Seoul Day 2

Super long post ahead for my second day in Seoul! (lots of forehead for those who are curious to see mine)

The schedule for the day was:
11am - report at hotel lobby
11+am - (depending on how long everyone finally takes to get down zzz) lunch
1pm to 4pm - hair & makeup by stylists and makeup artists for the award ceremony
4pm - report at hotel lobby
7pm - ceremony starts

Yeah obviously for a 7pm ceremony (Asia Model Festival Award 2011) I was kinda like... to report at 11am?! I mean essentially we're just going onstage for a total of 5 minutes maximum (if you have a whole colony of people to thank in your acceptance speech - and we were only told at the event itself that we would have to give one).

Anyway at the end of the day I understood why they have to give such a massive time allowance for everyone to be ready on time -_- More on that later.


My superrr insanely comfortable bed ): highly neglected.


A whole lot of veggie with various spices...


Raw oysters.


Totally looks like brain right I swearzZ. Red bean rice.

Okay no offence to any Koreans out there but the food that day for lunch was kinda weird haha. They just kept bringing out dishes after dishes of variations of veggie with variations of spices/seasoning. Meh. I don't like veggies. And not forgetting to mention that 90% of the dishes are cold.

Everyone was like... can we plz order McDonald's hahaha GOLDEN ARCHES RULE ACROSS NATIONALITIES.
Anyway you know how in Singapore people say "Macs" for McDonald's? Apparently in Malaysia it's "Maccers/Mackers" haha. When I said "Macs" no one knew what I was talking about.


In front of the restaurant, which is located in Gangnam (just opposite our hotel).


Dior!


This was AFTER the makeup/hairstyling.

I asked for a big loose-ish (not tight ballerina) bun. They took an HOUR to do it. I swear I nearly died. Okay actually I didn't cause I fell asleep and snoozed through most of it. Wearing a coat indoors gives you great mini-pillows around your face/neck.

As for the makeup, they went for a dark/light blue eyeshadow combination + false eyelashes cause I told them my dress was dark blue. I think it turned out alright-ish, but I added a little brown eyeshadow of my own.

So anyway we were to report at 4pm at the hotel lobby, with our dress in our bags to bring to the event and to change there. I wore my dress over tights because I didn't want to freeze to death walking to the chartered buses and packed my heels etc.
Went down to the lobby at 4.20pm because I anticipated that everyone else would be late.

I waited 1.5hours in the hotel lobby -_-
Finally at almost 6pm, the final few models came down fully dressed in gowns and no coats.

Overall I was pretty underdressed ): I was told a cocktail dress would suffice, but many girls wore full, red carpet, floor-sweeping gowns. I wouldn't even know where to get one of those! (Okay I do lah but I wouldn't want to pay close to $xxxx for a dress to wear once).
So okay never mind I rather be underdressed than have to fret over getting a red carpet dress haha.


I thought the male host looked familiar, but didn't think much about it till after the event.




He's that actor in I-don't-know-which Korean drama! I remember his face cause he's good looking and looks a little bit like Daniel Henney :D


No idea who this Korean boyband is.


I could feel the warmth of the fire from where I was sitting! Can't imagine how hot it must be onstage.


Boy on the left is the cutest. Plus he's the one that raps! Cuteeeee.


They all look SO young. I feel like a cougar thinking that one boy is cute haha.


Don't know who.




Same thing. Such a shame that all these Korean celebs are wasted on me.




Hahahah Jerry Yan from F4 (a Taiwanese band). Apparently F4 is pretty popular in Korea.


A little girl who won some little girl/miss model competition... Told you modelling is a really big thing in Korea! Look at how young they start!

Below are some of the models (award winners; getting the same award thingy as me) from the other Asian countries:

Malaysia.


Thailand. He looks reallyyyyy familiar to me! If I'm not wrong he's also a Thai actor? He was also the only other model besides me who spoke good English haha. I think he's probably American-Thai cause his English was a little different.


Amber Chia and the Thai model/actor winner.


Me!
If you're really curious, I said something (pretty boring) like: "Good evening everyone. My name is Sophie Willocq and I'm from Singapore. I'm really excited to be here tonight and I'd like to thank the KMA for organising this event. I'm really glad to be able to accept this award on behalf of Singapore and I'd like to thank everyone who made this possible. Thank you."


