A Very Korean Halloween

This past Thursday was the Mentors Club annual Halloween party.  Halloween is not really that popular in Korea, but Mentors Club hosts a Halloween party every year to celebrate with the Westerners.  This year it was held at Club Mass in Gangnam, which was a really cool club.  I went as Madonna and Andrew was a vampire, also Kia made herself a really awesome jellyfish costume.  The subway ride there was definitely interesting, everybody was staring at us more than usual!

The club was absolutely packed.  Although we all purchased tickets beforehand, we still had to wait in a long line to get in.  It was cool because the party was only Yonsei University exchange students.  It was fun to hang out with people who live in my dorm, but whom I otherwise don't really see throughout the day.

I danced with my friends for awhile but eventually it just wasn't fun anymore because of how crowded the place was.  The line to the bar was so long, and and although we had free drink passes, it still wasn't worth waiting in.  Eventually Andrew and I decided to head back to Sinchon, the party went until 5am, but by 3 we were wiped out.  We stopped on the way back to SK Global House for some yummy Korean BBQ.

All in all, it was okay night.  The party was fun for a little while and it's really nice that Mentorsclub puts together a Halloween party for the exchange students.  I definitely missed the good old American Halloween with lots of candy and everyone wearing costumes, but this Halloween in Korea is definitely something that I'll never forget.

Kia, me and Ariane.  Notice Kia's cool jellyfish costume!

Andrew and me at the Halloween party.

I guess it's called Club Mass for a reason.  Masses of people!

A Midnight Snack

Once in awhile you just need a midnight snack!  I was finishing up a powerpoint last night for my Sports Medicine class and afterwards I went to Andrew's room to hang out and plan our upcoming trip to Busan.  Around midnight we both gave each other the "I need some nosh" look.  Midterms were finally over and after barely leaving SK Global House for the past 4 days, we were feeling a little stir-crazy.

We decided to venture into Sinchon for something to eat.  We bundled up, which was an entirely new experience for us since being in Korea.  It was still 70 degrees just two days ago, and last night it was only 36 degrees!  Well that's Seoul weather for you.  It's hard to imagine Seoul being anything but hot and humid.  Walking outside with our wool coats, scarves, and gloves, felt really good though.  To me, it was the familiarity of upstate New York weather.  You could even feel the refreshing coldness in the air, I just love that wintery smell!

Between the quiet of the night and the cold temperatures, Sinchon was so peaceful!  Of course the only things open were Korean BBQ restaurants and coffee and waffle shops.  That was okay though, we found a delicious K-BBQ restaurant that we haven't tried before and it hit the spot.  Surprisingly, the place was actually busy at that hour, it seems that New York isn't the only city that never sleeps.

We headed back, and although it was late and we both had class the next morning, I'm still glad we went.  For the first time in awhile I slept really well last night.  And of course it was nice waking up to the heated floors.  So bring on the cold weather, Seoul!

A Day Out With Professor Chun (Again!)

This past Saturday Professor Chun arranged for our Religion and Culture class to go tour the Korean Folk Village outside of Seoul.  The weather was beautiful that day and we all had so much fun.  We met around 9am in the lobby of SK Global House and walked together to the bus stop.  We took 2 buses to get there, one to Gangnam and then the other to the village, and it took about 90 minutes to get there.  I enjoyed the ride though because I took a nice nap on the way!

The village was beautiful.  It's essentially a museum-like park set up like a traditional Korean folk village.  You can walk around, go into most of the buildings and houses, and there's even a small market and food court.  Also there's demonstrations and activities for the kids, as well as a horse show that we caught the tail end of (no pun intended).

Yes, that man is riding upside-down!

We walked around with Professor Chun and he explained a bit about eastern culture and religion at each stop we made.  It felt like we had our own personal tour guide!  We then all ate lunch at the market.  I had a potato pancake (it made me very excited for Hanukkah time!) and some soup, and as a class we shared some rice cake that Professor Chun bought.  At the market place we got to meet Professor Chun's reverend from his church back home in Kansas City.  His reverend is visiting South Korea with his family for the week and they decided to come to the folk village and meet our class.

One of the performances we caught was actually a national contest between grade schools.  Students were competing in the "Traditional Korean Mask Competition" where each school's team would perform a folk dance incorporating the traditional masks.  It was very interesting to watch and the kids were very cute.  It reminded me of when I would compete in chorus and band against other schools in the area.

