Movie Theaters in Korea

Last weekend my boyfriend and I went to see another movie at a movie theater. We just love movies so we go see them often, usually at Megabox. There are several different movie theaters in Korea, the biggest of them being Lotte Cinema, Megabox and CGV. Jeonju has all of these three.

This is the street downtown where all the movie theaters are. It is usually quite crowded, especially on a weekend, but it was really cold outside so maybe that's why it was so empty.

My boyfriend likes Megabox the most, that's why we mostly go there. He says that CGV is not so clean and the toilets are really dirty there. But we went there once and I didn't think it was bad at all. But by now, I've also gotten used to Megabox.

Some theaters have some special seats or special movie halls available, but not all of that is available in Jeonju. For example, CGV has this cool seats for couples called Sweetbox. It looks really comfortable, like a sofa for two. But unfortunately we don't have it in Jeonju, so we haven't had a chance to try it out yet :( Apparently there is a premium Sweetbox too, but I'm sure tickets are A LOT more expensive for that.

Maybe we'll try them out when we go to Seoul next time. What we do have in Jeonju is Table M theater in Megabox. It's not all that special, but you do have A LOT more space for your legs, and a table to put all the snacks and other stuff on it. A ticket is a bit more expensive, but I'd say it's worth it. We've been there several times already.

A regular tickets usually costs around 8000krw (8$). Which is almost the same price as in my country, I think. But one of the cool things in Korea is discount ^^ Almost everywhere you go, you can get discounts with a special bank card, membership card or point card. At Megabox we always get 4000krw discount with our T-membership card, which is another reason why we usually go to Megabox.

Last time we saw Dumb and Dumber To and it was quite funny :) We wanted to see Taken 3, but it looks like it hasn't started showing yet. These are some of the movies we went to see together this year:

Lucy

The Maze Runner

Faults are in the Stars

Interstellar

Annabelle

Gone Girl

Wolves

Into the Storm

Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Transformers: Age of Extinction

Well, I'm sure we saw other movies too, but these are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Luckily you can watch all the movies with subtitles and not dubbed.

And of course, you can't watch a movie without a snack :) We usually get some popcorn - half original for me and half caramel for my boyfriend (there is also garlic popcorn, but we never eat that). We tried the fried chicken there once too, but it wasn't that good. Sometimes we take fried potatoes with our popcorn when we're really hungry too. And then we usually spend almost more money on snacks than we do for the tickets. Kind of how you spend more money on coffee than you do for dinner - sounds crazy, but it happens often in Korea, especially for students. Luckily we don't drink coffee, so we don't have problems with that :)

At this time there is a special snack combo available too - block combo. For 11000krw you get large popcorn, large drink and 150pieces Megabox block. We just had to get it :)

It's like Lego and since my boyfriend and I both really loved Lego when we were young, we couldn't resist. We built them as soon as we got home and this is how it looks like :)

After the movie we went to Mango Six again for some more of that yummy frozen yogurt. This time we had some honey bread with it too. It was soo yummy, but we were waiting for it for more than 15minutes, so when we finally got it, we forgot to take a photo of it. Anyway, this is how it looks like  And it's really really yummy ^^

December is here :)

Wow, it's December already~ time really flies. And guess what: it's snowing! :D It's the first of December and it's the first snow in Jeonju this year~ ^^ It was still raining in the morning and then it started snowing~ :) My boyfriend sent me a photo from work and the second photo is the one that  I took from our window :)

This weekend we went downtown to do some Christmas shopping. The city is not all cowered in lights yet. It might be still too early or maybe the city just doesn't get all lit up in December. It's my first December in Jeonju, so I don't know. But I do know that Christmas in Korea is not exactly the same as Christmas in Europe or at least in my country. In Slovenia, Christmas is a family holiday when all the family gets together for a yummy Christmas dinner on Christmas eve, goes to church at midnight and then exchanges presents on Christmas day. At least that's how we usually do it in my family.

