My Gmarket Korea story

As some of you may know, I've been shopping from Gmarket Korea for the past year.

Before you continue, be forewarned that men may get bored reading a shopping post, lol.

It all started out when I watched You're Beautiful, and then I fell in love with Jang Keun Suk, and that made me really feel like 吃嫩草 (a Chinese slang that literally means "to eat tender grass", and the nearest English idiom would be "to rob the cradle").

Anyway I digressed. But I wanted to get the pig-rabbit that Minam got from Taekyung in the show cos it's just so adorable looking:

Doesn't it look so huggable?!

I found Gmarket from some banner link I think, and thought of trying my luck on getting a pig-rabbit. So I used Google translate, for the words in Korean

I copied the words and did a search on Gmarket Korea. I managed to find a lot of sellers selling it and decided to order from 1 of them.

And then I saw from Gmarket's home page that Etude House is available on Gmarket too!! At that time, Singapore did not have any Etude House shops but I stumbled upon their newly-opened shop with my cousin when we were in Taipei in May 2009, and I really love their products. I was so happy that I found it on Gmarket, and decided to order their Mineral BB Cream:

Now there's Etude House shops in Singapore, but it's retailed in Singapore at SG$39.90! On Gmarket, it's approximately SG$17 before shipping. Even if you only order this BB Cream itself via Gmarket, the cost including shipping is still cheaper than SG$39.90. So if you are already using Etude House products and can afford to wait for the items to arrive, you might wanna get it from Gmarket, usually takes less than 1 week for the items to arrive as Etude House ships them real fast!

Anyway so in the end I ordered the pig-rabbit, some Etude House cosmetics & some winter clothings, as I was going to some winter countries. The winter clothings from Korea just looks so much nicer than those in Singapore, not to mention much cheaper too! I was really spoiled for choices.

Back to the dwaeji tokki, I tried to look for it on Ebay, which was my favourite online shopping venue before I found Gmarket, just for curiousity sake. And to my horror, there were sooo many non-authentic dolls like this:

They are OBVIOUSLY fakes! Comparing side by side:

Just look at the fake big nose! The body looks weird too - it's larger than its head when it's supposed to be smaller. The shape of the ribbon looks very different too.

I started to worry whether ordering the pig-rabbit online is a good idea or not. But to my relief, the real authentic toy came! With the DreamToy box too! (Pictures here are water-marked as I was selling the items and was afraid that other netizens steal my photos for their own blogshop.)

Together with other You're Beautiful goodies:

That was my 1st shipment, and the rest was history. =X


Spot my VIP Customer crown icon! =D

I bought a Samsung Galaxy S back in June, and was glad that I can easily purchase Galaxy S cases in Gmarket when there were none in Singapore. A small flaw would be that Korean Galaxy S comes with built-in TV, and there's an additional hole in the case for the antenna.


Recently I was contemplating about buying a Fujifilm Instax which seems very popular in Korea and has appeared in a lot of shows, which of cos includes You're Beautiful!

I was holding some sprees for Samsung Galaxy S accessories, so I decided to buy an Instax 25 cos Gmarket was having a discount coupon event.

It was quite a chore to look for the right priced item, with the limited help of Google Translate to translate the pages. Different sellers are offering the cameras and accessories at different prices, and some items are already discounted by sellers, and I can't apply further discount coupons on them, while you can for some others. In the end, I had to use Microsoft Excel to consolidate the costs and URL and compare the costs.

If you're interested, the seller who offers the cheapest price for the camera only is here at KRW129,500.

Anyway the package arrived yesterday! I waited for it for nearly 3 weeks (because some of the Galaxy S cases were out of stock and the seller waited for a long time before he cancelled my orders), and was so excited about it that I immediately used it!

That's my Christmas present for myself, hehe.

And I bought a few accessories too:

I bought 20 coloured-frame films + 20 normal-frame films here, and at KRW29,500, which converts to approximately SG$36, I personally think it's a very good deal if you order from Gmarket in bulk, since the market rate in Singapore for the normal-frame films is SG$11 for 10 films.

If you want 40 coloured-frame films, there's also a cheap deal here! Cost only KRW27,400 + KRW2,500 local Korean delivery.

I'm already shopping for more films and maybe a photo album on my next shipment =D

Closing of Subtle Senses (aka I lost $1k)

As some of you know, I signed up a massage package with Subtle Senses last year, and they closed down last month. I know it was quite dumb for me to sign up a 20-sessions package, but when the spa looks bustling with customers, and they were celebrating their 6th year anniversary, I really didn't suspect anything.

Having not visiting the spa for nearly 1 year cos of work and everything happening at home, I called them up last month and found it hard to find an available slot, cos I was told that the masseurs were all on training for the day I wanted to go for the massage.  And on the day of massage, they actually still psychoed me to buy this slimming gel or dunno what.

And guess how much it cost?

