Starting Week 2...

Started class again today. To be honest, I wasn't mentally prepared to be in Korean study mode again. It's like going up to battle.... If I don't concentrate 100%, it's very likely that I will miss what the teacher is saying........ and to pay that much attention all the time is really tiring. Nevertheless, second week here I come!

I think all the students in our class understand Korean by listening much better than speaking. We all understand what the teacher says, but we can't really respond well besides saying "yes yes" all the time. Haha. I guess that's what happens when you watch K-drama and variety shows a lot without taking a formal class to have someone practice with you. Your listening skill increases exponentially, while your speaking, writing, and reading skills are zip.

It was raining in the morning and afternoon today, which makes it a stay at dorm day for me.

It wasn't pouring pouring, but it was definitely raining. So yeah, I pretty much stayed in the dorm all day today, making it a money saving day (only spent ~3,000 won for ramen lunch) and resting my feet day (my feet were killing me the last two days!).

We had our first culture class today, which was just an introduction of the rest of the weeks. Each day thereafter is filled with activities! I'm excited to experience all this stuff..... the normal Korean stuff that's not just Kpop and Kdrama all the time. Haha.

The next few weeks consists of learning cooking, visiting war memorial museum, taekwando, field trip, mask dance, learning Kpop dance, and many others. It's quite activity filled!

So a group of us girls are really excited about learning Kpop dance. They will actually get someone who knows how to dance to teach us any song that we pick! So the girls REALLY know the songs that are "in" and were talking about all these songs they want to dance to...... and I have no idea what those songs are. They were thinking about EXO Monster or Blackpink "As if it's your last". I looked them up on YouTube today and yes, definitely not easy songs. A girl was talking about BTS song today and I was like.... they're wayyyyy too professional for us to learn that dance. Whew~

So we'll see what we decide as a group. I'm excited to actually learn from a Kpop dance teacher!

And here is the phenomenon that has been happening at school. Just so you know, Koreans use Kakao Talk instead of other messaging system, and so all the teachers gave us their Kakao Talk ID and so we all downloaded Kakao Talk to make sure we're connected. I currently have 54 friends on Kakao Talk...... just for coming to Korea! So the phenomenon is..... we ALL just add people in class that we meet for an hour because hey, if you're here by yourself, you gotta make some friends to know the way around right? So EVERYONE adds EVERYONE that they see. It's almost like "hey, nice to meet you. Can I add you on Kakao Talk?" Yup. That's literally it.

That's a picture of people scanning each others' QR codes and adding each other. Gotta stay connected, you know?

Last, but not least, I really enjoy the dorm food more than any other food I've had in Korea so far. They are the best! 진짜 맛있어요!

Unfortunately, there are students here who are just too...... not well traveled, to appreciate things. Maybe it's the youngness in these kids. A lot of students complain about the food being not good tasting, or boring, or repetitive, etc etc. And a lot of other stuff they complain about. I mean, if you're traveling, then try to adjust. And... I mean, if you choose to come to Korea to experience the life here as a student, then live like a student. Adjust! Be flexible! Try to adapt instead of complain. Oiy!!

I got a new roommate now that I've moved to the dorms and she's very different from the Canadian roommate. I feel that she's a bit boy crazy :( She's always looking for cute boys.... even though she's not that much younger than I am. I think it scares some of the guys away... because she even spies on them to see what they're doing. Oiy. Anyways, just thought it was an interesting thing to share.

Lastly, a new phrase I learned in class today.

It means "I like it"... or I guess the literal meaning, "sounds good to my heart" (correct me if I'm wrong!). I just thought it's such an interesting way of saying it... haha.

Alright, time to sleep. Onto the adventure tomorrow!

Budget Cut

So I was planning to go to Insa-Dong today to visit the traditional stuff... but I ended up at Myeong-Dong. -_-.

It was quite unplanned........ and I ended up buying a whole bunch of stuff.....

But before that, breakfast. I really like the cafeteria food thus far...... really tasty!

But I've noticed that the kimchee I have here is so much more spicy than the ones we have in U.S. I can usually eat a little bit before feeling like I really need to drink water... but this kimchee.... I can only eat once slice and I need to eat rice. That happened at the bbq place too :( The kimchee is quite good.... I'm just weak sauce.

