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 #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.

LAZY UPDATE #9

I was looking at my calendar and counting back the days to Sports Day and I can't believe that it's only been a week and a half since that sunny, winning, tiring day.  I was having dinner with Amber (pastor) two nights ago, and we came upon the subject of time; when you're in another country, time doesn't seem to follow the rules.  It feels as though time stretches out for longer than it really is - one month can feel like six months, one week like three weeks.  It's also a problem when I do lazy udpates because I have to think for a while about what I actually did during the week, instead of just going Oh! I did this this and this.  Or is that just old age catching up with me?

So for the Friday and Saturday after Sports Day, I rested for two days straight.  My voice was pretty much gone and my body felt like it needed three million years of sleep.  On Friday I only had one class at night time, and on Saturday I stayed inside my room the whole day.  I had a team project due on Monday so I was working on it from morning till evening until I finally finished it.  The project was to re-write parts of an episode of Friends - my team doesn't really speak English so after we brainstormed together, they wrote the script in Korean and I had to translate it back into English and 'Friends-ize' it.

On Sunday after church we went to the Hi! Seoul International Festival.  There were lots and lots of people there - mainly foreigners- and there were stands from many different countries standing alongside each other. There was also a food street where each country had its own little tent serving the national or most popular food.

We had a public holiday on Tuesday because it was Buddha's Birthday (The Coming Of Buddha Day) - so no classes again! Looking back, I probably should have gone to a celebration parade of Buddha or something related to that public holiday just to see how Korean festivals work.  But I didn't, so I guess it's too late.  That night I had a celebration dinner with my volleyball team in a restaurant in Myeongdong.  We had barbeque (I think it's customary to have barbeque for every celebratory thing ever here ....) and then we went to this amazing coffee/chocolate shop nearby.  It was so much fun because they were ALL Korean (i.e. their English isn't fluent), which is a surprising difficult situation for me to find myself in since most of the friends I've made can speak English to a pretty high level.

On Thursday night I met up with a friend who I had only really met once, but because we both speak Cantonese it was like there was this cultural bond between us which made it easier to become friends.  She came to Korea to take a make-up course and she invited me to be her 'model' for the night.  Over the past few years I've developed an interest in make-up - not me putting it on my face, but how to use what for the right occasions and how to match it with an outfit (roiworld...cough) - so I was pretty excited when I saw the make-up classroom and everything.

I didn't have any classes on Friday because my night class was cancelled for the week, so I took the time to go shopping in Myeongdong.  I was originally looking for a pair of sport shoes a la the Korean-style New Balance type, but I couldn't find any which I liked so I ended up buying other stuff instead.  I also met up with Amber for dinner in Apgujeong for barbeque (!!! ^^ ) and then we went to this reeeally nice coffee shop around the area.  The prices were kind of ....pricey, but the atmosphere was so nice.

Saturday was the second cultural excursion for the international students.  We went to the DMZ and an exhibition museum near the Blue House.  The DMZ was .....okay.  It wasn't super exciting but I guess it's part of the whole "I went to Korea" thing - it's just one of the places you have to visit when you're in Korea.

After the excursion I went out with my church friends for dinner and noraebang, which was so much more fun.      I didn't take any photos though, unfortunately, but I did get to hear one of my friends (who's quite demure and sweet) rap for the first time!

Yesterday was one of my friend's birthday.  She and the other exchange students had gone clubbing on Saturday night to celebrate, but since I was out with my other friends (and clubbing really isn't my thing anyway) I promised I'd spend the afternoon with her on Sunday.  Since the weather was so beautiful, we went bike-riding along the Han River and stopped half way for some ice-cream.  For dinner we met up with some other people and went to Hongdae.

In other news, I've been feeling tired a lot lately.  I'm thinking it's because of my eating choices and lack of exercise.  I always makes plans to go to the gym in the morning or at night time, but then I never do because either I'm lazy or I have homework I was supposed to have finished before.  T_T

LAZY UPDATE #4

Wow...apologies for not writing anything for so long.  Lessons have officially started - as in, since we can't add any more classes to our schedule the teachers have finally started to teach some substantial material.  Which also means homework and studying have commenced.  I can imagine your faces right now.  What? Homework? Esther? STUDYING? Yes...sigh...it's true.  I have conformed to the Korean education system and am now anxious about staying ahead of classes.  My mum will be so proud.

On Sunday, a group of us decided to go to Namsan Tower/Seoul Tower to have a look around.  The weather was kind of cloudy that day, so we spent thirty minutes in the lobby of our dormitory apartment trying to figure out whether to go or not.  In the end we did, and we had fun.

When we got there, half of the group took the cable car up while the other half walked 30 minutes up the stairs.  Guess which group I was in?  That's right, because my legs were so tired from walking around on Saturday, I decided to kill them even further and take the stairs.  Honestly it wasn't that bad.  When you're with a large group of people, the atmosphere is so different than trudging up steep stairs by yourself. There were a lot of people there that day, and lots of activities going on such as a traditional Korean play, a man playing on the flutes and lots and lots of food stalls set up everywhere.

