Caribbean Bay!

I can't manage to get the rest of my photos off of my card, so no pictures of 연고전 for now, but here are some pictures of Caribbean Bay!

Some gates in the "authentic Caribbean style":

"Delightful luxurious" locker room costs money while outdoor locker room does not. It's somehow better, but I wouldn't know why because I'm a Scrooge.

These pirates and I are best friends. Repping Wes'13!!

It looks like a cleaner version of Pirates of the Caribbean - really cool :D

The workers had really fun outfits, too.

I'm alive, don't worry!

Wow, it's been forever.  What was going on last time I wrote on this blog?
...Apparently the only useful thing I've talked about was on September 4th.  Oh my gosh.  I am so so sorry.  I promise I will write at least once a week from now on.  Or at least I'll try to.  These past two weeks have been so intense that I don't even know what to say.
Well, basically I spent the week of September 4th getting ready for school and running around and adding and dropping classes and basically being a big crazy mess.  I finalized my schedule (I think I mentioned I was dropping Japanese literature at the recommendation of my professors) and started beasting at all of my subjects.  I LOVE Korean-Japanese relations (the professor is really funny and interesting - more about him later) and my Korean music teacher (more about her later, too) and my East Asian Cinema class is pretty much my favorite, I'm obsessed with it, even though the professor is a little on the meh side.  I'm "group leader" in cinema class which means I direct the discussion and lead the online forum.  This is the first leadership position I've ever had in my life, which is pretty pathetic because I'm only leading six people.  I'm just the kind of person who is terrified of running for a vote because I'm scared no one will vote for me.  Being in Korea kind of gives you a little confidence, though, because you feel all "different" and a little less scared of what people will think of you since you're a foreigner.  That doesn't mean I'll go as far as sitting in the handicapped/old person/pregnant person spots on the subway, though.  That's a big no-no.  You can't even sit there just until an old person gets onto the subway.  All six of them can be empty and there is no way you can sit in it.  If you're young and you have crutches you can't even sit in it.  It's horrible when you've got a 45 minute ride on a crowded train and there are only two old people.  If you sit there you literally get your teeth knocked out.  Honestly I don't see why these virile old people who can hit so hard have to have these special seats.  Hmph.  Just kidding, gotta respect your elders.
Anyways, I digress.
My Korean-Japanese Relations professor is really smart and knows a TON about history but is a little biased and misinformed about a few things.  When he talked about opium dens in China in the mid-1800's and related them to "the crack houses in the ghettos of America" I couldn't help but laugh a little, since clearly crack dens are not a pervasive detriment to all levels of American society.  But yeah anyways, the best thing about this teacher is he really likes me and always likes to discuss things after class with me, which I love.  And he yells at the Korean students for being late in Korean, and I can understand him.  Today in that class we divided up into final presentation groups and I'm with one native Chinese girl, one native Korean girl, and a Korean-American named Joshua.  We were victims of the "nobody-wants-to-do-the-hard-topic" phenomenon, so we're doing the Economics of Korean-Japanese Relations presentation - as many of you know, I really don't like economics.  But that's alright, I'm sure we'll get through it.  It's not until November, anyways, so I'm sure I'll be much wiser by then.
My Korean Music professor is hilarious and she tends to ramble, but her class is really interesting.  I went to her house at her invitation for Chuseok and met her husband, son, and nephew, and we all had a ton of food together and hung out and her husband decided to try to force everyone to drink until they died.  Luckily as a woman I get to escape that fate (ahhh Korean drinking culture).  In any case, her story is that her father was a rebel and activist against the Japanese back in the day, and then her husband was an activist later on against the invading communist forces.  He was kicked out of Yonsei for his rebellion and sent to jail once.  Her father was in jail twice.  She worked to put her husband through school and herself as well and now they live in this big awesome apartment and are two of the most renowned scholars in their fields in all of Asia.  She's very sharp-tongued and will say whatever is on her mind.  I like her a lot.
