Korea Winter D1 - Home Christmas Eve Dinner 홈 크리스마스 이브 저녁

Time to make dinner! Frankly I'm not a great cook at all and apparently it turns out that the two of them also don't follow recipes like me. We just do it by feeling... ㅎㅎㅎ

Korean Winter D1 - Patjuk, Red Bean Porridge 팥죽

It was 동지 Dongji, Winter Solstice, the previous day so we got to eat the 팥죽 Patjuk, red bean porridge cooked by Hayeon's 어머니 mom for breakfast!

Korean Winter D1 - Just Like Going Home 귀국처럼

To think that I just returned to Singapore only a few days ago on the past Sunday night... Here I am reviving the moments of the first day of the longest overseas trip I've ever taken to my beloved South Korea. It was also my first experience of winter with snow!

Many people exclaimed when I announced at the end of October 2013 that I was making yet another trip to Korea for 20 days because that would be my third trip in a year. Honestly, I didn't expect this chance to go again too! The 10 day May trip was planned long ago in 2012 and the 14 day July trip was well, because of a fantastic Scoot airfare promotion that would be too much a waste to let it pass. 

While I was in depression after coming back from July and thinking dejectedly I will have to wait torturously for a whole year before returning to Korea again, there came a chance to participate in a Korean Speech Contest organised by the Singapore Korean International School. The first prize of a round trip air ticket to Korea sparked a fervent preparation for the contest. I didn't really think I could nab it, but I did it!!! I was near tears when I was presented with the prize... ㅎㅎㅎㅎ :P My speech topic was rather unique, about 아줌마 파워! Ajumma (Korean aunty moms) Power, their "comical" stereotypes and how they are the pillars of Korea. Again, I can't thank my dedicated Korean teachers from my university's (NTU) Korean language course enough for their guidance before the contest!! And all the friends who help and supported me! 모두 다 너무 너무나 감사합니다~ ^^

And I digress... So happily I decided to go for as long as I could this trip during the short one month holiday to make the most of the air tickets. I already had planned a 10 day backpacking trip to Vietnam (updates on this super exciting trip coming up soon too!) so I decided to fly on 23 December night and return on 12 January night. I started school on 13 January morning...ㅋㅋㅋ On a side note, I'm still a bit sulky that I had to pay quite a sum for the air taxes because the ticket was supposed to be a top prize after all... (><) Oh well, it did give me a good excuse to visit Korea again in such a short period of time.

Yes, there was only one free ticket, so I decided to go alone. But looking back, it didn't feel like a solo trip at all because I barely had days when I was alone, I was with old and new friends almost every other day. It was an amazing 20 days of Korean Winter.