Namsan Tower is also famous for it's wall of love-locks.  For those who don't know, couples will buy locks from the shops up there (or take their own lock because it's cheaper) and write little messages on them.  They put the lock either on a tree or on the fence along the wall, and then throw the key away as a testament of their ever-lasting love.  We had a few couples in our group, but I think only one couple bought a lock.  The couple in my pictures isn't from our group, by the way.  They were a random couple which I asked to take photo of.  The girl was like "Oh? Why......???" but the guy was like "Sure!"  I ended up taking a photo for them on their camera as well.  Bless me and my great camera skills.

I'll give a short summary of what's happened this week, but unfortunately I didn't bring my camera around with me so no photos.

1. Monday: I attended a class called International Communications for the first time.  Even though the lecture is in Korean, the teaching materials are in English, and the professor also tries to throw in some English for the exchange students benefit every now and again.  Speaking of which, the professor took the exchange students out for coffee after class on Monday as a sort of orientation to his class, and also to get to know us.  There were three exchange students and another Korean girl who had returned last year from living in Canada for seven years, so we all kind of chatted for a bit.  Ji Eun, the Canadian girl, also happens to be in most of my classes which means I now have at least one friend in all my classes :)

2. Tuesday: Another first time class - 'pre-production'.  In this class, we're going to learn about making a short film and writing synopses.  Because I'm trying to learn about everything going on in media, I figured taking this class would help me with the behind-the-scenes camera and footage area.  I've always been interested in this kind of field anyway, so I love it.  On Tuesday night, Sonya (American-Korean exchange student) told us she had heard about this AMAZING spaghetti place near our dorms and that she had gone there at lunch time but was turned down because it was too full, so she wanted to go for dinner.  It ended up being as good as she said, and by the time we left there was a huge line waiting to get in.

3. Wednesday: At night time, I finally visited COEX.  I don't know if we actually went to the right place though, because COEX is supposed to be massive, right?  The place we went to was big, but it wasn't that big.  Either way, Sonya and her boyfriend wanted to buy a pair of Toms from Åland so we did.  


4. TODAY: I went shopping at Idae today.  I'm going to Hongdae tonight.  Happy tiiiiiimes :)


P.S.  There were a lot of children running around at Namsan Tower on Sunday, so I took some photos of them.  There's something about children which seriously tickles the insides of me and makes me all happy and joyful.  Plus they have amazing clothes and can pull off anything.

HAPPY TIMES

Yesterday I went back to Idae with Heidi where we spent four hours shopping in and out of numerous clothes, shoes and bag shops.  It was so insanely freezing during the time when we were there, but it didn't really hinder us that much.  Heidi had never heard of the 'service' system before, so she was happily surprised when a lady outside Etude House offered her a basket with free samples inside them.  'Service' in Korea is pretty much free stuff.  The main reason for service is so that they hope to remain in a customer's mind and hope that the customer will come back.  We both love free stuff (heehee) so we happily took the basket and went inside the shop where we ended up buying a few items and receiving even more 'service'.

Both me and her were looking for specific items - I wanted shoes, jackets, coats, a bag (....and more) and she was looking for boots, gloves and earmuffs - so we kept our eyes out while walking along the streets.  I ended up buying a pair of really pretty flats for 29,000 won (25 AUD) and we both bought some books for university classes.  The mini-mall where we bought our books was really cute.  Downstairs there was a vintage clothes store and upstairs was taken by a fashion brand called codes-combine.  It was really fun shopping with Heidi, mainly because we have similar mindsets when it comes to shopping - 5,000 won rack? Chargeee!!

Today I went to Yongsan with Jooyoung to fix my phone.  My SIM card wasn't working so I couldn't make any phone calls out, but now it's all fixed!  Afterwards she took me to Myeongdong where I had a look around the famous tourist shopping destination.  I was by myself because Jooyoung had to leave for yoga class, but it was still fun.  The items in Myeongdong are definitely overpriced though, probably because of all the tourists which flock there all the time.  If you're looking for a place to shop, I wouldn't really recommend it unless you want to pay more for something which you can get for much less if you go to other places.  But the vibe of it all is very good.  There is one loooong street for unbranded fashion shopping, another street for branded shopping and then another street for food.  I was so tempted to buy food but this line from In Her Shoes kept coming back to me: "Clothes never look any good... food just makes me fatter... shoes always fit."....so I skipped the food and bought another pair of shoes.  heeeeeee :)

More happy things have happened other than shopping though.  My classes started yesterday, and so far I'm finding it to be pretty interesting.  I didn't realise so many Koreans would be taking the courses I was taking - in fact, I had initially thought my classes would be full of exchange students.  Not the case, however.  I have one class where I am the only international student and the rest of them are local Koreans.  Therefore, the teacher said he would have an 80:20 English:Korean teaching style.  I don't know, I really hope I can understand the lectures.  All I need is a pass in all my classes, but I still want to learn as much as possible.  Another good thing is that I've opened up my bank account, so now I have a safe place for all my money.  For the past few days I've been carrying around 2,000,000 won in my bag, occasionally taking some out for my necessary purchases (yes, those shoes were necessary!! :) ).  It wasn't too scary but just inconvenient.  I like carrying cash with me, but not that much...you know?