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Dream Plan to Korea!

I sent an sms to Brit this evening: 

“Hey, there is a blog writing contest where I have to write about things I want to do/see/hear in Korea, but since yesterday I got stuck. Have no idea L” 

Her reply: 

“Pff... All I can remember about Korea is only about those girl/boybands and plastic surgery LOL” 

Me: 

:D :D :D

Well, you have a reason, but I guess you will need to read my blog after I finished writing it down. Korea is not only about that. There are many other things like ever heard about Jeju Island? I heard this island is so beautiful. Oh well, let’s start writing then. You just gave me an idea how to tell things about what I want to do in Korea.

So Brit, let say that we will go together to Korea this October. Let me tell you, October is autumn in Korea. Oh that would be great for an Indonesian like us who have only experienced two seasons in a year: dry and rainy season. Actually, since we both have never been abroad so those are the only two seasons we have ever experienced in our whole life :p Anyways, what is in your mind after hearing the word autumn?

As for me, this image is what comes in my mind about autumn. Beautiful isn’t it?

Hwangwonjeong pond in autumn (Geongbuk Palace Complex, Seoul, South Korea) by Luc Valencia

Therefore, to witness this beauty of autumn as in the above pic I suggest we visit Seoraksan and let’s hike!! I read an article about Seoraksan and one sentence really provoke me to hike there.

However, when autumn comes around, the scenery of Seoraksan's tallest mountain peak, 'Daecheaongbong (1,708m)', and Seoraksan's other main hiking routes seem to be gloriously painted in bright colors.

That sounds wonderful and promising, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to be there :s 

Seoraksan 

Ok, next thing we do is go to Lotte World. Nope, it is not a typo, it is not Lotte Mart. Lotte World is an amusement park. Yup, you read me. Nope, we won’t amuse ourselves by shopping till drop since I said it is not the same as Lotte Mart where we can buy things :P Lotte World equals Disneyland equals Dufan in Indonesia, well... more or less. It is an amusement park. Got that? Ok, then once we got there let’s try their roller coaster! I have never ride this ever before, but I am willing to take the risk LOL. Let’s push our adrenalin, be crazy and have fun! (Though I know I might vomit after I ride that roller coaster :D )

Oh guess what? We can also get to know more about Korean culture and history in Lotte World! :O They have a history exhibition hall where we can see how Korea was in old days. They also have a miniatur village there which are showing the scenes of royal court procedures, new year’s day, ceremonial events and else. What a surprise.  We can have fun and have knowledge too here. Cool eh? Btw, do you think I can use my Lotte Mart card to get a discount price in this Lotte World? :D 

A World of Magic and Fantasy Lotte World

Next is we will go to Bukchon. Whoa-what is-why? Well, Bukchon is a traditional Korean village. This place is keeping their originality and we can see that clearly from their traditional houses and crafts. Sightseeing in Bukchon would be interesting and hope we would feel the nostalgic :D

Hmm.. Hey what if we do more than just sightseeing? What if... we spend few days at one of those Korean traditional houses?! There are guest houses which offer not only a place to stay, but also cultural experiences! We’ll stay there for the rest of our visit in Korea. That sounds great, no?

View of the Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul by Mark Wiens

So how is my plan so far? Hiking in Seoraksan, visiting Lotte World to ride a roller coasters and getting to know more about their history and culture, then sightseeing in Bukchon and maybe staying in one of those traditional houses for a day or two to have a cultural experience. I bet after this, at least what you will remember about Korea are how pretty the color of the leaves are in Seoraksan in autumn or how to live like a Korean in their traditional house.


PS.
I wrote this to a blog writing contest as I mentioned above. More info follow this link. Wish me luck and hope I will be one of the winner because then I will get the chance to feel autumn season for the first time in my life :D

Update on Oct 12, 2012
Thanks for reading and also your support dear friends!! ^_^ But I failed! :D They have announced the winners and as predicted I failed lol.  Dang! Now I lost my chance to witness autumn in South Korea :(

 Source: Facebook event page: Asian On Air Program 

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Facebook No More

It has been a month since I deactivated my facebook account on August 18th. A month is the longest time for me and it feels like it is a big achievement LOL. I spent too many hours on the site having a comment war or a chit chat on a comment box with friends or playing games. Well mostly I am there to play games. I am a game freak, I play almost every game. From planting seeds to cooking them for my own restaurant or finding a treasure. Yeah I know, they might not as cool as games you play, but rather than nothing it was a good time killer :p

Not really free from facebook actually. I still keep one account for my online friends because it is easier to be in touch with them trough facebook, but this time I managed not to spend too much time by playing games. I go there just to check on the notification and messages. After that rituals, I close the site.

Now that I am no longer on facebook and speaking of time killer, I can chat chat chat! A good way to spend time to meet people and widen your knowledge. I use to chat in a language learning chat site so another good thing is I can practice my English. I forgot how did I finally find the site, but it seemed like Google again has led me the way. Oh have I mentioned the name of the site? It's Sharedtalk.

In that site, not only I can practice my English, but also my French. It didn't work well though since I hang out too much in English room and I realized that my French level is not so good so it is hard for me to survive in French room :( Hehe, what a shame for someone who has spent years learning French huh? 

FYI, Sharedtalk has plenty of specific rooms for the languages such as English, French, Arabic, Japanese, Hindi, Thai and many more. It has a lot of members so it will be easy to find someone to practice with. It will be an ideal condition if for exemple I met a French who is interested in bahasa Indonesia so I get help and I help others. Take and give.

The site is kind of like a small world in a form of a website where everybody from around the world gather, communicate and share stories. Hmm... stories. Few days ago there was a man who had a monologue about her girlfriend. I said monologue because he almost ignored others comments. He was unstoppable and kept continue sharing story about her with repetitive sentences like "I was like ..., and she was like ..." It went quite long after he finally ended it. Pfiuh... 

Well, that was just another story happened in Sharedtalk.

Update on Sept 23rd:
I reactivated my fb again for a blog writing contest. Hope it is a good thing that I did this :s I am a bit worried actually, I thought I would never come back. Well at least not so soon and especially not after I wrote a blog telling I have left fb LOL 

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"Secarik..."

I often read word "secarik" being followed with "kertas". "Secarik kertas". A piece of paper. But I read this:

I wonder what does it mean "secarik langit biru" in that sentence. Does it mean "a piece of blue sky"? Doesn't that sound a bit weird? Sky has pieces? Now I need to find out and make sure about its meaning on KBBI.

Here is what I found on http://kbbi.web.id/:

So from the definition on that link, I concluded that the use "secarik" in a sentence "secarik langit biru" is not a correct usage.

Hmm, I wonder if this blog has made me as a grammar nazi now...

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