Korean grade school students getting ready to perform their folk routine.

We continued to walk around and see things like traditional servants' quarters, the government house, a rich man's estate, a silk farm, etc.  Before we left we sat down in one of the tea houses and we all shared a cup of traditional medicinal tea and some candied ginger.  The tea had a very strange taste but it was really fun sharing the tea with the class and "experiencing culture", as Professor Chun says.  We headed back in the late afternoon, and after walking around for most of the day, we all enjoyed a nap on the bus ride back.

Sharing some tea with Professor Chun and the class, very Korean of us. 

Unsuccessfully trying to make friends with a donkey.  At least I tried. 

And another one bites the dust...

Well my roommate Joe moved out last week.  That's the second roommate I've had thus far.  Maybe it's me?  But in this case it was just a matter of polar opposite schedules.  Joe liked to stay up all night, and I mean all night, to about 4 or 5 in the morning if I was lucky!  She had been thinking about getting an apartment for awhile now so it made sense for her to go now.  Especially since it's midterms week and I need my sleep!

Sometimes I miss having a roommate, but it's nice to have two closets again and to have the room to myself.  And truthfully, I'm really not in my room much so it's not that big of a deal.

Yesterday marked the halfway point for my semester here in Seoul.  I can't believe it!  It seriously feels like last week that I got off the airplane, greeted by a sea of Asians in this big city, lost, confused, and blonde!  At this point I definitely feel more at home though.  I have my schedule memorized, I am finally able to pronounce all of my professors' names, and I can communicate with a cab driver to get back to SK Global House.  I even have the Seoul subway system down, now that's impressive!

The Seoul subway system.  Sinchon is located at stop 240 on the green line, #2.   That's in the middle, left hand side.

Jeju Island Day 1

I know I'm a few weeks late in writing about my trip to Jeju, but I wanted to wait until I had enough time to sit down and relax and write about every detail, rather than rushing through a post.  Today seems like the perfect day!  It's a beautiful Thursday afternoon; I've finished class for today; I have no classes tomorrow; I submitted 2 big assignments last night; and now I'm just sitting in the Caribou Coffee shop in SK Global House ready to write!

My trip to Jeju Island was incredible, I went with my friend Andrew and we had such an amazing time!  Jeju is a small island off the southern coast of South Korea and it is considered the "vacation hot-spot" of Korea, it's where many honeymooners go and some even call it the "Hawaii of South Korea".  Andrew and I left on Thursday, September 23rd, which was still part of our fall break for Chuseok.  We took the subway express line to Gimpo Airport, which is a smaller airport than Incheon airport, it's similar to New York's Laguardia Airport.  We arrived and checked in without a problem.  I'm pretty sure Andrew and I were the only Caucasions on the plane, and we were both assigned to the exit seat aisle.  Of course we made plenty of jokes how they would put the white kids in charge of saving everybody, but the flight was smooth and quick, only about a 50 minute trip.

When we got off the plane we could feel it already, warm ocean air!  We grabbed our bags from baggage claim and then our next step was getting to our first guesthouse.  Andrew had his heart set on renting a car for the trip.  We looked into and it would've been extremely affordable, about $200 for the 4 days including insurance!  The only problem is neither of us had filed for an international license, so instead we headed towards the bus terminal.  Andrew was bummed and so was I,  it would've been nice to be able to travel by ourselves and not have to wait for the island buses.  I let it roll off my back, but Andrew procedded to sulk like a puppy dog everytime we passed a rental car.  It was funny at first, but by the third day I told him to GROW UP.

The bus system was slow, but easy.  We took a bus from Jeju airport, which is located at the northern coast of the island, to Insong-ri in the southeastern part of the island, which is where our first guesthouse, Island Guesthouse, is located.  It was about an 80 minute ride with one transfer, and many stops.  We got off the bus and followed the convenient directions sent to us by the guesthouse manager, Ilene.  We were greeted immediately by Ilene when we arrived.  From what I learned, she doesn't own the guesthouse, but she does run it and lives upstairs.

