August 3rd - 5th
The first day of classes was surreal. If I had been back home, I would have felt confident because I would have known what to expect, but instead I felt like a freshman all over again.
Quick list of surprising things in my first class - Korea and the US in the 20th Century
1. It is taught by an American.
2. All the students in the class are Americans, excluding four, and even they're exchange students.
3. I knew two people in the class (one from KU and one from orientation).
4. There were two other people from KU in the class.
I think I'm really going to enjoy the class, even if it is at 9 am on a Monday morning.
I really disliked my second class Modern Korean Society for a variety of reasons. The first one was the professor. First of all, he thought the world of himself as a professor, although I wasn't that bothered by it because I figured maybe it was because it was the first day and he was trying to earn our respect. Anyway, he then proceeded on asking us questions he himself didn't know the answer to necessarily just to tell us we were wrong. For example, he asked how many countries there were and one student offered up 300 and he said no, that it should be closer to 200 although he didn't know the precise number either. He asked what the population of Seoul was, to which I responded 10 million, and he corrected me saying 11 million (although I looked it up later and population estimates are between 9.5 - 10.5 million). But these questions also served no purpose. They just seemed like a way to prove that we knew nothing. He also said several things that bothered me in regards to South Korea. First off, he said that Korea wasn't small because if you combined the two countries, they would be in the top 10 list of countries by population. First off, this is a moot point because South and North Korea aren't one country. Second, combined they still don't make it into the top 10 because their combined population is 75-80 million and the number 10 slot is held by Japan with a population of 127 million. So by the time he started lecturing, I wasn't exactly impressed. Then, upon seeing the syllabus, the class was really hard gradewise based on what he expected from us. The midterm and final in total counted for 80% of our grade (40% each) with a 10 page paper (10%) and everything else for another (10%). That really unsettled me because I didn't find the professor's teaching style conductive to real learning and I don't want him deciding my grade when I don't share his opinions and he seemed to present his opinion as undeniable fact. Then, to compound on this mess Yonsei has a relative grading system for all classes in the Underwood College of Intl Studies with more than 10 students, letting only about 30-35% of the students get A's. This includes my Modern Korean Society class that has a class size of 15 people, meaning we're all competing for 5 A's (assuming the professor gives the maximum allowed). So by the end of class I was already considering dropping it and by the end of the next day I decided to for sure to drop it.
I want to sign up for Pre-Modern Korean History so that I'll be taking 15 hours, but right now the class is full. I'll try again during the next couple of days, but I don't know if I'll be able to. If not, I'll just take 12 hours this semester. If I get bored, I can do more volunteering or something. But for right now, I'm finding this tutoring to essentially consume as much time as an academic class. I tutor 4 hours a week (plus a 45 min commute each way), and I have to spend about another 4 hours a week prepping for it. I was really stressed out about whether or not I could manage everything, but dropping that class has made all that worry disappear. I also love tutoring the 8 year old girl. I met her for the first time last night (Tuesday) and she is both incredibly nice and intelligent. She's had English classes before, but forgotten almost all of it. I don't have to teach her from scratch though, so that's a relief.
There are two other classes I'm taking, Korean language and Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema, but I will talk about these later this week.
Wednesday, September 5, 2012
First Thoughts about Seoul
Now that Expo has ended and my study abroad program is about to begin, I think I'm going to switch to a different format of blogging. Instead of recounting my daily encounters, I'm just going to comment on the overall experience because that is what I think will be more interesting and easier for me to maintain.
So after moving in to my new room on the 14th, it didn't really feel permanent at first. I was sleeping on a mattress cover and towel and the room was pretty much devoid of stuff besides necessities, but as the days went on and I got my room more organized (and bought things like a comforter and shelving), my room is now starting to feel like my new home. I love the size of my room and bathroom, even though I find the layout to be a strange. The room isn't that wide (about 7 feet at its widest), but quite long (20ish feet?), so it's actually quite spacious. The place also provides some basic food staples and laundry detergent, which is convenient. My biggest complaint is they have a strict no-guest policy. Before I moved in, they had told me that guys weren't allowed in, but after about a week of having some friends (who were all girls) come and stop by, they informed me (kindly) that it was against their policy. I don't see it being a big deal once school starts though. It's just that during the afternoon when it's hot, it's nicer to just go to someone's place instead of having to spend money at a cafe.
