November 11, 2012
This week’s minireport
Hey everyone,
It’s been almost a week, right? This week has been reasonably confusing for me; hence I haven’t had the time to put down my thoughts on paper. I’m thinking of possibly travelling on my own on the days that I don’t have classes next week. (Who knows, new experiences might do me good ^^)
This week I’ve been to the ‘Grand Children’s park’ for the second time. It was more amazing than it was last time, as my time limit was not so bad this time; and thankfully the weather was a lot better too. I went with a korean friend of mine, and we were both surprised to find that there were actually ‘wild’ animals in this park.
Usually when we go to see.. elephants or tigers, there is an entrance fee, right? Not for this park (as far as I managed to find). We just took our time walking around and relaxing, it was really nice ^^. However, taking the bus still scares me, even though I have to do it a lot lately if I want to get anywhere XD.
I actually had a lot more fun in the afternoon than in the evening, I was supposed to go to the station; then when I am there I get told to take another bus, as I am already tired from just walking around all day, in combination with the weather getting worse over the course of the day, didn’t help my mood much. Guess what? I actually ended up outside of Seoul. Not far, but still.. I actually was thinking to myself (before taking the other bus) “it won’t be that far, I’m hungry so I can eat close to the station…” but, nevertheless, the meeting was interesting.
Monday I went to my East Asian History classes, one of the hardest classes I’ve been having. Definitely. Firstly, I usually don’t sleep that early on Sunday (because, really?). And then Monday morning I try to pay attention, I honestly do, but just listening to this professor is difficult. His accent makes it hard as he doesn’t speak loudly or articulate, then when he doesn’t quite know what to say he says ‘ahh ahh ahh’ and then continues, whatever he is saying. For us it’s a challenge to just count how many times he loses his story during a class. Moreover, he also tends to turn the lights off to show us video’s while we’re all tired. Then when the lights go on again, it becomes even harder to focus..
Finally; our Korean teacher is teaching us, how to say when or what happened in the past. The funny part is that this is also a small exhibition of culture (I think), as a lot of exchange students asked themselves why we would learn the past first. Since usually we end up learning grammatical constructions such as ‘present continuous’ or ‘present perfect’ but, this is quite interesting too ^^. One of my friends was also surprised that we didn’t know how to tell time, or the days of the week yet (I secretly started studying the days of the week a while ago). But that is also happening now.
The Koreans even use both numerical systems to tell time, so confusing sometimes 
I’ve got to practice more with this, it’s a real challenge -.-. Tuesday, I met the jimjilbang, and well guys, I got to say; I wish I could make this place my second home. A jimjilbang is basically a sauna, you get a key which grants you access to two lockers, one for your clothes and one for your shoes. Also, you get awkwardly colored clothes that you can wear during your stay. Before going into the bath you have to wash your whole body first under one of the many showers. (I believe the Japanese people have a similar custom ^^) so it wasn’t that weird. Anyways, we went to the one in Hongdae (student district) and it was nice, it also had a gym, massage chairs and places to nap. (more on that later..)
Wednesday was reasonably uneventful, so I decided to go to Cheonggyecheon (the stream that a lot of couples go to) but this time I went with a group of around 100 people I did not know beforehand. I read about it on the internet, two hours before the meeting was scheduled, but I still managed to be 20 minutes early. The stream was beautifully decorated, and the people were friendly.
After this I went to Itaewon to visit a friend, sadly, the people at her workplace left late, so we slept at.. guess what.. another jimjilbang! So awesome. We arrived there at 2 am, did the usual sauna things, and then went to sleep in the ‘nap room’ to get up only three hours since we both had to be at school at 9. So after a quick breakfast, we went back ‘home’.
I had my ‘Special topics in Asian studies’ class, which was nice this time. It’s one of the classes I enjoy going to, even though it starts at 9:15, my earliest class that week XD. After this, I went to work, and even though I’d sort of forgotten about the Korean speech contest, someone still managed to convince me to join. I know my Korean skill only extends to having basic conversations in Korean, and understanding around 50% of what they talk about, I still entered. I hope I did a good job, even though my ‘speech’ was reasonably short. We got a really cute phone accessory as a participation prize though ^^. I couldn’t have done this without the help of my friends who were translating what I wanted to say though ;).
Today I don’t have much of a plan, I just got to meet up with one of the groups I have a presentation for… and just.. relax? I suppose. It’s going to be an interesting weekend. I might go to the movies for the first time!
