Bungee Jumping, Spa Day, The World's Largest Church, and Snow!

Well, there's quite a bit to catch up on, everything from the adrenaline high of bungee jumping to the calm relaxation of a Korean spa. I'll try to keep everything short and sweet!

Let's start with bungee jumping! There really isn't much to say about it, other than it was super fun! I went with three other friends of mine, all of us determined to scare ourselves to death. We jumped off a platform over the river equivalent to the height of a 15 story building. I still don't know how I had the courage to actually jump! But I'm so glad I did! It was definitely a fun experience, and I hope to go bungee jumping again sometime!

In sharp contrast to bungee jumping, I also visited a Korean 찜질방 (Jjimjilbang), which is like a spa/sauna. This one had really cool rooms called "fomentation rooms." Each room had places to lie down and each room had a different theme. For example, there was a charcoal room, oxygen room, jade room, etc. Each was kept at a different temperature and had different positive effects for your health and skin. It was really cool to experience all the different rooms! I especially liked the Salt Room. Instead of having a solid floor, you would lie down on a sea of smooth salt rocks! They were warm and it was even deep enough that you could bury yourself in them. The Jade Room had the same kind of rock floor, but made out of Jade instead. Overall, the rooms were very relaxing! Some people even spend the night at the Jjimjilbang since it's so comfortable. (It also presents a cheap alternative to a hotel room)

I also got to do some religious tourism while here in Korea! First, I visited the Martyr's Museum with my Perspectives on the World Christian Movement class. That was super interesting! We learned about some of the early missionaries to Korea and got to visit the graveyard where nearly 150 missionaries and their families are buried. There was also a museum which hosted early Bible transcripts, letters, etc. I also went to one of the world's largest churches, Yoido Full Gospel Church. It was a beautiful church, especially since it was decorated with lights for the Christmas season. It had an impressive worship band (which was more like an orchestra), choir, and pipe organ. I can't say that I got much out of the service, though, since it was all in Korean. Experiencing their prayer was interesting though! Not only did they do prayer in the traditional Korean style where everyone prays out loud at the same time, but they were also a Pentecostal congregation. Needless to say, energy was high, and so was the volume! Another thing I found interesting about the church was their programs! This is of special interest to me, since I worked at my local church in the states over the summer and creating the weekly program (as well as designing a new program) was a large part of my job. What struck me about their programs was that they weren't folded! It was just a large, flat piece of paper that the attendees had to pick up from a table and fold themselves. Honestly, that would be so much more convenient for the church office! Folded programs are something people take for granted, but it really is time consuming, even with a folding machine.

Lastly... On my Korean Bucket List, there was one item that was completely out of my control. I very very desperately wanted to see it snow! This Monday, I finally got my wish. I woke up to snowflakes falling outside my window! As quickly as I could, I bundled up and went for a walk. I very quickly realized how snow in Korea differs from snow in the United States. The snow was very light, but the wind was crazy! At one point, I ended up walking into the wind and I literally couldn't look straight ahead of me. The wind and snow blowing in my face wouldn't allow me to open my eyes. I had to walk with my head turned to the side if I wanted any hope of seeing anything at all. Once I was back to the dorms, I looked out my window and I saw snow, leaves, and even debris blowing straight up into the air because of the wind! And I live on the fifth floor, so they made it pretty far up. However, since this is the only snow I've seen, maybe it isn't always like that. And despite the insane winds, the snow was absolutely magical! I hope it snows again soon.

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Bibap!

I just got back from what was probably the most fun activity I've done here in Seoul: the delicious musical Bibap! It was a wonderful blend of acting, comedy, singing, dancing, acrobatics, martial arts, beatboxing, breakdancing, and audience participation. It has been a long time since I've laughed as hard as I did tonight! Seriously, if you ever find yourself in Seoul, go to this show. It's essentially Korean Broadway, and it's worth the money.

The premise: There are two master chefs (Red Chef and Green Chef) who battle over who can make the best food with the help of their sous chefs (Cutie Chef, Iron Chef, Sexy Chef, and others). Throughout the show, audience members "order" food from all over the world, like sushi, Chinese noodles, and pizza. ("order" is in quotation marks because they don't actually get to pick what kind of food, but the audience is still involved.) Hilarity ensues as audience members find themselves in situations like a date set up in a fake "Italian restaurant" to go with the pizza, joining in the group's dances, etc. For the grand finale, the chefs face off cooking Korea's famous dish: Bibimbap! (Bibimbap is a mix of rice, vegetables, and beef)

Now, let me tell you about my part of the show... all my years of theater in high school did me good today!

During the introduction to the show, Green Chef came out and greeted all the audience members. He talked with us, asking some of the audience where they were from and things like that. When he saw me, he stopped and said, "WAH!" He came down to my seat and asked where I was from, then called me up to the stage with him. (luckily, the performers spoke English) He had me sit down on a chair in the middle of the stage and, much to my delight and horror, started serenading me, all the while folding a napkin rose that he gave to me at the end of his song. Just then, Red Chef burst in from the opposite side of the stage and serenaded me with a song of his own, throwing my napkin rose on the ground and replacing it with a real rose! The chefs began arguing over who's girl I was, which ended with Green Chef grabbing my rose, throwing it at Red Chef, and both of them storming off in opposite directions. Leaving me awkwardly alone and roseless on stage. Much to my relief, a stagehand motioned for me to go sit back down in the audience.

I watched the rest of the show from my own seat.

...... until the final cooking showdown.

And it was a showdown indeed! Both chefs cooked like mad to make their very best bidimbap! At the end, they called me back up to the stage to settle the competition once and for all! Although the food for most of the show had been fake, they brought out real bowls of bidimbap for me. I was so nervous as I tried them that my hands were shaking! Cutie Chef even asked if I was okay. I was, it was just so much pressure having to decide! They even brought me water between trying one bowl and the other, to be sure I cleansed my palate between the dishes.

When it came time for my decision, I was actually caught in a moral dilemma. You see, I liked Green Chef better, because he was funnier. But I liked Red Chef's bidimbap better!! I know it shouldn't have mattered to me who won, but I was caught between who to vote for. In the end, I decided I had to make it fair, judged solely on their cooking. Red Chef was the winner.

There was a short dance number, during which Cutie Chef told me to stay right where I was and not leave the stage! And then everyone else left.... except Green Chef. Awkwarddddddd! For a while, he just glared at me from across the stage. Then he pulled up a chair for me and told me to sit. Scared of his anger, I quickly obeyed. Then, to my terror, he pulled out a huge sashimi knife!! (and by "pulled out a huge sashimi knife," I really mean, "pretended like his arm was a huge sashimi knife," which was a running gag from the rest of the show.) He "threw" his knife, and I pretended to dodge them in my chair. He got frustrated with my lack of enthusiasm, insisting that I scream. I let out a half-hearted fake scream, which just left him more exasperated than before. He actually had one of the chefs come out and mime with him the proper response he was looking for. This time when he threw the knife at me, I let out a loud, heartfelt scream and flailed my arms like mad! Luckily, my terror satisfied him, and we could move on with the show.

At long last, Green Chef opted to try Red Chef's so-called amazing bidimbap. When he did, a look of rapture crossed his face and a new musical number started! And, much to my surprise, the cast dragged me into it with them. I followed their lead, dancing, jumping, and even taking props off set like they instructed! It was all horridly fun. In the end, I got to take a bow with the cast and head back to my seat. But before I could get there, Red and Green Chefs yelled, "STOP!" The look of condescension on their faces was horrid. They pointed to a chair left on the far right side of the stage. REALLY?! They were upset I left a chair on stage? I wasn't even part of the cast! But, regardless, I ran back up on stage to take it away as my final part of the show.

Overall, it was so fantastic! It was a ton of fun, especially since they involved me directly. They gave me a commemorative Bibap mug, too, as a souvenir. It was definitely an experience I will never forget!

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Awkward in Korea Round II

Well, I managed to achieve another awkward moment here in Korea, which I'm sure is no surprise to anyone. My friend Kate and I were going to visit the Konkuk University library for the first time, which was a struggle in and of itself. We heard that there was an English section, but we didn't know where. For a while, we wandered around aimlessly, hoping to stumble upon the section on one of the six floors. During our search, we heard an announcement in Korean accompanied by some music, but didn't think much of it. Eventually, we did manage to stumble upon the right section! We looked around for a while, searching for a book for a report we had to write, and then just browsing for fun.