My Korean class is a lot of fun - we have a few crazy kids in the class and a few calm ones so it's a nice mix.  My M/W/F professor's name sort of sounds like "kimchi" so we call her Kimchi Sunsaengnim (her full name is Kim Ji-yeon).  The T/R professor has just a normal Korean name but she's still nice.  Her instructions are slightly easier to understand than Kimchi's.  Kimchi always talks about how handsome the boys are and tells us about her weekend beer-drinking.  She's adorable and I love her so much.  We do a ton of reading and grammar and vocab memorizing every week - this week we had about 8 words to memorize, as opposed to last week which was about 120 words.  I had to learn about 6 new grammar structures right at the beginning of the class because all of the questions were posed in those forms, and I had no idea what was going on the first day.  Luckily my speaking is top of the class and my pronunciation is right up there with the Korean-Americans', which is great because I don't have to be "that white girl" who can't pronounce anything or sounds like she's saying "gurreego" when she's saying 그리고 (typical example of bad bad bad way to say things - it's hard to explain in writing but trust me it sounds REALLY ugly).
On Friday I went back to the Seodaemun Public Clinic to get my lab results ("You okay!  No hurting!  No sick, okay?  You go home okay.") and turned it into the front desk for housing so that I wouldn't get kicked out.  Yay!  The weekend afterward (starting September 10th) was a four-day weekend for CHUSEOK!!!! (That's the Korean version of Thanksgiving - this year it was September 12th.)  As I told you, on the actual day of Chuseok I went to my Music professor's house and had a good time with her family.  The next day, I went to....Caribbean Bay!!!!  **steel drum music in the background**
As my family knows and many of my friends know, I'm a little hydrophobic and a weak swimmer.  So I was a little apprehensive about the water park, but hey, it was discounted from the usual $50 per entry to $18, so what could it hurt?  I went on a bunch of water slides and raft rides, (holding my breath and plugging my nose the entire time) and went to a sauna and a steam room and a hot tub and everything.  It was SO MUCH FUN!  I was nervous about wearing a one-piece because I heard that in Korea girls wear coverups all the time, and so I thought I would look maybe a little...not-conservative in my bathing suit, but I counted 6 girls with bikinis on so I decided it was perfectly fine.  I was also ready to pull out the "I am an ignorant foreigner" card, but it didn't come to that.  Anyways, yeah, Caribbean Bay is great and I'll attach some pictures later.
For the rest of the week I didn't really do much fun stuff, mostly my TONS AND TONS of reading (boo) and other homework.  I went shopping and got a new winter coat and some running shoes - SO CHEAP!! - and I mistakenly tried to go for my first tutoring session on Thursday the 15th when actually it was supposed to be the next week - I made it halfway to Namtaeryong before the mother called me and corrected my error.  Oops!
On Saturday I met up with my friend Christine and went to see a Shakespearean play presented at the Seoul National Theatre in Dongdaemun.  The play was Measure by Measure and thank goodness I knew something about that play beforehand because although the actors were supposedly speaking in English, I had NO idea what was going on.  Korean people have a lot of trouble with British accents and, when combined with unnatural patterning and strange syntax as Shakespeare is wont to include, it just becomes a giant balloon of what tha heck are they saying??  I read the Korean subtitles along with being able to pick out a few of the English words and was able to make out, in general, what was going on.  It was still fun, though, and I had a great time with Christine.  She was asking me a ton of questions about what the difference is between Korean guys and American guys and I had to keep explaining that I had absolutely no clue as I've never been close friends with a native Korean guy, let alone dated one.  She told me to investigate and I just laughed.
On Monday I had my very first tutoring session with a little girl named Suhyun, American name Minnie.  She was so adorable!  However, she absolutely would NOT make full sentences.  Her mother speaks a little English and was able to explain that, although the other kids in her class would write whole paragraphs about a picture, she would write just one sentence and not say anything else after that.  My mission was clear.  However, as I was a stranger and such, she had no way to open up to me just yet.  I started planning her next lesson as soon as I left her house.  Her second lesson was actually tonight (September 26th) and this one went beautifully.  Her mother wanted me to stay for two hours so I made double the pay, and she talked a ton because at the beginning of the lesson I explained a few times that teachers like BIIIIIIG sentences and lots of words.  I also drew pictures for her and had her tell me some BIIIIIIIG sentences about them (to make teacher happy!) and then she sort of caught on and went crazy.  Like she literally would not shut up.  It was great.  Her mom was really pleased.  We even went for a walk and she held my hand and told me about her ballet lesson.  SO CUTE.  I can't get over it.  At the end of the lesson she was talking to a toy bunny in Korean and she said "Rabbit, I love Janet teacher!" and I legit almost cried.  It was a truly beautiful moment in my young teaching career.  Minnie, Janet teacher loves you too!