Don’t forget to tell me how you guys are doing!
-Kirti
October 6, 2012
Palaces in Seoul (and the rest of this week)
Hey everyone,
I know I haven’t updated in a few days, but that’s because I am actually spending my mornings studying at this moment. (I have no idea what to expect for the midterms.) Anyways, so a few days ago, it was Chuseok in Korea. It’s also known as ‘Korean thanksgiving’ it essentially means that most koreans go home and visit their grandparents or the family tombs or graves. I’ve never seen Seoul this empty! The campus also turned to be out less lively than usual.
In this period, I was asked to go out with a real Korean ‘grandmother’, she’s one of my roommate’s co-students (they both study History together) and since her children were in America, she didn’t have much to do during this period. We decided on visiting two of the historical palaces in Seoul, named Changdeokgung Palace and Gyeongbokgung Palace they are both so beautiful (I really want to go back here once more) and also the ‘Secret garden’ behind one of the palaces. The decorations could tell me a lot, the bat that is portrayed, stands for prosperity and good luck, I’ve been told that everyone wanted furniture with bats engraved into them for this reason. Also, the chinese symbol that looks like the logo for ‘Legendary pictures’ actually symbolizes eternal life, not bad eh?
Furthermore, in one of the largest palaces, there were not that many trees to be found, this is to make sure that intruders did not have any place to hide behind. The courtyard however had a lot of trees ^^.
I’ve also seen some other sights (including the secret garden), the pictures will probably be up on facebook soon, but I think this post will have a part 2, as I am going back when the fall colors seep into the trees, I think it’ll also give the pictures more character :D. It’s overall a very tranquil place in the middle of a fast-pacing environment. As soon as you exit the palace gates you feel that you’re back in a world city.
Moreover, I’ve been to the Seoul Drum festival the day after. However, earlier in the afternoon I went to City hall, because there was supposed to be a very large event there too. I however had to go back for the Drum festival.. It seemed like a whole lot of fun, which it was ^^. There was even a woman who was among the men that were making traditional Korean music. I’ve already seen some of this during the Korea in Motion festival (seems like forever) but this one was pretty good too. There even were two men with alien masks who were doing drums, I however didn’t think that they were that amazing, except for the masks. Lastly, there were four or five hipster guys who did amazing things ^^ (and many more people).
Whenever I have time, I will upload some of the video’s on my youtube channel.. After the festival a friend and I visited someone who was working at a French minirestaurant in Sinchon, but I got to say.. their french fries actually taste good 😀 I really enjoyed it. On our way back we found out that the metro and the buses stopped running, so we had to go home by taxi. However, the woman who was driving us was talking to me, and she kept on saying that she was scared to drive up to our dormitory because… hill + dark = very scared woman. I mean.. one of the main reasons for us to take the taxi was because it’d be faster, and because we wouldn’t have to walk in the dark by ourselves… We did make it back home.
Finally..Thursday came. A friend of mine decided to have breakfast at the back gate a little before 12. I ordered a chicken salad, instead I got a plate that was covered in sauce. It actually made me nauseous.. so not cool. I ate really fast, and after that I had to run to work.
Work was .. slow, as usual. Since I have the lunch times, nearly no one shows up, so I have plenty of time to study or watch drama. I think in total I’ve only worked… 35 minutes out of 2 hours. On top of that, a lot of international students were gone, so I had even less to do XD. After this I met with the girl who is going to my university next semester, to talk about things that might worry her. Finally, I went to have dinner at my buddy’s house. And I got to tell you.. it was really delicious. There was jokbal (the pig filet) with sauce, and a lot of side dishes, such as kimchi, or fish stew with little pieces of spicy octopus, so good.. After dinner there was fruit, and I even got some apples to take home (they were really good Oo).
Then Friday arrived. In the morning I went to have breakfast with a friend of mine, we have our own ‘favorite’ breakfast place. It’s only a few minutes from the university gate, and for 3000 won I have the most delicious panini I can wish for. It’s actually made with normal bread ^^. (Most of the korean bread is either corn-like or smeared with some sort of garlic..) As far as I’ve seen at least. So I really love this woman. I’m always happy whenever I go there. The rest of the day I didn’t do that much, I watched a movie and I pretty much studied.. Speaking of which, I’ll probably do that now again, as I have a presentation about Dokdo and it’s possession soon.
That’s all from me for now ^^.
Love,
-Kirti
Experiences in South Korea, 2012 / 2013 