When we were done, we started going down the long flights of stairs. Weirdly enough, they were really dark... And come to think of it, we hadn't seen anyone in the library for a while. Much to our dismay, we found the floors below the one we had been on were completely dark except for the evening light through the windows. When we finally got to the first floor, we discovered with panic that all the exits had been padlocked shut! But it was barely after 9 pm!

Yes, we definitely found ourselves locked in the library.

I guess that was what the announcement we heard earlier was about. A notification that the library was closing. Luckily, we found a kind security guard fairly quickly who was willing to let the stupid foreigners out of the library. Looking back on it, though... I kinda wish we had gotten locked in for the night. Wouldn't that be such a grand adventure? Let's be honest, most of us have dreamed about being locked in a library, a zoo, a mall, etc. overnight at least once.

Maybe next time I'll be lucky enough to be stuck in a foreign building overnight without a bed or any other comfort. One can only hope~!

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Gyeongju, Nami Island, and Volunteering

My Saturday was like a tourist's dream! I got to wake up at 6 am and spend a total of 10 hours on a bus! Okay, so maybe it was more like a tourist's nightmare when you look at it that way. But in spite of the long hours, it really was a fantastic trip! We went to Gyeongju, a small city outside of Seoul. It had such a different feel since it was so much more rural and relaxed! Almost every site we went to had beautiful trees colored bright red and yellow by the fall leaves. It was so gorgeous! We also got to see some cultural sites, like a temple, the oldest astronomical observatory in Asia, and tombs of the kings. The tombs were really odd! They looked just like small, weirdly perfectly shaped hills. The actual tombs were inside the hills, which were even covered with dirt and grass. A very unique way of burying the dead!

My second adventure of the weekend was Nami Island! Nami Island is a small island in the Han River about 2 hours outside of Seoul. Once we got to the ferry boarding site, though, my roommate and I opted to take a different route to the island. We took a zip line from the mainland to the island! It was one of the most terrifying and awesome things ever! It was fairly short, but it had a beautiful view of the river and island. Definitely worth my time and money. The island was really beautiful too! Nami Island is famous for it's beauty in the Fall. The more traditional, sleepy feeling of the island, like Gyeongju, was a pleasant change from the hustle and bustle of Seoul.

On our way back from Nami Island, my roommate and I stopped in Dongdaemun to see the Pikachu parade they were hosting there! This year, Korea won it's first Pokemon World Championship, and was holding a celebration in Dongdaemun. Thursday through Sunday there were supposed to be photo-ops with Pikachu and several Pikachu Parades each day. Unfortunately, once we got to Dongdaemun, we discovered the remaining Pikachu Parades had been cancelled! Apparently Koreans are so crazy about Pikachu that they had flooded the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and mobbed the Pikachus. There were so many people that it created a safety hazard and the rest of the parades had to be cancelled. (If you want an idea of how insanely cute and crazy this whole thing was, look at this article! http://www.soompi.com/2014/11/14/pikachu-invades-seoul/)

The last topic of discussion is what I did with my afternoon today. Rather than go to my marketing class, I joined a troupe of students volunteering in the community! Me and two other girls from my study abroad program teamed up with many other Korean students for about 4 hours to pass out a total of 3,000 charcoal briquettes to low-income households that still use the old heating systems that require the briquettes. Overall, it was a lot of fun, but a lot of work, too! Hauling huge briquettes up to houses on a hillside gets exhausting fast. But in the exhaustion, I also felt really encouraged! So many students showed up to help out! And none of them seemed to be complaining or anything. They really did seem genuinely happy to help out! It was a very refreshing view of community service. As a thank you for helping out, all the volunteers were given a cute plush charcoal briquette cell phone charm! It is so cute and totally Korean. I could definitely get used to a country like this!

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Pepero Day, Short Shorts Kid, and My Awkwardness

Today was 빼빼로 (Pepero) Day! For those of you who don't know Pepero, it's like the Korean brand equivalent to Pocky sticks, which are long, slender, rod-shaped biscuits dipped in chocolate. 11.11 is Pepero day, since the numbers resemble the shape of Pepero sticks. On Pepero Day, couples give each other Peppero in hopes of growing taller and thinner (which is ironic, since you're giving each other chocolate covered biscuits....). Me and my roommate decided to give each other Pepero to make up that neither of us have boyfriends in Korea. It's a perfect lonely-girl holiday: an excuse to be sad, eat chocolate, and complain about the fact that you're too short and stout. 

Now for the next subject in the random collection of stories that is this blog post... There's a kid in my Knit Textile Design class that my friend and I have officially dubbed "short shorts kid" due to his apparent affinity for strangely short cutoff jean shorts. Don't get me wrong, this kid is awesome! In my Knit class, the teacher explains the knit techniques to the whole class in Korean, and then teaches it to me and my friend again in English since we are the only two foreign students. It's pretty apparent that almost nobody else in the class speaks English. Except for short shorts kid! He speaks some limited English, and I always appreciate when he tries to use it. Last week in class, he asked me and my friend Serena if we dressed up for Halloween. I said that I didn't really do anything for Halloween. Serena told him that she dressed up as a school girl. Short Shorts kid got a really excited look on his face, and exclaimed gleefully, "ME TOO! I have a picture, let me show you..." I thought it was odd that he dressed up as a schoolgirl, but I attributed it to his limited English. He probably misunderstood. When he showed us the picture... Nope. He definitely understood. I found myself confusedly staring at a picture of him in a wig, makeup, and Japanese Harajuku schoolgirl uniform complete with short skirt. It was the funniest, strangest, most disturbing thing I have ever seen. Serena and I probably laughed for ten minutes straight, much to the satisfaction of short shorts kid. I have since decided that this is a kid I must be friends with. 

Today I also had my first horridly awkward school blunder in Korea. I was heading to my Global Fashion Marketing class, and as I was opening the door to the classroom, I heard a teacher's voice inside and saw everyone else was already in class! Panicked by the fact that I was late, I raced into the classroom as everyone stared at me (since the door to the classroom is in the very front) and took the first seat I could. Once the initial panic wore off, a new kind of panic set in. I realized the teacher was talking in 100% Korean. And I didn't recognize anyone else in the class. Turns out, I got to class 15 minutes early and had accidentally joined the tail end of the class before mine! At that moment, I was faced with a choice... remain in the classroom and endure the shame or leave and not only be shamed again, but interrupt the class again with my exit. I decided the first option was probably less disrespectful, so I sucked it up and just joined the last 10 minutes of the class. It was more awkward than I can even put into words. 

In conclusion.... Pepero Day is awesome, Short Shorts Kid is awesome, and I'm just awkward. 

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Demilitarized Zone, Joint Security Area, and the Trick Eye Museum

Not too long ago, I had the change to go see the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea as well as the Joint Security Area (JSA). It was a tour that my study abroad program booked for all the students here in Korea, but it was different from our other excursions because Jaehoon, the employee who usually serves as our tour guide, wasn't allowed to enter the DMZ. In fact, no South Korean citizens are allowed to go in, even for organized tours.

In case you don't know, the Demilitarized Zone is a sort of buffer zone between North and South Korea. It's about 2 1/2 miles wide and includes military outposts from both sides, the JSA (which is essentially a military camp on the official boundary between the North and South), and several small villages.

A group of myself and about 30 other people boarded a bus with our tour guide and set off for the border. The excitement started almost immediately, with our tour guide briefing us on our way there. He informed us that there was a long list of taboo clothing items such as ripped jeans, sleeveless shirts, mini skirts, short pants, military cloth, exercise clothes, round neck t shirts, and sandals, but if we needed to change he had extra clothing we could use. Next, he told us that there is a strict NO PICTURE policy unless he specifically informs us that it is okay to take pictures. There is also no communication allowed with the Northern people, troops, or personnel, including pointing, waving, etc. Lastly, the only thing you can carry with you is your camera and whatever you can fit in your pockets. There are no purses, backpacks, etc. allowed in case something happens and you have to make a run for it. Scary, right? There were also three separate security points we had to pass through, and they checked the passport of every passenger at each one.