A freaking $1000 for a 1L bottle. CRAZY. And still have the cheek to tell me buy 1 get 1 free.

Heng I didn't buy, cos within 1 month after I went my massage, they closed down.

Now I wonder if I can get back my $1k...

Quoting TODAYonline:

At the start of liquidation last month, it had $1,623 cash in hand and about $44,000 on its bank book.

In contrast, claims against Subtle Senses, comprising mainly the value of its customers' unused treatments and the Central Provident Fund money owed its staff, have hit about $11.8 million.

which is damn sad cos it means that the asset to debt ratio is less than 0.004, which means I'll only get $4 back -__-, not to mention they've to pay the employees and CPF 1st


Anyway, lesson learnt, and I've to say it's a relatively cheap one... no more long packages, next time I'll bargain whenever I wanna sign up packages, and all these closing down of spas can be a good excuse

New blog design

I decided that the old design should retire - it was nearly 5 years old... Did it when I was slacking around at home during uni times.

And now using the existing layout in Blogger is so much easier! But the background pic is still my property hor! Spent quite a lot of time to compress it cos Blogger only allow 300kb -__-. Anyway the original pic looks like this:

And after editing to make it brighter plus more compressed, it looks like this:

Not bad right? This is only done with Micrsoft Office Picture Manager loh, haha

Anyway, I'm looking for a Xmas pressie for myself, and I'm contemplating between these 2 options:

1) Instax Mini 25 + Toshiba AS100:

Instax 25 is a polaroid, while Toshiba AS100 is a Froyo tablet. Instax 25 is sold at $180 on ebay (not sold in retail shops in Singapore), while the tablet's retail price is $639

2) Just Galaxy Tab itself

As many of you know, I'm now a proud owner of a Samsung Galaxy S, which I fell in love at first sight, haha. I've yet to see the Galaxy Tab, but I'm sure it's as chio as my SGS with its AMOLED screen. Retails at $988


I shall wait for Sitex at the end of the month before deciding to buy anything, I'm still hoping for a Windows tablet though, although I love Android, I think it only serves its purpose well on phones. And no, don't tell me to tell ipad please, I'm not an Apple lover.

And this reminds me of something, I'm quite tempted to get this kinda sticker:

Haha!

再一次拥有

Artchemist的音乐课程也上了几乎8个月，已经到了第3学期了。。。

必须找一首歌作为第3学期的考题之一（因为《神奇》太难唱了，呵呵），试着唱了好几首歌。。。

《新不了情》
《天黑黑》
《第一个清晨》
《勇气》
。。。

总之还有很多啦！

本来就想唱《天黑黑》的，因为每当听到这首歌，就想到外婆。没去见她睁着眼睛的最后一面，是我一生中的遗憾。。。虽然已过了4年半，遗憾一直都在，一直挥之不去。有一次碰巧google到我表姐朋友的部落格，看到外婆的照片，表姐朋友还说外婆很有善地用潮州话问她，“香蕉很甜，要不要吃香蕉？”。哇。。。读到这里，眼泪忍不住夺眶而出。

有点离题了=X 。。。-咳咳- 就本来想唱《天黑黑》，不过后来觉得因为第2学期考试时没什么选择，只有我不是很熟悉也不是很喜欢的《菊花台》，和要人命的《柠檬草的味道》，还有刚刚好的《眼泪成诗》，当然就唱了燕姿的歌，现在第3学期的考试应该唱唱别的歌手的歌了。。。

非常懊恼的时候，终于有一天，和大学的死党去了KTV，想到了龚诗嘉的《再一次拥有》是我的“almost 必唱之歌”，所以就决定用这首歌。

后来回到家里，在Youtube上看到作词人本尊上《超级金曲星》唱了这首歌，原来是写给她过世的婆婆的一首歌。真巧。。。不过当然，要说到给外婆的歌，《天黑黑》对我来说还是最适合不过了。注意看了《再一次拥有》的歌词，发现这首歌似乎在描述我这几个月的心情。。。

”我想念去年的冬天
下着雪的那一夜
你给的温柔紧握的双手
温暖整个寒冬
失去了曾经的拥有
在你离开以后
带走了笑容只留下寂寞
忘了幸福是什么

没有你的夜特别的漆黑
只能闭上双眼去感觉
没有我的夜谁在你身边
代替了那个从前

能不能再听一次你说爱我
回到还在你怀里的时候
能不能让我再一次拥有
曾属于我的温柔”

时间就这样过去，多2天就是4个月了。当天的经过都很模糊，一切都好像做了一场梦一样。家里看到的东西，几乎每一样都能联想到她。还有很多话想对她说，还有很多事想为她做，都已经没办法了。这应该是我人生中的第２个遗憾吧！

像我在你离开的第100天所说的，若有来世，希望我们还是母女，不过关系到转，反过来让我来照顾你吧！

话说昨天上课，Damon好奇地问到“现在不懂她（指龚诗嘉）在哪里hor？”。。。因为本人是个小诗嘉饭，所以知道她之前在当王力宏的和音天使，嘿嘿！这么好听的声音，希望她和Jones一样，能早日出她的第2专辑，我一定支持！

I am so so so bored

I keep getting weird people adding me on MSN, you know, those kinda emails that only takes you a glance to know that it's a scam/spam.

