Day 46, 47 - Studying for Finals

These past two days have been spent mainly studying for finals. Aside from studying and class I've done a few things but not much!

On Monday, I went and met a friend of mine at a cute little coffee shop tucked back in an alley near Ewha Women's University and we talked and drank coffee there for a while. It was fun!

On Tuesday, I went on a frantic journey all around the Yonsei campus trying to find a place where I could print off an assignment due for class the next day and for some reason every place with a printer closes super early!

While I was running around campus, I discovered something: Yonsei University has a huge radio telescope. I'm not sure how I never noticed this before... it's gigantic! What's even weirder is that I walk past this telescope nearly every day and I just now noticed.

A huge radio telescope!

Both of the last two days have been very rainy and dreary outside, so it's not too bad that I've had to do so much studying since it wouldn't be too enjoyable to go outside anyway.

Yuck!

The friend of mine that I had coffee with on Monday used to work for an English-speaking radio station in Korea called Arirang Radio and she told me that she could get me on a short segment on the morning talk show! I talked to the radio station today so I'll be on the radio tomorrow at 7:40 am (Korea time)! I'm super excited!

If you want to listen back in the US, here is a link to hear the radio online: http://www.arirang.co.kr/Player/Radio_Live_Video.asp?code=FM

For those in the US, I will be on sometime around 6:40 PM on August 7th.

That's all for now!

Day 45 - Studying, Snowpiercer, and More Studying

Today I had to do a lot of studying for finals and work on a project I've got due next week so I spent nearly the whole day studying!

After I got up, I went with my friend Eric to go eat lunch at a place I frequently visit called Noodle Box, which is near Ewha Women's University. I had pad thai as usual! It's so good I can't bring myself to order anything else there, haha.

After lunch we went to a coffee shop called Zoo Coffee (they had stuffed animals around everywhere!) and studied there for a few hours until 3:00.

An advertisement for Snowpiercer

At 3:00, we went and met four of Eric's friends and we went to the Megabox movie theater to see the new Korean film, Snowpiercer. The movie is actually almost entirely in English language, which is rather odd for a Korean film (for obvious reasons). It was directed by a famous Korean director named 봉준호 (Bong Joon-ho) who has made a lot of Korean blockbusters in the past. The film was really good and I really, really liked all of it except for the last 2 minutes of the film. I thought the ending was terrible and unsatisfying! The ending made the heroes actually seem like they just made the problems worse instead of solving the conflict of the film. I would definitely recommend watching this film; just don't watch the last two minutes and use your own imagination and you'll enjoy it much more!

After the film we went to eat dinner at a Japanese restaurant and then headed back to Yonsei University to take a break for a little bit. At 7:45, I went and met Eric again and we went back to Zoo Coffee to do more homework. It was a lot of studying for one day, but at least I finished most of my project and got some good studying done!

Day 44 - Insadong and K-Pop Concert

Today I slept in, as is typical for the weekends, and went to go get lunch with two of my friends. We went to a small Korean restaurant close to our university called 딸기, which means strawberry in Korean. It's located on the B1 floor of a nearby building, meaning the 1st basement floor. Almost every building in Korea has at least one basement floor but many have up to 4 or 5. The common way to order the floors (from lowest elevation to highest elevation) is like: B3, B2, B1, 1, 2, 3, etc.

My hot stone bowl meal at 딸기.

I had a beef and rice dish that was good and extremely hot. They served it in a stone bowl with a raw egg and the bowl is so hot that you fry the egg against the side of the bowl.

After lunch, we went to the Insadong district, which is about 20 minutes away by train, so that Eric could buy a cheap Korea Olympic team soccer jersey. They sell them in shops in Insadong for only 5,000 won, or about $4.47.

We found the jerseys quickly because I had already bought one before and we decided to walk until we found the next train station instead of retracing our steps. We saw some areas of Insadong we had never seen before and eventually got to another station that actually put us closer to Yonsei University.

A panoramic photo of the K-Pop concert in front of City Hall.

We took the train back to Yonsei and took a shower because of the sweltering daytime heat before meeting a few other friends and heading to 시촌역 (City Hall Station) to see M! Countdown, which is a free concert where the top 10 K-Pop artists perform each of their hit songs. The concert was cool and the teenage fan girls were CRAZY! They were running and screaming and chasing after the artists while security guards were holding them back. Some of them even had stepladders so that they could see above the crowds and take photos.

One of the K-Pop groups called A-Pink performing their top song right now.

After the concert we headed to the Hongdae district, which is the artistic college area that we often go to on weekends. We found a place that served really good nachos! They were the best I've had in Korea although I'm still very excited to eat good nachos again in America! Haha.

Good nachos!

That's all for now!

Day 43 - Ewha Women's University and Study Abroad Farewell Party

I slept in today because I had no class! When I got up, I went with my friend Eric and we met one off his Korean friends at a Japanese restaurant in Sinchon for lunch. I got a buckwheat soba noodle dish which was good but so big! I couldn't eat it all, it was too much food! The restaurant was called Miyao (pronounced like meow) and they had cat figures and related things everywhere inside.

The buckwheat soba I got at Miyao. All three square trays have soba noodles in them. The bowl has a kind of soup with ice in it that you are supposed to dip the noodles in. You can add green onions, ginger, or wasabi from the little tray at the top to change the flabor of the soup.

After lunch, Eric's friend left and Eric and I went to the area of Sinchon near Ewha Women's University because he wanted to buy a backpack. We wandered around for a while looking in shops and I got a really delicious smoothie from a street vendor!