There's a lot I could say bout the DMZ and JSA, but I'll try to keep it rather short. There were a lot of interesting facts along the way. For example, on the road to the DMZ we kept passing huge concrete walls on either side of the road. Turns out, those were anti-tank walls. In case of an attack, TNT can be used to topple the walls onto the road, effectively blocking North Korean tanks. Also, all the soldiers at the DMZ are required to wear sunglasses at all times, regardless of the weather, because staring contests or "eye fighting" became common between the Northern and the Southern soldiers. 

One fascinating thing we got to see was the Bridge of No Return. Basically, it was a bridge connecting the Northern and Southern countries, over which prisoners of war were returned at the end of the war. North Koreans held captive by the South were given the option to stay or return to their homeland in the North. But once they made there decision and crossed the bridge, there would be no opportunity to return. Hence, the name. 

We also got to see the JSA, which has the military demarcation line run through it. We entered one rectangular building in the JSA, and our tour guide told us to look out the window at a rectangular cement block on the ground outside. He then informed us that the block was the official dividing line between North Korean and South Korean territory, and we were standing on the North side! Although it's allowed in that building, it was still a weird feeling to be in North Korea. Not very many people they've been in North Korea and returned safely! 

Overall, the tour was pretty awesome and educational as well!

Switching to a completely different and much lighter topic... I went to Hongdae last weekend and did some very fun things! To start with, we went to a sheep cafe! Literally, a place where you can buy coffee, juice, waffles, etc. and then pet sheep. Yep. There was a little pen outside the cafe with very clean, well-kept sheep. It was pretty odd but pretty fun! 

Next, we visited the Trick Eye Museum. It's basically a museum of paintings and props that, if you take a picture of it at a certain angle, make very unrealistic scenes look very real. For example, you can make it look like you're in a famous painting or like you're being eaten by a giant fish. It's very fun to do and you get some hilarious picture from it! 

But even more impressive than the Trick Eye Museum was the Ice Museum we got free admission to with our purchase of Trick Eye Museum tickets. It is literally a huge room that is kept at a temperature below freezing and there are all sorts of ice sculptures you can pose with! There are igloos, Santa's sleigh, a horse-drawn carriage... there's even an ice slide you can go down! There's also an entire, life-size living room and bedroom, including chairs, a television, a bed, a fireplace, and even a piano... all made of ice!! It was very impressive. Super cool.

But anyways, I'm tired of writing and you're tired of reading, so I'll sum it all up in one statement: South Korea is an endless fountain of fun things to do that will take your breath away!

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Everland: Halloween & Horror Nights

I sincerely apologize that my blogging lately has been, well, virtually nonexistent. The past two weeks have been so busy that I simply didn't have time. Two weeks ago was midterms week, so that kept me very occupied. All I'll say about midterms is that I don't think I failed any of them, but my GPA may certainly go down this semester. And that's all I'll bore you with about that.

To celebrate conquering our midterms, a group of friends and I went go to visit Everland, a popular amusement park in Seoul. It was good timing, because it was approaching the end of their Halloween & Horror Nights, which is their 'haunted' section of the park to celebrate Halloween.

I was really amazed by how beautiful Everland was! All of the building facades were themed and decorated, much like Disneyland. And there was one hill where you had a beautiful view of all the buildings, with a flower garden and fountain in the middle! So beautiful.

Not only did Everland have rides, food stands, and the other usual park attractions, it also had a miniature zoo and kpop hologram concerts! There was a safari area in the park, where you could walk around and see animals in exhibits such as tigers, polar bears, lions, fennic foxes, and kangaroos! In addition to that, there were two different safari rides you could go on to see lions, bears, hyenas, and giraffes up close and personal! It was actually a bit scary, since you were on a tour bus and there were no fences between you and the animals. Some of them were actually close enough to the bus that, if the windows weren't there, you could reach out and touch them! Overall, a very cool experience.

The kpop hologram concerts were very unique as well! It is exactly what the name implies. You go into a room with a fake stage, and they have concerts that they filmed with popular Korean pop artists and they play a hologram of the concert. It may sound futuristic to foreigners, but it's totally normal here in Korea. The hologram is so realistic, too! I was taken aback by how real the hologram people looked.

Everland was fun, but the reason we really went was for the special Halloween & Horror Nights attractions! One of the first things we did in the park was get zombie makeovers. There was an area where you could pay for a makeup artist to make you look like you had just been through the apocalypse! Packages ranged from approximately $5 to $30, and the size/severity of your fake wounds were determined by how much you paid. I broke the bank for the $30 package, but it was totally worth it! You can find pictures of it on my facebook page.

The other attraction that I was dead-set on seeing for Halloween & Horror Nights was the Haunted Safari. My roommate had gone to Everland earlier in the year, and said it was definitely a must-do while in Seoul. It was the one thing I was looking forward to all day! So, around 6:30 pm when it started to get dark, we all headed over to the ticket booth to buy ourselves a ticket.

BUT THEY WERE COMPLETELY SOLD OUT!! That realization was even scarier than the ride would have been! That ride was the one reason I wanted to go to Everland in the first place! Needless to say, I was completely devastated. Halloween & Horror Nights only lasted until Halloween, so I wouldn't even be able to go back the next weekend, since it would already be over. The obvious solution to this? Skip classes and go back to Everland two days later! (If you think I'm kidding... No. I am 100% serious.)

So, for the second time in three days, I made the 2-hour trip to Everland, bought myself another ticket to the park, and tried not to worry too much about the classes I was skipping. And let me tell you... it was totally worth it. I do not regret my decision one bit. Let me tell you about the Horror Safari!

Imagine this... you're completely alone as you board a safari tour bus, lit only by very dim, red overhead lights. Looking out the window, all you can see is the tree line slightly illuminated by the bus's headlights. An exhausted, terrified tour guide stumbles onto the bus, spouting out Korean words between gasps for air. All you can do is hope he isn't saying anything important, since you can't understand a word he is saying. The bus starts to move, coming up to a metal gate that slowly slides open and you drive through. Welcome to the haunted safari compound.

The tour guide continues to speak in Korean as you drive through the safari filled with sights that bring chills: bloody smears, warning signs, and a tour bus identical to yours, except that it's been attacked and bloodied bodies lay around it. Not much later, you hear a scream from the front of the bus. As you crane your neck to see over everyone else, you hear a THUMP right next to you. Turning, you see a bloody-faced zombie outside your window, pounding the window with it's fist, staring at you with blank eyes. The tour guide starts screaming at you in Korean, and the bus driver speeds up.

However, there's a problem. A zombie is standing in the middle of the road! Before you can tell him to stop, the tour guide opens the doors to the bus to get out and fight to get the zombie out of the way. While he's taking care of the zombie in the road, another zombie stumbles onto the bus through the open door and stumbles down the aisle. Everyone is screaming and nobody has any idea what to do other than scream even more loudly. Just before the zombie can attack, the tour guide makes it back to the bus and pushes the zombie back out the door.

For a while, the ride goes without major disruption (other than the zombies constantly surrounding the bus and beating on the windows). But then you round the next corner and see it: there are more zombies in the road. Way more than there were before! Everyone panics as the tour guide starts screaming instructions in Korean and suddenly everyone stands up. Why are they standing?! The tour guide opens the doors and all the Koreans make a mad dash for the door. No way! You have no choice but to follow, running out of the bus and dodging zombies (in case you are wondering, there are no rules about them not being able to touch you in Korea. Some people were literally getting grabbed by zombies.). You don't even know where the exit is, you're just hoping the Koreans know.

Finally, you make it to the safety of the exit gate. There are severed heads hanging from the ceiling, but they're nothing compared to the terror of the zombies. Finally, the tour guide catches up with the group and goes to unlock the gate. As he's unlocking it, you hear a click. Suddenly, all the severed heads are dropping toward the ground! I've never heard screams so loud in my life. Luckily, that's the last of the scares, and everyone escapes to the safety of the amusement park.

Overall, it was pretty darn terrifying! The ticket cost an extra $5 since it's a special attraction, but it was totally worth it!

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Should Have Been Studying.....

This upcoming week is Midterms! So, naturally, I should have spent the whole weekend studying. Emphasis on the "should." Like any good college student, I spent 100% of the weekend talking about how I should be studying and 5% of the weekend actually studying. But this weekend I made some fantastic memories, so I'll ignore the fact that I'm going to have no life this week to make up for my lack of previous studying.

