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.
