The Bravery Cafe

Yesterday, we made a visit to Bravery cafe after training for an early lunch! Hj's working there now so we followed her to work after training hahaha

It's a nice hipster place that is known mainly for the coffee more than food I think? The interior is sparsely decorated, very raw and I very much like it. It looks like a warehouse hahaha. And there isn't a door handle!! So apparently some people can't find the door because it looks like the rest of the transparent panels HAHA. But when we got there at about 10am, the door was wide open.

Ordered the ice chocolate (not pictured) and banana pancakes stack! I loveddddd the banana pancakes stack. There were bananas even in the pancakes too, so I guess it was mixed in the batter. Super fragrant and nice! There aren't a lot of food choices on the menu but those that are marked out recommended are really not bad. I wouldn't mind trying the sweet porridge next time I'm there though, it sounds good haha but I can't remember if it was a recommended dish.

The Bravery Cafe

66 Horne Road, Singapore 209073

Tel: 62254387

Opening hours: 8am to 8pm, closed on Tuesdays

Nearest MRT station: Lavender

8 minutes, walking distance

Also in the neighbourhood: Windowsill in the Woods (Windowsill Pies), Chye Seng Huat Hardware, The Tiramisu Hero etc

Drama: Emergency Couple

Some things I did today:

1. Canoeing
2. Finished Emergency Couple
3. Taught myself how to play Frozen's Let It Go/John Legend's All of Me etc. via Youtube

Finally finished Emergency Couple!!

I embedded the opening scene in here cos I love it a lot! I think Ji Hyo looks divine!! So pretty in this opening scene. Also the part when they all come together to sit together is my favourite "picture" of them. I heard about this drama even as I was nearing the end of my exchange because if I'm not mistaken, this was the follow-up drama to Reply 1994 (which I also love very much and highly recommend it to people who are into dramas about the 90s with a little mystery/guessing game going on). Also, my parents caught them filming the wedding scene where they ran down Myeongdong in their wedding outfits!! Lucky them. I met them at Namsan Tower after they had their encounter and they were all excited about it - but they had no idea who the actors were haha! My mom caught a blurry photo which I suspected was this drama because of the male actor - he looked familiar because I had just watched The Heirs (왕관을 쓰려는자, 그무게를 견뎌라 - 상속자들)! Anyway, later that night I saw photos of this scene on Twitter as reported by a Running Man fan account haha - that confirmed my doubts haha.

I thought it was a pretty good drama but maybe I had my expectations way too high - there was so much hype about it while I was trying so hard to abstain myself from watching it during the school semester!! Even my parents (yes, including my dad, he is a drama fanatic convert now) were raving about it and it took a whole lot of self-control to prevent myself from falling into the trap that is drama watching. Haha. This drama didn't particularly touch me in anyway though, sadly :-/ I wasn't as affected as I felt when I watched...maybe Reply 1997/1994 - that drama really hit me hard although I'm not very sure why haha.

Come to think about it, it's been awhile since I've been highly emotionally attached to a drama! Even You Who Came From The Stars (별에서 온 그대) wasn't thaaaat nice to me. Oh man maybe my drama standards are simply too high oh dear


Next up on my list: Hotel King! Hopefully things will be a little different since it's still airing. I think chasing a drama is very crucial in determining how attached one would be to the drama. The waiting, the excitement... Lol I sound a little morbid. But I do miss the times when all I did every day was to watch dramas. I even had a schedule laid out haha and in between I'd watch inspiring sports movies/Korean movies. Ohhhh, good times, where all I ever did was to ~nua sai~ at home hahahah

Tong-in Market: Dosirak Cafe

#wildchildinkorea #day1

We headed to Tong-in Market for some dosirak (lunchbox) lunch!! Yeesee and I went there once and we were so late they were closed by then : ( i was so disappointed!! I really wanted to have some japchae (Korean glass noodles - I LOVE IT) and jeons (Korean pancakes) and omg ddeokbokki (spicy rice cakes) so a trip back there was needed. And what better time to go when Shan was in Korea too. In my opinion, this is a rather touristy thing to do even though there were loads of Koreans there enjoying their dosirak lunches hahaha

So basically, you go to the dosirak cafe (that's where you buy your coin tokens and get your trays and also where you go to to sit and eat at afterwards), pay 5000won and you're given a string of coin tokens, each token is 500won. Armed with this string of coins, walk around the market and purchase foodstuffs, the vendors will be marked out with red signs that read 도시락 (Dosirak) cafe but most of the stalls at the market take part in this dosirak cafe thing.

