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.
Friday, August 17, 2012
Trip to Andong: Tuesday, July 31st
I got on the bus to head to 안동시 (Andong) at 9:45 am to go to the camp for North Korean refugees. That is really all that had been explained to us and so none of us really know what to expect. We ended up all sleeping off and on for the 4 hour ride. I ate a lot of choco pies on the trip, which turned out to be a good thing because we were running late since we didn't actually depart at 10 am like planned, more like 10:30 am, because some people were late to showing up.
So we arrived at around 3 pm at a museum and memorial site with no idea what was going to happen. Luckily it turned out all the people we were "volunteering" with (really just hanging out with) turned out to be our age as the youngest was I think 14, most were college age, and the oldest was probably 25 or so. Anyway, we showed up and introduced ourselves while cameras filled the whole thing for whatever reason. That part was weird. So once we were in the museum, we were shown rooms where we had to dump our stuff. The rooms turned out to be where we spent the night. After we dumped our stuff, we went back out to the common area where we were told to arbitrarily break off into teams. One of the boys led me around the whole room and then back to the place we were originally standing, which was weird. None of us ever really figured out why that happened. But at the time I was already so confused because there was way too much Korean going on all at once. But we ended up getting a tour of the museum, which was a memorial of the Korean Independence Movement. Apparently, North Koreans are also taught about it as well, but with the spin that Kim Il Sung was pretty much responsible for the whole thing, so the person in charge of the trip and is a manager at the Hanawon Relocation Center in Daegu thought it was important they get a chance to see it. I quickly zoned out though because the Korean was way beyond my level of understanding. Even the Korean Americans said understanding it was difficult, so I didn't let it bother me too much. We were apparently going to be quizzed on it, so I knew that was going to be a fail. Afterwards we had a tour of buildings I assume related to the movement outside, not totally sure. Then we had a short quiz, which I knew none of the answers to unsurprisingly, but none of the Americans really did.
After that, we all headed downstairs for a brief game of trivia. Then we had dinner along with about 45 minutes of free time. Audrey, So Jung, and I chilled in the room along with 3 Korean women, but it was kind of awkward because we had no real conversation topics. We ended up just watching the Olympics for the most part together. Then we all headed downstairs for more trivia games. We had a quiz of True False, where everyone had to stand on one side if they thought it was true and on other other if they thought the statement was false. What ended up happening was that all the Americans just followed the Korean majority, meaning it took forever to get all but one person out. Ironically out of the last three people, it was me, a Korean guy on my team, and another American. I didn't even understand the questions throughout the game, but I ended up getting out on the last question. Darn. After that we went around and introduced ourselves again, only to learn that in 5 minutes we were going to be quizzed on everyone's names. I knew I was screwed from the start since I suck at names. The two other teams got to choose two people from each team, one American and one Korean. At first they were only going to choose one, but I think they realized that the Americans didn't stand a chance since we definitely couldn't memorize about twenty Korean names in five minutes. That just wasn't going to happen. So I was chosen because it was clear I had no idea about anyone's names, but every Korean they pointed to, I just turned towards my Korean teammate and hoped he knew, which most of the time he did. After that we played Taboo and the list our team was given was the medium difficulty one, meaning it was about the memorial and stuff, meaning I had no idea about any of the words. The list with easy words had words I understood, but another team lucked out with that list. After that we finally played something I could competitively compete at. I have no idea what it was called but two people stood back to back and then shoved their butts at the other member so that that person would become off balance and move their feet. I pretty much won because I was the tallest person there. Technically there was one guy there who was taller than me, but he didn't compete. Only Americans did, I assume because we felt less awkward about competing in the game coed. Thanks to that game, our team ended up coming from behind and winning first place. I've never felt so proud of my butt.
After that we headed up for 30 minutes to chill and then everyone gathered again to snack on chicken and soda (and grapes that they bought just for me). We ended up playing drinking games even though there was no alcohol, which devolved into making random people sing/dance, which then devolved into a dance party that didn't happen.
Then everyone kind of migrated back to their own rooms, but So Jung, Audrey, and I quickly got bored of that. Luckily, there were a couple people in the common area, so we joined them around 10 pm. Then people kept trickling in until we had a sizable group. We had normal conversation for several hours and then we decided to play another game, which we decided on the Korean version of 10 fingers because it seemed the easiest since both Americans and Koreans generally understood it. A Korean guy lost the game and it was decided that he would have to fulfill a punishment with a randomly selected partner. To choose the other loser, people drew numbers written on sheets of paper. One paper had K on it though for king and that person called out a number. Whoever had that number was the loser, which ended up being me. As they had already realized I'm a complete wimp, they decided to make us walk up to this traditional Korean structure outside in the middle of the night. Halfway up I screamed in surprise when I walked into a spider web, freaking out the Korean guy but I couldn't explain why I screamed since I knew neither the words for spider or web. Then I saw another guy run up to hide behind the building, but the guy didn't believe me when I told him. But when the other guy jumped out to try to scare us, I screamed back at him to try to freak him out, but everyone else assumed I was screaming in fear. Oh well. I looked like I was even more of a scaredy cat than I really am, which to be honest is hard to do. Anyway, after that I lost the next round of drawing numbers along with So Jung, so as our punishment we had to watch a scary video, which I balked at. Audrey told me that I could pick a "black knight" and ask them to do my punishment for me, but if they refused not only would I have to watch the video but I would have to sing or dance and possibly watch the video multiple times. I had no interest in that, so I honestly just started whining essentially. Audrey got sick of it thankfully and just told me she would watch the video for me. After that we chatted until about 3 am or 4 am when we were told we would have to move out of the common area so that we wouldn't disturb people sleeping. So we went to the basement and played mafia until 5 am, by which time my Korean had practically died and my English was on the verge of collapse. We all finally decided at 5 am it might be smart to go to sleep since we had to be ready at 8 am for breakfast.
So we arrived at around 3 pm at a museum and memorial site with no idea what was going to happen. Luckily it turned out all the people we were "volunteering" with (really just hanging out with) turned out to be our age as the youngest was I think 14, most were college age, and the oldest was probably 25 or so. Anyway, we showed up and introduced ourselves while cameras filled the whole thing for whatever reason. That part was weird. So once we were in the museum, we were shown rooms where we had to dump our stuff. The rooms turned out to be where we spent the night. After we dumped our stuff, we went back out to the common area where we were told to arbitrarily break off into teams. One of the boys led me around the whole room and then back to the place we were originally standing, which was weird. None of us ever really figured out why that happened. But at the time I was already so confused because there was way too much Korean going on all at once. But we ended up getting a tour of the museum, which was a memorial of the Korean Independence Movement. Apparently, North Koreans are also taught about it as well, but with the spin that Kim Il Sung was pretty much responsible for the whole thing, so the person in charge of the trip and is a manager at the Hanawon Relocation Center in Daegu thought it was important they get a chance to see it. I quickly zoned out though because the Korean was way beyond my level of understanding. Even the Korean Americans said understanding it was difficult, so I didn't let it bother me too much. We were apparently going to be quizzed on it, so I knew that was going to be a fail. Afterwards we had a tour of buildings I assume related to the movement outside, not totally sure. Then we had a short quiz, which I knew none of the answers to unsurprisingly, but none of the Americans really did.
After that, we all headed downstairs for a brief game of trivia. Then we had dinner along with about 45 minutes of free time. Audrey, So Jung, and I chilled in the room along with 3 Korean women, but it was kind of awkward because we had no real conversation topics. We ended up just watching the Olympics for the most part together. Then we all headed downstairs for more trivia games. We had a quiz of True False, where everyone had to stand on one side if they thought it was true and on other other if they thought the statement was false. What ended up happening was that all the Americans just followed the Korean majority, meaning it took forever to get all but one person out. Ironically out of the last three people, it was me, a Korean guy on my team, and another American. I didn't even understand the questions throughout the game, but I ended up getting out on the last question. Darn. After that we went around and introduced ourselves again, only to learn that in 5 minutes we were going to be quizzed on everyone's names. I knew I was screwed from the start since I suck at names. The two other teams got to choose two people from each team, one American and one Korean. At first they were only going to choose one, but I think they realized that the Americans didn't stand a chance since we definitely couldn't memorize about twenty Korean names in five minutes. That just wasn't going to happen. So I was chosen because it was clear I had no idea about anyone's names, but every Korean they pointed to, I just turned towards my Korean teammate and hoped he knew, which most of the time he did. After that we played Taboo and the list our team was given was the medium difficulty one, meaning it was about the memorial and stuff, meaning I had no idea about any of the words. The list with easy words had words I understood, but another team lucked out with that list. After that we finally played something I could competitively compete at. I have no idea what it was called but two people stood back to back and then shoved their butts at the other member so that that person would become off balance and move their feet. I pretty much won because I was the tallest person there. Technically there was one guy there who was taller than me, but he didn't compete. Only Americans did, I assume because we felt less awkward about competing in the game coed. Thanks to that game, our team ended up coming from behind and winning first place. I've never felt so proud of my butt.
After that we headed up for 30 minutes to chill and then everyone gathered again to snack on chicken and soda (and grapes that they bought just for me). We ended up playing drinking games even though there was no alcohol, which devolved into making random people sing/dance, which then devolved into a dance party that didn't happen.