I had about half a month before my school started (excluding a day of orientation for international students), which I was thankful for. At first, it just seemed like a long vacation off work, but it all seemed temporary. I felt like at any time I would realize that I had to head back to Yeosu. This feeling was only compounded by the fact I was hanging out mostly with friends from the USA Pavilion who were still in Seoul. For the most part, I was super thankful they were all there because I think otherwise I would have been bored. It's interesting to come to Seoul not as a tourist, but as a student. Although I still wanted to explore Seoul, since I'm here for so long, I didn't feel the need to continually go out and do touristy things. I found myself waking up late every morning, going out and meeting friends for lunch and then hanging out, getting dinner with them or other people, coming back to my room at night, and then staying up and talking to friends back home. Repeat. I knew though that this was unsustainable once the school year began, but it seemed so distant in the future, that it didn't really faze me.
So after moving in to my new room on the 14th, it didn't really feel permanent at first. I was sleeping on a mattress cover and towel and the room was pretty much devoid of stuff besides necessities, but as the days went on and I got my room more organized (and bought things like a comforter and shelving), my room is now starting to feel like my new home. I love the size of my room and bathroom, even though I find the layout to be a strange. The room isn't that wide (about 7 feet at its widest), but quite long (20ish feet?), so it's actually quite spacious. The place also provides some basic food staples and laundry detergent, which is convenient. My biggest complaint is they have a strict no-guest policy. Before I moved in, they had told me that guys weren't allowed in, but after about a week of having some friends (who were all girls) come and stop by, they informed me (kindly) that it was against their policy. I don't see it being a big deal once school starts though. It's just that during the afternoon when it's hot, it's nicer to just go to someone's place instead of having to spend money at a cafe.
I had about half a month before my school started (excluding a day of orientation for international students), which I was thankful for. At first, it just seemed like a long vacation off work, but it all seemed temporary. I felt like at any time I would realize that I had to head back to Yeosu. This feeling was only compounded by the fact I was hanging out mostly with friends from the USA Pavilion who were still in Seoul. For the most part, I was super thankful they were all there because I think otherwise I would have been bored. It's interesting to come to Seoul not as a tourist, but as a student. Although I still wanted to explore Seoul, since I'm here for so long, I didn't feel the need to continually go out and do touristy things. I found myself waking up late every morning, going out and meeting friends for lunch and then hanging out, getting dinner with them or other people, coming back to my room at night, and then staying up and talking to friends back home. Repeat. I knew though that this was unsustainable once the school year began, but it seemed so distant in the future, that it didn't really faze me.
Sunday, September 2, 2012
The End of Expo
Sunday, August 12th
I got lunch with people, but I don't remember who. Anyway today was the last day of the Expo and I worked the last shift ever of Expo. After work, I changed clothes because we were having a cocktail party to celebrate and we all went through the USA Pavilion one last time. Beforehand I thought the idea was tacky and unnecessary because I had seen preshow and main show more than enough throughout the summer. However, it was actually really nice to get to go through it with all of the USA Pavilion people. Afterwards, we had a party on the mysterious 4th floor in a really nice place that I hadn't even known existed. There was some food, which I ate until it disappeared because there was both fruit and desserts, my favorite things. Everyone was just talking, dancing, and taking pictures to remember everything. Madison, Rachel, and I decided to leave together sometime around midnight I think and when we got down to the first floor, we realized that there were several other parties happening. There was one throughout an entire block of the pavilion and another one at the Thailand Pavilion. Since I had friends at that pavilion, I decided to go check that one out, but within three minutes of arriving, some guy dumped what was luckily just water over my head and we decided to leave because the party was too crazy. At that point all I wanted to do was jump in a shower, which I did the moment I got home.
