What a dAy.

One of the many buildings: Yonsei University

I lost my Korean Yonsei 1 book for my Korean Language class today. I absolutely have no idea where I last seen it. I guess this is the downfall of getting older- losing you memory! I discovered this unfortunate and stressful incident this morning while I rushed to get dressed. It seemed to have dissappeared magically- I honestly have no clue where I could have left it. I could have sworn that the book never left my backpack these last five days. For the life of me, I couldn't remember if I had the book with my yesterday in Korean class! Arghh....and so I bought a new book (30000 won). The book came in pairs- so now I have an extra book. Ah well...I am so stressed out! All my notes were in my old book and now I feel a little lost. I'm hopeing that it will magically re-appear again. My mom always says to me when I lose or couldn't find my things, "You hid it too well".

Korean language class is super fun! It is very hard- and I find myself not understanding half the things my professor says. All directions and explainations are in Korean so I have no clue why I'm doing what I'm doing. It is all imitation : ). I wish the directions were in English! I think this is my most fustrating yet fun class. My professor is hilirous. We've had a few stranglers (who had come to class late after a short break) and had had to sing in front of the whole class. I don't think I've laughed so much in all my classes [in the duration of my college career].

It is hard to make Korean friends here. We are staying in apartments about thirty minutes away and so the people we interact with are the one's in CIEE or student foreigners. I feel sometimes that I don't know how to interact with the Korean students. They all seemed to have already formed groups and it is more harder to get into the group in contrast to the groups in the U. S. Plus, the Korean students are super shy. I had one Korean student approach me a week ago- I was so surpised! It turned out that we both were biology majors.

Being in a homogenous country is harder than I thought it would be. It sometimes gets tiring seeing the same faces everywhere I go. It's kinda of true that all Asians look the same...after a while.

It seems that the professors here are a little impersonal. They don't encourage us at all to visit them- just to talk. Some professors don't even put their office room number on the syllabus! They are super nice but they always seem to be in a hurry so I'm a little hesitant to hold them up. Communication between student and professor through email takes super long...

I've always been so controlled and organized- I'm finding the other side of myself here in Korea...I'm learning so much about my virtues, my values/morals...I'm still trying break free of my comfort zone.

Pretty to Punky- Excursion to Japan(a.k.a. I found Hello Kitty)

CIEE trip:

Japan was incredible. CIEE took the group on a four day trip to Japan- Kyoto, and Osaka. The feeling of being in Japan is exhilirating. I guess it's the concept of being on the land where Toyota, Sony, anime, etc. orginated is like a dream come true. Our first stop was Kyoto where we stayed at a traditional hotel, which meant that we spent the night on mats. I prefer mats to beds. For some inexplicable reason, my back prefers the hard floor to the soft comforts of the downy bed. We wore Japanese robes to dinner. It was super super cool! There was a public bath, which many of us took advantage of. The concept of public bathing is very interesting...hmmm...for those who are interesting- look it up : ). I have yet to try it, but I've heard that the bath is rejuvenating. Beware- you must be naked...absolutely naked.

Our first night was spent on chasing geisha's around town. There was this part of twon in Kyoto where geisha was still the tradition. The town was very touristy yet very traditional as well. We happened to come upon a geisha movie in making- unfortunately all we were able to see where the backs of the actresses. The geishas ran very fast. It was disturbing for me to chase after them- but I really wanted a picture of them. You must understand- they were very very beautiful. They seemed like story figures taken out of the stories. If you have seen "Memoirs of a Geisha", the geishas in real life is 10x more beautiful and decked out. After the discouraging bouts of chasing after geishas, we explored allies of the geisha town. There were lots of restaurants and clubs. We happened to come upon an ally that contained stripper clubs that consisted of mainly men in suits that hung around it. We left very quickly!

The remaining days in Japan was spent on visiting museums, castles, shrines, Korean town, and shopping districts. The schedule was packed but I loved it- we saw many things.