Then everyone kind of migrated back to their own rooms, but So Jung, Audrey, and I quickly got bored of that. Luckily, there were a couple people in the common area, so we joined them around 10 pm. Then people kept trickling in until we had a sizable group. We had normal conversation for several hours and then we decided to play another game, which we decided on the Korean version of 10 fingers because it seemed the easiest since both Americans and Koreans generally understood it. A Korean guy lost the game and it was decided that he would have to fulfill a punishment with a randomly selected partner. To choose the other loser, people drew numbers written on sheets of paper. One paper had K on it though for king and that person called out a number. Whoever had that number was the loser, which ended up being me. As they had already realized I'm a complete wimp, they decided to make us walk up to this traditional Korean structure outside in the middle of the night. Halfway up I screamed in surprise when I walked into a spider web, freaking out the Korean guy but I couldn't explain why I screamed since I knew neither the words for spider or web. Then I saw another guy run up to hide behind the building, but the guy didn't believe me when I told him. But when the other guy jumped out to try to scare us, I screamed back at him to try to freak him out, but everyone else assumed I was screaming in fear. Oh well. I looked like I was even more of a scaredy cat than I really am, which to be honest is hard to do. Anyway, after that I lost the next round of drawing numbers along with So Jung, so as our punishment we had to watch a scary video, which I balked at. Audrey told me that I could pick a "black knight" and ask them to do my punishment for me, but if they refused not only would I have to watch the video but I would have to sing or dance and possibly watch the video multiple times. I had no interest in that, so I honestly just started whining essentially. Audrey got sick of it thankfully and just told me she would watch the video for me. After that we chatted until about 3 am or 4 am when we were told we would have to move out of the common area so that we wouldn't disturb people sleeping. So we went to the basement and played mafia until 5 am, by which time my Korean had practically died and my English was on the verge of collapse. We all finally decided at 5 am it might be smart to go to sleep since we had to be ready at 8 am for breakfast.
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Friday, July 27th
I worked the AM shift, but I don't remember what I did during the PM shift.
Saturday, July 28th
I worked the AM shift and then I went to a cafe with Anne and Rachel so that we could work on the homework. Afterwards, Rachel and I watched the Olympics, which here only feature events with Koreans. Granted the events don't even have to be live. If a Korean wins, I can guarantee you it's on every single day just so that everyone can relive the moment and prove that Koreans are better than everyone else.
Sunday, July 29th
I hung out with Rachel for the day.
Monday, July 30th
I went to 오동도 (Odongdo), a nearby with Grace, Rachel, and Dana in the morning. The weather was nice, but when you're walking in the sun, you start to feel not so nice. So we got excited to finally find shade and just sit down for awhile to cool down.
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In the afternoon I headed to 모사금 (Mosageum), the much nicer beach, with Nawit, Boram, Rachel, Grace, Alex, and Rae, where we just chilled for several hours. A couple people left early, but afterwards the rest of us grabbed dinner at the 분식점 (bunshik restaurant) in Expo Town. I try to avoid that place though because they're really uncooperative in accommodating my vegetarianism. On multiple occasions I have asked them to make me 김밥 (kimbap) sans the meat, but they refused. I think I wrote about the first time they did that, but the second time they just told me they weren't making kimbap at the time, when 3 minutes later I watched a Korean order regular kimbap without a problem.
That night I went to the Germany Party with Alex, Boram, and Nawit, but I didn't really enjoy it that much, although I somehow ended up staying there really late regardless. I enjoyed bits of it, but I was bored for long periods as well. On a side note, an American thought I was from a Scandinavian country, which amused me and kind of confused me at the same time.
I worked the AM shift, but I don't remember what I did during the PM shift.
Saturday, July 28th
I worked the AM shift and then I went to a cafe with Anne and Rachel so that we could work on the homework. Afterwards, Rachel and I watched the Olympics, which here only feature events with Koreans. Granted the events don't even have to be live. If a Korean wins, I can guarantee you it's on every single day just so that everyone can relive the moment and prove that Koreans are better than everyone else.
Sunday, July 29th
I hung out with Rachel for the day.
Monday, July 30th
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| Bugs here are mutants. |
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In the afternoon I headed to 모사금 (Mosageum), the much nicer beach, with Nawit, Boram, Rachel, Grace, Alex, and Rae, where we just chilled for several hours. A couple people left early, but afterwards the rest of us grabbed dinner at the 분식점 (bunshik restaurant) in Expo Town. I try to avoid that place though because they're really uncooperative in accommodating my vegetarianism. On multiple occasions I have asked them to make me 김밥 (kimbap) sans the meat, but they refused. I think I wrote about the first time they did that, but the second time they just told me they weren't making kimbap at the time, when 3 minutes later I watched a Korean order regular kimbap without a problem.That night I went to the Germany Party with Alex, Boram, and Nawit, but I didn't really enjoy it that much, although I somehow ended up staying there really late regardless. I enjoyed bits of it, but I was bored for long periods as well. On a side note, an American thought I was from a Scandinavian country, which amused me and kind of confused me at the same time.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Tuesday, July 24th
Free day, but I forgot what I did.
Wednesday, July 25th
Rachel and I grabbed lunch together and then we worked the PM shift.
Thursday, July 26th
I had the PM shift, but I showed up an hour and half late because I went on a Pavilion visit to Pakistan. I had my friend cover me for that time and I'm so glad I went because I had an absolutely fantastic time. I had met the commissioner of Pakistan during the Six Party Talks as he was the North Korean representative in our group. It was also really interesting to hear his perspective on Pakistan and the Pakistan-US relationship. He was really honest about the violence in Pakistan, but he talked about how education is what people need the most because the private schools in Pakistan are fantastic, but the public schools are really bad. He said that even though the US gives Pakistan billions of dollars, the money ends up in the pockets of friends of the high government officials, not with the people, so what Pakistan really needs is money put directly into education. As a side note, I didn't just blow off work. Rachel was falcon breaker, so she didn't have anything to do for the first hour and a half and so she agreed to cover my shift for me.
At the end of work I got a text from Boram saying that some guy had come into her pavilion the day before and told her he was a spy for the Korean military and that today he had somehow found out her cellphone number and Facebook page and started contacting her, which really freaked her out understandably. We just hung out with her after work in order to give her some rational advice since she was beyond rational thinking by that point. One thing I've learned from Expo is that you can the best and worst in people. For example, people have been at times incredibly kind and friendly to us. At other times, they've been completely rude or creepy. I don't know how people can think that their behavior is okay or acceptable, but it really pushed everyone I think to the edge several times and really tested us.
Free day, but I forgot what I did.
Wednesday, July 25th
Rachel and I grabbed lunch together and then we worked the PM shift.
Thursday, July 26th
I had the PM shift, but I showed up an hour and half late because I went on a Pavilion visit to Pakistan. I had my friend cover me for that time and I'm so glad I went because I had an absolutely fantastic time. I had met the commissioner of Pakistan during the Six Party Talks as he was the North Korean representative in our group. It was also really interesting to hear his perspective on Pakistan and the Pakistan-US relationship. He was really honest about the violence in Pakistan, but he talked about how education is what people need the most because the private schools in Pakistan are fantastic, but the public schools are really bad. He said that even though the US gives Pakistan billions of dollars, the money ends up in the pockets of friends of the high government officials, not with the people, so what Pakistan really needs is money put directly into education. As a side note, I didn't just blow off work. Rachel was falcon breaker, so she didn't have anything to do for the first hour and a half and so she agreed to cover my shift for me.
At the end of work I got a text from Boram saying that some guy had come into her pavilion the day before and told her he was a spy for the Korean military and that today he had somehow found out her cellphone number and Facebook page and started contacting her, which really freaked her out understandably. We just hung out with her after work in order to give her some rational advice since she was beyond rational thinking by that point. One thing I've learned from Expo is that you can the best and worst in people. For example, people have been at times incredibly kind and friendly to us. At other times, they've been completely rude or creepy. I don't know how people can think that their behavior is okay or acceptable, but it really pushed everyone I think to the edge several times and really tested us.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Friday, July 20th
I woke up at 7:40 am because I had to leave around 8:20 am to get to 홍대 (Hongdae) by 9:30 am. An hour and two subway line transfers later I arrived in 홍대역 (Hongdae Subway Station) and then walked 10 minutes to finally arrive at my destination, YES International. YES International is responsible for the NSLIY program in Korea and they paid for the five NSLIY alum working at the USA Pavilion to come up and talk to this year's summer students. As it turns out, five minutes into the presentation I realized I was sitting next to one of the current NSLIYians for about a half hour on the subway earlier, which we both laughed at. After our informal presentation, Haemi Ssaem took us out for lunch. We were going to eat at Outback Steakhouse, but the line was too long, so we ended up eating at TGI Fridays. It's good to know that the TGI Fridays in Korea has as bad of food as the chain does in the US. After lunch, Rachel, Bjorn, Jenna, and I met up with Minsung and went to Zoo Cafe because it was way too hot out. While we were there, she called housing places for me to find out if I could make reservations or see if they had empty rooms available, which was really kind of her. I'm feeling the pressure to make a housing decision because it's less than a month before I need a room. Afterwards, Rachel, Minsung, and I wen to go look at another place and then Minsung had to leave. Then we met back up with Bjorn and Jenna and ended up taking sticker photos. Apparently there are whole stores here just filled with sticker photo booths. I was amazed. Then I caught the train back to Yeosu, got a pizza for dinner and did laundry.
Saturday, July 21st
I worked a full day shift.
Sunday, July 22nd
I worked a full day shift.
Monday, July 23rd
In the morning, I attended the Six Party Talks Simulation, which was put on by the USA Pavilion and the Korea Economic Institute. Luckily it was held once again in the Denmark VIP Lounge and was catered by them, so lunch was delicious. The Six Party Talks Simulation was such a great experience though. I enjoyed it so much and I got to meet some new people there too. I played the role of Russia and, since the talks were theoretically being held in Moscow, that meant I got to be the moderator and practice taking the lead. I had no idea what I was doing at the beginning, but after about a half hour, I just started pulling people out to talk with them one-on-one to reach compromises because having six people argue six different positions meant that nothing was being accomplished.
