September 17, 2012
This week ^^
Hey everyone ^^
I haven’t updated in a week, but that’s because there were a lot of things that were going on. Did you hear that another typhoon is coming my way? I thought the last one was the last of the season, I guess global warming cannot be without its side-effects ;). Also, yesterday I decided to give myself a Korean name, I looked for something with a good meaning, and something that was close to my own name. So from now on, my Korean friends can call me Kyung-Mi ^^.
This week I’ve decided to see more of the university district, also known as Hongdae. But I’ve also been to Dongdaemun on Tuesday, hoping to find cheap clothes. However, it didn’t turn out the way I planned. Either way, since it was a holiday, only one of the malls I wanted to see was open, luckily the prices were not so bad. 5000 / 10.000 ( €3,5 / €7) for a single item of clothing. I’ve also had some delicious octopus pajeon on the top floor of the building, the kimchi wasn’t so bad either ^^. Later that day I went to Myeong-Dong, where I also managed to find some items I’d liked, and some extra beauty stuff (cannot leave that district without any of it!).
This is my favorite poster there :
(This is also the exact store where I bought the shoes 😀 )
Later the same day I was talking to one of my friends who also studies here, who told me that the area around Ewha Woman’s University is the best for shopping. This person really wasn’t wrong! The day before we would come to shop there, we decided to check out Ewha, and Hongik University. The campus of the woman’s university was so beautiful, that one of my female friends was considering coming back later during her studies just to study there. I can’t quite completely blame her, the campus on the outside looks a little like Disney land, (and perfectly sculpted by humans) which is why it’s not completely to my liking; then again, the University was funded by Christian missionaries from Europe, so in a way it makes sense. I like our Uni better ^^.
If you thought that the hills I’d showed you when going up back to our dorm were bad, think again. Hongik University is built atop a MASSIVE hill. I had trouble just walking up there with no heels. (I don’t want to know what I would have done if I had been wearing them though!) However, the art and the sport field made up for a lot of the pain that went into going up. The day after we would go back for the market that the art students hold every weekend. It was really interesting, and I would like to go back there maybe sometime before November (after this month there is no more market).
I’m also very excited for the weekend! The 23rd of September there will be the Hallyu Dream Concert in Gyeongju. I am going! It’s like a little birthday present to myself, as my birthday is on the 24th of September (magical stuff!) I’ll be officially 21 by that time, even though in Korean age it would be 22 ;).
Yesterday we went to the Han river to ride bikes, officially we were supposed to also have dinner there, but because of the typhoon that’s coming it was cancelled :/. It felt good to ride a bike though! (I’m Dutch after all XD) I’ve also been to Bukchon Hanok village (Hanok’s are old Korean houses 😉 ) sadly, most of my pictures of Hongdae and Bukchon are on my friend’s camera, I might upload them later :D. While in Bukchon I managed to hear some Dutch, other people from Holland were in South Korea too, and I heard them talking in Dutch about how the picture that they had asked someone else to take, didn’t work out.
So I thought to myself.. Should I go help them? Which I eventually did., they seemed pleased with the new result ^^. That’s all from me for now!
Until next time!
– Kirti
September 10, 2012
Daesong-Ri
Hey everyone ^^
Last Friday, I had made plans to play soccer against the Korean team, which is why I bought shorts and a pair of shoes the evening before. I was a little nervous, since I didn’t know what it’d be like, and whether the other exchange students would be willing to give me a chance because I’d probably be the only girl.
The first two halves went fine, but the shoes I’d bought were a little too small, so it hurt to walk 
The morning I had to play, I woke up at 07:45, so I had to run down the hill in my new shoes, I made it to the field at 08:02 so I guess I didn’t do too bad. Because I hadn’t slept that much, the guys generally didn’t want to risk losing, so I didn’t have that much ball posession XD.
Later that day we went to Namsan. We went up by cable car, just to realize how beautiful Seoul is from the top ^^.
- This is one of the tags you could buy to hang up 😀
Officially people come to the Namsan tower with their boyfriends or girlfriends. But as you all know, I’m not seeing anyone right now, so I just wrote down a wish; later on my two friends and I hung the ‘tags’ together with a lock that one of them had bought. The reason why was because the view of all the locks together just looks really great, and it’s just amazing that we could leave a little memento of us coming there together.
This is what it looks like, and the next picture is our ‘tag’ 😀
After that we just went down the stairs, which took us about.. 45 minutes. So you could say that it took us quite a while ^^. It’s just that the view from the stairs is also pretty amazing. I’m sorry for uploading so many pictures today, but I just feel like I shouldn’t keep this place from you guys, I managed to show my grandmother how beautiful it is over Skype, and we’ve been discussing to come here together next time.
