Marsha Maung: I write. I love. I live

I did mention that we should make a visit to DMZ before the trip began, we didn't really plan for it to happen. We were Lonely Planeting this whole thing....seriously, with an official Lonely Planet book I bought some 6 years back when I said I wanted to visit South Korea. But it was in Insadong (I have to give my very persistent friend credit here and for dealing with a very impatient Marsha) that we found an information booth that KNEW EVERYTHING. You could ask the info counter when your next period will be and it can tell you the precise second and also bonus of telling you exactly how many kids you will have in the future. Heehe...of course not. But thanks to their ability to hook us up to a seller that sells the precise universal charger we need AND find us a DMZ tour almost on the spot, the trip happened. I am telling you once again that Korean summer is no...effin....joke. If you can see my pictures taken during our trip, first day...nice clothes, nice makeup, big ready ...

I have placed a stool on top of the table and now I am writing aloft. LOL. Sorry but my back aches really bad most days and this solution is heaven-sent. You try it too instead of buying one of them expensive standing tables. LOL XD

We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools. By : Martin Luther King

' No visit to Seoul will be complete without scaling one of its many palaces ,' says only one book, countless magazines, three friends and many bloggers. And I did NOT intend to leave the place without hitting at least one of them. Initially wanting to hit ALL of them within the five days that we were there, once we got to Gyeongbokgung and started walking around, I soon realized how foolish that was. Gyeongbokgung is.....HUGEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!! As noted by my friend, this is the 'entrance' to Gwanghwamun, I think it's an area or a subway station thing that links us to Gyeongbokgung My equally ambitious friend and me were intent on seeing every single little corner of the palace. All the other tour guides took the visitors to some of the main attractions where they all noisily climbed the stairs to huddle together in front of whatever structure it was for a group photo....us? We were hell bent on walking as many inches, feet and miles of this palace gr...

We took the midnight flight quite by accident (for me) but for my friend and I, it was a good thing because by the time we made it to South Korea, it would be first thing in the morning and we have a full full FULL day ahead of us. The flight was your usual thing but it was the first time I was actually required to take a night's sleep in the air. On flight meal was....as expected but can someone, pray tell, what the hell is this supposed to be a meal for? LOL A mushroom fresh out of a tin can? Not sauteed, not fried, not blanched, not baked, not sliced, oh God, I hope they washed it or something. Interesting, isn't it? In this space, we had to catch a couple of hours of sleep (at least) in order to make full use of our advantageous FULL DAY ahead. If we don't, we would officially be awake and trudging all around Seoul with less than 3 hours sleep in 2 days.  No in-flight incident or drama accept for seeing a man in KLIA zonked out blind from drinking and...

I shall pass through this life but once. Any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness I can show, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it. For I shall never pass this way again. By : Etienne de Grellet

OK, first off, I will admit that part of the reason why I went to South Korea was to attend a Shinhwa concert. It was awesome and a much anticipated one. But anyway, that is not what I am writing about today. So, we stayed around the outskirts of Gang nam -gu (not intentional, it was because the lodging was cheap and had 5/10 or 6/10 score on Agoda - check previous post about how THAT turned out) but the concert venue was at Olympic Park which is in Gang dong -gu which effectively means that it is across a river or some stream. It wasn't far-FAR but far enough so, I decided to cab the ride there because I didn't want to miss the opening. The ride there was fine, a decent old man uncle who DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE WORD 'OLYMPIC PARK' in English. *shakes head* How different can 'OLYMPIC PARK' be in Korean as opposed to it being in English, I don't know. ..what. Oul-leum-pichke Phark-he ? That totally sounds like Olympic Park to me! Anyway, even when I...

There was one night, after some drinks and food, my friend and I decided that the 'hotel' that we booked were not bearable. There was a new one next door which was in a much better condition. But anyway, it was 3am in the morning and we were basically lugging our luggage and baggage around street after street. My friend is a very...how should I word this....relentless person. She decided that with the luggage and stuff, arguing with and comparing prices and amenities between the motels at 3am is a perfectly fine thing to do. In a red light district, no less. Let's just give her a hand for her fighting spirit, and relentless pursuit of trying to argue with non-English-speaking Koreans about reasonable prices for motel rooms. As you know, I watch a lot of Korean dramas and some variety shows, I understand what they are saying. Trying to get them to understand me is quite another thing but so far so good. They even said that I spoke good broken Korean. Well done. I think...