After that I bought Asger Turkish ice cream since I had lost a bet to him back in May or June and had yet to pay up. We then decided to go to the beach because it was ridiculously hot and the sun was blazing. The beach was so refreshing though and it felt so good to go swimming and then just lay down and do nothing. Afterwards we went back to the apartments briefly and then met up again to grab dinner at 김밥 나라 (Kimbap Land). Then I went over to Bjorn's later and finally saw the movie Inception for the first time. I'm still not sure about whether or not I liked it.
I woke up at 7:40 am because I had to leave around 8:20 am to get to 홍대 (Hongdae) by 9:30 am. An hour and two subway line transfers later I arrived in 홍대역 (Hongdae Subway Station) and then walked 10 minutes to finally arrive at my destination, YES International. YES International is responsible for the NSLIY program in Korea and they paid for the five NSLIY alum working at the USA Pavilion to come up and talk to this year's summer students. As it turns out, five minutes into the presentation I realized I was sitting next to one of the current NSLIYians for about a half hour on the subway earlier, which we both laughed at. After our informal presentation, Haemi Ssaem took us out for lunch. We were going to eat at Outback Steakhouse, but the line was too long, so we ended up eating at TGI Fridays. It's good to know that the TGI Fridays in Korea has as bad of food as the chain does in the US. After lunch, Rachel, Bjorn, Jenna, and I met up with Minsung and went to Zoo Cafe because it was way too hot out. While we were there, she called housing places for me to find out if I could make reservations or see if they had empty rooms available, which was really kind of her. I'm feeling the pressure to make a housing decision because it's less than a month before I need a room. Afterwards, Rachel, Minsung, and I wen to go look at another place and then Minsung had to leave. Then we met back up with Bjorn and Jenna and ended up taking sticker photos. Apparently there are whole stores here just filled with sticker photo booths. I was amazed. Then I caught the train back to Yeosu, got a pizza for dinner and did laundry.
Saturday, July 21st
I worked a full day shift.
Sunday, July 22nd
I worked a full day shift.
Monday, July 23rd
In the morning, I attended the Six Party Talks Simulation, which was put on by the USA Pavilion and the Korea Economic Institute. Luckily it was held once again in the Denmark VIP Lounge and was catered by them, so lunch was delicious. The Six Party Talks Simulation was such a great experience though. I enjoyed it so much and I got to meet some new people there too. I played the role of Russia and, since the talks were theoretically being held in Moscow, that meant I got to be the moderator and practice taking the lead. I had no idea what I was doing at the beginning, but after about a half hour, I just started pulling people out to talk with them one-on-one to reach compromises because having six people argue six different positions meant that nothing was being accomplished.
After that I bought Asger Turkish ice cream since I had lost a bet to him back in May or June and had yet to pay up. We then decided to go to the beach because it was ridiculously hot and the sun was blazing. The beach was so refreshing though and it felt so good to go swimming and then just lay down and do nothing. Afterwards we went back to the apartments briefly and then met up again to grab dinner at 김밥 나라 (Kimbap Land). Then I went over to Bjorn's later and finally saw the movie Inception for the first time. I'm still not sure about whether or not I liked it.
Tuesday, July 17th
I went to Cafe Namoon for lunch with Bjorn and I finally got to eat a real salad for the second time since coming to Korea. (Yes, I'm keeping track.) I also got a slice of apple pie, but it was more like thick bread with a thin layer of apples. Sadly, we had to scarf the food down in about 8 minutes since we were afraid we would be late to the Pavilion Exchange with Switzerland.
The Pavilion Exchange was good. I had signed up for it since I really liked the Swiss Pavilion and thought it would be fun to see behind-the-scenes. They gave us about a 30 minute tour and then actually had us work for the next couple hours. We rotated positions every 30 minutes and I had to speak a lot of Korean on the go since I obviously didn't have their spiels memorized like I do with the ones at the USA Pavilion. It went fine though except for one position where I was saying stuff that just made no sense. I think it just amused the Korean audience though because they smiled and just told me to continue even though what I was saying had no real meaning.
Wednesday, July 18th
I got lunch with Rachel and George and then caught my train to Seoul. I went shopping in 이대점 (an area in between Ewha and Yonsei Universities) while also looking for housing. I had three places to check: I couldn't find one, the other was at the top of the largest hill I'd ever seen in my life, and the third place looked dirty and sketch. I also grabbed some bubble tea because there is no bubble tea in Yeosu. Actually there are a couple places that serve it, but it's not good, so I got some while I was in Seoul. Then I grabbed dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I think it was called Habanero, but it had some generic sounding Mexican restaurant name. It wasn't that great unsurprisingly. Afterwards I went to 민성's (Minsung's) house and then we went to cafe, she to study, and I to do Yonsei research.
Thursday, July 19th
I went to COEX early in the afternoon and and bought a Korean textbook that I hope will encourage me to study Korean. Then in the afternoon I met 기완 (Giwan) and 병훈 (Byung Hun) for the first time in 2 years along with their friend 광준 (Kwang Joon) in 강남 (Gangnam), where we grabbed lunch. Then we were bored and looking for something to do, so I suggested getting bubble tea. One of them didn't even know what bubble tea was, but they googled and found a place where we could get it, although it required a bit of a walk. I would also like to add that I was walking around in rain boots the entire time because it was supposed to be raining, but instead there were clear skies and it was insanely hot. Anyway, after the bubble tea, we went to the movie theatre but there weren't any tickets available for anything until 26:00. We didn't even know what that meant, but apparently 26:00 means 2 am the next morning. Now I know. I also know now that you should never try to catch a movie in Gangnam because it is impossible. After that Kwang Joon left and the rest of us headed to a 노래방 for two hours, which was insanely fun. After that I went back to Minsung's place, where I ate dinner and watched the MBC Concert in Los Angeles with her family. You could definitely tell that Korean media was trying to suggest that Korean pop music was huge in the U.S. because they refused to show audience members who were Korean American and who I'm sure made up half the audience. They just kept show white people going ballistic over these groups. I realized though after about five minutes they were just showing the same eight or so people over and over again, but Koreans wouldn't be able to tell, so it just seemed like every American was in love with Kpop. It's weird to see your country misrepresented because you want to correct the mis-perception but it's not like I could call up MBC and ask them to clarify. My friend actually wrote a great piece on how Korean media likes to show that Korean culture is incredibly popular abroad, but then at the same time otherize foreigners (http://seoulbeats.com/2012/06/mbc-the-vilification-of-foreigners-and-hallyu/).
I went to Cafe Namoon for lunch with Bjorn and I finally got to eat a real salad for the second time since coming to Korea. (Yes, I'm keeping track.) I also got a slice of apple pie, but it was more like thick bread with a thin layer of apples. Sadly, we had to scarf the food down in about 8 minutes since we were afraid we would be late to the Pavilion Exchange with Switzerland.
The Pavilion Exchange was good. I had signed up for it since I really liked the Swiss Pavilion and thought it would be fun to see behind-the-scenes. They gave us about a 30 minute tour and then actually had us work for the next couple hours. We rotated positions every 30 minutes and I had to speak a lot of Korean on the go since I obviously didn't have their spiels memorized like I do with the ones at the USA Pavilion. It went fine though except for one position where I was saying stuff that just made no sense. I think it just amused the Korean audience though because they smiled and just told me to continue even though what I was saying had no real meaning.
Wednesday, July 18th
I got lunch with Rachel and George and then caught my train to Seoul. I went shopping in 이대점 (an area in between Ewha and Yonsei Universities) while also looking for housing. I had three places to check: I couldn't find one, the other was at the top of the largest hill I'd ever seen in my life, and the third place looked dirty and sketch. I also grabbed some bubble tea because there is no bubble tea in Yeosu. Actually there are a couple places that serve it, but it's not good, so I got some while I was in Seoul. Then I grabbed dinner at a Mexican restaurant. I think it was called Habanero, but it had some generic sounding Mexican restaurant name. It wasn't that great unsurprisingly. Afterwards I went to 민성's (Minsung's) house and then we went to cafe, she to study, and I to do Yonsei research.
Thursday, July 19th
I went to COEX early in the afternoon and and bought a Korean textbook that I hope will encourage me to study Korean. Then in the afternoon I met 기완 (Giwan) and 병훈 (Byung Hun) for the first time in 2 years along with their friend 광준 (Kwang Joon) in 강남 (Gangnam), where we grabbed lunch. Then we were bored and looking for something to do, so I suggested getting bubble tea. One of them didn't even know what bubble tea was, but they googled and found a place where we could get it, although it required a bit of a walk. I would also like to add that I was walking around in rain boots the entire time because it was supposed to be raining, but instead there were clear skies and it was insanely hot. Anyway, after the bubble tea, we went to the movie theatre but there weren't any tickets available for anything until 26:00. We didn't even know what that meant, but apparently 26:00 means 2 am the next morning. Now I know. I also know now that you should never try to catch a movie in Gangnam because it is impossible. After that Kwang Joon left and the rest of us headed to a 노래방 for two hours, which was insanely fun. After that I went back to Minsung's place, where I ate dinner and watched the MBC Concert in Los Angeles with her family. You could definitely tell that Korean media was trying to suggest that Korean pop music was huge in the U.S. because they refused to show audience members who were Korean American and who I'm sure made up half the audience. They just kept show white people going ballistic over these groups. I realized though after about five minutes they were just showing the same eight or so people over and over again, but Koreans wouldn't be able to tell, so it just seemed like every American was in love with Kpop. It's weird to see your country misrepresented because you want to correct the mis-perception but it's not like I could call up MBC and ask them to clarify. My friend actually wrote a great piece on how Korean media likes to show that Korean culture is incredibly popular abroad, but then at the same time otherize foreigners (http://seoulbeats.com/2012/06/mbc-the-vilification-of-foreigners-and-hallyu/).