I specifically mentioned "on behalf of Singapore" because well... none of us really did anything to deserve it. I mean I'm sure some of them are established models back in their home country and so on, but we didn't actually win a contest to have the opportunity to be there. I mean we were just lucky to be picked haha.
Like for me... I'd say a more established, full-time, Singaporean model deserves to be there, not me. I'm first and foremost a normal university student, and at most just a part-time model. But oh well I'm really grateful for the opportunity and super unique experience! :D

Anyway like.. ALL the other winners said "Annyeong" (Hello) or "Kamsa Hamnida" (Thank You) or both, but I didn't at all.
To me it just reminds me of the pop star that shouts like, "I love you Singapore!!!!" when before that he's like Wtf is Singapore? Is that in China? (no joke, a lot of Caucasians still think that).

And not forgetting that he/she goes to EVERY city and says the same thing. Do fans really believe that crap?

I'm not saying the other winners are insincere or something (besides the Korean winners said the same words too haha), but I'm just a little cynical about it. And I just thought it'd be boring to say it too. But yes I did realise that 90% of the Koreans don't speak much English and wouldn't have understood my speech ANYWAY, hence = I'm still boring.


With Ian, the Malaysian-but-representing-Singapore-as-the-male-model-haha.


The trophy is SUPER HEAVY! Like seriously, I just weighed it and it's at least 1kg.




Some cutesy girl group.



AND.... SNSD!

Sadly once you receive your award you get shifted to the side ):






This sponsors-wall thing just outside the event hall that all Korean celebs took photos at.






Cute bodyguard! These are just SOME of the photos I took haha (obviously these are the more successful ones). I mean seriously, I just had to show you guys cause Singapore's bodyguards are all old ahpeks or really, really biggish (by this I don't mean all that lean and muscular LOL) dudes in black tshirts.










With Shin, my interpreter/new friend!


The bouquet we all got, my painted nails and the ring I bought from Diva at Terminal 2 before boarding the plane for Seoul.


Snacks I had bought from the 7-11 opposite the hotel on the first night! I've never seen Java Coffee flavoured Twix bars (in retrospect I didn't even get to try the taste cause friends ate mine...). And the DARS white chocolate is really nice! I love white chocolate but it tends to be wayyyy too sweet. Not this Korean one!
Oh and the 7-11 had free wifi! I didn't even realise till I got back to the hotel and realised BBMs/emails had come in while I was buying stuff.


With Hyung-wook, another English interpreter whom I met through Shin. He lived in USA for a pretty long time so he's like super Americanised. His English even has an accent and he knows all the American RnB songs haha.


The president of the KMA in the middle and all the winners of the night including local Korean models (of course excluding the music awards).


With the Malaysia and Hong Kong models, plus Amber Chia and a Malaysian choreographer.
(Okay L-R at the back: Malaysian male and female models, Hong Kong female and male models, and the Singapore ones!)





We each got this velvet box to put the trophy in too.


Went back to the hotel and got ready to meet Shin and Hyung-wook!

I let down the bun because it looked a bit too formal. Obviously my hair was super curly so I tied it back up into a smaller, normal bun. I also put up my fringe, took off the false eyelashes and wiped off most of the eyeshadow.

Shin and Hyung-Wook met me at my hotel lobby and Dior (the Malaysian singer) was there too so he came along.
We decided to go to Dong Dae Mun since it's a shopping area that closes at 4am!


This is called Shabu Shabu, which is basically the same thing as steamboat (took me a long time to explain this concept to two Koreans).
Dior is Muslim so we couldn't take the meat combo ): seafood is not really my thing (yes I know earlier on I said the same thing for veggies- I'm a picky eater). I can't believe I went to Korea and didn't eat beef bulgogi.


Dior, Hyung-wook, Shin and I.


Shin and I.

How Korean "steamboat" is different however, is that after you're done eating all the seafood/meat/etc, they:
1) Put in noodles. Once you're done eating the noodles, they drain most of the soup and they:
2) Put in rice, and stir it while the flame/stove below is still heating, so it becomes like porridge!

The resulting "porridge" is really yummy because it's flavoured with the remained steamboat soup!