After we had walked around the area for a while, we headed back to Yonsei University to get ready for the CIEE Farewell Party. CIEE is the name of the company that I studied abroad with (they act as an intermediate party between my university and the Korean university). The party was at the Mary Gold Hotel in the Hongdae district of Seoul. We had about 30 people (our whole study abroad group) and we had a fancy buffet dinner and spent a lot of time socializing at the hotel. The party ended at about 9:00 at night and we all then went our various ways.

A video of some street performers tap dancing! It was actually really cool!

I went with some of my friends to the artsy, college kid part of Hongdae and we hung out there for the rest of the night and watched street performers at the Hongik University Children's Park. It was a fun night!

Day 42 - All-You-Can-Eat Sushi and PC 방

Today was the last day of class for the week. It's funny how even though I only have class four days a week, it still feels arduous! I'm going to be so spoiled when I go back to school in the fall, haha.

After class I went to lunch with my two friends at a restaurant in nearby Sinchon called Hong Kong Noodle. Most of what they had was noodle dishes (obviously) but I was able to get a good spicy seafood rice dish. It was delicious!

An extremely washed out photo of our food at Hong Kong Noodle.

After lunch, I headed back to the dorm and met with my group for my Premodern Korean History project and we did some planning for our presentation coming up on next Wednesday.

After that I went to my room and just relaxed for a while before meeting up with 5 other friends for dinner. It seems I spend the majority of my time in Korea eating food! The food here is extremely cheap and I don't have a kitchen so I essentially have to eat out every meal. You can frequently find full meals in a restaurant for $3-$4. The breakfast that I eat every morning, called onigiri (a Japanese rice-based food), only costs me about 70 cents.

We went and ate dinner at a sushi buffet that was delicious! It was actually my first time having Japanese sushi in Korea, as I normally eat kimbap which is sort of like a Korean version of sushi. I stuffed myself at dinner!

The entrance to Soul PC, the PC 방.

After dinner, I went to a place called Soul PC which is a PC 방 (pronounced like "bong"). 방 means "room" in Korean and it is essentially a place where you pay by the hour to play video games on computers. Instead of playing computer games by yourself in your room you can go with a group of friends to a PC 방 and play them in a more social environment. I met 4 other friends there (not the ones from dinner) and we all played video games for a few hours. It was very fun and there were about 30-40 people there besides us. It was an interesting social environment!

One of the various rows of computers inside Soul PC. I'm not sure why the dividers have hearts on them!

I finally decided to call it a night after a few hours and went back to Yonsei University to hit the sack!

Day 41 - Samgyeopsal and Myeongdong

Today, I went to class as usual and ate lunch with two friends after I got out. We went to one of the school cafeterias and I had ddukbaegi bulgogi, which is beef soup with glass noodles in it.

After lunch I went back to my dorm and took a nap. I've gotten in the habit of taking naps very often! The afternoon heat is sweltering and the sun really takes a toll on me! After I got up from a nap I went and met a group of my friends and we went to our usual barbecue place, The Barracks (the one with the national music and the Korean flags). We had samgyeopsal (giant bacon) which is always delicious.

After dinner we all parted ways and I met up with my friend Martin and we went to Myeongdong because I wanted to look around for any last souvenirs I wanted to get before leaving Korea, as the date of my departure is rapidly approaching.

We walked around for a while and picked up a few cheap souvenirs before finally calling it a night and heading back to Yonsei.

(I actually didn't take any pictures today! How boring!)

Day 40 - Deoksugung and Rice Pizza

Daehanmun at Deoksu Palace (the main gate).

For my Premodern Korean history class I have to do a group presentation on an assigned historical thing in Korea. My groups topic is Deoksugung, or Deoksu Palace (gung means palace). Deoksugung is one of the Five Grand Palaces built in Seoul during the Joseon dynasty.

The changing ceremony of the royal guard, seen from behind because we were already inside when it happened.

After class today I went with one of the other members of my group to visit the palace so we could take pictures for our presentation and also get some historical information on it.

Hamyeongjeon, the sleeping quarters of Emperor Gojong 

Junghwamun Gate, the gate leading to the throne room

We were lucky and by chance arrived at exactly the right time to see the changing ceremony of the royal guards in front of the Daehanmun. The Daehan part of Daehanmun means "Hanyang will prosper" (Hanyang was the old name of Seoul) and "mun" means gate.

Jeonggwanheon (the pavilion)

After watching the changing of the guard we went and looked at the other buildings on the palace grounds, including Junghwajeon (the main throne hall), Jeukjodang (home of the king), Hamnyeongjeon (sleeping quarters of Emporer Gojong), Deokhongjeon (where Emporer Gojong recieved high-ranking officials and foreign envoys), Jeonggwanheon (pavilion), and Seokjojeon  (a Western-style stone building).

Junghwajeon, the throne room

Seogeodang, where Queen Inmok was confined for ten years.

After we finished touring the palace we headed back to Yonsei University where we parted ways.

Seokjojeon, the Western-style building

I tried to capture the Western and Eastern style buildings in the same photo but most of the Eastern ones are behind the trees

Later on that night I got a rice crust pizza from a place called 59 Pizza, located near the movie theater about a 10 minute walk from my dorm. It was really good and very reasonably priced! I'll definitely be going back there again.

Pineapple rice crust pizza from 59 Pizza! Yum!

That's all for now!