Friday, August 3, 2012
Friday, July 13th
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I got up at 10 am and most everyone was already awake. We sat around and watched TV for a bit and then left the beach house at 11:15 am so that we would have time to grab lunch. I got motion sickness on the way back and then was overwhelmed by the smell of fish when we got out of the car after arriving at the restaurant. But once we got into the restaurant, I felt fine again. The lunch was actually really delicious.
Afterwards, we headed back to the apartments to shower and get ready for work. I had about an hour left, so I ran to Paris Baguette and bought Rachel a cake and messaged people about throwing a surprise birthday for her since her birthday was the next day. I actually almost ran into her on the way back to the apartments while I was carrying the cake, but luckily she didn't see me because I would have had like no way to explain away the cake. Anyway, I spent the PM shift organizing the party, coordinating with everyone else. After work I tried to delay Rachel as much as possible, telling her we should watch Big together after I showered. But everyone came to my place during that time and hid in the bedrooms, so when Rachel came over, I faked that we were watching Big for a couple minutes until everyone poured out of the rooms. I'm pretty sure she had no idea. We ate the cake, ice cream, and other snacks, and ended up watching Mean Girls.
Saturday, July 14th
I blogged in the morning. Exciting I know. Then I went to work early because Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited our pavilion. He stopped by South Korea on his tour of Asia simply to fly down to Yeosu to see the USA Pavilion and then he went straight back up to Seoul to leave Korea, so I already had respect for him just for making the trip. But I have to say I was truly amazed by the pride he showed in our pavilion. I figured he would give another generic speech of encouragement and congratulations, but he was so moved by getting to see the pavilion he was actually holding back tears. He told us that we weren't even supposed to have a pavilion at this expo, but that his department had decided to take on the project even though it wasn't one of their responsibilities simply because they wanted to have the US represented at the Yeosu Expo. He was also an oceanography major, so he probably was actually interested in the theme as well. I was just really really impressed by him and his sincerity. After his visit, I worked the PM shift.
Sunday, July 15th
I had the AM shift and no recollection of what else I did.
Monday, July 16th
I had the AM shift and then I went downtown with Grace, Esther, Dana, and George. We got 칼국수 (kal-guk-su) for dinner, which was homemade I"m pretty sure and surprisingly good. After that I went with George to Cafffe Ti Amo for gelato and then we hit up the arcade so he could play some arcade games. We headed back to apartment at 9 pm and ran into Spanish speakers randomly on the way back. I admittedly didn't talk much, but it was good to at least hear Spanish again for once so that I could practice since I've had zero Spanish practice for so many months. After we got back to the apartments, I watched an episode of Big with Rachel while we did stuff for Yonsei since we're both studying abroad there for the year. It's been so great to have someone else be doing the exact same thing as me because we can help each other out with all the confusing stuff related to studying abroad.
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Afterwards, we headed back to the apartments to shower and get ready for work. I had about an hour left, so I ran to Paris Baguette and bought Rachel a cake and messaged people about throwing a surprise birthday for her since her birthday was the next day. I actually almost ran into her on the way back to the apartments while I was carrying the cake, but luckily she didn't see me because I would have had like no way to explain away the cake. Anyway, I spent the PM shift organizing the party, coordinating with everyone else. After work I tried to delay Rachel as much as possible, telling her we should watch Big together after I showered. But everyone came to my place during that time and hid in the bedrooms, so when Rachel came over, I faked that we were watching Big for a couple minutes until everyone poured out of the rooms. I'm pretty sure she had no idea. We ate the cake, ice cream, and other snacks, and ended up watching Mean Girls.
Saturday, July 14th
I blogged in the morning. Exciting I know. Then I went to work early because Kurt Campbell, the Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs, visited our pavilion. He stopped by South Korea on his tour of Asia simply to fly down to Yeosu to see the USA Pavilion and then he went straight back up to Seoul to leave Korea, so I already had respect for him just for making the trip. But I have to say I was truly amazed by the pride he showed in our pavilion. I figured he would give another generic speech of encouragement and congratulations, but he was so moved by getting to see the pavilion he was actually holding back tears. He told us that we weren't even supposed to have a pavilion at this expo, but that his department had decided to take on the project even though it wasn't one of their responsibilities simply because they wanted to have the US represented at the Yeosu Expo. He was also an oceanography major, so he probably was actually interested in the theme as well. I was just really really impressed by him and his sincerity. After his visit, I worked the PM shift.
Sunday, July 15th
I had the AM shift and no recollection of what else I did.
Monday, July 16th
I had the AM shift and then I went downtown with Grace, Esther, Dana, and George. We got 칼국수 (kal-guk-su) for dinner, which was homemade I"m pretty sure and surprisingly good. After that I went with George to Cafffe Ti Amo for gelato and then we hit up the arcade so he could play some arcade games. We headed back to apartment at 9 pm and ran into Spanish speakers randomly on the way back. I admittedly didn't talk much, but it was good to at least hear Spanish again for once so that I could practice since I've had zero Spanish practice for so many months. After we got back to the apartments, I watched an episode of Big with Rachel while we did stuff for Yonsei since we're both studying abroad there for the year. It's been so great to have someone else be doing the exact same thing as me because we can help each other out with all the confusing stuff related to studying abroad.
Thursday, July 12th
I got lunch with Bjorn, George, and Pete before we all headed off to a luncheon at our pavilion with the Citi Brand Manager (Citi is a USA Pavilion sponsor), who despite doing work I have zero interest in, was surprisingly engaging. He hasn't obviously changed my mind about not wanting to enter into the business world, but I'm glad I went to hear him talk.
After that I killed a couple hours in my dorm room until 4 pm. At 4 pm, I joined Bjorn, George, Pete, Emilie, and several of our security guards for an overnight at 돌산도 (Dolsan Island), which is only about 10 minutes away, to celebrate 대현's (Dae-hyun) birthday. First off though we stopped by E-Mart to get groceries for the trip. I was pretty much content eating the veggies they were consuming too, but the security guards got really worried I wouldn't have enough to eat and so I ended up getting corn, tofu, and 김치전 (kimchi pancake) mix too. I thought it was way too much food, but it made them feel like I wouldn't die of starvation, so I wasn't going to argue against us buying extra food (Although I did turn out to be right. We did buy way too much of everything.)
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Anyway, then we got to the beach house, which is where we stayed the night. We looked around for a bit and unpacked and then we walked down to the beach, which was right behind the house. There were little crabs running everywhere and we had to wear shoes since it was so rocky. Bjorn and 민형 (Minhyung) went out into the water, but when they came back, Bjorn had a couple shallow cuts on his feet from the rocks in the ocean. So thanks to him, when Emilie and I joined in, we wore shoes into the water, only taking them off when we could no longer touch the bottom. It was a lot of fun though to go swimming. It was so stress relieving.
After that we had a barbecue and the gorging on food began. There was beef, mushrooms, garlic, onions, bell peppers 쌈장 (spicy red sauce), and lettuce for making wraps along with acorn squash. Then they grilled gigantic prawns and sausages that came in an interesting array of colors, including green. I asked what green was supposed to be and Bjorn responded it was green tea flavored, but the security guards quickly explained that was definitely not the case and it meant they were 고추 (spicy pepper) flavored.
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It was a lot of fun, but one of the problems I have in Korea is I can't remember anybody's name or face. This isn't specifically a problem in Korea. I suck at remembering what people look like or what their name is. Usually though I cheat and try to remember someone's hair and eye color, but that technique doesn't really work here. This is then made more difficult by the fact that Korean names are unfamiliar sounding, making them more difficult. I also admittedly never asked the guards' their names because, by the time I could tell them all apart, the time where it was okay to ask their names had passed. So even though I knew all of them, I only knew a couple of their names. Now why I'm explaining all this is usually I luck out and don't get called on it, but at some point during the barbecue one of the guards turns around and just asks me out of nowhere if I know his name. And I'm just like uhhhhhhh and then I start going off in English so he won't understand, but it was really obvious I didn't have a clue. Luckily, I don't think he took it seriously and by the end of the outing, I had gotten one of the other Americans to teach me all their names because I seriously needed to learn them. I also realize I need a new memory trick to remember names and faces because my current one is pretty much useless.
After we finished eating, which was a multi-hour extravaganza of food, we headed back inside since the mosquitoes were starting to get viscous. We played a lot of games (called Recreation in Korean for whatever reason), which is a really common thing to do in Korea, but not so much in the US. At some point birthday cake was brought out and that got devoured. 민형 also later made a veggie stir fry and we all just sat around eating. We were all really tired for some reason though so we went to sleep pretty early, meaning 1:30 am.
After that I killed a couple hours in my dorm room until 4 pm. At 4 pm, I joined Bjorn, George, Pete, Emilie, and several of our security guards for an overnight at 돌산도 (Dolsan Island), which is only about 10 minutes away, to celebrate 대현's (Dae-hyun) birthday. First off though we stopped by E-Mart to get groceries for the trip. I was pretty much content eating the veggies they were consuming too, but the security guards got really worried I wouldn't have enough to eat and so I ended up getting corn, tofu, and 김치전 (kimchi pancake) mix too. I thought it was way too much food, but it made them feel like I wouldn't die of starvation, so I wasn't going to argue against us buying extra food (Although I did turn out to be right. We did buy way too much of everything.)