In Korea, however, Christmas is more of a couple's holiday than a family thing. Couples go out on a romantic date and exchange gifts with each other. Unfortunately I never went on a Christmas date, so I can't give you a good example :) But I can see how Christmas time can be really romantic ^^ At least all the cafes in Jeonju are really nicely decorated and there are Christmas songs playing on the radio. Last time my boyfriend and I stopped at a cafe for some ice-cream and sat by the window next to this cute little Christmas tree. It felt really nice after a long day of shopping with my boyfriend's parents :)

Actually, my boyfriend told me that he'd never decorated a Christmas tree before... ever! So he was kind of excited to get a little Christmas tree with me. We can't have a big one since we have no place for it in our cozy little home :) As Christmas is getting more and more popular in Korea too, you can get Christmas trees and ornaments in any big store or shopping mall. We just got ours from Daiso - a really cheap store (all products cost between 1 and 5 dollars) that has pretty much anything you can think of. We put on some Christmas music and I let my boyfriend do most of the decorating ^^

We are quite happy with the result ^^ It might be still a bit early, but it's December already and for me, it's not just the 24th and 25th, it's the whole month that is special. With all the Christmas songs and Christmas movies and all that happy feeling that comes with it, a couple days are just not enough.

And this year, we've got so much plans for December:

Our matching passport covers :)

1. Flying home to spend Christmas with my family - the most important one :)
It will be the first time for my boyfriend to visit Slovenia and meet my parents ^^ I am all excited and he's a bit nervous :) As I was too, when I met his parents. But I'm sure he'll be okay ^^

My boyfriend's band: Plastic Age

2. Christmas concert

My boyfriend plays lead guitar in a band and every year they have a Christmas concert. This year a bit early, 'cause we're flying to Europe. So we have less than 2 weeks to get ready. Yes, we, including me :) Since I'm kind of a guest singer hehe not that I'm such an amazing singer or anything, but it's the privilege you get from dating the band leader :D I just hope I don't embarrass myself...

My shoebox present for a 9-year old boy ^^

3. Christmas shopping

Of course, everyone needs to do that. We need presents for my family, presents for his family... And I also joined the program called "One day Santa" where you buy a Christmas present for one of the Children in need, so I bought a present for a 9-year old boy in Slovenia.

What I'll try to make this week :)

4. Christmas cooking

It should be Christmas baking, but unfortunately we don't have an oven. Actually as far as I know, most families don't have ovens in Korea and Japan. But I really want to make something yummy for my boyfriend's family, so my sister gave me a recipe for a dessert doesn't require an oven ^^

Last year's Christmas Norebang

5. Christmas Norebang (karaoke)

Yes, I have to do that every December :) It's awesome. Last year, my friend and I bought ourselves a cake, went to norebang and sang all the Christmas songs we could find. :)

And we're leaving in a bit more than 2 weeks, so we don't have much time. I'll try to write about how all this goes. And I know that spending time in Slovenia with my family is really not what my blog title says, but it might be interesting to read about how my boyfriend experiences our country and our Christmas traditions for the first time :) So yup, I'll keep you posted.

Until then, to help you get into Christmas mood, here's a Korean version of Jingle Bells that you can learn :) Don't worry, you can do it. If my boyfriend was able to learn it in Slovenian, you can learn it in Korean - have fun :D

Here are the lyrics:

huin nun sairo sseolmaerul tago
tallineun kibun sangkwaedo hada
jongi ullyeoseo jangdan madchuni
heunggyeowoseo sori nopyeo norae pureuja

jong sori ullyeora jong sori ullyeo
uri sseolmae ppalli tallyeo jong sori ullyeora
jong sori ullyeora jong sori ullyeo
kippeun norae pureumyeonseo ppalli tallija

Happy Pepero Day

Today is Pepero day~! :)

Pepero day is celebrated on November 11th in South Korea. It is not a big holiday, it's just a day when people give each other a special Korean snack called Pepero.

Pepero is the name of these yummy cookie sticks dipped in chocolate. The original pepero box is red and it is just chocolate-flavored, but there are several other flavors as well: almond, strawberry, white cookie, melon etc.

