SUMMER HOLIDAYS SO FAR

First of all, I am sick.  It started last Saturday morning when I woke up to start moving my luggage downstairs to the 7th floor.  The management office had only told me the night before that I was moving rooms, so I had decided to stay up late to pack and had to wake up early to move everything downstairs.  I woke up feeling really, really dizzy and feverish, and after I'd moved everything into the room I crashed onto my bed and slept for the whole day.  I was getting better on Sunday, and by Monday I was totally fine.  Except for my voice, which started deteriorating.  By Tuesday, I had no voice whatsoever.  I didn't think much of it until last night, when my voice wasn't getting better and my throat was starting to hurt.  So I went to the hospital today and they gave me some medicine.  Now I feel much much better.

Second of all,  I'm pretty happy to say that so far I have left my room at least once a day for each of those four days for non-medical reasons.  Generally I'm a bit of a hermit in Adelaide and I can stay inside my room for days and days, but why would I do that when I only have a few more weeks left in Seoul? Every time I don't feel like going out I remind myself "Esther.  You are not in Adelaide.  You are in Seoul.  Go DO something."  So on Monday I went to Kyobo, one of Seoul's biggest bookstores, by myself and shopped around.  Tuesday was a birthday party for the pastor of my church, who left today for a vacation in the US.  Yesterday the only time I went out was for a long walk across the bridge over the river - and yes, that does count as going out.  Today I went out to Yongsan with a friend to look around, as a 'reward' for our wonderful grades.

Speaking of which, I am very proud to say that I recieved straight A's (3 A+'s, 2 A's) for my final results!!! I'm not really a straight A person - honestly, I'm more of a A and B person - so this was really exciting for me.  I have a funny feeling that I got these grades because I was a foreigner, but either way....they're still there no matter what the reason.  Kkya!

LAZY UPDATE #12

This past week has been pretty packed with events, and I think it's only going to get even more busier now.  School's out for the summer holiday so everyone's going to be out and about now.  Seoul is raining cats and dogs at the moment.  I've never seen it rain so much for consecutive days before.  There's a typhoon coming according the forecast, but right now the weather is nice and breezy.  It was really sticky and humid before.

Last Friday was the last gathering of all the international students at CAU.  We went back to where we first started off in February, Mom's Touch, and just had a good time.  It was really strange to think back to four months ago when no one knew anyone, whereas now it was like we were all best friends.

Afterwards, a small group of us decided to walk out to the Han River.  It was about 2 am and no one wanted to go back to the dormitory yet, so we bought some drinks and some snacks and sat next to the water.  Music, laughing and crazy lack-of-sleep-induced dancing ensued.

Saturday was Randy's, an American friend, last night in Seoul, so we went out to Korean BBQ and another walk along the Han River.  I used to go hiking with Randy in the mornings when we first arrived, and during those times we became pretty good friends.  Hiking ceased as the weather got warmer, but we'll always have good memories.

On Tuesday, the day after my very last exam, I went to Incheon with a few friends to look at the 'Chinatown'.  My Korean friend told me it was government funded, which explains the lack of authenticity and plenty of Koreanized Chinese elements.  We discovered a shop which sold 豆浆 and 面条, and were so surprised to find out that the old grandpa owner, despite having been raised in Korea, could speak perfect Chinese! He even had the accent.

The actual place was pretty quiet when we arrived.  There were lots of stores selling Chinese souvenirs, different types of foods and there were a lot of lanterns hanging around.  In fact, the streets were decorated with a lot of red stuff.

Wednesday night was the last night my roommate was going to stay in the dormitory, so we went out to dinner in Myeongdong with another friend.  We went to this Indian place called 'Saffron', where everything they served was Halal, which mean my Muslim roommate could eat whatever she wanted there.  The food was quite nice, but I think it was a posh-ish kind of restaurant so the prices weren't that cheap.

My roommate moved out on Thursday, and for the whole day I was kind of depressed.  Luckily I had already organised to meet up with a friend from Ewha University for dinner.  We went to eat at this 'famous' naengmyeon place, except when we got there we were both highly disappointed.  To cheer ourselves up we went to have dessert at Holly's Coffee.

I met up with some of my classmates for dinner on Friday night.  These classmates were from the class I hated the most, but surprisingly the class where I made the most friends.  We had the best pasta I have ever eaten in Seoul, and then went to Hongdae for some shopping.  It was a fun night.

This was a very brief update because I'm sick at the moment, so my brain's not functioning properly.  I'll probably tell you what happened on Saturday morning after I get better.  Over and out.

ALL FINISHED

다 긑나다! I finished my last exam one hour ago, and now I am relishing the deliciousness of not having exams while my friends in Adelaide are studying away for their semester exams.  Actually, I will be perfectly honest and say that the feeling I have right now isn't that much different than what I was feeling this morning.  I tried to study hard for this exam, but the knowledge that I just have to pass (which I really hope I do because I did study for it) isn't too much of an incentive for lots of study.

The next few days are lined up with outings and meetings to which I am SO looking forward to, but I'll also have to figure out what to do with myself without spending money everyday.  Window shopping or just walking along the streets is torturous for me.  The streets are filled with food and clothes and little trinkets so it's difficult to walk for a long time without buying something. Maybe I should limit myself to 10,000 won a day (except when I'm meeting up with someone) until I leave for Beijing?  Sounds like a good plan.