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| Us trying to jump for the photo...and failing. |
After that we had a barbecue and the gorging on food began. There was beef, mushrooms, garlic, onions, bell peppers 쌈장 (spicy red sauce), and lettuce for making wraps along with acorn squash. Then they grilled gigantic prawns and sausages that came in an interesting array of colors, including green. I asked what green was supposed to be and Bjorn responded it was green tea flavored, but the security guards quickly explained that was definitely not the case and it meant they were 고추 (spicy pepper) flavored.
.JPG)
It was a lot of fun, but one of the problems I have in Korea is I can't remember anybody's name or face. This isn't specifically a problem in Korea. I suck at remembering what people look like or what their name is. Usually though I cheat and try to remember someone's hair and eye color, but that technique doesn't really work here. This is then made more difficult by the fact that Korean names are unfamiliar sounding, making them more difficult. I also admittedly never asked the guards' their names because, by the time I could tell them all apart, the time where it was okay to ask their names had passed. So even though I knew all of them, I only knew a couple of their names. Now why I'm explaining all this is usually I luck out and don't get called on it, but at some point during the barbecue one of the guards turns around and just asks me out of nowhere if I know his name. And I'm just like uhhhhhhh and then I start going off in English so he won't understand, but it was really obvious I didn't have a clue. Luckily, I don't think he took it seriously and by the end of the outing, I had gotten one of the other Americans to teach me all their names because I seriously needed to learn them. I also realize I need a new memory trick to remember names and faces because my current one is pretty much useless.
After we finished eating, which was a multi-hour extravaganza of food, we headed back inside since the mosquitoes were starting to get viscous. We played a lot of games (called Recreation in Korean for whatever reason), which is a really common thing to do in Korea, but not so much in the US. At some point birthday cake was brought out and that got devoured. 민형 also later made a veggie stir fry and we all just sat around eating. We were all really tired for some reason though so we went to sleep pretty early, meaning 1:30 am.
Another Trip to Seoul
Tuesday, July 10th
I worked the AM shift and then Rachel and I caught an episode of Big in the afternoon. We finished the episode at 5:13 and then I ran to the train station to catch the KTX at 5:23. I definitely didn't keep track of time as much as I should have. I made it in about seven minutes, which I think set like a world record. Anyway, I made the train, which then didn't leave until after 5:30 so I didn't even need to have freaked out. When I got to Seoul, Minsung met me and we picked up take-out since I hadn't had dinner yet. After that Minsung, her mom, and I went and saw the movie 내 아내의 모든 것 (All About My Wife), which I understood most of, but I didn't really appreciate its humor unlike my friend and her mom, who were about to die from laughter.
Wednesday, July 11th
I finally got my cell phone in the morning, only to find out that my bank account and passport didn't match so they couldn't set up automatic monthly bank payments. But I finally had a cell phone to call my own, so I wasn't going to let that bring me down. It's also really cheap, especially in comparison to the U.S. For about $25 a month, I get unlimited incoming calls and texts along with 150 minutes of outgoing calls, 150 outgoing texts and 2 GB of data. I can also change my plan any month I please if I need less or more. Minsung also took me to the bank afterwards to get my information corrected since the bank workers in Yeosu had apparently done it incorrectly. I still need to go back to the cell phone place though to set up automatic payments.
In the afternoon, I met Emerson for lunch and to recommence my housing search. I felt really bad because it quickly became apparent that the vast majority of the places we looked at were women only, which I was unaware of until that point. It gave me a bit of a reality check though because through all my housing search frustrations, it never occurred to me how hard it must be for guys to find housing since they can only live in co-ed places and those are generally not as clean or nice. Anyway, I ended up finding 2 places I was interested in, which made me feel really relieved since I had had such rotten luck in finding housing earlier.
프라임 원룸텔 (Prime One-Roomtel)
소호 하우스 (Soho House)
In order to catch my train, I left an hour before it was set to depart, but I went to the wrong 신촌역 (Sinchon Station). There are two and one goes directly to 서울역 (Seoul Station), where I had to catch my train. However 신촌역 (Sinchon Station) turned out to be a train station and after waiting for about 10 minutes, I realized no trains actually stop there. So I left the train station and then, worried about whether or not I could make it if I took the subway, I decided to catch a cab. By cab it was only about 15 minutes, but if I had taken the subway, it would have taken a total of 30 or 35 minutes to walk to the station and then take the subway, transfer lines, and arrive. Anyway, I made it with like 15 minutes to spare, so it wasn't a problem. After I got back, Rachel and I watched another episode of Big, but that show is quickly becoming boring. It lacks any sort of plot development.
I worked the AM shift and then Rachel and I caught an episode of Big in the afternoon. We finished the episode at 5:13 and then I ran to the train station to catch the KTX at 5:23. I definitely didn't keep track of time as much as I should have. I made it in about seven minutes, which I think set like a world record. Anyway, I made the train, which then didn't leave until after 5:30 so I didn't even need to have freaked out. When I got to Seoul, Minsung met me and we picked up take-out since I hadn't had dinner yet. After that Minsung, her mom, and I went and saw the movie 내 아내의 모든 것 (All About My Wife), which I understood most of, but I didn't really appreciate its humor unlike my friend and her mom, who were about to die from laughter.
Wednesday, July 11th
I finally got my cell phone in the morning, only to find out that my bank account and passport didn't match so they couldn't set up automatic monthly bank payments. But I finally had a cell phone to call my own, so I wasn't going to let that bring me down. It's also really cheap, especially in comparison to the U.S. For about $25 a month, I get unlimited incoming calls and texts along with 150 minutes of outgoing calls, 150 outgoing texts and 2 GB of data. I can also change my plan any month I please if I need less or more. Minsung also took me to the bank afterwards to get my information corrected since the bank workers in Yeosu had apparently done it incorrectly. I still need to go back to the cell phone place though to set up automatic payments.
In the afternoon, I met Emerson for lunch and to recommence my housing search. I felt really bad because it quickly became apparent that the vast majority of the places we looked at were women only, which I was unaware of until that point. It gave me a bit of a reality check though because through all my housing search frustrations, it never occurred to me how hard it must be for guys to find housing since they can only live in co-ed places and those are generally not as clean or nice. Anyway, I ended up finding 2 places I was interested in, which made me feel really relieved since I had had such rotten luck in finding housing earlier.
프라임 원룸텔 (Prime One-Roomtel)
소호 하우스 (Soho House)
In order to catch my train, I left an hour before it was set to depart, but I went to the wrong 신촌역 (Sinchon Station). There are two and one goes directly to 서울역 (Seoul Station), where I had to catch my train. However 신촌역 (Sinchon Station) turned out to be a train station and after waiting for about 10 minutes, I realized no trains actually stop there. So I left the train station and then, worried about whether or not I could make it if I took the subway, I decided to catch a cab. By cab it was only about 15 minutes, but if I had taken the subway, it would have taken a total of 30 or 35 minutes to walk to the station and then take the subway, transfer lines, and arrive. Anyway, I made it with like 15 minutes to spare, so it wasn't a problem. After I got back, Rachel and I watched another episode of Big, but that show is quickly becoming boring. It lacks any sort of plot development.
The Work Week That Wouldn't End
Friday, July 6th
In the morning there was a beach clean-up at 만성리 (the infamous "black sand" beach Manseongni). Philippe Cousteau Jr. was there to clean the beach with us and the mayor of Yeosu made a brief appearance to thank us ahead of time for our work. Our pavilion coordinated the event, but I think over 30 countries at the International Pavilion had workers volunteer for it, so there was a lot of people. We were supposed to work for 3 hours, but it started drizzling about an hour in so they just called the rest of it off. I was really surprised though because we had been warned ahead of time we would work rain or shine and it was only sprinkling. Anyway, after that we went on a bus tour of Yeosu, which I'm not going to lie, wasn't that interesting. I think we crossed the 4th longest bridge in the world at one point. A Korean on the bus volunteered to be the English interpreter and he seemed pretty pumped about speaking English, but I think he got a bit overzealous. He announced we were crossing that bridge, but it didn't seem all that long, only for him to stand up a couple minutes later and apologize saying he had misspoken and now we were crossing the 4th longest bridge. It was admittedly a really, really long bridge. But it was just a bridge like one finds on the highway, only going on forever. We were also super sleepy, so we mainly just enjoyed relaxing in such nice buses and chatting.
Afterwards Rachel and I bought pizza for lunch while watching the drama Big. We got margherita pizza and snow garlic pizza, but the snow garlic pizza was a disaster. It was so gross, we ended up just throwing 90% of it away. Korean pizza and American pizza are somewhat different in that Korean pizza tends to be much sweeter.
Afterwards I worked the afternoon shift for someone else.
Saturday, July 7th
I worked a full day shift - my scheduled afternoon shift and someone else's morning shift.
Sunday, July 8th
I worked a full day shift again - my scheduled afternoon shift and someone else's morning shift. The two morning shifts I took were so that I could volunteer at the North Korean refugee camp at the end of July for 2 days.
Monday, July 9th
I worked a full day shift yet again because I had the morning shift and I worked Erin's afternoon shift since I owed her a day for taking my PM shift in June so I could see 김정훈 (Kim Jung Hoon).
