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.