Korea is very different from Japan. Korean fashion style for women is heels, skirts, and baggy shirts that can be dresses. Korean style for men consists of more prepy clothes. Japan fashion style for women is boots, bongo-like pants, and more tighted shirts. Korean hair styles are nicely in placed whereas Japan hair style is all spiky, dyed (bleached), and funkyly arranged. I LOVE THE JAPANESE BOY HAIR SYTLE! Their hair style is so anime-ish. It's like seeing an anime character come a live. Korea atmosphere definately feels safer and more calm lively. In Korea, you see mainly up to two (friends or couples) hanging out. In contrast, Japanese tend to hang out in large groups, especially the boys. The boys hang out in "gang" groups. All they do is walk around and look very cute : ). Japan definately has a more edgy feel to it. Its night life definately tops the chart.

I found Hello Kitty! There was a Senrio store in the shopping district that we visited. Wow- I stood in awe at the entrance.

Til next time! Midterms is next week- so I might not be able to update next week! I'll try : )

Tall Koreans

Whoever said Asians were short were dead wrong! I've never seen so many tall Asians in my life...and they are normal everyday Asians at that. Wow, I still stand amaze whenever I see Koreans.

It's been over three weeks since I've last posted updates. It seems like life goes by when I'm not noticing- I guess that's the whole point, huh. It'll be a few more days and then it'll be two months since I got here. A lot of things happened these three weeks that I must split this update post into two (again). I don't want to bore my diligent readers: ).

My birthday was about two weeks ago. I never realized how lonely it could be to be without family on the day that is the most important day of one's life. I think out of the all the holidays and special days, a missed birthday is the hardest one to miss. There's friends and strangers to congratualate but it is not the same as seeing loved ones the moment I wake up. Any how- my B-day was a quite day. Coincidentaly, the Korea national holiday fell on the same day so lucky for me- no school! hehe.

There was an Asian Song Festival Concert at the World Cup Stadium (Seoul) on October 4. I don't know how describe this festive event to my readers- except if you ever have the the opportunity to experience a concert (even if you don't have a favorite girl/boy band), you must- I repeat- you must absolutely experience it before you die!!! Fortunately, I got to attend the concert by chance. A few friends got free tickets (1 ticket brings in two people). We left the apartment at 11:30am, waited in line til 1 pmish, waited to be seated for 4 hours, and waited for the concert to begin for 1 hour (it started at 6pm). It was the longest day of my life- at least the most wasted hours of my life. I can't believe people actually do this. Let's just say- those singers/bands better appreciate their fans. Go Fahrenheit and DBSK! Yep- I'm one of the those not-so-obssessed-fans but still obssessed.

Also, a few of us in CIEE went to a theatre performance a few days earlier. This opportunity came by chance as well. One of the my friend cancelled his, so I took his ticket. I was very glad that I attended the performance. The performance, "Jump", was a non-verbal martial arts comedy play. The actors and actresses were amazing. The martial arts was superb!

Classes are going very well. I must say, Victorian Literature and Culture class is my favorite so far. It's very interactive, the teacher is excellent at teaching, and the students have very interesting personalities. It's the only class that I have with actual Koreans. I had a presentation a week ago. It was quite an experience. First, I didn't know any of my group members til the week before my presentation. Second, they thought I was Korean so they started off speaking Korean. Third....hmmm...let's just say...interesting. My group worked very hard on the ppt. The last day we met, we tried to order pizza- but unfortunately our order "didn't go through" so we wasted one hour for it. We then, went to the Korean style Outback Steak House and waited twenty minutes to be seated. Wow- I couldn't afford Outback Steak House back in the states and I certainly couldn't afford to eat this kind of food daily here. One of the girls afford to pay the bill for three of us. This offering made me realize two things: 1. Most if not all the Korean students at Yonsei are rich, rich, rich. 2. Koreans are very generously.

In the meanwhile, I'm still dreading tuesdays and thursdays because my natural enemy- the HILL and STEEP STEPS. I still have yet to explore the main library. Yonsei just recently built an addition to the library. I've been to the roof top of it (refer to main blog picture). The library doesn't bring the studious person in me out- it seems too modern and tech for me. I miss Lindell library!

Life here in Seoul is hectic. There's always people rushing everywhere- the park, the streets, the sidewalk, any place you can imagine. Have I mentioned how crazy the traffic is here? It's not as bad as in Laos or Thailand (S. Korea drives on the "right" side). I think for certain Asian countries- red and stop signs seems to be of no affect. Korean drivers are kind of scary. Korea is very safe- except beware of the Korean drivers!

Word of advise: Beware of Old Women stepping on your toes while waiting for the public bus. Don't expect "sorry". I guess it's a cultural thing.