In the morning there was a beach clean-up at 만성리 (the infamous "black sand" beach Manseongni). Philippe Cousteau Jr. was there to clean the beach with us and the mayor of Yeosu made a brief appearance to thank us ahead of time for our work. Our pavilion coordinated the event, but I think over 30 countries at the International Pavilion had workers volunteer for it, so there was a lot of people. We were supposed to work for 3 hours, but it started drizzling about an hour in so they just called the rest of it off. I was really surprised though because we had been warned ahead of time we would work rain or shine and it was only sprinkling. Anyway, after that we went on a bus tour of Yeosu, which I'm not going to lie, wasn't that interesting. I think we crossed the 4th longest bridge in the world at one point. A Korean on the bus volunteered to be the English interpreter and he seemed pretty pumped about speaking English, but I think he got a bit overzealous. He announced we were crossing that bridge, but it didn't seem all that long, only for him to stand up a couple minutes later and apologize saying he had misspoken and now we were crossing the 4th longest bridge. It was admittedly a really, really long bridge. But it was just a bridge like one finds on the highway, only going on forever. We were also super sleepy, so we mainly just enjoyed relaxing in such nice buses and chatting.
Afterwards Rachel and I bought pizza for lunch while watching the drama Big. We got margherita pizza and snow garlic pizza, but the snow garlic pizza was a disaster. It was so gross, we ended up just throwing 90% of it away. Korean pizza and American pizza are somewhat different in that Korean pizza tends to be much sweeter.
Afterwards I worked the afternoon shift for someone else.
Saturday, July 7th
I worked a full day shift - my scheduled afternoon shift and someone else's morning shift.
Sunday, July 8th
I worked a full day shift again - my scheduled afternoon shift and someone else's morning shift. The two morning shifts I took were so that I could volunteer at the North Korean refugee camp at the end of July for 2 days.
Monday, July 9th
I worked a full day shift yet again because I had the morning shift and I worked Erin's afternoon shift since I owed her a day for taking my PM shift in June so I could see 김정훈 (Kim Jung Hoon).
Thursday, August 2, 2012
Thursday, July 5th
In the morning a group of us went to Thailand's National Day Ceremony since our Thai friends had invited us specifically and we wanted to support them. They weren't the ones performing or anything but still. It was a really good performance, so I'm glad we went. The invitations also said national costume or formal dress only, so we all dressed up for the ceremony and were really amused with ourselves, although we were disappointed we had no national costume we could wear.
There was a concert with 2PM and Miss A starting at 8 pm, so Ellen and I went over at 3:30 pm to see how the crowds were. We decided coming later would be too risky because we wanted to make sure to have a good view, so we sat down and then Ellen went off for a half hour to do stuff and then came back and joined me. Then I left for an hour to go back to Expo Town to grab some stuff I needed. Then we just waited, while it sprinkled off and on. Everyone remained sitting, even though the audience section is all standing room simply because no one wanted to stand for hours while waiting. This all changed about an hour or half hour before the concert started. People started standing up behind us and Ellen warned me to be prepared for a sudden surge forward. We realized we had to stand up, unless we wanted people to charge in front of us, but probably the first sixty people remained seated on the ground. So there was this large crowd of people trying to surge forward while a group of people sitting were yelling at them to keep standing behind them. Then this middle-aged lady starting pulling on my arm and telling me I had to move forward. With all the people, I ended up making the bad decision to step over the people sitting and move into the empty area in front of them because I just wanted to get out of the crazy mob. Except I tripped and I think accidentally kneed a woman's shoulder as I face-planted into the ground. The lady started screaming furiously at me, claiming I had kicked her child in the face, but I am absolutely positive I didn't do that because I fell in order to avoid the child. But she was furious at me, and I just stood there and apologized. I didn't really know what to do. I had no interest in rushing to the very front because I hadn't crossed them for that. I simply wanted out of the psychotic mob, but by doing that, I had just made more trouble. Other people started pushing through though and finally one of the security team members (who I'm pretty sure were all teenage volunteers) told the people they had to stand up simply for their own safety since the mob was getting out of control. They stood up reluctantly and the mob just surged forward. From then on it was just a gigantic mob of people trying to push as forward as possible while everyone in front of them pushed back because people were getting too crowded. The worst was that there were a bunch of children who kept trying to shove their ways forward because they couldn't see, but they couldn't see no matter what since everyone else was taller than them, meaning they were constantly moving around everywhere without accomplishing anything.
After the concert, I changed clothes and headed to a party for our pavilion, which we held in the Denmark Pavilion's VIP lounge. Let me just say their catered food was absolutely delicious. They had open sandwiches, cookies, and the best of all, strawberry trifles. I ate more of those than I would like to admit.
Tuesday, July 24, 2012
Your name is Foreigner.
Wednesday, July 4th
I was scheduled to work the AM shift but that was irrelevant for the most part because of the national day ceremony. Everyone had to come in at about 9 am to help out, but we ended up for the most part sitting around since everything had already been taken care of. The ceremony began at 11 am with speeches by, the director of NOAA, U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, and Philippe Cousteau, Jr. Then there was a performance by the Krokodiloes, Harvard's oldest a cappella singing group, and a U.S. military marching band from Seoul. I have to admit the performances were a lot more enjoyable than I thought they would be and I was surprised by the fact I'd recognized the tunes by the marching band. On the other hand, I didn't recognize any of the songs by the Krokodiloes, except for the Korean one they sang since it's like the most famous Korean song ever. After that we had about twenty minutes for lunch and then my shift had work from 1 to 5 pm. As we were leaving from work, we saw one of our retail managers drumming with the Filipino drummers and DJ as part of the US-Philippines Friendship Day. So we went over and cheered him on and then we decided to start a dance party. After about a half hour and the dance party in full gear we went back to the apartments to change.
While waiting for George to finish getting ready, I called Singles House (the place I wanted to live) to ask if they had a room available. I was really nervous because I hate talking in Korean over the phone because it's way more difficult and confusing. But I finally called them and told the guy who answered that I had seen the room the weekend before and was now interested in reserving a room. After a minute the guy asked me in English if I was foreigner and, when I said yes, said he would call me back in a couple minutes. I assumed then he was going to see if he could find an English speaker to talk with me. When the phone rang, I picked it up and a middle-aged man was on the line, who I assumed must have been the previous guy's boss. He asked if I was the foreigner who had just called and when I confirmed, he told me having a foreigner live in their place would be inconvenient for them. Even though I couldn't understand 100% of what he said, he was clearly telling me he had no interest in letting a foreigner live there. I was so shocked all I could say was "yes...yes... I understand" and then hung up. I was just so shocked because it made no sense to me. He was clearly being xenophobic or racist because it's not like there was a big enough language barrier for it to be a problem if I lived there. I was so close to crying, but luckily I had made the call while with Rachel and when she found out what he said, she got mad for me. She was really tempted to call him back, but I didn't think it was worth it. There wasn't anything to be said. I wish that I had gotten angry with him instead of just taking it, but since the call was already over I didn't think anything good would come out of calling the guy back. I was just totally blindsided by it. For about a half hour I went from anger to almost crying repeatedly and quickly. Luckily, Rachel and George were with me and helped me process everything. By the time we got downtown, I decided to just forget it about and come to terms later instead of being an emotional wreck while eating. After dinner, we briefly went to an arcade and then to Caffe Ti Amo for some ice cream therapy. That night, since I no longer had a place I was interested in staying at, I did more housing research with Rachel.
What really got me so upset about this episode was that the man (I assume he was the manager of Singles House) was unable to see me as anything but a foreigner. In Korea, I obviously stick out as a foreigner because the nation is so homogeneous. This is in contrast with the United States, where no one can tell who's a foreigner simply by looking at someone. I'm not saying our country is necessarily the most diverse place ever, but at the very least everyone retains a bit of anonymity there. People may come to the conclusion that you must be an immigrant or foreigner if they hear you using a language besides English, and there are plenty of people who are ethnocentric/racist/otherwise bigoted. However, the difference is how Koreans and Americans view identity. In Korea you are Korean if and only if you are ethnically Korean. If you have Korean citizenship, but don't look Korean, then you're not Korean. The Korean identity is ethnically based while I would argue that American identity is more citizenship based (or even simply that you live in the United States). Anyone (for the most part) thus can be American if they choose. You can only be Korean by birth. As I am obviously not Korean nor from any other Asian country, there are people (especially children or creepy men) that stare at me. The staring can be annoying at times, but for the most part it doesn't bother men. (The exception being when it's the creepy men.) I don't even get phased by complete strangers randomly yelling English at me because it's simply not worth getting annoyed over. These are more of the benign manifestations of the inability for some Koreans to see people only as foreigners. To them we lack any other defining feature besides our foreignness. However, this perspective took a turn for the more serious when that man refused to give me housing. He was unable to see me as a person. To him I was simply a foreigner. I don't know what preconceptions he holds about foreigners, but they're obviously not positive and he projected all of those stereotypes onto me. By denying me housing, he in one blow made my weeks of housing searching and trips to Seoul pretty much useless. He made me even more stressed because I had to start my housing search over again. Even more, he just showed complete disrespect for me as a person. All of this I was completely unprepared for and that is why I got so emotional. Now that it's been a couple weeks, I sincerely do regret not pushing him to justify his prejudices towards foreigners, but at the same time, I am glad I'm not living there because I don't want a bigot as a landlord. I'm glad that I learned he was prejudiced against foreigners before living there because otherwise I would have had a miserable time there I'm sure. The experience I think will definitely help me get thicker skin for when this happens again because I have no doubt that I will encounter more xenophobia or racism. I think it's pretty much unavoidable in any country.
