn) was contemplating the many names for the bar when I woke up. Went with Pariah, I think but they were thinking of alternatives like Maria… and I was thinking what a nice name Maria would be for Gemma our baby. Haha.

Now writing all these in toilet before I forget.

Baby G has arrived. Don’t know how we’ll survive without the confinement lady when she goes back in 3 weeks.

Wife is eight months preggie with baby Gemma.

It’s going to be a long life ahead after next month…

 

Or rather, my brains has problems making new memories recently. I was trying to figure out why. Could be medication (which is also making me tired) for the high blood pressure. Could be work or not enough rest (which may be related to wife pregnancy). Could be all that Asphalt7 gaming. Could just be aging.

I’ve been trying to get more rest but looks like I’m up at 4am again and neither am I working. It’s been several weeks already.

It’s been a while since I really blogged. For some reason, I had moved to Facebook and did not really find it was necessary to blog anymore. However, FB’s lack of privacy (plus that I have over a thousand friends) meant that I couldn’t keep secrets and sometimes having to juggle between whom I want to share things with, was a major problem especially since both ex and present colleagues, family (from both sides – yes, I am married since 3 Oct 2010), friends from all sorts, wife, etc.

In a way, keeping track of life didn’t seem to be as straightforward anymore, and now we have a kid coming soon – Gemma, if it turns out to be the girl and the odds are increasing each time we visit the gynae – which is turning our place in Bedok smaller as we make room for her arrival. Baby G is now 6 months old in LY.

Just finished three days of foodie – starting with LY’s friends Jiin and Tx, followed by mine BY, Nick, Kit and Rachel. Then last night we had the usual Xmas gathering at Uncle Eric’s place. The rack of lamb my wife made is still lingering in my mind though. Yummy!

In the mean time, I found this Xanga app and maybe I’ll switch back from FB as Baby G arrives… or maybe not. I haven’t really decided. It’s tough enough trying to keep track of all the updates from FB already.

Havr slept so much yet I’m still feeling tired. It’s quite unusual that I fall into such deep sleep that my head rolls to the side, not once but multiple times while on flight from HK back to SG. Similarly fell asleep yesterday afternoon at parent-in-law’s place for 2.5 hours (after dozing off in car with hands slipping off wife’s lap). Woke up after 7 hours of sleep and still sleepy.

Work issues start to be on my mind (they never really went away even when I was in holiday but I consciously put them off and refused to check emails at times). Can’t avoid them now.

Back to work today officially.

No going out today. My wife’s friend’s flight has been cancelled and we could see much reduced activities around. Still, there were people walking around but the alert was on. From our room, we heard bursts of winds spat times (normally followed by crashing sound of sorts). Downstairs, on the roads, the crashing sounds were much louder and one does feel a lot more of the wind. In the morning, I went to stock up on some stuffs that we could need in case we were stuck in room for lunch/dinner, which means some cheap Daiso stuff (opened at 10am, just as I reached there), a Joe Burger and some fried kimchi rice (wasn’t quite the fried rice we were expecting, rather more like fried kimchi and then mixed into rice). Most of the rest of morning was spent reading in the room. Thank goodness for the Olleh 4G Egg.

Wife’s friend in Korea thought of meeting up for food, since we’re in the same Hongdae area we were in also (kinda like both staying in Bishan area, that’s how close we were) but she managed to get a flight. We went to Lotte Shopping Mall in the evening (after 6.30) to get stuff for home, like kimchi, seaweed, and other stuff. It was very empty for a workday, there were plenty of seating room on the train.

The shopping centre closes sharp at 8pm, when a flurry of closure happens – very sudden and you get the feeling of being chased out. We managed to get everything so went back to Japanese chashu shop at our home for food instead. Time to pack up for home. It has stopped raining since afternoon but still a bit windy.