Coin tokens that are used to purchase food from stall vendors in the market

Clockwise from top left: Ddeokbokki, some kimchi, tofu, eggs, japchae (!!!!!!), dumpling (steamed) and mandus (also a dumpling, but fried)

There are loads of food choices, although some are repeated so it's up to you which stalls you want to patronize. We struggled to finish our coin tokens but don't do what we did!! When you get back to the cafe, you can purchase rice + soup for a certain amount of money (also using the coin tokens). But since we finished all our coin tokens, we purchased the rice and soup with cash. We realized later that filling our trays up meant having too much food and we couldn't finish it all. Also, we realized that we were the only ones with abundantly filled trays ahah everyone else either 1) shared, 2) have half-filled trays.

Opening hours: 11am to 4pm, closed on Sundays

Address: Seoul Jongro-gu Tongin-dong 10-3 서울 종로구 통인동 10-3번지

How to get there: Seoul Subway Line 3, Gyeongbokgung Station, Exit 2

Walk straight for about 10minutes and you will see the entrance for Tong-in Market on your left. Enter the market and walk straight, look out for the cafe entrance on your right - there are toilet signs nearby too. The cafe is on the second-floor so you have to take the stairs up!

Happy us and happy tummies~~ Oh the things I'd do for some japchae right now :'(

“You are in my heart 
the same way 
the sun comes up 
in the day and 
all of the stars disappear – 
I see nothing else 
when you are here.”

-Beau Taplin, "Only you."

Period

a fullstop.

a time of the month where i (no generalizations here) am allowed to behave irrationally and get angry at the littlest of things because of the mind-numbing pain that is occurring near the bottom of my stomach which destroys my appetite and makes me feel useless and bloated (read: fat too); all of which is directed at an individual who has to deal with my mood swings that can be likened to that of a viking ship ride at its highest and lowest points at the amusement park

+ into the equation that of immobility due to a swollen ankle and you get someone who is just a ball of angry and annoyance


but i love you even (more) on bad days like this

Screenshots of social media things that accompanied me through my insomniac night
I'm a zombie today, but on the bright side, I'm only gonna be walking around my house today

Japanese Cup Ramen Noodles :9

#wildchildinkorea #day0.5

Now that summer is here, back to reminiscing about what happened in Korea during the last few weeks of my SEP stay!

So during the first day of the New Year (2014), I went to the airport...... no, not to go home hahaha

I say Day 0.5 because Ah Shan arrived at 10+pm on the 1 of January 2014 in Korea (haha I remember the date!!) and the whole day was a worrying one wondering if she would be so blur that she missed her transit flight in Taipei HAHAHA


Anyway, it was so late by the time we got back to Hongdae from the airport rail, the trains on the green line subway had stopped running?! Although by right they were supposed to still be running because I checked the app and the last train wasn't until later. Anyway, we got into a taxi and cabbed down back to Yeesee's house where she was waiting for us with some fried chickennnn. Made some conversation with the taxi uncle and he went by the route where we passed by a somewhat red light district haha (pointed that out to Shan and the taxi driver thought we wanted to turn there lolol)

Supper time!! Featuring our Ippudo (and another Japanese ramen shop) brand cup ramen from Japan! MY GOODNESS they even have the pork meat in it like seriously Japanese and their innovations - I have no words, just endlessly thankful for their creativity and innovation :')

Ippudo Cup Noodles

Love it!! It can be found in seemingly large supermarkets in Japan - not the convenience store/departmental stores but supermarkets in shopping centres! We found this on the last day of our trip in Japan when we wandered into a nearby shopping mall before leaving for our flight back to Korea.


Aaaaand that ended Day 0.5. Haha Day 1 to come later.

Summer's here! ☼

Today I had my last examination, marking the end of Year 3!! Whooooooo~

I spent the first semester of Year 3 in Korea, and the second half of the academic year was spent back in NUS. Feels...surreal that Year 3 has already ended omg haha I only hope my grades fare well enough for me to pursue Honours... but in all honesty, I think I studied pretty hard as compared to previous semesters haha

This time was also the first time I had papers back to back, one paper a day from Monday till Thursday (today)! Also helped that this meant I had an extra long reading week (two weeks instead of one cos I start during the second week of examinations haha). I thought I'd be affected by how everyone would have been ending while I was just starting but I guess I mental-prepped myself for it pretty well so I wasn't haha

Marked the end of examinations with a rose gelato at Westgate! Dragged Aly and Shan along hehehe although I was totally prepared to go over by myself because I've wanted to try it/take a photo of it for Instagram in foreverrrr hehehe


Now time to catch up with my shows.... on my watch list:

1. Brooklyn 99 Season 1
2. Parks and Recreation Season 6
3. Sherlock Season 1-3 (I am determined to watch this once and for all)
4. Korean dramassssssssssssssssssssss (too many to name but the first one on the list is Emergency Couple!!)

Ok bai.