Saturday, we (myself and four other friends) kicked off our weekend with a trip to Hongdae to for brunch! We went to a little restaurant that served American breakfast food. I got a waffle, sausage, bacon, and hash browns. It was so nice to have a real American breakfast! The waitresses even spoke English! Such a nice taste of home.

After breakfast, we headed to You Are Here, a cafe owned by some famous YouTube bloggers, Simon and Martina of "Eat Your Kimchi." We didn't actually see Simon and Martina, but it was fun to visit their cafe. We all got coffee and settled in for an afternoon of homework. We all got out our notes and highlighters, ready to tackle the task ahead! And then we discovered that we all had snapchat. The next hour was spent adding each other on snapchat, sending derpy pictures, and sharing funny doodles we had done during class. Miraculously, after the initial distraction, we did manage to actually study! .... for about an hour. Then we relapsed into the previous chaos of snapchats and laughter. At that point, we concluded that were going to be unable to do any more homework.

On our way back from the cafe, we stopped by the Dongdaemun History and Culture Museum because Chris (a kid from my study abroad group, not my boyfriend who shares his name) heard that Seoul Fashion Week was going on. Unsure what to expect, we made a quick stop and were amazed by what we saw. Never before have I seen so many well-dressed people! We felt horridly out of place in our "studying" clothes. We left very quickly, but decided to go back the next day when we were able to plan better outfits. Of course, at that point, I realized that I had absolutely nothing to wear that was fit for Seoul Fashion Week! So the entire rest of the evening was spent in search of the perfect Fashion Week outfit. I kid you not, I was out until midnight that night searching for the right thing. Finally, I was satisfied with a purchase. (side note about Korean shopping: often times, Koreans will use really offensive English, but I can't figure out if it's on purpose or not. Sometimes shirts and hats will have really bad language, and the songs they play in stores can be awful! It's almost funny sometimes, though. For example, when I went shopping, one store played a song where the only lyrics in the entire song were "Where's my cocaine? Wh-Wh-Where's my cocaine?")

Sunday afternoon, we headed out for Dongdaemun.Seoul Fashion Week is extremely accessible to the public, almost surprisingly so. It took place at Dongdaemun History and Culture Park from October 17-20. There were a total of three different runways, which allowed for a different show to take place almost every half hour for 12 hours each day. This added up to almost 100 shows total throughout the week! I was only able to attend one show, but I was able to draw several conclusions through my trip to Seoul Fashion Week.

First of all, although the fashion shows were much anticipated, going to Seoul Fashion week was almost as much about the other attendees as the designer shows. Since the event took place in a public area, anyone could attend for free (except for seating for the shows), so it was very accessible to the public. There was always a large crowd, highly saturated with photographers looking for stylish laypeople to photograph. It wasn’t uncommon for photographers to ask people attending to let them take a photo for various fashion blogs.

The actual clothing in the shows was very intriguing as well. The cut of all the clothing was much more conservative and modest than American shows. There was also a lack of color that seemed very uncharacteristic for a spring/summer show. Almost all of the clothing was made in earthy tones, with splashes of white here and there. In the show I saw, all the models were also wearing vans-like slip-on shoes rather than the stilettos so typical of American runway shows.

In general, Koreans tend to dress up more than Americans. Wearing sweatpants in public is almost unheard of here. Koreans have a very acute sense of style, and that fashion sense made Seoul Fashion Week a designer’s dream!

Although I probably should have been studying, I don't regret the activities I chose instead one bit.

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Fireworks and Sticker Pictures!

Every year, Seoul hosts an International Fireworks Festival along the Han River. Last weekend, a group of my friends decided to brave the crowds and go see the fireworks display. We were sure to arrive plenty early, since we read online that somewhere around 1 million people attend the festival. It gets so busy that sometimes the subway doesn't even stop at the station closest to the festival because it is so crowded!

When we arrived 5 hours before the fireworks were supposed to start, we were astounded by how many people were already at the festival! Some people even had tents set up, obviously camping out all day for the fireworks.We found an empty patch of grass and set up camp for the day. We spent the hours walking around the booths at the festival, napping in the sun, and taking in the scenic view of the Han River. It was so fun and relaxing!

Finally, it got dark and the fireworks show started! It It was a 1 1/2 hour long show that showcased the best of fireworks from four countries: Canada, Japan, France, and Korea. Although I normally get bored of fireworks pretty quickly, this show kept me entertained the whole time! Since it was like 4 mini-shows, there were enough impressive finales to keep me interested the whole time. It was truly a beautiful show! It got a little awkward when Canada apologized for their fireworks being so bright and loud, though. (Just kidding. That didn't actually happen.)

Although the days following the firework festival were fairly boring, yesterday was tons of fun! I met up with my Korean friend Hanna for a day of fun. Ironically, the subway station we met at happened to have a festival going on! It was Hangul Proclamation Day, which is a national holiday celebrating the establishment of the Korean alphabet, so there were lots of stalls selling goods. That was a cool surprise!

After exploring the festival for a while, we did some classic Korean activities: taking sticker pictures and going to a multi-room! Sticker pictures were super fun. They're somewhat similar to photo booths in the States, but significantly better in every way possible! You go into a booth like in the states, but it's much more roomy. On top of that, you also get to pick from a myriad of different backgrounds, including ones with fake props. For example, Hanna and I chose one in a prison and one with a toilet. You take 8 pictures, and then you get to pick your 4 favorite to actually save. Once you finish taking the pictures, they're electronically sent to another booth where you decorate them. You can draw on them, add stickers, etc. There are so many possibilities! Then you decide how you want them laid out on a page, and they're printed out! You take them home, cut them apart, and stick them to everything you can find. If you want to see the sticker pictures Hanna and I took, you can find them on my facebook! (I'm especially fond of the one where Hanna is coming out of the toilet.)

Next, we wandered over to the multi-room! A multi-room is essentially a place where you rent a "room" to watch tv/movies, eat snacks, play games, etc. However, you have to understand what the rooms actually are. It's not an entire room. It's more like the size of a decent dressing room. You also have to take off your shoes, because the entire floor is like a giant couch. It's squishy and comfy. And if you go out the curtain-door and down the hall, there's a complimentary snack room! You can have your choice of cookies, tea, coffee, crackers, toast, and even gelato! You get access to the room, games, snacks, and TV for 2 1/2 hours for roughly $8. It's a pretty good deal, all things considered! Especially if you split the room with friends. Overall, my day with Hanna was super fantastic!

My stay here in Korea has been so fantastic. I've seen so many things and had so many unique experiences. It's been very... comfortable. However, I'm worried that it's been a little too comfortable. I don't feel like I've made a lot of Korean friends or really connected with the culture as much as I'd like. So I'm going to challenge myself with an America fast! This next week, I've decided to give up all American music and television. (I'm not quite brave enough to cut out all American food yet!) I'm hoping it'll help me connect a little more with Korean culture and maybe even improve my language skills. If all goes well, I'll extend the experiment longer than a week. Wish me luck!

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Weekend in Busan

This weekend, I had the opportunity to bid farewell to the beautiful city of Seoul in order to visit Busan. Busan is home to beautiful beaches and boasts the title of second largest city in Korea (the largest being Seoul, of course.). My study abroad group all hopped onto the KTX, which is a high-speed train that connects multiple locations throughout Seoul. The KTX is fantastic and cuts travel time significantly! On my trip, our train reached 295 km/hr, which is over 180 mph. It's near impossible to tell it is going that fast unless you look at the speed information they displayed on the television screens, since the ride is so smooth. The KTX train has actually reduced the travel time to anywhere in South Korea to under 3 hours.

Once we arrived in Busan, our first stop was Haeundae Beach, the most famous beach in Korea. (Actually, the very first thing we did was grab lunch. We went to the restaurant that one of the characters in the movie Old Boy eats dumplings at! I'm sure it would have been much more exciting if I had actually seen Old Boy....) Luckily, we missed the peak tourism season for the beach, since there can be as many as 1 million visitors to the fairly small beach on the busiest days. It's also known for it's prolific presence of beach umbrellas. One day, just under 8,000 umbrellas were present, lining the entire beach in row after row. This seems to be an occurrence Koreans are strangely proud of. They even had a picture of it on an informational stand at the beach. But anyway, I digress... the beach was beautiful! The water was significantly warmer than what I'm used to on the West Coast. There were also seashells all over! Koreans must not love seashells as much as Americans do. But I think the best thing of all about the beach was... no sand crabs! That was a very welcome change. We did, however, find a spider on the beach. Which was actually worse.