Having decided to head to Premium Outlet but finding the bus tours departing at specific times, returning specific times and only running on weekends/public holidays, we found the public transport way of reaching there. We went back to Express Bus Terminal at Gangnam where we took the intercity bus to Seorak. For 4,900won, we booked a one hour ten minutes ride to the Yeoju departing 11am, reaching Yeoju just slightly after 12pm. Young couple (teenage kids actually) in front of us seemed to be headed the same way. From here, we were supposed to cross the road and take 51-11 or 51-13 but since there was a long line of queue for taxi, we took that instead. Don’t know how it operates but the taxi fare here goes up very very quickly (the meter increases by 100won every two seconds). We took the cab as we knew it was nearby (thanks to iPad maps) but costs us 10,000won for what would have cost a third of that in Seoul or Jeju or Seoraksan for the same distance.

Anyway, we managed to get there in 10mins and started our journey through Premium Outlet, spending our afternoon there. There was filming also (guy tries to stop people from taking photos/videos). The cafetaria had bulgogi which wife liked a lot – very sweet beef. By the time she finished and I was going to order my food, the queue had grown very very long, so decided to skip and come back later. We almost always order one portion first, and see where that brings us before ordering again, as one meal generally is enough for both due to more frequent eats.

5.35pm we reached the bus terminal and saw that despite two buses running, the frequency was half an hour (and we just missed the 5.30 bus). Took cab and it also costs 11,000won. Very weird fares indeed. However that goes us back to intercity bus terminal and we narrowly got the 6pm bus heading back! Yay!

The couple that was sitting in front of us earlier (on our way to Yeoju), was sitting in our seats. The bus was relatively empty so we just took another seat. Kinda recognized them from their hair and dressing.

Back in Seoul and got hit by traffic jam, but fortunately it was just half a km away from bus terminal. Another wonderfully red sunset that one doesn’t get in Singapore. Still miffed over the failed S100 camera. Wife was tired so we didn’t go to Coex to shop for seaweed even though it was this part of town. Instead, we head back home and the downstairs Japanese ramen that had long queue the evening before. Wonderful chashu noodles that chef happily fried with hand-held flame burner with the kind of Ajisen Ramen bone-boiled soup, that costs only 7,500won – no wonder it was popular.

Home for more music+lighted sleep. Wife had bit of problems sleeping. The warnings for typhoon Bolevan was coming in and we saw the devastation on Jeju island over internet news. No DMZ tour for us, school was closed for a day the next day. Still no rain yet but could see very fast moving clouds already. It was very windy on the way back and we commented on several negative demonstrations of umbrella usages.

We were up at 5.30am for the most beautiful sunrise, started preparing and last things to pack up (generally I would have packed the evening before). I noticed the cab waiting downstairs already – did we specify the correct time to innkeeper? Apparently cab driver was very early indeed and we left about 15mins before our scheduled 6.45am departure. The weather was still sunny but on the way, we started seeing storm clouds. Suddenly visibility turned near zero (but still no rain), and then after ten mins, rain started pouring. It was about 40mins ride back to airport, costing 30,000won (fare price) but possibly can get at 20,000won.

Flight back to Seoul was uneventful, and Seoul was sunny as ever. We followed some very specific instructions from our Airbnb host to get to his place at Hongdae are near Hongik University. We were in the middle of street shopping area, music was blasting on the Sunday when we arrived and we could hear that clearly from our room on the 5th floor. Good thing was, travel wasn’t a problem – the Hongik Uni line is one of the stops for AREX (Airport Express or Korail Airport Railway) so getting from Gimpo and leaving for Incheon was taken care. It also connected to the Digital Media line and Seoul Station, and it also has a Green line (line 2) which is a few stops to Lotte Hotel.

That was where we went in the evening as we wanted to head to DMZ (Demilitarized Zone) because no one was picking up the phone when we called to book.

http://www.dmztours.com/seoul_dmz_tours.htm

So we went down to the Hotel Lotte (supposed to have pickup here) which was the same area as the Korea Tourism, both located at Euljiro (1) il-ga on the green line. At Lotte Hotel concierge, we managed to get reservations for Tuesday (tour does not operate Sun and Mon) so planned for next day to head to Premium Outlet instead.

Walked around Lotte Shopping Mall basement a bit, where we found kimchi and stuff, also a large foodcourt. I had a Krispy Kreme donut going for 1,200won. Wife was tired so we got back to our area where I went shopping for food takeaways, ending up with dumpings and noodles. And a snack of some fried spicy fish which neither of us liked.

