i camped in Korea

2018.05.26-2018.05.27

w/ Youth Hostel 

It’s been forever. I imagined myself posting regularly in Korea, I guess not. But hey I’m alive and also went camping last weekend with my travel club; Youth Hostel. It was a nice breather outside Anam without my usual crowd.  And the river..(?) was so cold! Camped at the 힐링별밤수목원 캠핑장 in Namyangju, and it took 2 hours of public transportation to get there from Anam. It was real nice. I’m so glad I went.

School’s been pretty crazy with festivals and now it’s about to get crazy with finals. But honestly, I am such a mess regardless of what is going on in school. I am trying, trying to get my shit together. I want to live good in June. I want to think good and be good. Wrote ‘good’ 3 times in a row and now it doesn’t look like a real word. Anyway, bye! I hope I’ll be back soon.

Vietnam film diary (more like dump)

I shot 4 rolls of film in Vietnam. I’m not quite sure if that’s a lot or little for a week spent there! But it was my first time sending 4 rolls to the shop for developing, at the same time, so it was pretty exciting. And… also pretty expensive. Here goes a very picture heavy post. (I thought about separating places into different posts but then, then some would be too short so yeah)

Hanoi

Cat Ba island – Lan Ha Bay

Mui Ne

Ho Chi Minh city

Whew. That’s a lot to take in. I want to write another post on some of the details, sooo it’s just gonna be pictures here! (But I always end up failing to write a follow-up… ) Most of the photos I took in Ho Chi Minh was of my Airbnb that was super cute. You can get RM 105 off with this link !

Where to get film processed in Hanoi, Vietnam?

I googled that because I wanted to get a roll developed when I arrived in Hanoi. This excellent page answers it perfectly. Among the many film labs suggested, I visited Lab 36+ because it was the nearest to where I stayed. And I highly highly highly highly recommend it. The colours came out so! nice! I don’t know, it could have been that maybe my skills had improved and I had just taken better photos, but I doubt that. I think they just develop film very well….. I don’t know much about developing film and how much it can alter your photos but, the point here is that you should get your film process at Lab 36+. Oh, and guess what? It’s RM 6 to develop+scan 1 roll. … amazing???!??!??!? isn’t it. I paid RM 80 to get 4 rolls processed back here in Kuching… 또르르….

Anyway, I’ll be back REAL soon. I really hope I do. If I don’t write about Vietnam now, I will forget every detail and never write about it. So. Keep your eyes PEELED. Bye!

home no. 2 for a bit

I went back to Korea for a bit longer than 2 weeks in Aug-Sept recently. It was just a short trip to see my brother for a while and have some good food. Here’s some film photographs from there! Actually shot a lil less than a roll only.

#1 coolest thing I saw in Korea. I was standing at a bus stop in Nonsan, where my brother had his training. And I was like.. wait what. Is that a slide from a window to the ground?? Holy.

The sunset view I watched while going down the escalator at a train station. We were trying to get all the way to Gwang Ju, which is really far from where I stay, to attend a funeral of someone I don’t personally know. The small glimpses of the sky I could only catch through the tall scrapers made the beautiful sky seem even more magical.

My grandma getting her usual perm at her usual salon.

We tried 6 times because it was 1000 won for each time and I only had 6000 won with me. Unfortunately, we didn’t win even once. We promised each other that we would return the next day with more money and win a plushie. Our hopes were trashed by our aunt who banned us from returning.

I wanted to try a bagel shop I read about online. So I picked HB from school at 5 and we carefully followed Naver Map’s instructions on how to get there. We got on the right bus and got off on the right stop but I just couldn’t figure out the map for the walking part. Scared of getting lost, scared of it getting too dark, scared of Korea in general, we decided to go back home after getting ice cream from the local mart. But I asked the shop keeper and he kindly gave us directions so we managed to get to the bagel shop that had heavenly cream cheese. So good.

3 generations.

Grandma. I’m sorry I couldn’t focus.

개 조심. Beware of dogs.

HB playing badminton at the park that I visited with her at night for about 5 days straight. We had so much fun going around asking dog owners permission to touch their dogs.

My brother has gone to army! He has completed his first 5 weeks of training (the picture below is the leaving(?) ceremony for that), and today, he has finished his extra 3rd week of training at his assigned army(?) and has been assigned to his final post where he’ll be working at until he is done with his service. I’m glad all the tough training and adapting is over for him. Hope he meets good people where he’s at now!

