February 25, 2013
The reversal
Hey everyone ^^
Thanks for taking the time to read the blog, I’ve returned a little over a month ago. And to be really honest, things have been slightly weird for me the past few weeks. Of course I had been preparing to come back home and to meet my family, but the diversity among people really hit me in the face.
In Korea I only used to see large concentrations of people who weren’t Korean in Itaewon, and even though we were foreigners ourselves, it felt like an alien encounter sometimes. I do think that the exchange has made me a little more aware of the world around us and how countries each have their own ‘charm’. Of course, with me coming back home it also meant that I had to be less dependent than I had taught myself to be over these past few months, which led to a few encounters with my parents. And for some reason a really big part of me would like to go back to Korea for maybe a year or so, to get to know it’s people and its culture a little bit better than I did in the past.
For me it’s still a little weird that so many things are closed in The Netherlands, and now I finally realize what the Korean girls I met meant with ‘It’s so quiet in Holland’. Also, our food diversity isn’t as large as back in Korea. Of course we have our own international kitchen which I love, but I don’t feel like we have the in-depth dishes, Since if we want to eat for example Japanese food, we end up having just sushi, while the Japanese kitchen entails so much more than just that.
Even though The Netherlands is quite a small country, I do think we have a lot to learn from upcoming (possibly Asian) economies. Some of the things that are quite common in Korea (buttons on tables to call the waiters, electrical toilets and cheap cute technological accessories) could quite easily be adopted in to western society. I guess it will be quite some time before some of these things ‘blow over’.
Since, last year July I found Gangnam style before I went to Korea. The video still had less than ten mllion views at the time, but it first hit Europe in November, and this is also with the use of New Social Media (NSM). Psy isn’t complaining about his new international celebrity status, but he also added that it’s sad for the younger groups (B2st, B1A4, A-Pink, Sistar, SNSD etc.) that they didn’t manage to get through to the international market, while he did.
I guess that for me the hardest part has been to adapt to not bowing (it really grows on you) and showing respect to the elderly. Just this week during a discussion I was talking and so was someone quite a bit older than me, Instead of giving the elderly person the chance to speak, the discussion leader let me go first, while I managed to mutter something like ‘Yeah but he’s older.. let him go first’ . In a way, it’s quite nice to be able to see how societies can differ as much. I guess that’s all from me for now. Classes have started again and I am faithfully going to school, (but not completely up-to-date with homework) woops.
I do miss some of the Korean magazines I’d use to expand my vocabulary, TenTEN, Bromide and Super Recipe ;( there also isn’t any interational site that ships them yet, which is also .. quite sad (for me at least!). Any suggestions on where to find them would be welcome ^^.
Hope you enjoyed the reading 😉
Love,
-Kirti
Thanks for reading the blog for all this time ^^
September 26, 2012
Hallyu dream concert 23rd of September, 2012
Hey everyone ^^
I hope you’ve enjoyed your weekend, because I sure have! Saturday morning my friends and I got up at 6 am, just to make it to the express bus terminal in Gangnam on time. (I bet you’re thinking of Gangnam style now..) We eventually arrived at 9.30 with the usage of the subway system, initially we had planned to go by taxi; as all of us would be carrying bags, but because we met up at 8 in the lobby, there was enough time to take the subway. We still had thirty minutes left before the bus would leave, so we were just relaxing at the bus terminal, some of us went to the ATM, others went to find breakfast.
After a 4 hour bus trip, we finally arrived in Gyeongju. I didn’t sleep much, because it was a rare opportunity to see more of the Korean landscape ^^. We took a taxi to our guest house, which was called ‘Modorine’ and the landlady told us that there was only one person that stayed there who wasn’t going to the concert tomorrow! Surprising, right? Anyways, we decided to go out and walk around a little bit, and we had dinner with Yonsei students that were also staying in another part of our floor.
After this, they left for the ‘K-pop cover dance festival’ and we rented some bicycles to cycle around Gyeongju. I only went for one hour, because I was feeling a little braindead and my stomach was hurting for no reason. We did however manage to see one of the historical sights. It is named the ‘Cheomsongdae Observatory’ and was crucial in predicting the weather during the reign of Queen Seon-Deok. It is the oldest existing observatory in Asia.
