Last Saturday evening while I was walking in the streets outside of Hongik University (홍익대-弘益大學) I came across this flea market inside the Hongdae Park. It was quite a small area. Things sold there were quite unique. A surprise find.
This is the Hongdae Park's Flea Market. I am not too sure if the "Free Market" was written intentionally but things were definitely not free there.
Those canvas shoes look as if they are hand-painted. The big building in the background marks the main entrance of Hongik University. The flea market was the first place I visited after exiting from Hongik Uni campus
The park toilets are situated behind the graffiti-painted wall. You can actually have a good view of the flea market activity by climbing up that slide.
This clock is placed beside the main door of Osvill dormitory. I have to walk pass it multiple times everyday. It has a temperature gauge. In the photo, the gauge is reading -14 deg Celsius. However, the actual temperature then was probably about -4 deg Celsius or else I would have been frozen. I wasn't expecting such cold weather in March. Fortunately, I read the weather forecast and brought along my winter coat. As predicted, it snowed in Seoul the next day after I took this photo.
This is the U-Yong Osvill dormitory for foreign students. I took this photo from the platform of Hoegi station. It is less than 5 minutes walk from the dormitory to Hoegi station. From the photo, I can identify my room. It is the one with two window panes opened. Although the weather was cold, I have no problem opening my windows to let the cold air in. I slept well with the windows opened.
This is the basement of Osvill. Down there, I could get my laundry washed by the washing machine for 1,000won. For another 1,000won I could dry it in the heat dryer. There were exercise machine like treadmill which I didn't use. Sometimes, I would spend my night watching TV programme from the large screen rear-projection TV. Although there was a TV in my room, I usually felt bored watching TV alone. Internet was available but because of poor maintenance those computers at the basement were working at crawling speed. There were also a billiard table and a vending machine. I would spend 500won daily at the vending machine to get myself a can of orange juice. That would be my daily Vitamin C intake. 
Because of his recent visit to Singapore, he also took the opportunity to talk about his trip. He mentioned that he was very surprised to know that National University of Singapore has over 8,000 students and that there were over thousands of people in Singapore learning Korean. He then asked us Singapore students whether we would come back to Kyung Hee to study. Of course, we said "yes" obligingly. Frankly, we do meant what we said.
It was hard to write my feeling about the gathering especially when there were so many. The gathering might perhaps be the last time I would meet my class partner, Mika. She would be leaving for Japan before the closing ceremony to prepare for her graduation ceremony on Saturday. I remember the first time we met was during the group photo-taking session after the opening ceremony. She was standing beside me complaining about the cold weather. Indeed the weather was very cold that day. It was snowing while our group photo was taken.
All the teachers who took us for the lessons and the field trips were also present at the gathering. It really showed the closeness in relationship between the teachers and students. The "cool-looking" guy (the man with his hand holding his chin) in the photo above was our teacher Yun Sang Chul. He took us for lesson everyday. I cannot think of other better descriptions of him except "멋있어요" and "잘 생긴 남자". He just got extra "high" when people described him that way. There was one thing he said during class that kinda caught on me. He was describing his trip to Argentina. As he was travelling in Argentina, he saw so many horses and cows along the way and it was like "말,말,말,소,소,소,말,말,말,소,소,소" (말-horse, pronounced as "mal" and 소-cow, pronounced as "so"). Guess what? From then on, when my Singapore friends asked me "so?" as in "so, what's next?" I would go "소,소,소,말,말,말,소,소,소" before answering them. I am so childish.
Weather was getting warmer these days. It was raining a little on Wednesday morning and I did not bother taking out my umbrella. My morning mostly began with a stop by the Isaac Toast for a "special toast". The ajumma knew me so well that I did not even need to tell her my order and she would say "special toast?" - 네.
제기 or Jegi is something like shuttlecock but not quite like it. 차기 or Chagi means kicking. Jegi is not made from bird feathers like the "capteh" we are used to in Singapore. Instead it is made from shiny strips used in pom pom ball. That has kinda of made it less buoyant in air than "capteh" and we have to kick the Jegi at faster pace to keep it in the air. Singaporeans simply outplayed others in this game. Not even Ms Kim was our match. But that was because we have similar game in Singapore. The result for this game, Kimbap team won.
닭 (pronounced as "dak") means chicken and 싸움 is the noun-form of the verb stem 싸우다 which means "to fight". To be exact, we played the game like a one-legged chicken. Standing on one leg with the other leg bent, we were supposed to "fight" one-to-one using our bent knee. The bent knee, I suppose is to simulate the beak of the chicken. As we pushed each other with our knee, it was like two chicken pecking at one another. The game ended when one person stood on two legs or fell to the ground. The winner would be the one who remained standing on one leg throughout. For this game, Kimchi team won.
