Day 79

Public holiday in Korea (voting day) met up with my mentor and another mentee and head down to Samcheongdong-gil Road (삼청동길) in the afternoon.... The street is filled with lots of restaurants, cafe and street foods...

Once I met up with my mentor, she mentioned that today will be a food tour around the area.... our first stop was the hotteok (호떡) shop, but we were all disappointed as it was closed.... she mentioned that it was one of the famous shop in that area.... next stop was the tteokbokki (떡볶이) shop.... we had some spicy fired rice cakes, some normal rice cakes and Sikhye (식혜). I especially like the Sikhye (식혜), there some ginger flavor in it and it was really very cooling and nice to have it on such a warm day.... the spicy fried rice cakes was a little disappointing.... the sauce was not that spicy as I thought it would be....

  

Next stop, we went to have some Bingsoo (빙수) further down in the street, we ordered the traditional Bingsoo and the strawberry flavored bingsoo... like both of them a lot!

As we were walking down and exploring the place, we came across this shop called Happy Pills... came across this store a lot of times and I kept thinking that it a store that sells medicine. However it was actually a store that sells sweets and gummies and jellies, we went into the shop to take a look and got our self a packet of free samples that was given to us by the owner...

We also saw this this where the Koreans come here to cast their vote for the upcoming president...

As we were walking, it started to rain... so we made our way to the restaurant to get some proper food, we ordered the some slices pork, steamed egg and a patty....

    

I didn't managed to finish my portion of the rice as I was too full.... I had lunch before I met up with my buddy.... after the meal, we head back home.... 

On the way back home, I went around Hongik are to search for the apartment that my parents booked, the previous apartment was cancelled by the host and they found another apartment that was 1 stop away from my area... took me quite a while to find the place, kept circling around the area and realize that the place was just beside me... people around the area in the cafe saw me walking a few times....problems with me having no sense of directions....

After locating the apartment, made my way back to the apartment... was feeling a little lazy so went ahead to watch some movies online, watched Beauty and the Beast (watched it halfway since yesterday) followed by A Cinderella Story... liked both the movies.... as I was too full for dinner, we had supper instead.... went to Mangwon market to get some instant noodles, luncheon meat and some vegetables and cook a whole pot of ramen...

pardon the bananas in the foreground...

Had a few rounds of it before my stomach was satisfied... 

Today is my mum birthday.... feels kind of sad here that I was not able to celebrate it together with her this year... wished her a happy birthday in the morning, made a call back at night... was glad that she is happy... bought her a new wallet beforehand and hid it in the cupboard... told my sisters before I left Korea for exchange to pass it to her as her birthday gift.... mom looks happy during the call, showed me pictures of her cake and her dinner... was glad that she's enjoying herself at the same time feeling sad and bad for not celebrating it together it with her....