After our trip to the beach, we brushed the sand off our feet and headed to Haedong Younggung Temple. This temple is unique because, unlike other temples, it isn't nestled in the mountains. Instead, it is on the coastline and has a beautiful view of the ocean! Although I'm sure the temple is gorgeous normally, it was definitely infested with flying ants when we went. So it was hard to focus on anything other than swatting away the beasts. And avoiding all the spiders who were no-doubt enjoying the prolific insects. So we got out of there pretty fast.

And this marks the end of day one! The study abroad program booked a pretty nice hotel for us, so we all slept pretty well. And in the morning, the study abroad program bought us a Starbucks breakfast! We were all thankful for the free food and the taste of home.

Breakfast was followed by a boat tour! But before I get to the actual boat part, let me tell you about the shuttle ride to the dock. We parked our party bus ("party bus" is the term we endearingly gave our private tour bus for the stay at Busan. It was a small-ish bus painted plain black with windows tinted so intensely that nobody could ever in a million years see in.) in the parking lot and all crammed into a small shuttle van. We sat 4 people to a row, even though I'm pretty sure the seats were designed to fit 3 per row. The shuttle driver proceeded to drive as recklessly as possible down a steep, curvy road to the dock. It was terrifying, but we all survived! And the boat trip was gorgeous. It gave us a good overview of the coast. The Korean coastline actually reminds me a lot of Oregon! It's very green: lots of trees and foliage. It's also pretty rocky. The coast is predominantly rock cliffs, with some sandy beaches in between. The seagulls also seemed to be a tourist attraction on the boat ride! That's completely foreign to me. You could even buy bags of "seagull snacks" before we left to feed to the seagulls as we took our tour. I'm used to the mindset that seagulls are a nuisance and the goal of their existence is to be rude and terrifying. But the Korean people seemed to love the seagulls. In their defense, the seagulls actually were cuter and less evil there.

Our last stop in Busan was the markets. First, we went to the famous Jagalchi Fish Market, which is the largest fish market in South Korea. And oh my word, that description does not do it justice! I've never seen so much seafood before in my life. Pike's Place seriously had nothing on Jagalchi! And you could get your fish in so many different ways... live, cooked, dried... It was both amazing and disgusting at the same time. And "fish market" isn't really accurate. There were fish, shellfish, squid, eel, octopi... pretty much any sort of living thing you can imagine within the ocean. It was quite gross, actually. But then we crossed the street and went to a normal sort of market. The kind that sells corn dogs and phone cases and things of that sort. That part was really fun! We got lots of delicious street food (like waffles and hodok and curry kare pan) and looked in some of the cute shops.

Although it was a horridly fun weekend, we were all ready to head back to Seoul. It was absolutely exhausting! I know we will all sleep well tonight.

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My Busy Week.....

This week has been absolutely full of adventures! Which is both wonderful and absolutely exhausting. Totally worth it, though! Just a warning.. this is a rather lengthy post since I've done so much. Read on, if you dare!

The first adventure was the Hello Kitty Cafe! I met up with Hanna, one of my best friends from high school, and she took me to the cafe in Hongdae. It was so crazy cute! I posted pictures on facebook. The entire cafe is pink! Even the exterior was pink. I ordered a latte and cake, both of which resembled Hello Kitty. The latte had the cinnamon on top sprinkled in the shape of her face, and the entire cake was made in her likeness. It was pretty much the cutest thing ever! But the sweets in Korea are significantly less sweet than in America, so the cake wasn't very tasty. I'm still really glad I got to go, though!

My second adventure was to the War Memorial of Korea. Ironically, I didn't go to the museum to learn about the Korean war... I definitely just went to go see the One Piece exhibit they had this month... For those of you who don't know, One Piece is an extremely popular anime/manga series (and for those of you who may not know what anime/manga is, anime is the Asian style of cartoon show and manga is Asian style comic books). The anime has over 650 episodes and is nowhere near done yet! So they had a whole exhibition in the museum dedicated to the popular series. It's really hard to accurately describe the exhibit. It was very impressive! The whole thing was in a castle-like motif, so all the walls were textured like stone bricks, and each room included figures of the characters, interactive exhibits, clips from the anime playing on projectors, etc. I took a ton of pictures, so I'll get those up on facebook soon! It was incredibly fun to see the exhibit, but it was also the most nerdy I have ever felt in my life....

My third adventure was a two-part adventure! The Konkuk University Festival! Each university in Korea has an annual festival. The festivals are usually held in Spring, but Konkuk delayed their festival because of the tragic ferryboat incident that occurred last spring. So Wednesday and Thursday were bustling with excitement as the festival took place for literally two days straight. The daytime included music, demonstrations put on by clubs like the Kendo and dance clubs, and booths stretching in all directions of students selling food, juice, crafts, etc. But things don't get really exciting until the evening, when everyone is done with classes! Some of the booths (like the crafts) close up so that the students running them can go have fun. Other booths begin opening at night. The most popular ones were booths selling alcoholic beverages and booths that were essentially restaurants: they had tables, menus, and very long lines to get in! The pathways of campus were absolutely filled with people, both students and members of the nearby community coming to enjoy the festivities. In addition to the booths, there were also concerts throughout the night by fairly famous kpop stars as well as DJ dance parties out in the school's amphitheater. To me, the festival seemed to perfectly sum up the Korean "going-out" culture: things don't get exciting until it gets dark, and then the night is meant to be enjoyed!  In my dorm, our curfew is 1 am. If we stay out past then, we get a penalty point. However, even the dorms cancelled curfew for the festival! The latest I was out at the festival was 3 am, and when I left there were still plenty of Korean students out and about. it really was amazing! Why do we not have these in the states?!

My fourth adventure was going to see a movie in 4D! Well I guess that was actually two adventures in one... I met up with Hanna for this, but I ended up getting to the subway stop we were supposed to meet at a whole 2 hours early. Luckily for me, the stop just so happened to be right next to Yeongdeungpo Rotary Underground Shopping Center! So I spent two hours perusing the underground shopping mall. Once Hanna got there, we headed to the movie theater to see Maze Runner in 4D! The theater was really nice, but again very different from those in America. First of all, you had way more food choices! There were a variety of different food vendors, selling burgers, hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, and even coffee! They didn't just sell normal popcorn though, there was a stand dedicated to all sorts of different gourmet popcorns. Hanna and I got both onion and caramel popcorn. Both were delicious! And the 4D experience was absolutely incredible. It was seriously like an amusement park ride. The seats would move (sometimes in conjunction with the characters, sometimes in conjunction with the camera angle), it would blow air at you (like when a knife would fly right past the main character), provide smells (when they were in the forest, it actually smelled like trees!), and even poke you in the back with a roller ball thing (the monsters in the movie had stingers, and every time they would sting someone, it would poke you! That was pretty terrifying.). Unfortunately, I was very upset about the actual movie. I was a huge fan of the Maze Runner book, and the movie wasn't really a movie adaption of the book. It was a movie loosely based on the general concept of the book. They changed way too much, and maybe I'm just bitter about that, but I didn't like it. The 4D made it totally worth a watch, though! Definitely not a waste of money.

