Travel Seoul: Olleh KT Wifi Prepaid Card (How-to)

Let us all take a moment to take in the fact that 2 months of 2015 have already passed. So fast, right? I know! I know! I have the same thoughts! I can't believe January and February flew by just like that. However, reality is here and we can do nothing but embrace the month of March, which just arrived.

On one of my travel posts, I mentioned that one of the first things we did when we arrived in South Korea was getting our T-money loaded (for easy commute on trains, buses, taxi, etc.) and grabbing an Olleh Wifi prepaid card. Both of these things can be done in GS25, which is a convenience store that we saw nearby the bus station.

The thing about Korea is that there are a lot of Olleh wifi networks all over Seoul. There are networks in most tourists spots and subway stations. The only down side is that most of it are password protected so if you don't have the pin, you won't be able to access them. This is frustrating especially to those who want to update their social media real time or maybe if you just didn't bother to get roaming since messenger apps are used by everyone nowadays. (Raise your hand if you can relate.)

One cheap solution to this is getting the Olleh KT Wifi prepaid card. At first, I didn't know if I should make a separate post about this but since one of my readers, Claudine, wanted to know about it, I thought making one would be worth it.

South Korea Day 2 (Gyeongbuokgung Palace, Lotte World): Review

After uploading my travel entry about South Korea last week and after getting my South Korea vlog published, I am now more motivated to continue writing about my experiences when I was roaming around Seoul. Here's my second  post where I will be going about what happened during my second day in South Korea.

Late night snack at 2AM before sleeping-- Spicy Chicken is really spicy!!!

On Day 2, we started our day late. We didn't plan it this way but since we got back to the hostel at around 3AM from trying to explore the streets of Myengdong (while snowing) and having a late night snack, we ended up waking up a few hours after our original plan. We knew our itinerary was going to get messed up but we still managed. How? Read on and find out.

Originally, our second day was planned to be our Nami Island/ Petite France day. But seeing as it was  snowing, we chickened out. We can only imagine how cold it's going to be when we get on the ferry trip with a weather that could possibly freeze us so we quickly decided to switch in our day 5 plans for this day.

Travel: South Korea Day 1

Hi everyone! Today's blog post is something I'm really excited about. I've put off writing about it for a long period of time but last night I decided it's time for me to reminisce my good old days in South Korea. Oh, and there's a vlog at the end of this post if you're interested to just watch what little clips I filmed during our first day.

credits to owner

If you're a new reader, I think it is just courtesy for me to let you know that since 2007, I've been a Korean culture enthusiast. It started off with my love for Korean drama, which actually helped me to stumble upon Korean pop music. Little did I know, I was already hooked on anything Korean. This is why it doesn't come as a surprise that one of my dreams is to actually visit the land of South Korea.

Monea Curl Defining Milk: Review

HELLOOOOOO FEBRUARY!!! I can't believe January is over but the calendar doesn't lie. It really is the second month of the year. Time flies... How was your January? If you ask me, it was uneventful. The only new thing that happened in my life is that I started teaching english to Japanese students. Other than that, I've been doing nothing but blogging and youtubing.

Having permed hair is not only a tedious job, it can also be expensive. When I had straight hair, I didn't put anything on my hair after drying. I can go out without any product on my hair. These days, however, I have to apply something to define my curls and make it not look bushy. Most of the time, it's a hair mousse. Sometimes, however, I go for the cheaper alternative, the Monea Curl Defining Milk.

On days when I just stay at home and a friend would quickly drop by for a visit or if I just have to head out to the nearest drug store, I feel that using mousse can be a little too much. True, mousse won't empty my wallet out but sometimes, I just need a valid reason to actually put it on my hair. When I can't find one, I use this instead. It just costs PHP99 so I know I'm not wasting money on trying to look decent for just a few minutes.

Bulgogi Brothers: Food Diary

Bulgogi Brothers is a restaurant that I've heard more than once, twice or thrice from my good old 'chingu' (Korean for friend), Lyle. We're both Korean culture fanatics and we try a lot of Korean stuff just for appreciation. For a little over a year now, she's been raving about the restaurant saying small Korean restaurants we've eaten in so far doesn't compare to Bulgogi Brothers. Today, is just going to be a simple post showing you some of the food we ate while having lunch at the said restaurant.