Monday, August 13th
We had a luncheon hosted by the mayor of the city of Yeosu in honor of the USA student ambassadors. The food was good, which is always an added bonus when getting a free meal. They gave me a plate of vegetables since I was vegetarian, and some of the vegetables tasted a bit off, but everything else was good. Afterwards, Lauren, George, Josh, Rachel, Yvonne, and I all went to a cafe for some therapeutic chatting about all our thoughts of Expo now that it had come to an end. It was really good and was a good first step in really realizing that Expo was really done because the day off felt more like one of our breaks than the real end. That night I went to Grace's birthday party, which kind of morphed into a party of goodbyes since it was our last night together with everyone. I didn't leave until 1 am because everyone else was scrambling to finish packing.
Tuesday, August 14th
I finished my packing (I had barely anything left) and went to bed at around 2 am and woke back up at 2:45 am to head down to the Expo Town gates to say good byes to everyone leaving. Anyone headed back to the US was taking a chartered bus to Seoul and so about 25 people were leaving then. I was honestly exhausted, so even though I wanted to say goodbyes, I could honest barely even keep awake. I went back to bed at 4 am to get back up at 8 am. A group of us headed down to the KTX station at 8:50 am in taxis, even though it was only a 10 minute walk just because our suitcases were so bulky. We got there before the train arrived, but that meant we were the first people able to put our luggage on the train and then we just hung out until the train finally left at 10 am. I think there was 12 or so of us on the train headed to Seoul. We arrived around 1:30 pm at Seoul Station. I then got to the place I was living at around 2:30 and moved in my bags. Sara and Grace also dumped their stuff temporarily in my room because they lived too far away to take their stuff there and make it back in time to meet Ambassador Kim. So we grabbed lunch and then changed into nice clothes to meet the ambassador. Even only doing those things we were running late, so we ended up taking a taxi to 광화문 (Gwang-hwa-moon). We sat around in the embassy for about a half hour until Ambassador Kim came in and talked with us for about 10 minutes. Afterwards we all went out for dinner and then a large group of us headed to Emart, where I bought a pillow and snacks. That night I got to sleep on towels since I had no sheets or a pillow case yet, but it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.
I got lunch with people, but I don't remember who. Anyway today was the last day of the Expo and I worked the last shift ever of Expo. After work, I changed clothes because we were having a cocktail party to celebrate and we all went through the USA Pavilion one last time. Beforehand I thought the idea was tacky and unnecessary because I had seen preshow and main show more than enough throughout the summer. However, it was actually really nice to get to go through it with all of the USA Pavilion people. Afterwards, we had a party on the mysterious 4th floor in a really nice place that I hadn't even known existed. There was some food, which I ate until it disappeared because there was both fruit and desserts, my favorite things. Everyone was just talking, dancing, and taking pictures to remember everything. Madison, Rachel, and I decided to leave together sometime around midnight I think and when we got down to the first floor, we realized that there were several other parties happening. There was one throughout an entire block of the pavilion and another one at the Thailand Pavilion. Since I had friends at that pavilion, I decided to go check that one out, but within three minutes of arriving, some guy dumped what was luckily just water over my head and we decided to leave because the party was too crazy. At that point all I wanted to do was jump in a shower, which I did the moment I got home.
Monday, August 13th
Tuesday, August 14th
Thursday, August 9th
I woke up at 7 am for enrollment, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. I spent like 15 minutes adding classes to a wishlist and then realized I had nothing to do until 10 am. At that point it seemed kind of pointless to go to sleep though, although next time I will definitely only get up a half hour before enrollment. Anyway, by the time enrollment almost opened the number of slots per class versus the number of people who had that class on their wish lists was way out of proportion. The worst example was Modern Korean Society, which had at least 40 people competing for 3 class slots. Luckily, I ended up getting all the classes I wanted, including that one. I'm enrolled in Korea and the US in the 20th Century, Modern Korean Society, Comparative Study of the Far Eastern Cinemas, and a Korean language class. Then I chilled in my bedroom till about 2 pm when Rachel and I went out for lunch. (We had both traded our AM shifts that morning just for enrollment.) We went gift shopping for a bit too on our way back through Expo as we headed to our apartments. Then at 8 pm, we both headed down to the UN Pavilion for orientation since we had signed up to volunteer the following day at its national day (which obviously isn't a national day since it's the UN, but whatever). The UN Orientation was really confusing. None of us knew what was going on. We also all wanted to volunteer for the dinner reception and none of the other activities really, so they arbitrarily assigned us tasks. I luckily got to volunteer for the reception, but Rachel got stuck being an usher for an afternoon concert. The best part of it though is that we got UN Pavilion t-shirts.