So back to shopping. I think Korea and Taiwan are really similar...... and so their shopping area is really similar to our night market (think... more people shop during night time, with lots of street food). And just like in Taiwan, people don't really speak English and only care about selling their product and will ignore you if you aren't planning to buy anything. The problem is.... my Korean really sucks so it's hard for me to feel like getting up the courage to ask questions and etc if they ignore me :( Bleh.

Anyways, back to shopping. So I bought a whole bunch more stuff today... mostly as gifts to bring back home. But eek! I'm spending hundreds of dollars this week already..... gotta limit what I'm spending money on the next few weeks or else I won't survive Taiwan!

Went to some clothing stores to see if they have nice stuff for 10,000 won or less. And then went to Uniqlo, and they got some really nice stuff for cheap prices (not to mention you get tax reward if you're a foreigner and spend more than 30,000 won in one transaction. Not a whole lot back, probably about 3,000 won or so, but it's still something). And then went to Aritaum, which is kind of like Sephora with limited brands, and got sold on IOPE moisturizing stuff. I think I'm buying wayyyyy too much stuff.

One thing to note though, their currency conversion at Myeong-Dong is much better than at the airport. Airport had a conversion rate of 1 USD: 1078 KRW, but Myeong-Dong was 1 USD: 1120 KRW. I read that on a blog before that the local currency exchange is always better than the bank or at the airport. With no service fee!

Alright, so I went to eat some street food and here are some pictures of the ones I tried:

Fishcake stuff. You spray on soysauce yourself (1,500 won)

Squid kabob (4,000 won):

18 cm high ice cream. The embarrassing story about this ice cream is that once they gave it to me, I was trying to take a picture of it with a lot of bags and stuff in my hand, and the ice cream fell to the floor. I went back and told them and asked if they can give me another one. They looked at me like "are you crazy lady? YOU dropped ice cream?" So they gave me a much shorter one and said in Chinese, "don't drop it again". It was really embarrassing. I've never EVER dropped ice cream before -_- (2,000 won)

I went to the LOTTE department store and....... found food paradise. WOW! The amount of desserts and food in there was incredible!

So there was a Pablo in LOTTE and I wanted to try the rare cheesecake... but they were out of the mini version, and there was no way I can finish eating the big one by myself (and it's 13,000 won). So I settled for a crepe cake instead.

It was pretty good.... but not exceptional.

Here is a picture of me trying to take selfie.

I also went to the Line store in Myeong-Dong (there are plenty of different Line stores, but I think this one is the flagship store). Mmmm.... everything is too expensive, so it's really a place for photo-op only.

Here are some interesting things that happened during shopping. First, I didn't know there was like a store dedicated to GD..... people were taking pictures with his life-size picture:

Quite a popular guy in Korea.

And then I saw Park Bo Gum's picture outside this cosmetics store and I just wanted to take some pictures....

And got sucked into the store by the associates. The lady was not really nice and was kind of like "so you like Park Bo Gum, but do you know what cosmetics he's supporting? blah blah blah..." I'm just thinking to myself..... I like this actor, but I'm not fanatic about him! I just took a picture of him because I thought it was interesting! Lady! Anyways.... the stuff was too expensive, so I exited out of there.

At Watsons, there is also a bunch of cosmetic stuff. I remembered Watsons in Taiwan being more of a household item store that specialized in more beauty care stuff at times, but really they sell everything. In Korea, it seems like it's just mainly cosmetic stuff. So here are some thing I found interesting:

Their hair dye features celebrities. This is Girls Day, but I think just the idea of using celebrities to advertise (they do that EVERYWHERE) makes more sense. In the U.S., celebrities' faces are almost never linked to MANY products at once (if any), and their only job is to sing or act, but not to advertise products. Somehow doing it the Korean way (or really, asian way), it seems to bring more unity to the country (?) because everyone is pretty much looking at the same people all the time. Bleh, I don't think I'm coherent enough to articulate..

And cute Line characters are on a lot of stuff.... this one is to remove blackheads. So cute! Cony became prettier after she uses it :)

There are Daisos everywhere. I mean, everywhere. There were two stores across the street from each other. Is that necessary!?

And then.... socks. Pretty much all the sock vendors sell these cute socks for 1,000 won each pair. Not too bad. Got some Got7 socks for our Got4 group :p They only have four members... so I bought all four.