I was scheduled to work the AM shift but that was irrelevant for the most part because of the national day ceremony. Everyone had to come in at about 9 am to help out, but we ended up for the most part sitting around since everything had already been taken care of. The ceremony began at 11 am with speeches by, the director of NOAA, U.S. Ambassador to Korea Sung Kim, and Philippe Cousteau, Jr. Then there was a performance by the Krokodiloes, Harvard's oldest a cappella singing group, and a U.S. military marching band from Seoul. I have to admit the performances were a lot more enjoyable than I thought they would be and I was surprised by the fact I'd recognized the tunes by the marching band. On the other hand, I didn't recognize any of the songs by the Krokodiloes, except for the Korean one they sang since it's like the most famous Korean song ever. After that we had about twenty minutes for lunch and then my shift had work from 1 to 5 pm. As we were leaving from work, we saw one of our retail managers drumming with the Filipino drummers and DJ as part of the US-Philippines Friendship Day. So we went over and cheered him on and then we decided to start a dance party. After about a half hour and the dance party in full gear we went back to the apartments to change.
While waiting for George to finish getting ready, I called Singles House (the place I wanted to live) to ask if they had a room available. I was really nervous because I hate talking in Korean over the phone because it's way more difficult and confusing. But I finally called them and told the guy who answered that I had seen the room the weekend before and was now interested in reserving a room. After a minute the guy asked me in English if I was foreigner and, when I said yes, said he would call me back in a couple minutes. I assumed then he was going to see if he could find an English speaker to talk with me. When the phone rang, I picked it up and a middle-aged man was on the line, who I assumed must have been the previous guy's boss. He asked if I was the foreigner who had just called and when I confirmed, he told me having a foreigner live in their place would be inconvenient for them. Even though I couldn't understand 100% of what he said, he was clearly telling me he had no interest in letting a foreigner live there. I was so shocked all I could say was "yes...yes... I understand" and then hung up. I was just so shocked because it made no sense to me. He was clearly being xenophobic or racist because it's not like there was a big enough language barrier for it to be a problem if I lived there. I was so close to crying, but luckily I had made the call while with Rachel and when she found out what he said, she got mad for me. She was really tempted to call him back, but I didn't think it was worth it. There wasn't anything to be said. I wish that I had gotten angry with him instead of just taking it, but since the call was already over I didn't think anything good would come out of calling the guy back. I was just totally blindsided by it. For about a half hour I went from anger to almost crying repeatedly and quickly. Luckily, Rachel and George were with me and helped me process everything. By the time we got downtown, I decided to just forget it about and come to terms later instead of being an emotional wreck while eating. After dinner, we briefly went to an arcade and then to Caffe Ti Amo for some ice cream therapy. That night, since I no longer had a place I was interested in staying at, I did more housing research with Rachel.
What really got me so upset about this episode was that the man (I assume he was the manager of Singles House) was unable to see me as anything but a foreigner. In Korea, I obviously stick out as a foreigner because the nation is so homogeneous. This is in contrast with the United States, where no one can tell who's a foreigner simply by looking at someone. I'm not saying our country is necessarily the most diverse place ever, but at the very least everyone retains a bit of anonymity there. People may come to the conclusion that you must be an immigrant or foreigner if they hear you using a language besides English, and there are plenty of people who are ethnocentric/racist/otherwise bigoted. However, the difference is how Koreans and Americans view identity. In Korea you are Korean if and only if you are ethnically Korean. If you have Korean citizenship, but don't look Korean, then you're not Korean. The Korean identity is ethnically based while I would argue that American identity is more citizenship based (or even simply that you live in the United States). Anyone (for the most part) thus can be American if they choose. You can only be Korean by birth. As I am obviously not Korean nor from any other Asian country, there are people (especially children or creepy men) that stare at me. The staring can be annoying at times, but for the most part it doesn't bother men. (The exception being when it's the creepy men.) I don't even get phased by complete strangers randomly yelling English at me because it's simply not worth getting annoyed over. These are more of the benign manifestations of the inability for some Koreans to see people only as foreigners. To them we lack any other defining feature besides our foreignness. However, this perspective took a turn for the more serious when that man refused to give me housing. He was unable to see me as a person. To him I was simply a foreigner. I don't know what preconceptions he holds about foreigners, but they're obviously not positive and he projected all of those stereotypes onto me. By denying me housing, he in one blow made my weeks of housing searching and trips to Seoul pretty much useless. He made me even more stressed because I had to start my housing search over again. Even more, he just showed complete disrespect for me as a person. All of this I was completely unprepared for and that is why I got so emotional. Now that it's been a couple weeks, I sincerely do regret not pushing him to justify his prejudices towards foreigners, but at the same time, I am glad I'm not living there because I don't want a bigot as a landlord. I'm glad that I learned he was prejudiced against foreigners before living there because otherwise I would have had a miserable time there I'm sure. The experience I think will definitely help me get thicker skin for when this happens again because I have no doubt that I will encounter more xenophobia or racism. I think it's pretty much unavoidable in any country.
July 2nd and 3rd
Monday, July 2nd
I got lunch with Rachel and then went to bank to learn the art of using the ATM machine. Luckily you can change it to English so it's not that complicated and it takes even less time than depositing money in the US.
Afterwards I had the PM shift and then I went to Anne's apartment to eat some watermelon, but I had to bow out and go to bed by midnight.
Tuesday, July 3rd
I had the AM shift and then I met up with A and his girlfriend who had just arrived from Thailand. We went out and got dinner along with Rae and Boram at a local restaurant. We then went back and chilled at A's place and then went upstairs to what was described as a party, but would be better labeled as bored people sitting around doing nothing. We all just hung out, chatted, and listened to music, but then A left, leaving Boram and I with two Thai tech guys who didn't speak English. The next hour then was an interesting attempt to communicate without language for the most part. We mainly just played and sang different songs we all knew while having separate side conversations.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Sunday, July 1st - Day Trip to Jeonju
I had the day off since Eric covered my shift. I headed to 전주 (Jeonju) on the 10 am KTX, so I arrived in Jeonju at about 11:15 am. I met Winston at the station and it was surprisingly way less awkward than I thought it would be. Both of us had thought it might be kind of weird at first to finally get to meet again after two years, but since we'd kept in touch it really wasn't. I really think Facebook and Skype make it easier to keep track of people and stay in touch , which in this case was a good thing, but can admittedly also be a bad thing.
I pretty much let Winston show me around since I know practically nothing about Jeonju. The first place we went was 한옥마을 (Hanok Village), which is a village consist of traditional Korean housing called Hanok. It's a really logical name in case you missed that. The area was gorgeous, so it was really relaxing and interesting.
We also got to wear some traditional clothing of royalty and take our pictures.
After that we got 비빔밥 (bibimbap), which Jeonju is famous for and it was pretty delicious. Then we went to the shops selling traditional crafts and items. I bought some 한지 (hanji), which is traditional Korean paper. The paper, which I think was like 3x3 fee, was being sold for only 1,000 won and it was gorgeous paper. I bought one sheet of blue paper with a design on it simply to hang on my wall when I move to Seoul in the fall to add color to my room, which I'm sure will be a drab white no matter where I end up staying.
We then chilled in a 정자, which is like a traditional Korean style gazebo.
After chatting for a couple hours, we took a taxi to the neighborhood around the university to get dinner. We ended up splitting a veggie pizza at Papa Johns and it was great to taste American style pizza again. Korean pizza tastes sweet in comparison to American pizza and they usually don't do thick crusts. I was honestly surprised they even have veggie pizzas on the menu here.
After that we went to the park, which had a huge pond of lilies.
Afterwards we went to Caffe Bene for drinks and we decided to sit outside since the weather was nice. All of a sudden, Winston told me to not freak out but that there was a spider about to land on my head. I took a deep breath and then jumped out of my chair and started brushing at my head to get off the imagined spider. Luckily it hadn't actually landed on me, but I had no interest in trying my luck a second time, so we moved indoors. From inside, you could see spiders everywhere on out the outside canopy over the patio area. It made me keep feeling phantom spiders crawling on me just seeing all of them. I seriously think Korean insects are scarier than American ones. Mosquitoes are bigger and nastier and there are way too many spiders for my liking.
Afterwards we went to the train station and got there about an hour early. Winston wasn't sure how long it would take to get there and I obviously didn't have a clue, so we didn't want to risk it. Since we had so much time, we walked along the neighborhood, but the only place that was even open was a sex shop. On the way back, I looked up to see the largest spiders I had ever seen in my life. I'm talking the size of about an inch and a half diameter -- their body that is, not including their legs. I freaked out and was paranoid the rest of the trip that there were spiders everywhere, although at that point I'm not sure if could really qualify as paranoia or a healthy dose of caution.
I pretty much let Winston show me around since I know practically nothing about Jeonju. The first place we went was 한옥마을 (Hanok Village), which is a village consist of traditional Korean housing called Hanok. It's a really logical name in case you missed that. The area was gorgeous, so it was really relaxing and interesting.
We also got to wear some traditional clothing of royalty and take our pictures.
 |
| The head piece was really heavy in case anybody is wondering. |
We then chilled in a 정자, which is like a traditional Korean style gazebo.
 |
| The view from where we were sitting, using the newly discovered panaroma function on my camera. |
After that we went to the park, which had a huge pond of lilies.
Afterwards we went to Caffe Bene for drinks and we decided to sit outside since the weather was nice. All of a sudden, Winston told me to not freak out but that there was a spider about to land on my head. I took a deep breath and then jumped out of my chair and started brushing at my head to get off the imagined spider. Luckily it hadn't actually landed on me, but I had no interest in trying my luck a second time, so we moved indoors. From inside, you could see spiders everywhere on out the outside canopy over the patio area. It made me keep feeling phantom spiders crawling on me just seeing all of them. I seriously think Korean insects are scarier than American ones. Mosquitoes are bigger and nastier and there are way too many spiders for my liking.