Friday, August 10th
Zeno (Swiss Pavilion), another woman from the Swiss Pavilion, Yvonne, and I all met up with the UN Pavilion coordinators at 10 am and then we headed over to the hotel where the dinner reception would be held. We didn't really do anything until 11 am because nobody was really sure of what was going on, but after that we were left with one manager and were in charge of decorating the venue. We just used ribbons to decorate the indoor and outdoor area, so the work wasn't hard. At around 3 pm, Vanessa (Swiss Pavilion), Sara (USA Pavilion), and Ellen (USA Pavilion) showed up as well to help us out, but by then we'd pretty much finished everything. So we sat around a lot and talked until the reception started at 7 pm. We greeted people for the first hour and then they actually let us eat during the reception, which surprised us. So we all sat down at a table outside and while some of the food was amazing, some of it was not so much. It was a free buffet though, so we got to try and eat plenty. Anyway, we chatted and ate until the end of the reception and then we helped clean up for only a half hour or so. They also let us take any of the leftover drinks we wanted, meaning our fridge got some free orange juices. I'm really glad I decided to volunteer, but I'm definitely lucky I got to work at the reception and not at the concert or any of the other events that day because I don't think they would have been as fun.
Saturday, August 11th
We celebrated Caleb's 8th birthday. Caleb is the son of our CEO and he is an honorary student ambassador. He loves working with us and rotating through all the positions. So there was a pizza party for lunch that all the student ambassadors were invited to attend in order to celebrate his birthday. The pizza slices were gigantic, so I only managed to eat one. After that there was cupcakes. I don't remember what I did after the party.
I woke up at 7 am for enrollment, which turned out to be completely unnecessary. I spent like 15 minutes adding classes to a wishlist and then realized I had nothing to do until 10 am. At that point it seemed kind of pointless to go to sleep though, although next time I will definitely only get up a half hour before enrollment. Anyway, by the time enrollment almost opened the number of slots per class versus the number of people who had that class on their wish lists was way out of proportion. The worst example was Modern Korean Society, which had at least 40 people competing for 3 class slots. Luckily, I ended up getting all the classes I wanted, including that one. I'm enrolled in Korea and the US in the 20th Century, Modern Korean Society, Comparative Study of the Far Eastern Cinemas, and a Korean language class. Then I chilled in my bedroom till about 2 pm when Rachel and I went out for lunch. (We had both traded our AM shifts that morning just for enrollment.) We went gift shopping for a bit too on our way back through Expo as we headed to our apartments. Then at 8 pm, we both headed down to the UN Pavilion for orientation since we had signed up to volunteer the following day at its national day (which obviously isn't a national day since it's the UN, but whatever). The UN Orientation was really confusing. None of us knew what was going on. We also all wanted to volunteer for the dinner reception and none of the other activities really, so they arbitrarily assigned us tasks. I luckily got to volunteer for the reception, but Rachel got stuck being an usher for an afternoon concert. The best part of it though is that we got UN Pavilion t-shirts.
Friday, August 10th
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| Ellen, Sara, and I, making the UN pavilion logo |
Saturday, August 11th
We celebrated Caleb's 8th birthday. Caleb is the son of our CEO and he is an honorary student ambassador. He loves working with us and rotating through all the positions. So there was a pizza party for lunch that all the student ambassadors were invited to attend in order to celebrate his birthday. The pizza slices were gigantic, so I only managed to eat one. After that there was cupcakes. I don't remember what I did after the party.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Saturday, August 4th
I had a free day and I think I just chilled at my apartment, but I really don't remember. Anyway, that evening I saw the film 도둑들 (Thieves) with Jenna, So Jung, and Bernadette.