Ilene and me at the Island Guesthouse

The Island Guesthouse was beautiful.  It was eccentrically decorated and the house had this wonderful tropical feel to it.  We put our stuff down when we arrived and were anxious to head back out and explore!  We wanted to head to the beach before sunset and walk around the Jungmun Tourist Complex.  This area was located about 15 minutes away from the guesthouse and it is where the Jungmun beach is located, which is one of Jeju's most popular beaches; also it's where the big resorts are, like the Hyatt and the Lotte Hotels.  Ilene wrote out awesome directions for us.  She drew us a map how to get to the bus stop and wrote us a note for us to show the bus driver so that he knew where to drop us off.  After just two days Ilene felt like a mom to us!

We got to the complex just before sunset and we walked down to the water and along the beach.  After being in the city for a month already it felt great to walk with my feet in the sand and listen to the waves.  We were lucky enough to catch the sunset and then we headed down the beach towards the Hyatt.  The Jeju Hyatt is a beautifully architected resort that overlooks the beach on a hill and it was all lit up since the sun had already set.  We couldn't help but be a little bit curious so we decided to check it out.  The lobby was beautiful, there was a fish pond in the lobby and a cafe and bar with a nice jazz singer.  We sat outside on the terrace that overlooked the beach and ordered a couple of drinks and a small margharita pizza to share.  I had a pina colada, since it was the most "islandy" drink I could think of and perhaps the best part about it was that it was a non virgin!

Me and Andrew at the Jungmun Tourist Complex, before heading down to the beach.  The bridge in the background is  called the Seonimgyo Bridge, or the Seven Nymphs Bridge, because there are 7 nymphs carved into either side in white.

We made it to the beach in time for the sunset!  The building in the background on the right is the Jeju Hyatt.  

While we were sitting on the terrace at the Hyatt, we could see a bunch of children congregating inside at the cafe with some chefs.  We asked our waitress and she explained that every night there's an activity for the kids who are staying at the hotel and tonight they were learning how to make rice cake!  It was so very Disney-like.

We finished our drinks and decided to head back up to the bus stop because the last bus stopped running at 9:30 pm.  We caught the bus and headed back to the guesthouse, completely exhausted.  When we got there the other people who were staying at the guesthouse were there also!  It was so much fun meeting them.  It was a big group of girls and a few guys who were not much older than Andrew and I.  They were mostly Americans who were teaching at an international school in Incheon for the next few years.  It was so much fun talking with them before we went to bed, but it was a little strange sharing a big room with a bunch of people we had just met.  It felt kind of like the first few nights of sleep away camp, when we're all a little bit shy and nervous but we know we're going to have fun anyways.

The group of teachers had been in Jeju for the whole week so they offered a lot of good advice about what sights were worth seeing and which one's weren't so great.  I enjoyed talking to Bree the most.  Bree is from California and she's a bit of a tom-boy with this deep, raspy voice.  She was so enthusiastic about meeting Andrew and I and she wanted to hear all about our plans for Jeju and the other stuff we were planning on doing over the semester.  We expressed some hesitation about traveling all the way across the island to see a particular crater that we were thinking about and her response was "Just charge it!  Charge it!!".  Me and Andrew started laughing; she sounded so funny but we weren't sure if she was referring to charging a credit card or something like that.  The more she said it we realized she meant "charge like a rhino", in other words, just do everything and don't hold back.  So that became our philosophy for the trip, JUST CHARGE IT!

E-mart

Today I needed to do a little grocery shopping and since we always go to Grand Mart I thought I'd try something new. E-mart is the biggest retailer in South Korea and it is known around here as a "mega-store". It's kind of like a Walmart Supercenter, in that it carries everything from clothes to electronics to groceries. I went to the one in Yongsan, and in my opinion, it's much nicer than Walmart. Everywhere you turn there is an E-mart employee ready to help you, and if they don't speak English then they go and find someone who does. Also, they were giving away many free samples which made shopping on an empty stomach much more enjoyable.

My friends and I have been cooking a lot more because we've quickly realized that eating out for multiple meals a day is not only unhealthy, but also a big waste of money. We haven't been that adventurous with our cooking yet, but we're working on it. The types of things we've been making are basically sandwiches for lunch, scrambled eggs and egg sandwiches for breakfast, and usually fried rice with some meat or vegetables in it for dinner. We've also made some different types of stir-frys and we're going to try pasta this week. We'd like to make more but the kitchen in our dorm does not have any ovens, just stovetops. We were told that Koreans don't use ovens that often to prepare meals and that's why we don't have any. So we've been getting creative with the microwave and stove! If you know any simple recipes that we could throw together, let me know!