Order, then disorder. Soldiers reunite with their families for the first time after their first 5-weeks training.

 

That would be all- xx

(see you soon)

k.k. on film

Way overdue K.K. post. Here it goes,

FIRST DAY

I wouldn’t trust what I say too much, I probably forgot half of the things we did, and the order of it all. I’m probably making all this up.

I actually tried to recall the order and stuff, and I actually did write a paragraph on what we did but I decided to leave that to like a more detailed day to day post? Something like that. (I can’t promise there’ll even be one hahahah) So this will be more like a photo log. Photo post? Ah whatever.

Swimming in Sutera Harbour. I remember the first time I was in K.K. we ordered drinks here and I was so shocked at the prices of the drinks. That was really long ago. This trip was my third time in K.K. Also, I’m up for any pool that has a water slide. I really like water slides, except the fact that I have to climb up to slide down. Then we watched the sunset on the harbour. It had a really good view.

I find that the photos I take of skies don’t usually come out nice on film. I’ve always been frustrated how the digital photos I take of skies don’t look like the skies I see for myself. When will I be able to take it like how it looks?! Can all the tech-y people work harder. Please, and thank you.

The photo of the 3 of us was my first time using self-timer on my film camera. The colour of the photo looks a lot like one of the filters on the mac Photo Booth. I swear it wasn’t that. Though the macbook in the photo above strongly suggests otherwise hahahah, but really! And it’s like every time I see a mirror, I have to take a selfie. Crazy. That pose is embarrassing though.. Which is why I put it small. P.s. Sheena’s wearing shorts incase y’all start freaking out. Staying at a home, on a trip is the most comfortable thing ever. We watched ‘The Danish Girl’ in bed, it was the 2nd time I was watching it and I still think that Alicia Vikander acts really well. We watched ‘Edward Scissorhands’ as well! Finally got to watch it.  Who knew Johhny Depp could look so cute. I digress way too often.

Here’s 3 touristy shots of us. There are these graffiti stacks in front of this mall of which I forgot the name of. You could probably google it if you want to visit it. I’m sure it’s just a google search away. It wasn’t that cool honestly, but it was pretty amusing. I’ve always thought that graffitis, using spray paint to paint was the hardest form of art. Maybe below sculpting? Like I’ve used spray paints before, during D.T. projects lol, and it’s like smelly and hard to use. Hahahaha, I just can’t imagine how they do it so well! Highly impressed all the time. The ones in town in Kuching are nice too! I like the big ones on the side of the buildings. The ones that look like artists were actually commissioned to do them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

SECOND DAY

The island day,

This was at the harbour where we waited for the ship, and booked our island activities. We went to Sapi Island. Thinking about it, wished we went to Manukkan as well. But Sapi was beautiful, so it’s all right I guess.

 We tried jet ski, the parachute looking thing, and flying fish. We snorkelled a little too. I hate how salty the sea water is. Wish the ocean was filled with fresh water.  Jet skiing was so fun. It was so fast. Like really really fast. Who knew I’d be enjoying speed. But it felt really nice to be so fast on the water. It took me awhile to be able to steer the handles properly though.

Shout out to Adelphi & Co. because their food was amazing. It was so amazing I thought about it for a week after I got back. But it was super pricey, so if it was in Kuching I could afford to go like once a month. If you ever happen to walk into the shop, try the hotcake, the lava cake was good but like way too expensive for a lava cake, this mutton soup thing oh my god I can’t remember the names. I’ll just post this like this then I’ll ask Sheena and I’ll come back to edit it. Another thing I ate that I loved was the Fook Yuen bread. It’s just simple kaya butter toast? But the bread is soo o ooo oo o soft. So soosososos soft. While the toasted part is very crunchy? The nicely toasted feeling. I don’t think crunchy is the right word but I can’t think of another word.

Dreary way back home. Actually, I don’t remember if I was sad to go back or if I was a little glad to go back home. When I look at the photos, they look really bleak and miserable so I feel like I might have been sad but Dong Ho’s so smiley and all so.. I don’t know. (Also, we stayed for 4 days, but I’ve only marked the 1st day and 2nd day. They are all jumbled up anyway so, just ignore it.)

K.K. on film, end. Thanks for reading guys.