The room wasn’t ideal for several reasons – any movement on the bed affected the other, there was constant music in the background until 11pm (or later) and constant light also from outside as the blinds didn’t stop much of the it. Otherwise, it wasn’t too bad. There was a washing machine and we managed to get a clothsline up. Area had small shop shopping which wife loved and lots of food which I loved, and we were located right in front of a lovely Japanese ramen shop that was very popular.

Planned to head to coast area and submarine ride, but hotel manager said submarine ride unlikely as the waves were big. What??! After yesterday’s rainy day, today was a perfect sunshine hot day. The hotel manager also helped us call the airline to have our flights changed to a day earlier due to impending typhoon Bolevan. Unfortunately there were not many tickets of choice left and we decided on morning 8.35am flight. On hindsight, that was a better idea than the 2.30pm flight as it allowed us to have more time to explore in Seoul (rather than having another day travelling but because we could arrive back at residence early, to rest and spend the afternoon doing something).

Anyway took a taxi which hotel manager booked for us (arriving in 5mins) costing 15,000won to Cheonjiyeon waterfall. Walked all three waterfalls (the last is quite a distance walk downhill, and of course, coming back up. But after Seoraksan, the nasty rocky paths were nothing. Walked the bridge after that crossing the river and ended up on the side with teddy museam and all the large (read, expensive) hotels. Instead of going in the hotel path, we went straight down for coastal instead, ending up with some dolphin show area (which we didnt go in) but a buffet lunch costing 19,500won per person. It was 11.30am but we were happy to wait for opening at 12pm while we surfed on internet on a free iptime Wifi, the same that’s available in our hotel, saving battery from the 4G device.

Lunch was good, with a variety of chinese food (figured it was chinese as KaoKao was listed as Chinese restaurant when I searched for it). We ate for a good hour, too full again and then walked the coast, crossing another bridge back to the side we started from. At Seaes Resort, we went in for a look, ended up at one of the gardens and sat down for long rest (another group of people lazed in a nearby shelter also). This was, as usual in Korea, heavily advertised as place where filming for a particular movie (what’s more, kissing scene) Secret Garden, was made.

Rested, we walked around a bit before ending up in ICC Jeju. Walking in the sun at 2.30pm has taken it’s toll on us. Baskin Robbins was looking too tempting and we needed an aircon place. There was some music festival going on (price 44,000won entry fees) and then it was to Baskin Robbins where a King cup was purchased for 3,000won. All the tables around us purchased a much larger (prob 4x bigger) cup. Judging from prices, it sounded like the 4,700won double cup or the 6,700won pint takeaway.

Took a cab costing 40,000won to Aqua Planet at the other side of the island. Driver warned us it would take 1.5hours travel. On reaching, driver asked if we needed him to wait. On hindsight… maybe. Anyway tickets in were 37,000won and we had magnificent view of the gigantic whale shark which we saw on tv (due to be released back into water as another whale shark has died in captivity). Dolphin show for half hour and back to seeing more of whale shark before we were chased out closing time 6pm.

This was where we found the lack of taxi a problem on Jeju Island. Walked quite a distance and finally decided to head towards town when a cab came by (near 7pm now). Along the way we went to the beach area, saw horses, more waves, seaweed drying and cabless roads. Cab ride was 1.5hours back, with a slight detour as one of the inner roads near our resort was closed. Ate at Uncle Tonkatsu again at 8.30pm, where uncle offered to play trumpet in lieu of the mandarin orange he didnt have anymore for the katsu. After sending wife back to room, went to get groceries and stuff – needed bread for next morning breakfast and I got milk and orange juice also. Tucked in just before 11pm, both of us sunburnt.

However I am up at 2am, quite sleepless and decided to continue blogging this. It’s 5.15am now and we’re due to wake up in half an hour’s time for our trip back to Seoul (need to be at airport by 7.50 to get tickets changed and beat everyone else getting out of Jeju before the typhoon hits tomorrow).

 

Sun at 7:18am in the morning.

Sun at 8.30am

Taken from wife’s Samsung S3 Panorama

 

 

 

 

Uncle Tonkatsu with his trumpet