After such a late night out partying I was not at all convinced that I would make it to the planned brunch the next morning. However it turned out that my body-clock was sufficiently confused so I was wide awake, though admittedly not looking or feeling as fresh as a daisy.
Brunch was at 10 Corso Como and I was thoroughly revived by the large quantities of caffeine and sugar I consumed. Everyone else ordered relatively healthy looking foods but I went for waffles and felt very satisfied with my decision-making abilities when they arrived. The Singaporeans were all sharing food between them but I couldn't face anything less sugary than my waffles so they seemed to feel that they should all politely decline to eat any of my food... so I didn't insist!
Brunch was at 10 Corso Como and I was thoroughly revived by the large quantities of caffeine and sugar I consumed. Everyone else ordered relatively healthy looking foods but I went for waffles and felt very satisfied with my decision-making abilities when they arrived. The Singaporeans were all sharing food between them but I couldn't face anything less sugary than my waffles so they seemed to feel that they should all politely decline to eat any of my food... so I didn't insist!
After achieving adequate levels of blood caffeine and completely excessive levels of hyperglycaemia, I was compos mentis enough to realise just how fancy a place we were in. There were lots of art books scattered around (the sort that I've always assumed are just attractive and/or pretentious doorstops for 99.9% of people). Attached to the cafe was a shop selling a range of beautiful and obscenely priced household and design items. I picked up a very nice handbag and then hurriedly put it down again when I realised that it cost more than three months' rent.
We headed for some slightly more affordable shops at Lotte Mall. Fortunately my spending mania did not extend to items without JKS' face on them, so I managed not to spend anything, even when I discovered the Studio Ghibli shop. Mara and I, somewhat surreally, got caught up in a Hawaiian luau that was going on outside one of the department shops and before we knew what was happening we were having our picture taken with some of the dancers.
By this time, the late night was starting to catch up with me and Fadilah so we headed back to the hotel for a rest. Mara was not staying in the same place but came back with us. I apologised in advance for the state of my room and she insisted that it would be absolutely fine. Any pretence of politeness disappeared, however, when the first thing she said upon entering was 'oh, you're a disaster'! Clearly I had not adequately warned her about my ability to transform a hotel room into a Jackson Pollock painting with just the contents of one suitcase. Fortunately I managed to find her space to sit down.
We were wondering what to do next when we remembered that Lubna, Eileen and Saad had suggested visiting Ewha, site of one of the best women's universities in Seoul, and with plenty of shopping and food outlets. After approximately seventeen minutes of trying to get a taxi driver to understand our mangled pronunciation, we managed to persuade one to take us there.
We were wondering what to do next when we remembered that Lubna, Eileen and Saad had suggested visiting Ewha, site of one of the best women's universities in Seoul, and with plenty of shopping and food outlets. After approximately seventeen minutes of trying to get a taxi driver to understand our mangled pronunciation, we managed to persuade one to take us there.
We browsed around a few shops, including one that sold cute socks with JKS cartoons on. I picked up a pair. While we were there Thea rang to try and arrange a meeting with Chris, who I had thought was contacting me but who had evidently thought that I was contacting her! I was happily discussing the logistical difficulties of getting from where we were to where they were going to be as we wandered on to the next shop a couple of hundred metres away. I was still on the phone when we arrived outside it and I looked down to find that I was still holding the socks... and I hadn't paid for them!
Poor Thea must have wondered what was going on because I went into a blind panic, envisioning justifiably aggrieved and angry shopkeepers demanding I be made an example of, resulting in my not being able to travel to Japan the next day. Trying not to hyperventilate, I ran back to the previous shop and paid for the socks - I don't think the shopkeeper had even noticed my accidental crime spree.
We thought we should try the street food so we went and sat down in a park area next to some very lovely graffiti. Eileen and Lubna immediately disappeared off, reappearing at intervals with more and more food, including some sublime egg buns and some rather less appealing seafood dish that looked disconcertingly like it might not be completely dead.
We finished the day, but sadly not the vast quantities of food, at Eileen's boarding house and then bid each other an emotional farewell. For two to three days of knowing each other, and given that I am a socially awkward British girl who tends to take a while to warm up to people, I was really sad to be saying goodbye. As it turned out, it was only Eileen that I wouldn't see again because I would bump into the others at the airport the following day... as well as a certain someone else.