E-mart is much bigger than Grand Mart, which I think I've mentioned is our local grocery/department store in Sinchon. E-mart had a much bigger variety of everything, including a huge bakery, a fish market, and a large produce section. Apples, cereal, and cheese were on my list, and I didn't deviate from my list because E-mart was a bit of a hike from Sinchon and I didn't want to have to carry many bags. I also got some dish soap because with all of the residents of SK Global House sharing one big kitchen, the pots and pans have been getting a little grody. All of the items I got were a little bit cheaper than at Grand Mart, but not by much. Produce is incredibly expensive here because all the rain during the monsoon season has been bad for the crops. I bought a bag of 7 small to medium-sized apples and it cost me 6,900 won, which is about $6. I even saw a watermelon on sale for 35,000 won, which is over 30 bucks! The cheese and cereal are both considered "Western" items so they too were expensive. The pack of cheese I bought (individual slices just like American cheese, but they don't call it that here!) was 4,980 won, which is about $4.50. Lastly, the cereal almost killed me. Most Koreans really don't eat cereal here, or any "breakfast item" for that matter, so how anyone can wake up and have a big bowl of ramen and squid soup is beyond me! So, after unsuccessfully trying to make my beloved Cinnamon Toast Crunch last more than a week, I needed to buy some cereal. I bought a mid-priced box of Post cranberry and granola flakes which cost 6,950 won, which is a little over 6 bucks.

So it wasn't the cheapest grocery store trip, but all necessary items for an American college student living in Seoul! It was fun checking out a different grocery store and a different part of the city, but I always forget that once I leave Sinchon, I'm no longer surrounded by as many international students and therefore people definitely look at me more. As I mentioned in my last post, it really doesn't bother me as much as it did before. Also it's occurred to me that when I pass newborns and little babies in the stores and on the subway, I could possibly be one of the first Caucasians that they've ever seen. I know that's a strange thought, but being a foreigner (and an obvious one at that) in such a big city, these are the types of things that go through my mind.

Another cool thing about going to E-mart was that the subway line to get there, line 1, uses a Korail train, or a "KTX". The KTX is a newer model train that travels at a much higher speed than the conventional trains. I tried to read about it at the subway station while waiting for the train, but much of the sign was in Korean. An interesting fact about the KTX is that the train is designed to look like a shark. I was not at the top of the platform, so I couldn't actually see it, but here's a picture I found that resembles the picture on the KTX info board I was reading from:

Pictures of my room!

Strawberry!

I'm here! I arrived at the Incheon Airport Sunday evening and since then I've been getting settled in, meeting new people and most of all, exploring the city! The city is beautiful, it's extremely big, way bigger than New York City. The area of the city that the University is located in is called Sinchon (similar concept to the different boroughs of NYC).

My first meal out was in Sinchon, just two blocks from my dorm, which is named the SK Global House. Monday morning, although still jet-lagged, I managed to wake up and meet some friends in the lobby of my dorm for a morning meal. The reason I call it a morning meal is that in Korea there is very little concept of distinct mealtimes, such as breakfast, lunch and dinner in the U.S. Koreans simply eat what they want when they want. In the lobby I met my friends Rosie and Jim and a few other international students. Rosie also goes to HWS with me, and Jim and I became friends on facebook before we met, he is from Rochester, NY. The other people I met were Axel and Andreas, two guys from Sweden, Felix from Germany, Aliana from France, Kia from San Francisco, and Jumee from Seattle. We ventured off campus and after only a couple of blocks we found a small restaurant called Strawberry. (Which is clearly a sign because strawberries are my favorite fruit!)

We were all starving since most of us hadn't eaten since the plane so we ordered right away. The wait staff did not speak English so we ordered by pointing to the pictures of what we wanted in the menu. I ordered a rice bowl with cabbage, garlic, rice cake, wasabi, and a few other unidentified objects, with a scrambled egg on top. It was delicious, but strange eating such a meal around breakfast time. The whole meal was 3,000 won which is about $3. Some others ordered raman noodles, dumplings, and a rice patty dish. We ended up swapping meals at the end so that we could all try everything.

Another great thing about Korea is that tipping is not customary, and also you are not taxed on food or clothing. Afterwards we walked back to the SK Global House and attacked our next order of business, registering for our alien registration card. So that's a wrap for my first official in-Seoul post! Stay tuned for an upcoming bio on my roommate from Singapore!