Sunday, August 5th
I went to the beach in the afternoon with Dana and George and was surprised to find a bunch of debris in the water. I think it was partly from the incoming typhoon and because there was party on the beach from the night before. Later we all watched Crazy, Stupid, Love because it's a fantastic movie.
Monday, August 6th
I had the PM shift.
Tuesday, August 7th
I got lunch with Rachel and we had about an hour to kill, so we went to a couple pavilions to look for gifts. The last one we went to was Pakistan, where I ended up buying the majority of my gifts because they had some really beautiful things, which I will not mention so that my family can still be surprised by what they're receiving. After that I worked the PM Shift and following that there was a thank you party hosted by Tom Underwood that was on the behalf of the US Embassy, thanking the student ambassadors for all their hard work. However, I didn't really feel like staying, so I bailed early and went back to my room to do some packing.
Wednesday, August 8th
I worked the AM shift and then I ordered in pizza for dinner with Rachel.
I had a free day and I think I just chilled at my apartment, but I really don't remember. Anyway, that evening I saw the film 도둑들 (Thieves) with Jenna, So Jung, and Bernadette.
Sunday, August 5th
I went to the beach in the afternoon with Dana and George and was surprised to find a bunch of debris in the water. I think it was partly from the incoming typhoon and because there was party on the beach from the night before. Later we all watched Crazy, Stupid, Love because it's a fantastic movie.
Monday, August 6th
I had the PM shift.
Tuesday, August 7th
I got lunch with Rachel and we had about an hour to kill, so we went to a couple pavilions to look for gifts. The last one we went to was Pakistan, where I ended up buying the majority of my gifts because they had some really beautiful things, which I will not mention so that my family can still be surprised by what they're receiving. After that I worked the PM Shift and following that there was a thank you party hosted by Tom Underwood that was on the behalf of the US Embassy, thanking the student ambassadors for all their hard work. However, I didn't really feel like staying, so I bailed early and went back to my room to do some packing.
Wednesday, August 8th
I worked the AM shift and then I ordered in pizza for dinner with Rachel.
Friday, August 24, 2012
August 2nd - 3rd
Thursday, August 2nd
I had the AM shift and then I chilled in the apartments with Rachel until dinnertime. For dinner, Rachel and I met up with Boram and a girl from the Swiss Pavilion and then we just talked all together on the playground set outside our rooms. After that I studied Korean with the textbook I'd bought in Seoul. I think what I'm weakest on is vocabulary. I just really need to sit down and memorize words, but it's just rather boring to do without any external motivation, so I haven't been studying much.
Friday, August 3rd
I took over the PM shift for Audrey, so I worked PM instead of AM since she wanted to see the Psy concert that night. In the morning, I woke up to a phone call from the bank, which had called to inform me I had gotten a bank transfer. They were asking me to explain why I had gotten a wire transfer. After I explained it was money from my parents to study abroad, they then requested my bank account number and the amount of money received in the transfer, so at that point I told them I would feel more comfortable talking to someone face to face, not on the phone. So then I got ready and headed straight to the bank to deal with the whole problem. However, when I got to the bank and tried to explain (poorly) about the phone call I had received in the morning, the lady behind the counter just gave me a funny look and then showed me the money had been deposited in my account. I was really confused, but I decided that there was no reason to push the issue since I had the money already deposited with no hold put on it or anything. I grabbed lunch on the way back to the apartments and then caught up on some blogging. The cleaning ladies asked me what I was doing after Expo and when I explained I was studying in Seoul for the year, they gave me free towels and hand soap, which was really nice of them. They told me not to report it to their bosses or they could get in trouble.