The weather is definitely heating up.  Apparently this summer is going to be hotter than ever because the past winter was the coldest Seoul has had in 30 years, so I'm looking forward to that a lot.  Not.  The monsoon is also apparently coming early this year as well, so the rains will be coming and I can finally wear my lovely rainboots!

P.S. The potato pizza has no relevance to this post whatsoever.   I just like looking at food, so I decided to spread the food love around. :)

THE END IS NIGH

The end of my stay in Korea is sadly looming up ahead, but that's not for another few weeks so I refuse to think about it.  But how can I?  This morning I said goodbye to my Finnish friend, who lived opposite me in the dormitory, as she left for the airport to go back home.  In the next few days, most of the international students will be packing their bags (they're already started) and we will be saying goodbye for maybe forever.  It's not being dramatic, unfortunately.  The truth is that a reunion will be pretty much near impossible unless someone makes it big and hires a private plane to jet around the world and pick us all up.  I was telling my friend last night how he was lucky, because there were three other students from his university which came to Korea with him.  They didn't know each other before, but now they do, and it's easier for them to catch up.  Australia is on the other side of the world compared to everyone else.

Oh well.  Another end is night, and that's the end of exams!!! I have one exam left on Monday evening, and then I will be officially done with the semester and free to do whatever I please without any guilty feeling for not studying instead.  This time round I haven't been so prepared for the exams, so I don't feel as good as I did for my midterms after I finish the paper.  But over time I've learnt that it's no use worrying about what I should have put in, or what I did wrong - if I've learned something from it then it's all good.

P.S.  Sorry for not writing anything for so long.  I have literally been in the library and in my room studying (or trying to) or at church for most of the time.  Oh, and downloading stuff as well.....so looking forward to holidays!!

LAZY UPDATE #11

I can't believe how fast the time has gone since mid-terms.  I am so not ready for finals, nor am I in the mood for studying like I was with my mid-terms.  These past few weeks have felt as though someone pressed fast-forward x32 on the remote control and everything has been such a blur.  A lot of stuff has been happening with my family coming over and me having to organise pretty much everything for their trip, which has made me stressed out - money, accomodation, travel fares, visas, finding out where to go - and then there's my visa and my dormitory accomodation for the summer and just everything has been building up and up.  I finally broke down on Friday because it was just all too much to handle, so hopefully now that I'm all cried out I can just focus on getting through the exams and into holidays!!!

So last Saturday (the last one in May) I went to watch a movie with a student from the Anseong campus of Chung Ang University.  She and I met during the Folk Village excursion a few months ago and we wanted to hang out in Seoul.  We had 삼게탕 samgyetang (herbal chicken) for lunch and then went to watch Kung Fu Panda 2.  It was my first time trying the chicken dish; ever since I came to Seoul I wanted to eat it.  It was okay.  The taste wasn't anything explosively amazing but it wasn't plain either.  KF2 was on the ordinary side as well.  I enjoyed the first one, but as with most sequels the second one wasn't the same.

Last Monday was my friend's birthday, and though he had celebrated it with drinks the night before, he wanted to do something on the actual day so a group of us went to the 찜질방 jjimjilbang (Korean sauna)! I didn't take any photos that night since I didn't know if it was appropriate to take my camera out, but it was a lot of fun.  There were lots of different kinds of saunas - some were super super hot and others were ice cold.     We also ate the hard-boiled eggs and drank 식혜 sikye (rice dessert drink) in the main common area.  It seriously felt like we were in drama.

On Thursday, me and my roommate decided to have a mini-party in our dorm room.  Both of us wanted to try 'take out' in our dorm room, whether it be pizza or chicken or a full meal, so we decided that Thursday would be the day.  I invited another friend to come along as well - she's Japanese but has studied Korean for three years - so we had three people.  We also had a cake because my roommate and I both had been craving for cake as well.

Friday night was the first time I stayed out after 1 am (our dormitory curfew is 1) and guess what I was doing? Shopping!! After our evening class, I didn't feel like going back to the dormitory so I asked a few of my friends to go shopping with me at Dongdaemun.  We went out at 10 pm and didn't come back until 6:30 am in the morning, but it was a lot of fun.  One of my friends' mum used to to own a clothes shop when she was young (my friend is Korean) so she knew the best places to go to for cheaper clothes.

What was really interesting about shopping that late/early was that it didn't feel like it was different from any other time.  When we got tired from shopping, we went to a cafe nearby to rest our legs and get a drink and it was packed.  Not just packed for 3 am in the morning but packed for any other normal time of the day.  And it wasn't only the cafe - the shopping complexes and streets were still full of people.

Today was Memorial Day, similar to ANZAC Day we have in Australia.  It's a public holiday so everyone has the day off.  Samil Church has this month-of-prayer thing where people go to morning service at 6.30 am everyday to pray for the church.  My leaders had been really promoting this event to everyone and though I was initially not going to go, I ended up going because a) it would be a welcome change from waking up late, b) they were going to watch a movie after the service and c) it would be something that I couldn't experience back home.  What I didn't expect were the amount of people who would turn up alongside with me.  The line of people could easily have been 1 km long - from the door of the church to the station exit of the subway.

The service was interesting, especially with the amount of people that were there.  After the service we had breakfast at the church, which was provided by the church.  We met up in our international fellowship group and then proceeded to go to the cinemas.  We split up into two groups - Kung Fu Panda 2 and X-Men: First Class - and went to our respective theatres. I'd been waiting to watch X-Men for a LONG time - my friends on Facebook would definitely know - so it was an easy choice for me.  And then we had dessert afterwards as a big group.

In other news: finals are next week.