공기 (Gong-gi) means something like pebble. 놀이 (Nori) simply means game. Gong-gi Nori is very similar to the "five-stones game" which was once popular in Singapore. In the five-stones game there is 8 levels to complete while in Gong-gi Nori there is only 5 levels. We didn't actually used pebbles to play the game. Instead it was some pellet-sized plastic pieces filled with iron filing. The plastic surface was quite smooth and we had some problem grabbing the pieces during play. The winner was determined by the number of pieces a team could grab in the fifth level. For that level, we first placed the five pieces of "pebble" in our palm and then pushed them into the air by jerking our stretched-out palm slightly. While the pieces were in the air, we had to quickly flip our hand and catch as many dropping pieces as possible with the back of our hand. Next, the remaining pieces were pushed up into the air again and we had to grab as many as possible of the remaining pieces using our hand. The number of pieces grabbed gave the points for the game. One piece gave one point. Kimchi team was the winner for this game.
The game of "Yut" was played with 4 yut sticks and a game board. Each yut stick has a flat and a round surface. When the 4 yut sticks are thrown, they need to stay within a marked-out area. Any yut stick that falls outside the zone, the throw is considered unsuccessful and no re-throw is given. Trust me, it is easy for the yut sticks to fall outside the marked-out area. There are five outcomes when the four yut sticks are thrown. They are 도 (one flat surface up), 개 (2 flat surface up), 걸 (3 flat surface up), 윷 (all flat surface up) and 모 (all flat surface down). 도 is like one point on the dice, 개 is two, 걸 is three, 윷 is four and 모 is five. When the outcome is either a 윷 or 모, the player get an extra throw. Each point received will allow the chip on the board to move one step. The first team to get all their chips to the ending point will be the winning team. Kimbap team won the first game to draw Kimchi team with a 2: 2 scoreline. We played an additional game of yut to determine the final winner. Kimbap team looked almost like winning the second game until we hit two 모 consecutively to over-turn the table. It was a "hair-line" finishing for the Kimchi team. The final result was Kimchi team won and we got our can of drink from the Kimbap team.
It took us about 1 hour 20 minutes to travel from Hoegi to Incheon station. When we arrived at Incheon, we dropped by the tourist information centre, located just outside the station, to collect a map of Incheon and to confirm the way to Muuido Island (무의도-舞衣島). We boarded the bus no. 306 bound for Eulwangri Beach which is in Yeongjondo Island. Yeongjondo Island is the same island which Incheon International Airport is located.
The bus ride took about 1 hour. We manage to catch some sleep along the way. We alighted at Geojampo's T-junction. From there, we walked about 1km to get to the bridge that connects Yeongjondo Island and Jamjindo Island. The above sign was erected at the start-end of the bridge. It showed that we had to walk another 1.9km to get to the Jamjindo jetty where we would take our ferry to Muuido Island.
The above picture was taken on the bridge leading to Jamjindo Island. The road seemed to stretch to the horizon but it was not as long as thought.
It was low tide then and long stretch of mudflat was exposed. Groups of people were seen digging and filling their bucket with oysters, mussels and other mollusks. If you are into eating fresh mollusks, this is the place to come at low tide when you can eat all the mollusks you want and better still they are free. I went down to the mudflat to take a walk while waiting for the ferry.
The ferry could carry both people and vehicles. A round-trip ticket cost us 2,000won (S$3.30). It took only 5 minutes to cross the water between Jamjindo Island and Muuido Island. Upon landing at Muuido Island, we paid 1,000won for the bus to take us to Hanagae Beach. At the entrance to the Hanagae Beach we paid another 2,000won to gain entry. That was the first time I paid to get to a beach.
Yongsan Electronics Mart is like Funan IT Mall in Singapore but much bigger. We were there that evening to buy electronics dictionary. This gadget is almost indispensable when it comes to learning Korean. I always have my e-dictionary in front of me during lesson.
The GPS Navigator for car seems to be a hot-selling electronics gadget in Korea if the advertisement space they are given is anything to show. Cool gadget. Singapore should really look into developing such gadget for the Singapore and Malaysia roads. Time to get rid of those cumbersome street directorys.
There is no Nokia or Sony Ericsson handphones here but they definitely have more handphone designs in Korea. One floor in Yongsan is just dedicated to selling handphones.