Sunday at a Zoo

It looks like spring is finally coming to Korea. :) The weather is getting warmer and everything's beginning to bloom. It's really nice outside so it would be such a waste not to go anywhere on weekend. 

My boyfriend and I wanted to visit the Zoo a week ago already. Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other people. We got stuck in a traffic jam near the Zoo and we suddenly didn't want to visit the Zoo anymore. There were just too many people. So instead we stopped at Sori Arts Center which is almost right next to the Zoo. There were almost no people so it was nice and quiet, just some couples walking around or sitting on benches and kids playing with roller-skates and badminton. The weather was also really nice and warm.

That day I really felt like eating cake so my boyfriend and I bought it and took it with us to eat it outside. We sat down on a bench and enjoyed our blueberry cake. We sat there for a while, walked around a bit and watched the cute little kids exploring around. At the Sori Arts Center, there's this strange looking sculpture and I wondered what it's supposed to represent. My boyfriend's explanation was that it represents 'Whisper' with a drop of blood on it. My boyfriend can really be romantic at times ;) Just in case you don't know: 'whisper' is a brand of female pads originally called 'Always', but known as 'Whisper' in Korea, Japan and some other Asian countries.

This weekend we tried going to the Zoo again. The weather was a bit cooler than last week (around 15°C) so I was hoping there would be less people this time. Also, we left home a few hours earlier to get there before the huge crowd arrives. And this time we were lucky. There was no traffic jam and we got to the parking lot without a problem. It took as a while to find a free space to park though, but we made it. The Zoo itself didn't seem too crowded because the park is really wide.

The entrance ticket is ridiculously cheap here. Or is it just ridiculously expensive back in Slovenia? Here a regular adult ticket with no discount costs 1300krw which is less than 1€! I just checked the website of the Zoo in Slovenia and an adult ticket cots 8€!!! Can you believe it?! Visiting a Zoo in Slovenia is actually more expensive than watching a movie at a movie theater. How is it in other countries, I wonder... Please share in the comments if you have the time. ^^

Anyway, after paying the entrance fee we walked around and looked at the animals. I didn't take too may photos this time. I already have lots of photos from our last year's visit to the Zoo and I think I was just a bit lazy this time. Or my hands were just too busy, because I carried the snacks in one hand and held my boyfriend's hand with the other. :) We bought this colorful snacks that my boyfriend wanted to feed the animals with. I know you're not supposed to feed most of the animals, and on some cages there was a sign asking people not to feed the animals. So we didn't feed those, mostly just sheep, goats and these huge fish in the pond :) I think the fish ended up eating most of the snacks. My boyfriend might not be an expert on this but he assured me that this snack can't hurt the animals and I also don't think any of the sheep, goats or fish will get sick because of it. 

We brought our own lunch with us, since we wanted to have kind of like a picnic. So before going to the Zoo we stopped at this pab-burger place. It's a special rice burger sold in Korea. It's popular 'cause it's really yummy and really cheap. There was a menu written in English in the store, but I can't find a photo of it online. Instead if you can't understand Korean, you can look at the photos on their website to see some of the different types. 

I think my boyfriend got beef bulgogi with tuna-mayonnaise topping and I got tteokgalbi with tuna-mayonnaise and cheese topping. We came to a conclusion that whatever rice burger you choose you need to have tuna-mayonnaise with it. It is so much yummier this way. :) Or at least that's our opinion. You get plastic spoons with it so you can eat it like my boyfriend does - you mix everything and eat it like a meal. Or you can eat it the way I do - don't mix it and just eat it with a spoon. But actually the original way to eat it is to squash it with your hands before removing the wrapping. If you do this then you can actually hold it and eat it the way you would eat a regular burger. But everyone has it's own way that suits them. :)

We found a nice bench for our lunch but as soon as we sat down the wind got really strong. It felt really warm but as soon as the wind blew we felt cold. We didn't want to carry our jackets around so we decided to leave them in the car. It was like this the whole time, there was no wind at all but as soon as we found a nice bench to rest on, the wind started again. Until we found this one bench behind the lion's cage. There was really no view from the bench but the back wall of the lion's cage and it's probably the most unpopular bench in summer because there is no shade. But this time it was perfect. It was so nice and warm that we almost fell asleep there.

I watched the kids walk around with their helium balloons. They looked so cute. :) I really thought Hello Kitty would be the most popular balloon among the girls but I was wrong. Hello Kitty is apparently more popular among teenage girls or girls my age that like cute and pink stuff. But the little girls in the Zoo seemed to prefer Frozen characters, Pororo characters and Secret Jouju. Boys also had lots of Pororo, dinosaurs and I believe dolphins were popular with both boys and girls. :)

The famous Korean penguin Pororo and his friends.

 

Korean Secret Jouju

I remember I also loved helium balloons when I was a kid. Once, our neighbor took me and my sister downtown and bought us heart shaped helium balloons. My sister picked the one with Mickey and Minnie mouse and I picked Superman lol Now I'm all into pink and girly stuff but when I was a kid I picked Superman :D Well, I had a huge crush on him when I was in preschool, so that's why. ;)

Is it also common in your country to have a small amusement park for kids inside the Zoo? I don't think it's that common in Europe. But it's a normal thing in Japan and Korea. Some of the rides actually looked quite fun and prefect for my boyfriend and I since we are a bit of grandma and grandpa when it comes to amusement park rides :) So we both agreed it would be great when we have a kid so we will be able to get on those rides, pretending it's for our kid's enjoyment, when it's really for our own ;)  

White Day - March 14th

Yes. Finally. A female version of Korean Valentine's day. :) Remember that on Valentine's day in Korea only boys get presents (chocolate) from girls? Well on White day it's boys' turn to buy presents for girls. And instead of chocolate, they mostly buy candies.