I arrived back at my hotel at 7+pm and felt kinda bored. And 1 of the weird emails started talking to me, plus I was kinda curious who's behind all these, so I started to test out the person cautiously...

And because I'm bored, I managed to google something about this and found somebody's blog with the same incident:

Talk about no creativity...

and the girl really thinks she's talking to a real person, cos her title was "Pervert"

Anyway conclusion is: I'm bored... maybe I should continue "working" on the next MSN scammer/spammer

Amateur con-artist

Was on my way to Golden Mile's steamboat with Cousin Bud and Ying, and this Malay woman with nice makeup, pushing a baby pram approached us:

"Hi, can you help me please? My ________ [I can't hear what she said] has asthma, and I'm trying to take a cab home to Yishun from here, but I've lost my wallet, and I only have $3 with me. I tried to call home, but nobody picked up. Can you lend me $10 to $15, maybe each one of you lend me like $5? Then you give me your bank account, I'll transfer it back into your account later on"

I got stunned for a moment cos I know she's lying - if you're in a rush to get home, you won't look so calm and prim and proper, you'll probably be very gan cheong and sweating like a pig. Was thinking of an excuse to tell her when Cousin Bud told me, "跟她讲没有啦！", which I think is alright, so I told her, "Sorry, don't have," then we started crossing the traffic lights.

The woman then shouted, "If don't want to give then at least say what! Don't just walk away like that!", so I shouted back, "I already said don't have what, what you expect?!".

And guess what? That asshole scolded me bitch!!!! Damn pissed off, so I shouted back, "Who's the bitch here?!" She started walking away but her pram shook quite hard cos it went by a bump or something, which makes me wonder, is there a real baby/kid in the pram? Then I saw her looked back at me, spit on the floor, and looked back at me again.

CRAZY!!!!

She didn't approach anyone when she continued to walk down the street...

Anyway after I had time to sit down and think about it, her excuse & actions are full of loopholes other than the ones that I've mentioned:

1. If someone has asthma and is at home, even if you take a helicopter home, the person would've died before you arrive
2. In such situation, I would've first try to take a cab home, ask the cabbie to wait for me while I go upstairs to take $ (Leave your bag or something in the cab as a "deposit")
3. If all fails, I would ask for the nearest police post (and the nearest police post was only less than 1km walking distance away!!! http://gothere.sg/maps#q:from%20keypoint%20to%201.30402772553%2C103.863529874)
   
4. Her story is too well-rehearsed - she didn't stutter at all, and also her excuses seems to explain every question that a person might ask her. I mean if you're gan cheong, you'll just say, "My XXX has asthma and I'm trying to get home, but I've lost my wallet, can you lend me $15?"
   
5. Her story is too cliche.. Can't she think of more creative excuses, like a stray dog ate her wallet or something? I might just give her some $ then for her creativeness
6. She didn't approach other people who passed by her - if you're so desperate, won't you try asking ANYONE on the streets? Obviously she was targeting for people walking in groups so that each person "contribute" lesser, then the tendency of people "lending" her the money is more likely possible
   

Freaking rude cannot-make-it con-artist, totally spoiled the end of my vacation!! Grrrr

Long time no see

I realised it has been eons since I last updated my blog. It looks so deserted... Can I blame Facebook for it? Keke

A lot of things happened recently, and I'm so tired of it.

I used to think that having a complete family in the early stage of your life is a very blissful thing. But I realised that a complete family is not enough - communications is damn important. And communications comes in as an even-more important role when the couples married for the sake of marrying - when there was not much love to start with.

That's why after what I've witnessed recently, I've decided that I would choose be single for the rest of my life rather than rushing into getting married - why treat this as a rat race and stress yourself to marry?

Ok, I know that at this age, I can have a super romantic relationship anymore since I'm not that young (but I'm still in my mid-twenties! =D), but at least I want to marry with love, and not for a purpose which may lead to a sad ending.

I'm quite glad that my parents are not putting pressure on me, but maybe they know that if they rush me, I'll flare up at them like my still-single cousins who did to their parents. But still, I've quite some kpo friends of parents, or relatives who ask "Why don't wanna look for a boyfriend?", really feel like telling them off, but being polite, I just smiled and say "No good men around". It's like marriage is a simple thing for the older generation you know - you were introduced to each other, then you get married, no matter you like it or not.

Anyway, it's my ramblings again. Haha.

But to make a note, I'm on my 15th lesson for driving, and 6th lesson for vocal class =D

I hope to see my blog soon again. My new resolution is not to abandon it. =X