I've never blogged about food and I don't think I have enough adjectives in my vocabulary to fully describe how the food tasted all in all so I'll just leave the photos to hopefully speak for itself. (Like it would. LOL)

South Korea, I'm Coming for You: Korean Tourist Visa Application

Let's see your list. You are a K-Pop fan? Check. You love Korean dramas? Check. You want to shop for Korean beauty cosmetics straight from where it's created? Check. Or you're just a traveller at heart? Check. Whatever your reason is, I'm sure your goal is to get to visit the beautiful land of South Korea. But if you're a Filipino citizen like me, the very first thing you have to do is get your visa.

 Credits to Korean Tourism Organization

Now I'm not sure if I told you this before but right now, I am in between jobs. I am a nurse by profession and I used to be an ICU nurse. I already got the experience I needed and I resigned from my position due to reasons I will not stipulate in this post (Say no to dramatic post). Anyway, I decided to explore my opportunities abroad but it won't be until next year as I have a lot of papers to process and frankly speaking, I'm not yet ready emotionally. So in summary, I am currently unemployed. I will be an english tutor soon but I don't think it will have any bearing at all right now. The problem of Korean visa application now comes in.

THEFACESHOP Raspberry Roouts Fitting Up Essence: Review

My first post for the month of October! Oh, how time flies. I haven't been posting much for two reasons: 1.) I'm lazy. 2.) I've been tweaking my blog design. Yesterday, I just applied my new blog design to my blog. It took me a whole week to get this done although I'm pretty sure it would just take one hour for some people out there. I'm pretty happy with the results of the design template and I would sincerely be thankful if you give me your feedback in the comment section below. Okay, so enough about my excuses.

For 8 years now, I've been a fan of Korean movies, dramas and music. Because of this, I've grown fond of the Korean culture. One of the things I've grown fond of in the Korean culture is their beauty routines. Korea is well known for being forward when it comes to beauty trends and I can say that I fully trust them with this because based from my observations, most Korean women (and men) have great skin. This could also be because they have good genes and they've mastered the art of skin care.

I'm not sure if you're aware of this but Korean skin care routine is definitely longer than the usual Cleanse-Tone-Moisturize routine that most people know of. They also have a wide range of skin care products such as essense, serum, booster, ampoule, etc. In this post, I will be talking about an essence that I've tried before from the Korean brand THEFACESHOP.

Real Asian Beauty: Feature

Two months ago, I got the chance to attend Real Asian Beauty (Kristine)'s Meet and Greet. She scheduled this meet up as part of her numerous birthday celebrations. If you don't know who she is, then you better check the link above. She is one of my all time favorite blogger/youtuber. I found out about her through her K-Pop inspired nail art tutorials in youtube. After going through her videos, I realized that I also stumbled upon her blog at least once before I came to subscribe to her channel. She doesn't only do K-Pop related stuff like nail arts and whatnots. She also does DIY stuff and fashion videos. Her channel and blog is so versatile, you are bound to learn a lot from her. Another thing that I like about her is her down to earth personality. Even with more than 80,000 (Almost at the 90,000 mark! Yay!) youtube subscribers, I never felt like she became too proud or anything of that sort. This made me like her even more. Now, I try my best to watch all her videos and read all her posts. I suggest you do the same thing!

 This is Kristine. Isn't she pretty?

This one is my favorite OOTD of hers. I know I only need to post a single photo to share how she looks like but because this is my blog and I am in control, I can easily squeeze in another photo. ;) Oh, and for more OOTDs from Real Asian Beauty, click on any of the photos. It will lead you to the right link. :)

In one of her blog posts/videos, she announced that she will be doing a meet and greet near the end of March and even though it was hard for me to get around the location of the meet up, I still made it and was even more pleased (of being a fan), seeing as she really is a nice person inside and out.

The meet and greet went by so fast, we even lost track of time. And even though it was just a short 2-hour (or was it 3?) get together, it was still really fun. She even gave us gifts!