Final thought of the day: I don't really like being in places with a bunch of people. I am not as shameless as I think I am, so it's really hard for me to inconvenient people in pushing them around or asking for help (etc). It's quite hard to shop in asian places if you're not that type of people. I'd rather just be shopping in a more "clear cut" kind of place, like H&M or Uniqlo..... but you can't do that in asia if you want to shop with good prices. Blah. So Myeong-Dong was just a must-go-see place... but I really didn't enjoy being there as much as I did in Samcheong-Dong yesterday.

Cosmetic store employees follow you EVERYWHERE. Actually, a lot of the employees from other stores do that too. It's really annoying and weird. Seriously, they stand one step away from you as you browse and just keep following you everywhere. Eeek! Let me shop in peace!!

And last thought. Out of all the street food I tried today, the "oden" was the best. I think I just really like more traditional street food than any trendy stuff. The ice cream was quite tasteless. Neither really sweet or had any flavor. The squid was ok, not exceptional. Crepe cake was normal. But the oden was really worth the price. I would totally go back and get some more. I think sometimes "trendy" just means overpriced and too creative for their own good.

Alright, school starts tomorrow and I gotta get ready for bed now that I have SOOOOO much more moisturizing steps to do, getting ready for bed and getting ready in the morning is gonna take much longer -_-.

Korea is so much fun!

It was really awesome today! In the morning, we went to Gyeongbok-gung (景福宮) because we couldn't really see it the other day, and we bought the ticket for 4 palaces and 1 shrine that is good for 3 months so we can visit ALL of them while we're in Korea.

It was really cool to be there again... this time with a tour guide. She was soooo informative!! I can actually understand her English, as opposed to the Matsumoto castle tour guide we had in Japan where I had to ask Joyce to translate her Japanese-English to English -_-

The Korean culture is really similar to Chinese culture. I mean..... ALL the names in the palace buildings are pretty much the same pronunciation as Chinese (not to mention that all the buildings are in Hanja). A lot of the thoughts behind why things are placed the way they are were the same as Chinese culture, probably with a few exceptions though. For example, Chinese culture is very big in using dragon to represent the emperor... which I think Korean culture is similar, with the exception that they use the sun to represent the king as well (which I don't believe the Chinese culture does?).

This tapestry that they said is the only "portrait" the civilians can see of the king shows the sun (the king), the moon (queen), and the five mountains of Korea (3 in North Korea and 2 in South Korea), as well as the pine trees and some other tree that I forgot.... means that the king is ruling over everything.

It makes a lot of sense now that the tour guide explained the sun and moon thing. I remembered that drama called "The sun that embraces the moon", at the beginning they said there are 2 suns and 2 moons, which means that there are potentially two kings and two queens, and that is the problem in the drama (cannot have two sets of royalty!). I didn't know that the sun and moon analogy was that important in the Korean culture... but now it make sense!

Do you see the little creatures on the tip of the rooftop? 

They are 잡상 (雜像) to fend off the evil spirits. And guess what they are the character of? Journey to the West! 西遊記! What....???? I really thought that was just a folk tale that we learn as kids... I didn't know anyone, much less a country, would use any of that story for anything other than fairy tale! Very surprised.

Here are the characters in closer look....

唐三藏：

孫悟空：

豬八戒：

沙悟淨：

Isn't that interesting? I thought it was so cool!

Did you notice the amount of people wearing hanbok? Apparently if you rent hanbok, you can get into all the palaces for free. But I heard they're not cheap.... about 75,000 won for rental. And I think it's quite hot. They really add nicely to the scenery, making all my pictures look even more realistic as if I'm actually in Joseon dynasty! Haha..

Here's something I think is cool. So it's quite cold in Korea in the winter, so they have been using heated floor ever since the Joseon dynasty. They do that by putting coals in the bottom of the floor, which heats up the floor, but the smoke escape from the chimney that is in another building next door, through underground ducts. And guess what the writings are on the chimney?

They're obviously hanja... but can you guess what they say? The first one says 萬壽無疆 and the second one says 長壽萬歲. Seriously.... all the parallel between the two cultures is amazing!

We went into the National Palace Museum after this and looked at all the different exhibits in there. Here's something quite interesting...

I think this is for chuseok, the day that they offer food to the ancestors. I was just amazed at 1) how realistic the food looks in the museum, and 2) the abundance of the food! Wow!!!! A classmate said he's hungry from just looking at it....

After this, we went to the National Folk Museum of Korea, which was pretty cool, but pretty small. So after the royalty life in palace, we came to the civilian location. Haha. 

I'm not quite sure why there is a big radish just out of nowhere... but it's cute.