On Tuesday night, the 20th, I went out to a Makkeoli bar with my conversation partner, Donghyun.  His English is pretty darned terrible so our conversations consist mostly of a fumbling and mumbling and searching in our phone dictionaries, but it's not so bad.  Makkeoli is a fermented rice wine and we had a few bowls of that with something called 해물전 (haemuljeon - seafood pancake) which is basically a salty eggy fried pancake that you eat with makkeoli because the tartness of the wine cuts the heaviness of the fried taste.  It was delicious and the place we ate it in was decorated in the style of the late Chosun dynasty.  That was the most awesome part for me because recently I finished up a Korean drama called Damo (tea-serving-girl?) which takes place around that era and I felt like I got transported back in time.  Very cool.
On Thursday I tutored Mia's cousin's daughter for the first time (her english name is Eileen) and she was pretty good at pronunciation and LOVED talking a lot.  She was really fun.  A little hyper toward the end, but what can you expect out of a little kid?  We ran out of time for tutoring her mom, but next time her mom and I will do some grammar trouble shooting and get to know what kind of help she needs in English as well.  For Eileen I might work on making sure she has better pronunciation and just slows down a little when she reads because she rushes wayyy too much.
On Friday the 23rd, my life as a true Foreigner-living-abroad-in-Korea began because I obtained my Alien Registration Card (FINALLY) and my ATM card - YAAAAY!  Although now that I have an ATM card I might become very, very poor...very, very fast.
That night I went to tutor for Mia's cousin's other friend, whose kid's name is Rachel.  She was really good at talking and had to work at pronunciation a little.  She's adorable and, although shy at the beginning, got really excited and silly at the end.  She even started putting books on her head and calling them hats after I taught her the word hat.  She wanted me to wear a book-hat too and so I happily obliged because sometimes I'm weird.  Later on I'm supposed to start tutoring her father as well.  Korean people are often just very afraid of using the English they've learned - they understand it quite well, but they're afraid to speak because of how difficult the pronunciation is.  I will make it my mission to improve future global communications by raising confident English speakers!!  **self-important digression!!**
On the 24th I attended 연고전 (Yeongojeon - the Yonsei vs. Korea University sports event) and had a great time there.  It was crazy - kids were all screaming and jumping up and down and doing coordinated dances and shooting off fireworks and drinking and heckling and all sorts of insane stuff.  My friends and I didn't get so crazy because we don't exactly have all of that school spirit, but I got a great video of a really drunk white guy with a cape and no shirt on doing all the female dance moves to the Yonsei dances, so it was totally worth it.  I have a few pictures of the event, too, so I'll put those up.
It was fantastic.  I'm going to totally skip over the part where Yonsei got their butts kicked in the soccer game with a final score of 3-1.
Yesterday night I ate at T.G.I. Friday's...which was, surprisingly, a great experience.  For 20 dollars I got a salad appetizer, a half rack of ribs and two chicken fingers, a brownie with ice cream (which was, by the way, amazing) and a smoothie called Perfect 10.  It was one of the entrée specials and oh man it was good.  It was probably better than American Friday's.
Anyways, yes, as I told you today I went back and taught Minnie again and now I'm back home.  In the morning I skyped and chatted some Wespeeps (shoutout to Angie, Reese, Autumn, Seungkwon, Esther, and Heekyong!) and I miss Wesleyan SO much!  I wish I had my good friends here with me.
In any case, I'm really hungry so I'm gonna grab a "생그림" (fresh cream a.k.a. whipped cream) flavored yogurt and finish up my homework.
This post took like an hour and a half to write, I hope it doesn't take too long to read!
Enjoy subsequent pictures.  I miss you guys and love you a lot!
<3,
Janet