Anyways, as I haven’t really been uploading any pictures of me up until now, I managed to get some good ones today. I really loved the lighting ^^.
Furthermore, nothing really worth mentioning happened; we had dinner and went home. However, this weekend, I was scheduled to go on MT at Daesong-Ri. The abbreviation stands for: “Membership Training” which means I went with team 4.
The exchange students have now been divided into teams, but also people from other teams were allowed to come. To get there, it took around an hour by metro (waiting time excluded) so at this point everyone was still happy, bubbly and taking pictures, which was really nice. One of my friends jokingly called it the ‘before’ pictures. After we got out of the subway we were transported by car to a cabin with a view on mountains, which gave it a little ‘magic’.
I played badminton with three other girls, and some other students weer playing soccer before dinner. Dinner however, was awesome. They had something called ‘samgyeopsal’ which essentially means that you’re having little slices of pork, which are then barbequed within the table! Amazing stuff. Really.
Furthermore there was rice, and one of the Korean students explained to me, that you eat it just a little like ‘jokbal’ which means that I have to take a slice of radish, put the pork on there, a little bit of sauce and then finish it off by adding rice :D. You then fold the radish and eat it with one hand. (Up until then I’d been eating just pork and rice, which was also delicious) I first found out later that my buddy wasn’t coming this time, so I felt a little sad, but eventually I managed to have fun either way ^^. There were plenty of things to keep us entertained. There was karaoke, group games, and people who got a little drunk and kept on saying ”I’m fine”.
So when we went to bed, there were not quite enough blankets for everyone, so I eventually just plopped down next to someone who was already sleeping (the room was really dark), grabbed a pillow and tried to fold the excess of the blanket that was underneath us as some sort of calf warmer. I slept on my arm, which sadly still hurts.
The next morning I woke up at 8 am, which was incredible considering we first went to sleep at 3 am. I didn’t have my glasses so I tried to carefully walk to the little stream in front of the house, where the people who had already woken up had assembled. One of the students spoke Korean, and she made sure we were able to be driven to the station, and from there to come home.
After I came home I realized it was just 1 pm, so I messaged my friends and they told me they hadn’t left yet, (they wanted to go to Insadong). By accident we ended up in Bukchon, and since it was ‘cat day’ we got to see a traditional Hanok house, decorated for this special day, because it was the ninth of the ninth.
This is the view from Daesong-Ri station at 9 am
A traditional hanok house
If you look more closely, you will see that the little squares in the Hanok house, are pictures of cats in honour of this day. Furthermore we then moved on to Insadong, which I saw last weekend, where I found a store that sells purely things with green tea. I truly felt like I’d died and gone to a better place when entering that store.
Also, there was a place where people had bought hodduk last time, it’s a little sweet bread, I can make it myself but sadly we have no kitchen in our dorm. It was delicious. After this we moved on to the area near city hall, and I found out that the statue of king Sejong (the man who invented the Korean alphabet with the help of scholars) there is a small museum, telling all about the history of the Korean script, and how it came into being. It was really fascinating and interesting ^^.
This is the statue I am talking about:
After this long, tiring day, we decided to get dinner somewhere, and the Korean student that was accompanying us, was really helpful with finding a restaurant. She really saved me, because at around that time it was dinnertime (6 pm) and I hadn’t eaten much since that morning. The food that we had, tasted close to my mother’s cooking which I really appreciated. The ramyun (noodles) were see-through and a little more spicy than I’d expected. Luckily there was kimchi and rice to put out the fire.
Today’s been.. reasonably alright. I had East Asian History this morning, and I am glad that the teacher connects both Western and Eastern History together in the sense of.. “This happened in the west, while this happened in the east” which makes it a little more easy to realize why things happen the way they do. The main focus of this morning’s lecture was the Opium war, which I do not completely understand yet, so I will focus on that during this week. During Korean we were doing a listening excersize which made me a little depressed. The teacher would say a word, and we would have to write it down in the way we think the spelling should be, but we didn’t do well enough in the end to win her homemade cookies :/. Better luck next time!
After school I’ve had my first work-related dinner, but it was fun. Tomorrow I am going to Dongdaemun (the largest market in Korea) to look for cheaper clothes, and later that day we will be looking for cleaning supplies and items to make the Global Lounge where I now work at, a little more ‘cozy’.
I’m sorry for the long post ^^, don’t hesitate to comment.
See you next time!
-Kirti
Experiences in South Korea, 2012 / 2013 