Huge shrine... but no enter.

Me looking like I'm in the middle of the village..

Sitting in a train that is around the 1920's?

After all that stuff and learning about the history of Korea (it's really sad...... just a lot of invasion by Japan and trying to rebuild the palaces over time), we went to Bukchon Hanok Village, which is an area where they had preserved a lot of the original buildings, but converted into shops and cafe/restaurants. My classmates found this cafe and I must say.... it was CRAZY expensive!!!!!

Everyone pretty much just ordered omicha and bingsu...... guess how much those tea cost? Each one was 9,000 won!!!!! What the heck?! And the binsu was the same price. o_O

It was really small. :( That was a really really expensive cafe. 

After eating there, the classmates wanted to do some more sightseeing, but I wanted to shop around the area since I saw some really cool shops here and there, so we went our separate ways. I was glad that I had some time to myself to explore the area.... and I had an awesome time!! I have to say, this was the best part of my trip so far!

It rained a little bit today, which made the air really nice (overcast, but cool and chill). The scenery was just soooooo awesome and pretty. I just can't describe how awesome it was to be there.

There were just shops hidden here and there..... and a lot of people just walking on the street shopping. Aw man, I would totally go there again!!

Did I mention that Lee Min Ho is like the official mascot of Korea? -_- He's everywhere.

At Nature Republic, the sales spoke Mandarin and really helped me choose the beauty supplies.... I was super thankful since I really didn't know what make up to buy at all. Thanks to her, I bought a whole bunch of stuff!

And guess how much it cost? Around 52,000 won. I don't think this would ever happen if I were in U.S. My air cushion alone in U.S. cost $42. 

There were soooooooo many clothing and cute stuff shops. I got some clothes (gotta love the 1 + 1), for 20,000 total. Seriously. 

Koreans love the 1 + 1 or the 2 + 1. It's exactly the same as BOGO in U.S., but it's so much more intuitive. hahaha...

By the time I got back to the dorm, it was around 9pm. I went to the market to buy some TP and saw the price of watermelon. WOW....

WOW!!!!! That's a super expensive watermelon!!!! 

Lastly, there was a GS25 (like a 7-eleven, think Taiwan style) right next to the dorm. I didn't get to eat dinner so I went there to get some ramen and strawberry milk (I thought about trying the banana milk... but some people said it tastes really bad, like medicine.... so I think I'll just live vicariously). 

I've never eaten at a convenient store before..... and it was fun! haha. I'm sure it won't be fun for people who do this regularly.. hahaha.

Last thought: I'm SUPER thankful for coming to Korea. I really don't mind traveling alone at all (I actually didn't like it so much when I had a group of people touring today... since we move a lot slower as a group and we were too indecisive). It's been awesome meeting new people all the time, and just being SUPER mobile in the city life. 

I'm so glad that being a teacher gives me the option to travel months at a time. I've never thought that I would be able to experience student and dorm life again! At an asian country! Walking back from the train station to the dorm is like 15 minutes..... and it's quite bad when you have to lug all the stuff you bought from shopping back, while holding an umbrella because it's raining. But I was still thankful that it reminded me so much of living in Westwood and lugging a lot of things back to the apartment, or even Hedrick hall. 

And being in an asian country like Taiwan and Korea is soooooo awesome! First of all, there are TONS of things to do, right outside your living quarters! Second, you are super mobile with the subway and bus system. And since I got a SIM card, I really cannot get lost at all. Third, everything is super connected... you just use your T-money card for everything.... super convenient. Fourth, everything is so much cheaper (with the exception of binsu..... why!!!!!!!! I was planning to eat that everyday! :( ). 

I feel like I'm on a very experience filled vacation. Not only do I gain experience from the travel, I am also learning a lot of Korean. And I think it really makes a big difference that I'm doing this when I'm a lot older. If I were as young as these students are, I wouldn't have the life experience I have now to be prepared for a lot of things. For example, most of them don't even have a SIM card to have a working phone because they didn't know to check that option out beforehand. Most of them are more self-conscious (you lose that as you get older, hahahahahaha... no shame). Most of them are afraid to travel by themselves (I LOVE traveling by myself. No fear when your phone is working. :p). Most of them are afraid to speak Korean (seriously, the no shame really is a gift of old age). Most of them don't plan things out as well.... just not as good as older people in finding resources. 

Anyways, this learning vacation has been AWESOME so far!!