 

It's kind of funny that Korea has this whole day dedicated to one type of snack. It's like if back in Europe we had Kinder surprise day and we would all buy and give each other Kinder surprise eggs on that day... which would be really cool actually :D Well the point is, you buy a box of pepero for a friend or a boyfriend/girlfriend or anyone you care about. It's definitely a nice gesture and it really makes your day when you receive pepero boxes from people ^^ And it's really affordable too. A regular box of pepero costs 1200krw (around 1$) but around Pepero day you can get special prices too, like 1+1 or something. I just bought a box of strawberry pepero for 960krw at Lotte mart.

The back of pepero box looks like a postcard. You can write the name and the address of the person sending and the person receiving the box, and there's even a place for a stamp, so you could just send this without wrapping it or anything. But it's better to give it in person, I think. There's a place for a short message too :)

The date of Pepero day is November 11th and it's probably because the numbers 11.11 look like four long sticks that resemble pepero. There are different stories on the internet about how this holiday started. One of them says that two female students gave each other pepero in the wish of becoming tall and slim. Of course, this might not be true, but it's a nice story anyway. Wikipedia even says that if you wish to become tall and slim you have to eat pepero on 11.11 at 11:11 in 11 seconds. Lol I've never heard of that before, but it sounds like a fun thing to do. Of course, I assume they mean just one stick, because it would be impossible to eat the whole box in 11 seconds.

Korean Pepero sticks are really similar to the famous Japanese snack called Pocky. I belive Pocky was created first, years before Pepero. But Pepero day first started in Korea, sometime in the 1990s. Later on, when Japan saw how much money can be made with a day like that, Japan also started celebrating Pocky day. At least that's what the internet says, I am no expert. But I did live in Japan for a year and I don't remember Pocky being a huge day there. I might be wrong, but I don't remember receiving any Pocky on November 11th. Here in Korea I always get a least a box or two every year.

And even if you don't celebrate the day, the stores will remind you of it. You know how on Valentine's day for example, all the stores offer roses and hearts and chocolates and all this red/pink cute stuff to buy for your loved ones. Well, it's similar on Pepero day. Anywhere you go, there are tons of Pepero things to chose from. Not just regular boxes of pepero, but several "special editions" like extra huge pepero sticks or I don't know... Even stores that have nothing to do with Chocolate will sometimes have special Pepero day offers.

For example my favorite cosmetics shop in Korea called Etude House. Today they have a special 1+1 Pepero Day offer, where you can buy any two products and get the cheaper one of these two for free - not bad :)

 

 

My boyfriend and I decided not to spend money on Pepero, but I couldn't help but buy him at least one box ^^ It's not that expensive anyway.

I don't know if Pepero is sold where you live. Or maybe there's Pocky? I hear Pocky is sold in some of the European countries under the name of Mikado. Well, if you can't find any of these, then how about buying one of your favorite sweets, like Kinder surprise egg (lol I just LOVE them) or Milka or something and share it with your loved ones? ^^

Have a happy Pepero day ^^

Modern History Museum in Gunsan

Last weekend it was raining, so my boyfriend and I decided to visit the museum of modern history in Gunsan. 

Gunsan is not too far away from Jeonju, it takes less than an hour by car. It is a small city by the sea and the bank of river Geum. It used to be a small fishing village and in the late 19th century the port was opened to ship rice to Japan.

After arriving to Gunsan we first had a small snack in the nearby convenience store (since we were kind of hungry already, but it was still too early for lunch) and then went straight to the Museum of modern history. The museum was rather crowded. Maybe because of the weather. It seems a lot of people like to visit museums on rainy days.

On the first and second floor of the museum you can learn about the history of the city, mostly about the fishing and farming and of course about the city in the time of Japanese-Korean war. There are many old items such as working tools or pottery on display and also different kinds of fishing boats. There is even a huge fishing boat in the middle of the room and you can climb up on it. And in the middle of the lobby there is a nice lighthouse. But the third floor is the most fun.