미안합니다 ㅠ..ㅠ

I am very sorry to my loyal readers. Before, my problem would be not having anything to write about and thus not writing at all. Now, I'm so busy that I have no time to write!! I'm updating right now on the subway on my itouch because now is when I have the most idle time to myself. I will try hard to write a post soon about all of the things I'm doing!!
Love,
Janet

Recent pictures!

Incheon Dae Gongwon (Incheon Grand Park)

Lake with mountain in the background

You can't really tell but that's a stair-waterfall - yay bright squintyness

Doshirak!  This is what I ate with Hyunjin...mmm

This is Miss Lee, the owner of Star Dabang!

A fun little MJ graffiti I saw in Insadong.  He's saying "DDA!"

Little mermaid dolls!  So cute :)

The giant delicious bingsu!  

Yonsei front gate!

HAHA Junior Schorar Club

The photo everyone takes of Yonsei

The building I have 3/4 of my classes in (the 4th one is next door haha)

My dorm!

수업시작해!

Classes have begun!
On Thursday I had my very first class - Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema - with a very nice professor who sent us on a guilt trip for not reading the syllabus before coming to class (in my defense, I actually did read it, which is honestly a little surprising for me, haha) and showed us a martial arts movie clip, then asked us to talk a little about it.  As some of you who read my paper comparing the literary/film version of Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress to the Mao period and cultural movement of China know,  I am obsessed with analyzing film, especially East Asian film, within a global viewpoint context, etc.  Blah blah I am being boring.  Anyways, yes, to sum up, I'm going to really like that class.
After Asian Cinema, I had the Korean placement test.
...hmm?  What?  Was I talking?
Oh...sorry, I was going into post-traumatic shock and forgot what I was saying for a moment.
Ah, yes, the Korean placement test.
Never have I been so very torn to shreds by an exam.  I thought I felt lost during orgo.
Here's my impression of myself -
Page 1: "La-de-da this is okay, doo-doo-dooo...articles, past tense, okie dokie..."
Page 2: "Hmmm...well I don't know this grammar form but the rest of this is easy...."
Page 3: "Okay so maybe I only knew two answers.  That's fine, it's just a hard page."
Page 4: "Well...at least I only have......SIX MORE PAGES?!?!?"
Page 5: "%$#@#*&"
And then I closed the packet and handed it in.
Next was the interview, which I had to wait for for about an hour while everyone else went.  The lady interviewing me asked me some simple questions like where I'm from and what I study and what my best friend is like.  Once I started struggling to complete more than 50% of my sentence she stopped asking the increasingly difficult questions and complimented me on my pronunciation, and said that I could go.
I left the test just praying that I wouldn't be put into Beginner 1 Korean.
Luckily, the next day when the test results went up, I found out that I'd been put into Beginner 2!! YAY!!  To me, that's a victory (although I was secretly hoping for Beginner 3...but really I'm satisfied).
Turns out that the text books for the class were about $68, which isn't awful because it's the most expensive set of books I'm going to have to purchase.
After purchasing the books and going through my schedule, I was advised by the director of study abroad that I should probably not be taking 5 courses, since one of them counts as two courses, and so I dropped Japanese literature :/  That leaves me with Comparative Study of East Asian Cinema, Modern Korean-Japanese Relations, Introduction to Korean Music, and Korean Language.  15 credits here, which is approximately 4 Wesleyan credits (personally I count it as a little more because at Wes the teachers can speak pretty good English, but here, they have a lot more trouble - my Korean professor can't speak English at all and so when I did my homework last night I wasn't even sure I really had to do the homework).
Friday night I went out to Hongdae with Peter, Dan, Sam, Kyle, Chang, Toan, Matt, and a couple other kids.  We took a taxi and the taxi driver was hitting on me the entire time.  This guy was around 60 years old.  He told me "You are pretty, just like the korean language."  **shudder** Peter got really protective and told Matt to pull me out of the taxi as soon as it stopped in case he tried anything funny.  It was REALLY busy (as Fridays in Hongdae usually are) and we went around to a few places including HoBar, BarZen, and Hongdae Gongwon.  We had a great time and saved a couple of Korean girls in the process!  There was a group of seven dudes from England standing in a circle flirting inappropriately with these two korean girls, and so we stepped over and started chatting them up (one of us for each person there) and started leading them away, and then I went over and started talking to them.