Out of my many strange Expo work experiences I had one of the strangest during this workshift. A Korean guy came into retail and after asking my friend and I if we had heard of some place in Alabama (we hadn't), he asked me for my phone number. I lied and said I didn't have a Korean phone, so he asked for my American number, and I told him it didn't work. He then asked me to marry him, telling me he lived in Alabama working at a Hyundai plant, to which I responded I was definitely too young to get married. During this whole conversation my friend and I kept exchanging looks and laughing at the absurdity of the conversation, but the guy was completely serious. He asked how old I was due to my response and I told him my actual age, but he responded that he was twenty (total lie, he had to have been at least thirty five). At that point a huge crowd of people came through the retail area, but he kept asking if I wanted to get his number so we could go on a date. I kept telling him I was busying handling transactions and finally he was like so are you not interested in me? And I told him no and he finally left. It turns out he had asked two other girls at our pavilion earlier for their contact information and then later asked one again for hers and asked her to marry him too. When she said no though, he told her he could make her happy and asked her why she wouldn't agree to it.She just walked away. We theorized he was trying to marry an American out of visa issues or something. Regardless it was weird, but because I never felt personally threatened since I was always with another American at the time, we mainly just found it funny.
Later I went to the Psy concert and actually got a pretty good view despite the fact that the area was absolutely packed. Psy's new song Gangnam Style (강남스타일) is currently an insanely huge hit in Korea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0) so he's super popular right now. The concert was really good, although I think holding it in the digital gallery was a poor decision because it was too crowded and hot.
Afterwards, I ran into Boram and a friend of hers from Singapore as they were headed to the Colombian Party, so I decided to tag along. It was pretty lame though, so we ended up migrating to the party at the Philippines, which I didn't particularly care for either, but it was done by midnight so it didn't matter that much.
I had the AM shift and then I chilled in the apartments with Rachel until dinnertime. For dinner, Rachel and I met up with Boram and a girl from the Swiss Pavilion and then we just talked all together on the playground set outside our rooms. After that I studied Korean with the textbook I'd bought in Seoul. I think what I'm weakest on is vocabulary. I just really need to sit down and memorize words, but it's just rather boring to do without any external motivation, so I haven't been studying much.
Friday, August 3rd
I took over the PM shift for Audrey, so I worked PM instead of AM since she wanted to see the Psy concert that night. In the morning, I woke up to a phone call from the bank, which had called to inform me I had gotten a bank transfer. They were asking me to explain why I had gotten a wire transfer. After I explained it was money from my parents to study abroad, they then requested my bank account number and the amount of money received in the transfer, so at that point I told them I would feel more comfortable talking to someone face to face, not on the phone. So then I got ready and headed straight to the bank to deal with the whole problem. However, when I got to the bank and tried to explain (poorly) about the phone call I had received in the morning, the lady behind the counter just gave me a funny look and then showed me the money had been deposited in my account. I was really confused, but I decided that there was no reason to push the issue since I had the money already deposited with no hold put on it or anything. I grabbed lunch on the way back to the apartments and then caught up on some blogging. The cleaning ladies asked me what I was doing after Expo and when I explained I was studying in Seoul for the year, they gave me free towels and hand soap, which was really nice of them. They told me not to report it to their bosses or they could get in trouble.
Out of my many strange Expo work experiences I had one of the strangest during this workshift. A Korean guy came into retail and after asking my friend and I if we had heard of some place in Alabama (we hadn't), he asked me for my phone number. I lied and said I didn't have a Korean phone, so he asked for my American number, and I told him it didn't work. He then asked me to marry him, telling me he lived in Alabama working at a Hyundai plant, to which I responded I was definitely too young to get married. During this whole conversation my friend and I kept exchanging looks and laughing at the absurdity of the conversation, but the guy was completely serious. He asked how old I was due to my response and I told him my actual age, but he responded that he was twenty (total lie, he had to have been at least thirty five). At that point a huge crowd of people came through the retail area, but he kept asking if I wanted to get his number so we could go on a date. I kept telling him I was busying handling transactions and finally he was like so are you not interested in me? And I told him no and he finally left. It turns out he had asked two other girls at our pavilion earlier for their contact information and then later asked one again for hers and asked her to marry him too. When she said no though, he told her he could make her happy and asked her why she wouldn't agree to it.She just walked away. We theorized he was trying to marry an American out of visa issues or something. Regardless it was weird, but because I never felt personally threatened since I was always with another American at the time, we mainly just found it funny.
