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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