The whole third floor is turned into old Gunsan from 1930s. There are replicas of old buildings such as different shops, port, farm houses, train station, school etc... and you can walk around, enter the buildings and really feel like you're in the 1930s Gunsan :)

 

One of the first houses on display, and also the most crowded one, was the school. It was really small and it looked so cute. There were a couple of school desks and chairs and by the walls there were desks where you could try out printing ink on a paper. I tried it, but it was harder than it looked, so I kind of failed and didn't take a photo of it.

Then there were several shops that sold liquor, food, pottery, shoes etc. In the liquor store we could smell different types of alcoholic drinks and in the shoe store we were able to try on old type Korean shoes.

The last part of the museum was dedicated to Buddhism. And there was a small workshop where kids could draw pictures and post them on the wall. And we decided to join in lol Of course we were the only adults there drawing pictures, but why not, there was no "children only" sign. We only got to use two different colors of crayons since the kids were using the rest and we didn't want to take them away from them, so here is our masterpiece in two colors. :D

The museum was really fun. There was even a chance to try on old type Korean clothing and take a photo with this cool 1930s background, but there were too many people and we would have to wait for a long time. So we decided to skip that.

After leaving the museum it was time for lunch. My boyfriend found this cool place that's actually an old elementary school that has been turned into a restaurant. It is not that far from the museum, but still kind of in the middle of nowhere, so you need a car to get there. 

When we entered the restaurant (school) the lady told us to go to the third grade - lol We walked down the hallway pass the first and second grade classroom until we took a seat in the third grade one. The third grade classroom is the biggest and there are places to sit on the floor too. Whereas the first and second grade classrooms are a bit smaller with only tables available. Every classroom still has blackboards on the wall, so even though it is really a restaurant, it still looks like a school :)

We ordered a Korean dish called ssambap. Basically you get stew, meat, rice, lots of side dishes (there was a fish too, but mostly vegetables) and different types of greens to use for wrapping: lettuce, kale, sesame leaf, Korean cabbage, chicory and red beet. You place one of the greens in your hand and then add some rice, meat, vegetables and ssamjang sauce. You wrap it all together and eat it ^^ It was delicious.

 

Before leaving the school we were able to try on old type Korean high school uniforms. They look a lot different from the school uniforms kids wear these days. Boys don't wear hats anymore (too bad, those hats look so cute! ^^) and skirts are A LOT shorter now. Anyway, it was fun to try it on and man, my boyfriend looked soooo handsome in that uniform ^^ <3

On the way back we stopped at Mango Six for some of that yummy yogurt flavored soft ice-cream. So in spite of the rainy weather we had a really fun weekend. ^^

A rainy day in Jeonju

It's been months since I left Daegu and moved to Jeonju and I am really happy here. I love Jeonju, it's such a nice city and it is so much more similar to my hometown than Daegu. I don't really miss Daegu that much, I definitely don't miss the school dormitory! But I DO miss coin norebang (karaoke) around our university, I miss the subway... but mostly I miss my friends. :( But last Friday, a friend of mine from Daegu finally decided to visit me in Jeonju. :)

It was her first time in Jeonju, so I wanted to show her around a bit. Unfortunately the weather was terrible... it was pouring... I was afraid she might even cancel the whole trip because of all the rain, but she arrived anyway ^^ Actually her bus arrived 20 minutes early, so she had to wait for me at the station for a while. And when I finally arrived there, we realized we were not at the same terminal lol Luckily the two terminals are only a couple minutes walk away from each other. :)

My friend already did the research online and she had three things on the list that she wanted to see/do in Daegu: 1.See Hanok village 2.See youth mall 3.Have a bracelet made

So we took a city bus and went straight to Hanok Village. It is definitely the nicest place in Jeonju and a MUST SEE if you travel there. Even in the rain it's not too bad, but I still wish it hadn't rained, because we had to skip the palace tour because of that. It would just be no fun walking around there in the rain.