Later I went to the Psy concert and actually got a pretty good view despite the fact that the area was absolutely packed. Psy's new song Gangnam Style (강남스타일) is currently an insanely huge hit in Korea (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bZkp7q19f0) so he's super popular right now. The concert was really good, although I think holding it in the digital gallery was a poor decision because it was too crowded and hot.
Afterwards, I ran into Boram and a friend of hers from Singapore as they were headed to the Colombian Party, so I decided to tag along. It was pretty lame though, so we ended up migrating to the party at the Philippines, which I didn't particularly care for either, but it was done by midnight so it didn't matter that much.
Saturday, August 18, 2012
Trip to Andong: Wednesday, August 1st
I woke up at 7 am and felt surprisingly okay for only getting 2 hours of sleep, but I knew that feeling wouldn't last long. On the bright side, going to sleep so late meant that even though we were sleeping on the floor (traditional Korean style) I fell asleep pretty much instantaneously. The three of us (So Jung, Audrey, and I who were all sharing the same room) got to breakfast at 8:15 am which we were honestly proud of. After eating we packed all our stuff and then all loaded on the bus at 9 am. On the bus ride, I talked with Daniel, a Korean American interning at the Daegu North Korean refugee center for a month. He said they have internships for the period of a month and that his boss had already let him know we were all welcome to apply. I was planning on spending February taking intensive Korean language classes, but now I'm reconsidering and I think I should apply for that internship instead. I would still be using Korean all the time and it would be a more rewarding experience. Something to think about.
Upon arriving at our destination, we started walking uphill and that was when my lack of sleep hit me. I had a headache and I thought I was going to die if we spent the next couple hours climbing up this hill, which was a legitimate possibility in Korea due to the popularity of mountain climbing. Luckily, we only climbed it for like ten minutes and ended up at an outlook over a traditional village, which a lady explained to us in Korean and which I tuned out. We walked back down the hill and headed to the river, which we crossed on what looked like a gigantically oversized canoe with a motor attached to it. Upon arriving in the town we had a super fast walking tour of it because I guess we were running behind. I think the lady just really wanted to keep to her pre-planned time schedule. One surprising thing was that I had assumed from staying up all last night we had all bonded, which was true, and that we would all be chatting a lot since we were leaving that afternoon. However, due to all of us being exhausted, like none of us talked at all during the tour because we were all so tired. I had conversations that would last about 3 minutes max because that's all we had the energy for. After the tour, we made masks with a puddy like substance and a cardboard mask mold. Then we had lunch, which was some fancy meat dish, so I just got myself some bibimbap.
After that, we got on the bus again and headed off to some ancient Confucian school of some significance. It was absolutely gorgeous, but we just kind of looked around and then had to say our goodbyes, which were really awkward. Goodbyes are always super awkward, especially in large groups. It's just a fact of life. Once on the bus, we talked about North Korea and then promptly all passed out from exhaustion. That evening, we had a pizza party at Patrick's apartment for dinner.
Upon arriving at our destination, we started walking uphill and that was when my lack of sleep hit me. I had a headache and I thought I was going to die if we spent the next couple hours climbing up this hill, which was a legitimate possibility in Korea due to the popularity of mountain climbing. Luckily, we only climbed it for like ten minutes and ended up at an outlook over a traditional village, which a lady explained to us in Korean and which I tuned out. We walked back down the hill and headed to the river, which we crossed on what looked like a gigantically oversized canoe with a motor attached to it. Upon arriving in the town we had a super fast walking tour of it because I guess we were running behind. I think the lady just really wanted to keep to her pre-planned time schedule. One surprising thing was that I had assumed from staying up all last night we had all bonded, which was true, and that we would all be chatting a lot since we were leaving that afternoon. However, due to all of us being exhausted, like none of us talked at all during the tour because we were all so tired. I had conversations that would last about 3 minutes max because that's all we had the energy for. After the tour, we made masks with a puddy like substance and a cardboard mask mold. Then we had lunch, which was some fancy meat dish, so I just got myself some bibimbap.
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