However, I didn’t get to see much more because I had to go back. Apparently at the end of this park (where the observatory is located) there is also some sort of Hanok village.
I loved the view from the outside of this park though, it looks a little like this;
The next two pictures were taken after I had returned from my one hour of cycling. I went to the convenience store to get something to drink, when I heard music coming from the outside; of course, I went to check it out. The girl in the pink vest had a very calm but also a very powerful voice. In the meantime, I sat on the right ‘block’ where the other person is sitting while listening to her. I skyped with one of my friends and showed them the performance too ^^.
I then walked back to the bike store and asked in Korean what time they would open the day after, sadly it was 9, and by that time we would have had to be at the stadium already. My friends came back and we went back to the guest house to ask for directions to the stadium, after this we had pizza for dinner and we managed to find the stadium ^^. With the detour she’d gave us (for the sake of following main roads) it was 30 minutes instead of 20. We walked back, and thanks to Lita’s awesome navigation skills, the walk back only took us 20 minutes.
So much for the introduction, now’s when the fun starts!
Sunday morning, we got up at 6 am again, we showered and made our way to the kitchen. Apparently, our landlady made her own marmelade and she baked her own bread, honestly, it was the perfect beginning of the day. After this we hurried to the stadium, we managed to make it there at 9 am. Even at this time, there were fans that were gathered. Some of them got up at 4:30 in the morning. Some of them were really young, middle students of only fourteen or fifteen years old, I felt a little out of place in the beginning.
Random B2st fan ^^
Anyways, as soon as I heard the name of my favorite singer, all of that was forgotten, and as you can see the fence is pretty long. Apparently the car that had just arrived had my favorite group in there , and I don’t think I’ve ever ran that fast! The Korean girls seemed honestly shocked when I asked where he went. (In Korean!) They even backed up because:
A. I’m foreign
B. I’m speaking Korean ^^
I didn’t mind too much, since I now had full view on the building they had supposedly just entered. An hour later I heard them rehearse ^^. Because the father of one of the members had passed away, I didn’t think they would come because their entertainment company had put a hold on all of their activities since then.
So that’s when the waiting started, I waited in the sun from 10 am until 1 pm. My friends managed to pick up the tickets by then. Because the sun was killing me, I was happy I brought an umbrella, I also used sunscreen, but regardless of that; I still became really brown. I only went out of line once, just to get something to eat. Can you imagine that?! Finally at 5:20 pm, we were allowed to enter the stadium. Since we’d been waiting since that early (8 hours!), we were guarenteed to have the best places in the stadium :D.
The introduction was a drag, like it was last time before the real music started. I guess that’s something customary when you’re about to have fun?
The concert however, was amazing. I was blown away by people like Ailee. She’s a woman who looks really frail, but her voice carries really far, and even though you don’t have to know all of the lyrics; it has something in it that moves your heart. Also, BtoB really surprised me, as did A-jax. The last two groups are still relatively new, and they loved the audience, which also got us to love them. BtoB debuted March this year, and A-jax is from April this year ^^.
Here are some random pictures from the concert.
But most of all.. this is my favorite picture !
And for the people who care to find out why I am sounding like a dead cat when I try to speak, I uploaded a video of the concert’s final performance. Beware that it might be a REALLY good idea to turn down your volume quite a bit before playing it!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlEjQf1-fu8&feature=plcp
(In case this made you curious) Here I have a link to all of the video’s !
http://www.youtube.com/user/kirtiinkorea?feature=results_main
(There are two versions, the B2st video’s are with my camera, the Infinite video is recorded using my phone ^^)
I will probably update you on what happened the rest of this week (and my birthday!) a little later. The concert ended at 11 pm, and because Kikwang (B2st) was at the end I was in a constant happy state. I really yelled hard! But all in all, I can say that Gyeongju is a wonderful place to be, and that we will go back whenever there is time, I might visit Busan this time too! I keep on hearing so many good things about Busan ^^. I’ve heard that it’s the only place in Korea where they have something that resembles a beach, makes you curious a little, right?
Anyways, I guess I should apologize for the amount of information, but I really didn’t want to keep the pictures from you ^^.
I hope you enjoyed the reading, and please don’t forget to comment!
– Kirti
Experiences in South Korea, 2012 / 2013 