My last adventure was climbing Mt. Dobongsan. My study abroad group went with our Korean "buddies" that were set up by the university. From what I had heard about the mountain, I expected it to be a pretty easy hike. One lady I met in the subway even told me it was the mountain where all the old people went to hike. When we arrived, our group was surprised that most people there seemed to have pretty heavy-duty hiking equipment: hiking boots, hardcore outdoor clothes, and even the mountain climbing walking sticks. Didn't they know the hike was pretty easy? Wow, were we ever wrong! The hike turned out to be really intense! The entire way was really steep, and consisted of climbing up rock after rock. There were hardly any nice, relatively flat paths like hiking in America. It was essentially climbing up rock stairs most of the way. But our group struggled through it! About halfway up, we stopped on a giant rock flat to eat lunch. At that point we were all tired and drenched in sweat! After lunch, we separated into two groups: the weak group and the strong group. The weak group called it quits and went back down the mountain. The strong group powered through the second, more difficult, half of the hike to reach the top. I figured I was already halfway up, why not just finish the hike? So I joined three other American students, one Korean student, and my study abroad leader and made the trek. It was very intense! And to get to the summit, the last bit of the hike was absolutely insane. It was literally just a rock face slanted at almost a 90 degree angle. You had to climb up it, relying heavily on the provided handrail for support. It was fun, difficult, and terrifying all at the same time! I really don't feel like talking about it even does it justice. But the view from the top of the mountain was gorgeous! You could see the surrounding forest, some other mountains, and the city of Seoul. I felt so accomplished! The hike back down, although easier, was also more dangerous. At a lot of points on the mountain, there was a lot of dry, loose dust and gravel. It was pretty common for us to slip. But nobody got hurt, so praise the Lord! We made it to the bottom safely and all went out to Samgyeopsal, which is Korean Barbecue. What a wonderful and absolutely exhausting day! What amazed me was that the lady in the subway was kinda right... there were a ton of old Korean people hiking the mountain! How are they able to do that?! I'm young, but I pretty much had a heart attack climbing that thing! It made me realize that maybe there is a lot more truth than I thought to the stereotype that Americans are lazy.  Hopefully I'll still be out climbing mountains when I'm old!

Well, that finally brings me to the end of my adventures for this week! Hopefully I'll get a little more rest in the days ahead. I can't complain, though! It's been amazing!

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KBaseball!

Today I got the chance to go cheer on one of the Seoul baseball teams, the LG Twins! Although the actual game is played the same way as in the USA, the experience of spectating was much different.

First Difference: The teams aren't named after the cities of their origin (ex: Boston Red Sox), but after the companies that sponsor them. So the two teams I saw play were the LG Twins and the Samsung Lions! Very interesting.

Second Difference: The food they serve is very different than the states! They did have KFC, Burger King, and Dominoes food stands, but they were far outnumbered by traditional Korean foods. There were stands selling Bulgogi (a thick, spicy noodle), Kimbop (rice, veggies, and meat wrapped in seaweed; similar to sushi), soju (a popular Korean alcoholic drink), squid, onion pancakes, and a myriad of other foods I didn't even recognize. The Korean food was much more prolific as well as significantly less expensive.

Third Difference: Crowd participation. This was probably the most significant difference of all! Being a spectator at a game is more about having fun than actually watching the game. There were times when I didn't even realize the next inning had started because I was so distracted by the crowd! The main way spectators participated was through cheers. The crowd does cheers through pretty much the entire game, regardless of if their team is winning or losing. And it isn't like American cheers where there is just one that the crowd sings like once every 15 minutes. Not only did each team have a cheer, but each player had their own specific cheer as well! The crowd was doing cheers pretty much back-to-back. It was horridly fun! I was also pleasantly surprised to find that 'the wave' is popular in Korean baseball games as well! And they're way better at it. Each wave made it around the entire stadium at least once and got nearly 100% of people to participate. They also varied the speeds! The first wave was normal speed, but it was followed by a slow-motion wave and then a double-speed wave. There were also games to get the crowd involved, too! They had a Kiss Cam like in the states, but with a unique spin. First, they would play a kiss scene from a popular TV drama. Then, they would show a couple on the screen and they would have to kiss but they would have to recreate the scene from the drama as best they could! It was really cute. There were also games like a race and a drinking contest where contestants could win prizes like a new phone or a camping set. It was so fun to watch!

Even though I'm not a huge sports fan, the game was thoroughly enjoyable. The energy within the crowd felt tangible! Especially since our team, the Twins, beat the Lions 12-3, even though the Lions are ranked #1 and the Twins are ranked #4!  Yet another wonderful experience in the beautiful country of South Korea.

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Bus Tour

Today I met up with Kate and her roommate at 6:40 am to take a bus to the countryside. All I really knew about the trip before I showed up was that, somehow, there were going to be sheep involved. I hadn't even met Kate's roommate yet! But the day ended up being a ton of fun.

We took a tour bus to the countryside 2 1/2 hours outside of Seoul. Our first stop was the Hyoseok Cultural Festival! It's a festival that coincides with the short blooming season of a beautiful white flower (the name of which I am completely unaware of). The festival consisted of a marketplace, traditional forms of entertainment, and a huge field of the little white flowers! There was a path you could take through the field that had photo ops along the way as well. It reminded me of the Tulip Festival in Oregon! Walking through the marketplace was odd, though. It felt like being at Farmer's Market, except that I had no idea what anything was! I did get to try a sample of octopus while I was there, though! That was very interesting... it didn't taste awful, but the texture was grossly chewy. Long story short, octopus definitely did not make my "favorite foods" list.

Our next stop was the "sheep pasture." Odd thing to make an attraction out of, isn't it? It was literally just a huge pasture on a hill that had sheep in it. There was a path that went around the entire thing (which was actually a really good workout!) and some food/souvenir stands, but that was all. Us Americans were like, "Well, it's a really beautiful place, but... is this seriously it? Just a hill with some sheep on it?" But it turns out sheep are actually really rare in Korea! For Kate's Korean roommate, that was the first time she had seen a real, live sheep! It was really cute how excited she was about it, too.

After our stop at the sheep pasture, it was time to go home! On the bus ride back, Kate's roommate taught me how to say some important Korean phrases like, "I missed you a lot," "Awkward," "Excuse me," and the name of a food dish that is the equivalent of a Korean elephant ear (the dessert served at fairs, not an actual elephant's ear). You know, the essentials.

Once I arrived back at my dorm, I asked my roommate about her day. Very nonchalantly, she informed me that she went to the dentist because she was in so much pain that she couldn't sleep last night, and it turns out she had to get her wisdom teeth removed. So that's what she did with her day! Crazy, right? But she said it didn't really hurt. And on top of that, getting her teeth removed, xrays, and the appropriate meds only cost her about $50! The moral of the story: if you're going to have your wisdom teeth removed, Korea is the place to do it!

Overall, today was a very good day! (more fun than my roommate's, at least!) It was nice getting the chance to see a part of Korea outside of Seoul. The difference is absolutely incredible! Seoul is the epitome of a large city. But the Korean countryside is the total opposite! It actually reminded me a lot of Oregon, because it was so incredibly green, and all you could see is green hills all around! It was wonderful to see landscape similar to home, but also a little bittersweet.

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Culture Chanel Exhibit

           Somewhat on accident, a group of study abroad students and I wandered upon the Culture Chanel exhibit at the Dongdaemun Design Plaza today! What a stroke of good luck! My Global Fashion Marketing teacher had actually even recommended the fashion students go to this exhibit if they got the chance, since it chronicles the work of Danielle Chanel. The exhibit included many pieces from the House of Chanel on loan to the museum that showcased Chanel’s designs as well as her inspiration and sketches. There was also a room where they screened Chanel commercials for Chanel perfume as old as the 1970’s and as new as 2014. As a fashion major, it was so horridly interesting! 

            The part I found most interesting about the exhibit was the fashion sketches. The art side of design has always been more interesting to me than the actual construction of garments.  It was fascinating to see pages from sketchbooks that included sketches of the outfits as well as ideas for fabric patterns, and then see the clothing in which they were actually executed. The outfit sketches actually really surprised me! They were very rough and not very detailed. They almost seemed amateur. However, I guess they got the general idea across enough to create a garment from.

            The commercials were very interesting to watch as well. Advertising a high-fashion brand is almost always more about advertising the “ideal” you want to create than actually showcasing the specific products you’re selling. For example, many advertisements will only include one or two articles of clothing, but the setting and feel of the ad will convey the type of woman you will supposedly become by wearing the clothing/accessories: beautiful, edgy, etc. Chanel’s commercials all told a story. They almost all followed the same pattern. It started with a clip of a girl putting on Chanel perfume. The perfume was in the frame for maybe 5 seconds. Then it completely moved on from the perfume to a story about a girl catching the attention of at least one attractive man. The perfume got very little screen time, but the commercials were very successful and convincing. It was fascinating.

            Overall, the exhibit was a great experience! I loved learning that Gabrielle Chanel lived a largely nomadic life, which influenced her designs and kept them fresh. This was very encouraging, since I’m studying abroad with the same hope: to broaden my design influences and understand the global market in a more intimate way. Hopefully I can apply this trip to Korea, as well as my visit to the Culture Chanel, in a practical way in my designs.