I'm sure you've seen the face mask before (I already did a review on this and I love it!) but she also gave us two nail polishes and a lippie! Wow! It was supposed to be her birthday and she even gave us gifts! Isn't she the sweetest?! Thank you so much, Kristine! ^^

I'm excited to try the other products out, especially the nail polishes. I've been saving it up for an event but I don't think I will be able to help myself from using the items soon.

Life: Never Take Things For Granted

Yesterday, I went out for a job interview. Don't ask me how it went 'cause I'm not really sure as I still have to wait for the results. I just want to share with you a realization that I got after I was interviewed. So I came in with all my bullets prepared. I stayed up several nights just to search for commonly asked questions and tried to answer it on my own (even when I was alone in my room). There were a number of times where I felt like I was going crazy because I have always been the type of person to overthink. But enough about my preparations. What I really wanted to talk about was a question that I didn't get to answer as good as I wanted to.

credits to owner
The question went something like 'If you would be given the chance to speak in front of an audience, give an inspiring talk to move them with experiences that you've accomplished in your life, what would you say to them?'. My first thought was, 'Did I just get transported to a beauty contest?' because it sounded like a good beauty contest question to me. So I started racking my brains out. I tried to reminisce and pinpoint a specific event in my life that could be inspiring and at the same time be able to display that I have indeed achieved something. I tried to but I couldn't. I used to work as a nurse so I just responded by saying I would like to share about my experiences while working as a nurse where I got to touch other people's lives and help them recover from critical illnesses (I used to be assigned in the ICU). I knew it wasn't a totally mind blowing response but I also thought it wasn't a completely insignificant one. But truth be told, I don't think the interviewer was pleased with what I said. He kept on asking me, pushing me to tell more about myself and my experiences. He wanted me to tell a specific incident or a special event that I got to do that made me into the person that I am today. I wanted to respond to the question so bad but really, I had nothing extraordinary to say so I just said I didn't do anything special. I know I shouldn't have but I still did. I had no choice because I really didn't do anything special in my life. Period. Now this is the part where I talk about my realizations after not getting to answer the question to the interviewer's liking. The truth is, I've lived quite a happy life. I don't come from a prestigious family. I'm not a CEO's daughter or part of the society's elite but I came from a simple middle class family consisting of 5 members: my dad, my mom, my older brother, my younger sister and me. And yes, we're not rich but we're not poor either. My parents have been so supportive of each one of us. We've been raised in a good environment and went to good schools. We were never really hindered from doing anything unless it posed danger to our lives. For our parents, it has always been our welfare that mattered most. And just like this, I went on with my life. I went to school, became a part of the cream (of the crop) section, went to a good exclusive college where I graduated and ranked 15th in the whole batch and I got my professional license after passing the board exam on my first try. I did all these without having to work part time, I never worried about how I would get by. Basically, I was provided with everything that I could ever need. The closest thing I have to a tearjerker moment were heartaches cause by a first love that didn't work out or the second one that ended on a bad note. I have no Maalaala Mo Kaya (Would You Remember) moments. (MMK is a Filipino show that reenacts true to life inspiring stories.) Thus, I wasn't able to give out a good enough answer yesterday. Today, however, I got to do some thinking and I realized how thankful I should be because I don't have 'that' story to help me get the job. I mean, it would have been better if I got to provide a better answer. God knows how much I wanted the job and how much I wanted to have a story to share. But I didn't want to make a story up. I have always believed in honesty and at that time, that was the best answer for me. Yes, I don't have 'the' story. So what? That doesn't make me any less of a person. I didn't get to experience such hardships but that didn't mean I wasted my life partying and not caring. I still worked hard to become who I am today. I walked through life with the virtues my parents taught me. I worked hard, went to school, previously worked for a good company while being my same old self. For me, that's a gift. It's a gift that I should be thankful for. I'm not saying I have no regrets during the interview because I do. I wish I said these things: Yes, I am a person that has not experienced life's privations. But that doesn't mean I don't work hard to stay where I am. My parents sent me to good schools- I studied hard. I got to work in a big company- I worked extra hard. I have always been the type of person that doesn't take things for granted. And although cliche, it's what helped me in becoming the person that I am today.