But even with all the rain, my friend seemed pretty excited - about the street food at least :D She was just walking around the streets of Hanok village and trying all the different types of food like: "wow, what's this, let's try it... oh, this looks yummy, let's try it..." lol Well thanks to her, I got to try out some new street food too. The first thing we tried was shrimp mandu (dumpling). I wonder why my boyfriend and I never noticed it before. It was DELICIOUS! In fact, it was so yummy that we actually came back later that day to eat some more :) The next thing was a kind of octopus on a stick. I am not a big fan of octopus or squid, so I decided to skip that one. I did take a bite just to try it and it really wasn't bad for an octopus, it was rather good.

Then we tried hotteok, which is usually translated as a Korean pancake, I guess. I've had it many times before, but this one was a bit different. It was larger and flatter and it tested amazing! It's also quite cheap too, only 1500won (1,5$) for the regular one with honey. If you want one with cream cheese or ice-cream it costs a bit more, between 1500 and 3000won. The place where they sell it looks nice too, there's this huge oven and you can sit and watch the guy make them and bake them for you. The only bad thing is, you have to wait a while. But it's worth it!

After that we looked for a place where they make leather bracelets with your name on it. And thanks to naver maps app and my excellent sense of orientation ;) it wasn't hard to find. It costs 10.000won (about 10$). You choose the text, color and size and the woman makes it for you. It doesn't take long. I didn't buy one, because I thought it would be better to get it together with my boyfriend and make it a couple bracelet if we decided to :) My friend chose a red one and it looked really nice. We just both agreed that she could have done the last syllable of the Korean name a bit nicer, but oh well :)

After that I was freezing cold. I know it's November already, but Jeonju has still been quite warm lately with almost 20 degrees during the day. But suddenly last Friday it got cold. And I would probably be ok if my feet weren't soaking wet. Walking around with wet feet is unbelievably uncomfortable... I was trying to have fun and not annoy my friend too much about my discomfort, but at some point I just couldn't take it anymore. So we walked to the city center, which is almost right next to Hanok village, and I bought some socks at Daiso (a cheap store all over Korea and Japan where you can get pretty much everything for 1000~5000won). Then we took a rest at Ann's house (the cafe that I'd written about before). But since I was wearing stockings, changing the socks wouldn't have helped much - stupid me. So we stopped at the shopping mall nearby where I bought some leggings and finally got rid of the wet stockings in the bathroom. Man, I felt so much better after that.

 

With the new energy I was able to walk to the market :) It wasn't that far away. In the market, my friend wanted to find this Youth mall she heard about from a friend or read about on the internet. It is quite small, so it is a bit hard to find, but we managed. It's a small place on a second floor with several different shops and restaurants. There was a shop with postcards (a thing that is sometimes really hard to find in Korea...) and there were people sitting outside writing them. But the best shop was this candy shop with candies that Koreans used to eat a long time ago and some I recognized too - candies that we also ate in Europe when I was a kid. And in front of the store there was an old video game that we just had to try. It was Bubble Bobble. I can't believe I even remember the name. We used to play this game on PC a long long time ago :)

We skipped lunch 'cause we were kind of full from all the street food we ate. So we just walked back to Hanok village to buy some ChocoPie - a snack you just HAVE to buy in Jeonju, it's really famous. And then we took a bus to our place here in Jeonju. Finally we were able to warm up a bit while we waited for my boyfriend to get back from work. Then we all went to eat dinner. My friend wanted to try this yummy food she saw on tv and my boyfriend knew about it, so he took us there. And omg, it was amazing. It was hot pot rice and my friend chose the mushroom version while my boyfriend and I went for the beef :) We all agreed it was delicious, but I was the first one to finish and I think the only one that actually ate EVERYTHING. :) I definitely want to eat that again sometime.

And after dinner we went to norebang for two hours. It was really fun. My friend and I used to go to norebang together all the time in Daegu. Then we went home to watch superstarK - a music competition that my boyfriend and I watch every Friday. We also wanted to play a board game together, but we were all too tired - my boyfriend from working all day, my friend from having to wake up at 5am that day and me from walking around with cold and wet feet.

It would have been so much better in sunny weather. I wanted her to see the zoo and this beautiful park near the university, but it has to be good weather for that. Well, at least she has a reason to visit again soon :) It was a great day for me anyway, despite the weather and all, and I hope my friend made some nice memories too. ^^