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KChurch!

Today was my first experience at a Korean Church! And it was pretty awesome. My Mission Mentor, Borra, invited me to go to hers. At first I had a bit of a bad attitude about it, since it meant I had to wake up early to take an hour long subway ride by myself (including changing lines and everything! I'm so proud of myself for not getting lost). But it was totally worth it!

For the first service, I joined the Youth Group to help out as a sort of guest leader. There was worship, a message, and then we broke out into small groups. I joined Borra in the group for 11th graders. They were all really cool, albeit a tad shy. It's an English speaking church, so most of them were from the United States or Canada originally. One girl was even looking into going to George Fox! That was pretty cool. I really like the kids there and hopefully I can help out on a more permanent basis.

After first service, a group of us went out to lunch. The group included mostly the adult leaders from the Youth Group, but a couple of the kids came with us, too. It was so fun! Everyone is so welcoming.

For second service, I went to the adult service. It was so interesting to compare it to my church back home! The service was held in largely the same way, but there were definitely some differences since it was a Korean church. For example, the pastor was much more animated than pastors in the States. They also say the Apostle's Creed, Lord's Prayer, and sing the Benediction at each service. But I think the biggest difference was in how vocal the congregation was. People could shout their "amens" whenever they wanted during the service, although it definitely wasn't overdone. But there was also a time for prayer when everyone prayed their own prayers... but out loud. At the same time. It was a very unique thing to hear!

Korean churches also cultivate a very close community. After the service, tons of people went up to the church coffee shop to get coffee and hang out. Oh, that's another thing!! The church building was very nontraditional. There are some churches here that fit our stereotype perception of a church, but this one that I went to was part of another building. A school takes up the first two floors of the building and the church takes place on floors three and four. It was very odd! The layout still confuses me. But back to the church community... I spent probably an hour following Borra around while she talked to a bunch of people in the coffee shop. She's so popular! Every time we were about to leave, her husband would come up and say, "Oh, so-and-so is looking for you!" But finally we made it out of the coffee shop and Borra, her husband, another couple, and I went out for smoothies. It was really fun! They are all super cool. We drank smoothies and competed in this game on Borra's iPad. Even after that, they were all going out to dinner and then to see one of the church members who was sick. But I had had a really long day and was ready to come home, so I left a little early.

Overall, "going to church" turned into a 7 hour event! But it was really fun and I'm excited to go again next week!

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Korean Classes

Both fortunately and unfortunately, our week of hardcore tourism is over and classes have begun! It's nice to be able to relax a little more, rather than running around the city for 12 hours each day. However, I do miss the rush of fun activities. Classes have been very interesting though!

I've been lucky enough to have all of my classes taught in English. Some students are running into the problem that their classes are supposed to be taught in English, but the professor ends up teaching them in Korean anyway. That hasn't happened for a single class for me, though! I think the classes I am going to take here are Korean Language, History of Architecture, International Marketing, Global Fashion Marketing, and Perspectives on the World Christian Movement. I've also joined some clubs too! Hopefully I'll be in the English Conversation Club and Ping Pong club.

Some observations about how Korean classes are different than American classes... 1. Many of them take attendance into pretty high consideration for your final grade. I have one class where attendance and citizenship make up 40% of my overall grade! 2.Korean students also don't seem to really take notes. I rarely see them writing things down, and hardly any of them bring computers to class. The popular form of note taking seems to be snapping pictures of the PowerPoint presentation with their smartphones! 3. Many professors use microphones for their classes. This may be normal for larger American institutions as well, but it's definitely not something I'm used to. Even when the classes are pretty small, professors still tend to use the microphone. 4. This may seem like a small difference, but the printer paper size is different! I brought a folder from home for my papers, but they all stick out the top because they're too tall! 5. Textbooks are significantly cheaper. I don't know why, they just are. Here, you can get a new textbook for the price you can usually buy a used one in America. 6. Only 40% of students in a class can get A's. So even if you get a 92%, you might still end up with a B. Seems unfair to me!

So wish me luck in all my classes! *fingers crossesd*

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Day 6: Seoul Tour Round 2!

Today was... well, quite frankly, crazy! Our study abroad group met at 9 am for Round 2 of our Seoul Tour. I'm not sure I can even remember all the things we did today! But it started with a trip to a traditional Korean housing area. It was really cool to see what that looked like, but kinda awkward since it wasn't just a tourist attraction, there were actual people living in the homes. Some of the details were amazing, though. The doors were particularly fascinating, each one being a display of detailed craftsmanship with their decorations.

Just a short walk from the traditional housing was the Blue House! That's pretty much the Korean equivilant of the White House. They had security guards who were checking bags for weapons blocks before the house was even in sight! The security was really impressive. And a lot of people in my group were excited to see it because they had seen it in so many k-drama's.

Our next stop was right across the street! At Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was comprised of a beautiful pond, traditional architecture, statues, and even a museum! We only had half an hour to peruse the museum, but it was fascinating. They had lots of Korean art! That was my favorite part: looking through all the paintings, pottery, and clothing. Although we spent lots of time at Gyeongbokgung Palace, it's hard to actually describe what we did. A lot of it was just enjoying the sights. Hence, pictures will sum it up better. Hopefully I'll be posting some on facebook soon!

After that, we walked through a very interesting section of Seoul. In the middle of the modern, downtown city, a beautiful little man-made, stream-type thing ran down a trench of sorts. Again, this is a really difficult thing to describe! But it was crazy. One minute you'd be walking on the street, but then you'd go down some stairs and almost feel like you were on a nature trail. There was foliage, birds, and even fish!

Finally, we took a lunch break. YES, that all happened BEFORE lunch!

Once we finished eating, it was off to the "Hanbok Experience!" Hanbok is the traditional dress of Korea. So we went to a store where we rented Hanbok to take pictures in! It was so fun. Everyone looked so cute in their Hanbok outfits~! I'll post pictures of this too.

Last Stop! A Buddhist temple. There's really not much to say about this, other than it looked cool too. There were some big, gold Buddha's in the temple and some cool paper fish hanging all over the palce. That was cool.

After that, our tour guide showed us how to get back to the subway to get back to the university! But me, Chris, Kate, and Jenna decided to keep looking around and have some fun. So we headed to the nearest Cold Stone Creamery (Yep, they have those even in Korea!), where we met up with one of Kate's friends from High School. We were going to go see Guardians of the Galaxy too, but then it wasn't at the theater we went to. Boohoo! Instead, we just looked around in some shops nearby. We walked around for a long time! We ended up going to Lotte, which is pretty much the Korean equivalent of Nordstroms. But better. Unfortunately, equally as expensive. So it was more of a 'looking around' trip than a 'buying' trip. There were also some fun street performers! There were two stages where dance groups were performing and lip-syncing to popular k-pop songs. We grabbed dinner while we were out, too. And during dinner we all totally crashed! By the time we left, though, we had literally been walking around Seoul for almost 12 straight hours, so it made sense for us to be exhausted.

And thus concludes our week of orientations and tours! Tomorrow is just a free day to rest up before classes begin. Part of me is sad that we don't have more tours and have to start classes. But the other part of me is so ready to be done! It's been an insanely busy week and I'm excited for it to calm down a bit.

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Days 4 & 5: Funeral & Subway Challenge

The past two days have been really great! Yesterday I met my Mission Mentor for the first time! A Mission Mentor is someone who volunteers with the Christian study abroad program I am a part of. We (me, the Mission Mentor, and the other girl who is part of the Christian program named Kate) are going to meet once a week to have a Bible study and just talk about life. Bora is also going to help Kate and I get involved in a church here in Korea where we can hopefully help out in the Youth as well as helping us get connected with service projects. It's a really neat opportunity to have someone like Bora to help us out! Bora is also very nice, kind, and beautiful. She's not that much older than us (her late 20's I think) so she is really easy to connect with. I'm excited to get to know her better!