Afterwards we went to the train station and got there about an hour early. Winston wasn't sure how long it would take to get there and I obviously didn't have a clue, so we didn't want to risk it. Since we had so much time, we walked along the neighborhood, but the only place that was even open was a sex shop. On the way back, I looked up to see the largest spiders I had ever seen in my life. I'm talking the size of about an inch and a half diameter -- their body that is, not including their legs. I freaked out and was paranoid the rest of the trip that there were spiders everywhere, although at that point I'm not sure if could really qualify as paranoia or a healthy dose of caution.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Saturday, June 30th
I took 10 am KTX train to Seoul, meaning I arrived there at 1:30 pm since even the KTX, which is the fastest train, takes 3.5 hours. I spent that time though doing housing research because the KTX has complimentary wifi, one of the reasons I'm willing to pay 90,000 won for round-trip KTX tickets. It means that I can actually be productive instead of just trying to kill time. Once I got to Seoul, I looked at 원룸 (one rooms) with Rachel and her boyfriend Sungchol. I had originally decided not to live in the dorms at Yonsei because foreigners are only allowed to live in the foreigner dorm, meaning the language used there is almost always English. I wanted to try to get away from making strictly English-speaking friends through, so I decided to forgo the dorms and find a 하숙집 (hasukjip or boarding house). I didn't think it would be that hard and so my first trip to Seoul I looked mainly at those. I was hoping by living in a 하숙집 (hasukjip), it would have the atmosphere of like a KU scholarship hall because they provide meals and I thought that way everyone there would become friends. However, I had gotten mixed responses from both Koreans and Americans as to whether or not that perceived image I had was really true. Thus since I hadn't found any 하숙집 (hasukjip) I liked on my last trip to Seoul, I decided to branch out and look at 원룸 (one rooms) too. 원룸 (one rooms) are pretty much one room that may or may not contain a bathroom that you rent out. They usually come with a bed, desk, TV, and sometimes fridge. Then as you move up the price range, they can also have their own bathroom and window. I had realized from the first trip I needed to have a room with a window if I were to avoid getting claustrophobic in the space. I had also decided I wanted my own shower because most places otherwise only had one bathroom for the whole floor, which consisted of five or six people, and I had no intention of competing for the bathroom every morning with five other girls.
Anyway, during the search, I really liked Singles House. I was super glad I had decided to look at it because I was initially turned off by its name when I discovered it online during research on the train. I thought that maybe it was meant only for people who were single who wanted to find a boyfriend or girlfriend. However, I soon realized many of the places had odd names. One was named Herb Livingtel for instance and another one Recovery House, which at first made me think it was a halfway house. They really just are random English words used by the owners when naming their places. English sounds cool is all I think it amounts to.
Here are some pictures of Singles House. The left photo shows the gap between the bed and the bathroom pictured in the middle. Having that type of space and even that size of window was a first in the places I'd looked at, meaning I would have real space and natural light, something I'd been craving.
I needed dinner afterwards since I had skipped lunch and was feeling tired. Since 신촌 (Sinchon) has a lot of meat places due to all the college-aged people living there, I decided to ride with my friend and her boyfriend to 압구청 (Apguchung) for dinner, since they were headed that way. When we got there, her boyfriend explained to me how to get to the nearest subway station and the basic layout of the place and then we went our separate ways since they had plans. I wandered around for a bit in the area with all the restaurants before deciding to just get 비빔밥 again since it wouldn't take long. There was nobody in like any of the restaurants though, so it was really weird. It was 6 pm and a Saturday night, so I had thought there would have been more people. Afterwards I made my way really easily to the subway station and headed to 용산역 (Yongsan Station) in order to catch the 7:45 pm train home. I got there an hour early, so I killed an hour at the adjoining iPark Shopping Mall. I was intrigued at the thought that Gap was on the foreign luxury goods store and it was pretty expensive. It only carried sizes 0-4 and shorts were $30-$40 while dresses were $50-$60, which seemed really expensive to me, especially for Gap.
I slept the first hour on the train ride back and then just watched Secret Garden, a Korean drama I've seen before, for the rest of the way to practice my listening skills in Korean.
Anyway, during the search, I really liked Singles House. I was super glad I had decided to look at it because I was initially turned off by its name when I discovered it online during research on the train. I thought that maybe it was meant only for people who were single who wanted to find a boyfriend or girlfriend. However, I soon realized many of the places had odd names. One was named Herb Livingtel for instance and another one Recovery House, which at first made me think it was a halfway house. They really just are random English words used by the owners when naming their places. English sounds cool is all I think it amounts to.
I needed dinner afterwards since I had skipped lunch and was feeling tired. Since 신촌 (Sinchon) has a lot of meat places due to all the college-aged people living there, I decided to ride with my friend and her boyfriend to 압구청 (Apguchung) for dinner, since they were headed that way. When we got there, her boyfriend explained to me how to get to the nearest subway station and the basic layout of the place and then we went our separate ways since they had plans. I wandered around for a bit in the area with all the restaurants before deciding to just get 비빔밥 again since it wouldn't take long. There was nobody in like any of the restaurants though, so it was really weird. It was 6 pm and a Saturday night, so I had thought there would have been more people. Afterwards I made my way really easily to the subway station and headed to 용산역 (Yongsan Station) in order to catch the 7:45 pm train home. I got there an hour early, so I killed an hour at the adjoining iPark Shopping Mall. I was intrigued at the thought that Gap was on the foreign luxury goods store and it was pretty expensive. It only carried sizes 0-4 and shorts were $30-$40 while dresses were $50-$60, which seemed really expensive to me, especially for Gap.
I slept the first hour on the train ride back and then just watched Secret Garden, a Korean drama I've seen before, for the rest of the way to practice my listening skills in Korean.
June 28th and 29th
Thursday, June 28th
I worked a full day since I covered one shift for Eric, who was stuck in Japan with a flight that had been delayed for 17 hours. After that I got dinner with a couple people from shift C at the 분식 place in Expo Town and then I went over to Peter's apartment to make a powerpoint.
Friday, June 29th
The powerpoint was for a presentation Peter, Bjorn, and I were giving at 조선대 (Chosun University) to students studying abroad in the US and the Philippines to study English. We headed out at 7:40 am, which turned out to be unnecessarily early. We arrived in 광주 (Gwangju) at about 9:30 am for an 11 am presentation. But since we had all skipped breakfast in order to be on time for departure, we got breakfast there in order to kill time and silence our stomachs. I got a cinnamon muffin and it was incredibly delicious. I think our presentation went well although I felt bad for all the students going to the Philippines since our presentation was obviously about college life specifically in the United States. After the presentation, the Study Abroad Coordinator took us out to lunch at a local restaurant. I got 비빔밥 (bibimbap) once again.
They also served sweet potato noodles, but I don't like sweet potatoes, so I didn't try them. Koreans use sweet potatoes for a lot more things than Americans do. Sweet potato cake and bread are common, for example.
We were planning on staying in 광주 (Gwangju) for the day and taking a bus back, but Pete felt sick and it started raining, so we all just decided to leave right after lunch. At first I was regretting the decision because I didn't know if I would make it back to 광주 again during the summer, but once it started pouring I was glad was in the car and not wandering aimlessly around the city. We eventually all just ended up passing out in the car from exhaustion anyway.
After going back to the apartments for a bit, I got pizza and 팥빙수 (red bean shaved ice) with Bjorn for dinner. I then went and got my train ticket rescheduled for Seoul. I had been planning on taking the 5:20 am train, meaning I would have to be up at 4 something, but that sounded really unappealing. It then became unnecessary once 민성 언니 (Minsung) told me she'd be unable to meet me in Seoul to fix my cell phone stuff. That meant all I had to do was check out housing with Rachel, so I decided I would rather have a couple extra hours of sleep.
I worked a full day since I covered one shift for Eric, who was stuck in Japan with a flight that had been delayed for 17 hours. After that I got dinner with a couple people from shift C at the 분식 place in Expo Town and then I went over to Peter's apartment to make a powerpoint.
Friday, June 29th
The powerpoint was for a presentation Peter, Bjorn, and I were giving at 조선대 (Chosun University) to students studying abroad in the US and the Philippines to study English. We headed out at 7:40 am, which turned out to be unnecessarily early. We arrived in 광주 (Gwangju) at about 9:30 am for an 11 am presentation. But since we had all skipped breakfast in order to be on time for departure, we got breakfast there in order to kill time and silence our stomachs. I got a cinnamon muffin and it was incredibly delicious. I think our presentation went well although I felt bad for all the students going to the Philippines since our presentation was obviously about college life specifically in the United States. After the presentation, the Study Abroad Coordinator took us out to lunch at a local restaurant. I got 비빔밥 (bibimbap) once again.
We were planning on staying in 광주 (Gwangju) for the day and taking a bus back, but Pete felt sick and it started raining, so we all just decided to leave right after lunch. At first I was regretting the decision because I didn't know if I would make it back to 광주 again during the summer, but once it started pouring I was glad was in the car and not wandering aimlessly around the city. We eventually all just ended up passing out in the car from exhaustion anyway.
After going back to the apartments for a bit, I got pizza and 팥빙수 (red bean shaved ice) with Bjorn for dinner. I then went and got my train ticket rescheduled for Seoul. I had been planning on taking the 5:20 am train, meaning I would have to be up at 4 something, but that sounded really unappealing. It then became unnecessary once 민성 언니 (Minsung) told me she'd be unable to meet me in Seoul to fix my cell phone stuff. That meant all I had to do was check out housing with Rachel, so I decided I would rather have a couple extra hours of sleep.
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