Took a long time explaining the concept of "porridge" too... Haha I tried calling it pawh-rid-geuh (like you know how the Koreans sound) but it didn't work. The closest I could get was likening it to oatmeal to Hyung-wook cause oatmeal is at least fairly common in the US.






At this point this is me going like: "Omg can we please go it's freezing".


Yes they zoomed into my face. So to the person who asked if I have moles, that's one of my most prominent ones you see in the photo! (corner of my forehead in case you're blind)

Those are also the Chanel ear studs (and necklace - not featured here) that I left behind in Seoul FML. The hotel pissed me off big time. More on that in the next post.


It started snowing!




I HAVE NO IDEA WHO HE IS. I just know that he's a popular Korean actor right now haha.






I love these 3 photos Dior took of us walking!

Anyway I let my hair down because we went on this 4D simulator ride (yes there's a 24/7 one outside the shopping centre!) and it was INSANE. Like, take Singapore's best simulator ride (e.g. the one you can find at the Science Center) x50 (and Genting's super crappy one x10000).

There are 4 seats inside and the chairs really jerk you around like crazy! I had a zillion pins but my bun totally fell apart!

I'd actually also heard a lot about how good Seoul's clubs are but by then it was too late ): 3am. Hyung-wook said in Seoul the clubs close at 7am though! :o Here they all close at 5am latest.

So we went to do another popular Korean pasttime... KTV!

Epic-ly weird combination of food served haha. You pay a flat rate + it's compulsory to order one dish (that's the more expensive thing), and the rest of the food comes free with the flat rate! We also ordered fruit soju (like a really, really mild and sweet cocktail) and beer and it only came up to about S$10 each.

Anyway for the food there was some kind of fried fish, spaghetti, cooked corn, ramen, fries and... one slice of pineapple, one orange and one banana. Hahahaha I mean seriously the fruits are the most random thing I could possibly imagine being served.


KTV rooms come with the hand shaker thingy Hyung-wook's holding!




The Koreans are MAD ENTHUSIASTIC about KTV. Like Shin and Hyung-wook really pour their hearts into singing hahaha. And when they're not singing, we can hear people from other rooms cause all the Koreans sing super loudly regardless of whether they suck or not (those in the neighbouring rooms sucked).

But anyway both Shin and Hyung-wook have not bad voices! In fact Shin's is pretty good. I have a video, gonna upload next!

Oh and yes the KTV place has loads of English songs, ranging from Rihanna to the Lost Prophets! They also have Indonesian and even Chinese songs!


No Hyung-wook was not from Harvard haha. He's a Finance major if I remember correctly, in a university in Seoul. Same for Shin, except that he's majoring in Communications.
After talking to them it feels like university students in other countries are actually not very different from students here! Which... is not really unexpected I guess, but still a weird feeling!




Damn enthusiastic.


Came out of the KTV, and the snow was falling even harder than before! I was way less excited than Dior cause... being half French I have seen snow quite a few times, but the falling snow in Seoul was still nice (:




Fat and bundled up like a giant black marshmallow. Still not warm enough.






Heading over to see what Hyung-wook wrote in the snow...





By then it was after 7am already, so Shin and Hyung-wook absolutely insisted that we take a train back! I was totally like omg plz plz plz I'll pay for taxi, but they said that at that hour the peak traffic is really bad ): And reassured me that the trains are warm.


So this is me with the super curly wurly hair from the awards ceremony bun.






I look weird here but LOL @ Shin's expression staring at me haha.


Underneath the seats there are air vents coughing out super warm air! So warm that after a while it feels way too hot on the calves.


Shin being retarded.

Shin accompanied Dior and I back to the hotel. By the time we got back it was 8am o.O and we had to report at the lobby at 12.30pm to go to the airport for our flights back to Singapore/Malaysia.

Gonna do one more post on Seoul although I didn't take any pictures after crashing for a pathetic 3+hours after getting back. Will be trying to blog two short videos, plus gonna whine and complain about losing my Chanel ear studs and necklace! (Okay I mean like I'm not going to complain about losing them itself cause that's my fault for being careless, but the hotel's sucky follow-up/attitude really pissed me off!)

Goodnight everyone; first day of Chinese New Year visitations tomorrow/later (depending on when you read this, cause it's 2.45am now). Getting sick of bak gwa already. Bye!