After meeting with Bora, I had a really unique opportunity to go to a Korean funeral. Heather, one of my best friends from High School (she actually lived with me and my family during our senior year of high school) is Korean but goes to college in the US. Her grandfather unfortunately passed away and she was in Korea for a few days for the funeral. Since I was here too, she invited me and our other friend from high school, Hanna, to come. Hanna and I were kinda nervous to go, but we decided to go to see Heather. And Korean funerals are a lot different than American funerals, although you are still supposed to wear black. They're three days long, and one of the days is open to family and friends to come pay their respects and chat with the family. That's when Hanna and I went. Heather met us outside the funeral place and explained to us what we were supposed to do. When we entered the room, we needed to take off our shoes and approach the shrine of sorts set up for her grandpa. We took a flower from the pot on the floor and placed it above the picture of her grandpa.  Then we said a prayer for him before exiting to the next room. That room had tables and waiters would bring food and it was just a place to hang out and talk. She Heather, Hanna, and I spent the next four hours just catching up on what was new since high school! It was so fun getting to be with them both again.

After that, Hanna and I rode the subway back to my University and she helped me buy some food and return a wireless router I had bought and decided I didn't need. Then I went to sleep.

Today started off on the right foot with a skype call with my man! It's been really hard being apart from him and my family and friends. But this is a wonderful adventure! And luckily I've been able to skype Chris and my parents a few times already. I love you all and miss you!

After my skype call, my study abroad group went for the "subway challenge!" Basically, our study abroad leader emailed us a list of places we had to find and take pictures at, all of which required using the subway. If we found them all, the reward was free tickets to a baseball game! It was a lot of fun and we got some really cute pictures! We went to Seoul City Hall, Deoksugung Palace, Sungnyemun Gate, Namdaemun Market, and the Seoul Train Station. I know I just met the people in my group a few days ago, but we have all bonded really well! We all feel very comfortable around each other and they're all a ton of fun!

Once we got back, some boring things happened that I won't talk too much about. I took a nap. I went to an orientation. Blah blah blah. But after orientation Kate, Chris, and I went to find out where all our classes are for next week. Campus is so big! I know I'm going to get lost. But we managed to find all our classes somehow so that's good. And as a reward for finding our classes, our study abroad program gave us movie tickets! woohoo!

My whole group met up again after that to go out to dinner. We walked around Seoul for a while, just looking for somewhere to eat. The problem isn't that there's a lack of food places, the problem is that there's too many food places! It's hard to pick just one. But finally we found this really cheap, really good restaurant! I got an entire dinner meal for 3,000 won, which is about $3 in American money. And the good thing about going out in a group is that everyone can get a different dish and we all just share and try each other's! It's a ton of fun. We also went out for dessert, which was this really good shaved ice dessert. It's basically just plain shaved ice with a little milk mixed in and topped with things. We got two to all share. One was topped with peanut butter and like graham cracker crumble. The other was topped with fruit! They were both so good.

Now the last thing on my agenda is just looking out my window. I can see all the city lights of Seoul every single night since I'm on the 5th floor overlooking the city! And tonight is extra special because there's a lightening storm right now! I am so incredibly blessed to be in this beautiful city.

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Day 3: Seoul Tour

Yet another wonderful day in South Korea! The day started out with some boring orientation stuff, of which I will spare you the details. Things started getting interesting when we got our schedules and took a city tour of Seoul!

Our schedules are rather confusing. Printed off, they're nearly impossible to read! The only thing you can really tell is when they are and the class number. So I had to look up online what classes each of them actually were and what building they are in. But the building names are still in Korean, so that will be interesting. And right now I'm kinda confused about my schedule, but I'll talk to the study abroad office about it tomorrow! The good news is that I seem to have gotten into all the classes I really really wanted to take: History of Western Architecture, International Fashion Marketing, and Consumer Research Methodology. Now I just have to hope that the professors decide to actually teach the courses in English! The study abroad leader said that sometimes if there's only one English-only student in the class, the teachers will decide it isn't worth teaching the class in English and they'll just teach in Korean instead. That would be such a bummer! But I know of one other person signed up for my Architecture class, so hopefully that'll work out.

Now for the more exciting part of our day... The Seoul tour! However, the name of the event was rather misleading. Seoul is much, MUCH too big. Just to put it in perspective, Seoul is home to almost 10 million people crammed into 230 square miles. If you thought New York was busy, think again! Seoul houses almost 2 million more people than New York in HALF the square mileage of New York. There is so much to look at! But we went to two specific places today. First of all, Seoul Tower! Set atop a hill, Seoul Tower is 777 feet high and provides an absolutely breathtaking panoramic view of the entire city of Seoul! I'll post pictures on facebook, because words cannot do it justice. In addition to it's views, the tower has a pavilion with shops, food, and a martial arts demonstration! That was insanely cool to see. After years of reading manga and seeing anime, it was so awesome to see it happen in real life! Haha. They used traditional weaponry and demonstrated all sorts of moves. It included the death of many sticks of bamboo by swords. After the tower, we went to Myeong-dong, a popular shopping destination! There were lots of food stands, stalls peddling jewelry, large department stores, and everything in between!

After our long day, we returned to campus, got food, and called it a day, much to my relief. I'm not sure my feet have ever hurt more in my life! Sleep will feel good tonight for sure!

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Day 1 & 2

Well, I have officially completed two days of my study abroad! And they've definitely been eventful. Very eventful indeed.

First, it began with almost 24 hours of travel time between leaving my hotel in Portland and arriving at my dorm in Seoul, South Korea. I was supposed to fly over with my friend Hanna, but there was a mixup and we weren't on the same flight, which provided some interesting experiences with trying to get through immigration and customs! But it all worked out. Once I arrived, one of the leaders of ISA (International Students Abroad) met me at the airport and quickly ushered me into a cab to make the journey to the dorms, where I was met by another ISA leader who, just as quickly, handed me some general dorm information, my card for dorm entry, and left me at the door to my dorm building. After getting yelled at in Korean by the dorm security guard (WHY that happened still remains a mystery to me), failing at using the elevator (apparently certain elevators can only go to certain floors), and arriving at my room (the door locks are super high tech. I think just to mess with us.) I finally got to unpack. At that point though, honestly, I had never felt so alone in my life. Nobody had spoken more than 10 sentences of English to me since I got off the plane and my dorm hall seemed completely deserted other than me. People who say everyone speaks English in Korea are definitely lying! Lying down to sleep with just my sheets, a thin blanket I confiscated from my international flight, and a sweatshirt for a pillow, I was almost certain coming to Korea was the biggest mistake I'd ever made.

Day Two, luckily, was a major turnaround. It started with a skype call to my family (which was much needed!) and the ISA orientation. I met most of the other ISA American students outside the dorm and we all walked over to the meeting together. It was so relieving hearing English again! And everyone in my group is really chill. At the meeting, they gave us some more details about contacting them and our itinerary, which was very much appreciated! Up to that point, I had absolutely no idea what to expect in the future. After the meeting, a group of us students went to the store to pick up essential items like pillows, hangers, toiletries, etc. We grabbed some quick lunch and then headed to another ISA meeting. This one was a campus tour (although I probably won't remember where anything is! Campus is really big!), followed by a trip to the Konkuk University Hospital (good to know) and subway station (which is under the hospital!). We also purchased subway cards while we were there. The tour was over at 3pm, leaving plenty of day left to explore! I joined up with my new friends Kate and Chris (pretty much the coolest people ever) for some fun little escapades! We got bubble tea, made the trek to Gangam (Yep, I totally had Gangam Style!!), and visited a Cat Cafe!! Not gonna lie, the Cat Cafe was super awesome. (: For about $8 you get a cup of coffee and entrance into a little cafe where cats run rampant! It was so cute. And really fun getting to pet all the cats. (: Turns out all three of us (me, Kate, and Chris) are really big cat fans. It was fun! We were then going to meet up with the rest of our ISA group for dinner, but we were about to get back on the subway when Chris realized he forgot his backpack in the Cat Cafe! Ooops. So we had to go back for that and missed our group leaving for dinner. So Chris and Kate and I went to a little street restaurant and had skewers and shrimp! It was really cool because they brought the skewers and then we cooked them ourselves over some hot coals they put in the middle of the table. The food is surprisingly good! A little spicy at times, but I haven't been starving to death.

Although my trip started out awful, I think I'm going to love it a lot. Today was vastly more wonderful than yesterday! Maybe I can survive this city after all. I'm really excited to see what other adventures lie ahead! And I'll try to get some pictures up on facebook. (: Thanks for listening to me drone on and on!

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This is a Test

Well, I created a new blog to chronicle my adventures in Seoul! I'm still working on getting it set up though, so this is just a test post to see how things look.

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