I received my first White day gift this year a day earlier. My boyfriend's band had another concert on Friday the 13th and another band member gave me a cute box of chocolates. I haven't tried them yet, but he assured me they tasted better than Guylian chocolates that we were eating together on Friday. If that's true then they must really taste delicious :)

My boyfriend's concert went well. I love their songs. But unfortunately the sound was really too loud, especially the vocal. But that wasn't the band's fault. After the concert the DJ played mostly metal songs, which was cool, but we all complained a bit about our ears hurting after we left the place.

The next day, on March 14th, my boyfriend surprised me with my White day's present when he got back from work. He kept saying he doesn't want to spend money on such holidays so I was really surprised that he got me so much. But he said it's because this is our first White day together. :) He got me this huge lollipop :D I've seen this being sold before and now I've finally received one :D It's pretty heavy. There must be lost of regular sized lollipops inside. But it looks so cute, wrapped like a real giant lollipop, that I just don't want to open it yet.

He also had another huge box with him and I was wondering what was inside. And I couldn't believe it, but he got me my own personal prize machine. :D It's like a miniature version of the prize machines you can find in Korean arcades (have I written about them yet?). Last time when my boyfriend and I had dinner with his friends on Lunar New Year's we saw this prize machine with cute little plush ducks inside. We tried like 10 times or something to get one, but it was impossible. The crane picked it up several times but as soon as it moved a bit, it dropped it again.

When we visited the lake Bled in Slovenia last Christmas, there were tons of ducks. And for some reason my boyfriend remembered the Slovenian word for a duck - 'raca'. He can't make a real Slovenian 'c' sound because it doesn't exist in Korean language, so it sounds really cute when he says it. I guess since then we both really like ducks and that's probably why we tried to get one from the prize machine.

So anyway, my boyfriend has a good sense of humor and he thought it would be really funny to buy this for me. He told me he'd ordered it a while ago and kept it in the trunk of his car, so I wouldn't find it. :) We laughed so hard when we tried to grab candy from our prize machine. The lights turn on when you put a coin inside and this funny circus music starts to play. I am surprisingly good at it and was able to catch all types of candies already. :) It's fun to get a bit childish and silly like this every now and then. :)

Later that day we went to eat some Japanese shabu-shabu. Which is this yummy sliced beef that you cook inside a spicy soup. Salad bar was free so we were able to eat as much as we wanted. It was so delicious and we ate so much that we barely made it to Megabox to watch a movie. Strangely though we were able to eat the whole big size popcorn before the movie even started. :) We watched Chappie and it was really good. Better than I expected. But not better than Kingsman. I think that was the best movie we've seen this year.

A windy day in Gwangju

The weekend after Korean New Year's, my boyfriend and I decided to go on a short trip somewhere. We both love going on one-day trips on weekends. Last summer we went somewhere almost every other weekend. But in winter it's too cold for that. However, last Sunday the weather outside looked so nice and sunny that we just had to go somewhere. So we decided to visit Gwangju.

Gwangju is the sixth largest city in Korea and it is located less than an hour south from Jeonju. We originally wanted to visit the Gwangju Biennale exhibition hall, but when we got there it was closed. I guess we should have checked online before going there, but we didn't care. Around the Gwangju Biennale there is a beautiful park and there were lots of families with children flying kites. It's been a while since I've seen so many kites. And I don't remember ever flying one. It looked really nice.

Luckily the folk museum was open, so we decided to look around. I really like Korean folk museums. They are pretty much all the same, but me and my boyfriend always have fun looking around. We saw displays of Korean food, clothes, dishes, games, festivals, weapons etc. We have this game that we like to play in museums. For example, if there is a display of five old dishes we each pick the one we like and then on the count of three we both point out the object to see if we choose the same one. Or, if there are male clothes displayed I pick one out for my boyfriend and he does the same for me with female ornaments and stuff. It might sound stupid, but it's fun. :)

The most fun part of the museum for me was the food. It looked so real and it was really fun discussing what each of us would eat and what not.

At the museum's gift shop we noticed they were selling kites and we couldn't resist. We also wanted to fly one so we bought one for 3000krw (around 3$). I thought it would be hard but it wasn't. It was so windy that it flew up in the sky without a problem. Actually, even before flying our kite I wondered how so many kites don't get all tangled up. And apparently sometimes they do, because that's exactly what happened to our kite. But we solved the problem quickly and then we decided to move a bit away from the museum where there were less people.

We let the kite as high as it could go and then we sat down on a park bench and enjoyed the view. It was fun, but really cold, so we didn't stay too long.

Lately the wind is really strong. And even though it's slowly getting warmer outside, the wind is still really cold. Koreans have a special word for this called kkot-sem-chu-ui that means the last cold weather before spring comes. And I couldn't believe it, but last night it snowed! I guess that was the last snow this winter. It won't be long till spring is here and we can finally spend more time outside and go on a picnic or something. I can't wait. :)

As always, thanks for reading my blog and feel free to post any comments. ^^