The one girl, Sunha, only spoke a little English and I only speak a little Korean, but we both took an immediate liking to one another.  In Korea, people of the same gender hold hands a lot (it's pretty common to see guys who are totally straight and just friends strolling down the street hand-in-hand) and so I was a little uncomfortable but not surprised when she walked around holding my hand for the rest of the night.  She was really funny because every time she saw a guy she thought was unattractive she'd shout "UGLY BOY!!!" and things like that and then ask me how her pronunciation was.  I was cracking up.  We all ended up eating at a restaurant for a while and then Chang and I took a taxi home.
The next morning, I went to Bundang with my friends Dayoung, Bomi, Suyoung, and Alex.  We had rice and curry for lunch and walked along a really pretty creek with frogs and flowers and everything.  it was gorgeous!
On Saturday during the day I didn't really do anything.  I took a nap and then I went to Hapjeong to visit Kyle and had dinner from a convenience store because all of the restaurants seemed really expensive or unappealing.  Convenience store food is surprisingly good here.  Convenience stores are as common as gas stations in the United States.  However, in Korea, I've been hard-pressed to find a gas station really anywhere.  They're occasionally on street corners on really busy roads but nothing like the way they are in the US, with 4 on every intersection on the East side of Cleveland.
On Sunday I met with Bomi, Dayoung, Alex, Taekyung, Kevin, Seoyoung, Suyoung, Crystal, and a few other kids to play 욫놀이 (Yutnori I think is how one spells it in English - if you click on the link you can see a picture of the pieces) but basically you have a game board and four sticks and you throw them in the air and move the pieces.  It kind of reminds me of Pachisi.  You can send someone back to home if you land on their spot and there are some other interesting odds and ends to the game, but basically it gets CRAZY.  Our team leader, Alex, who is usually mild-mannered started shouting and threw his cushion onto the floor and shaking the leader of team yellow by the shoulders when they sent three of our pieces back to home in one turn.  When they asked me what I thought of the whole affair at the end of the day, I said "재미있고 무서워요" (fun and terrifying),  and they laughed at my apparent patheticness.
Before we played Yutnori, the girls and I cooked ddukboki while the boys played ping pong, which I found a little odd because I really like ping pong (even though I'm awful at it) but to the girls it was just sort of their duty, and I remembered that things were different because, being in Korea, girls kind of get shafted when it comes to having fun and chilling out.  The other side to this, however, was that cooking was actually a lot of fun as well.  The ddukboki was AMAZING and we also had odaengguk (fish cake soup - trust me it's tastier than it sounds, white people).  I told them about how I had been involved in the cooking of 60 servings of ddukboki for the KSA Culture Show last year and they were really excited about it.  One thing I'll miss coming home is feeling really special all the time just for being me. (That sounds really depressing if you think about it too hard, hahah)
Anyways, today, Monday, was a pretty exciting day.  I got up and went to my first Korean-Japanese Relations class, for which the professor wasn't present but his apprentice filled in, and apparently I won't have the class on Wednesday because he'll still be on his business trip then.  I also won't have it next monday because of 추석 (Chuseok - Korean Thanksgiving) break.  Nice.
After that I set up my library account, adjusted my bank account, charged my phone minutes, and went to the Seodaemun Health Center for my chest X-ray and Hep-B test.  They had me change with two other women in a little room with pink robes along the walls (in Korea, women don't really care abpout being naked in the same room - thus jimjilbangs [saunas] are all very public) stand in the most awkward position EVER to take the actual X-ray (seriously I can't even describe the uncomfortable stance, I'd have to mime it for you) and then they sent me across the hall to draw my blood.  I was a little peeved because in America when someone draws my blood they always roll my veins for about five minutes in both arms and then eventually use the big vein in my hand, but here they just stuck it in, drew the blood, and no problem.  I'm not in pain, don't have a huge bruise, nothing!  Why can't it be easy like that every time?!  *huff*
Anyways, after that was finished I ran to Paris Baguette and got a pastry, then came back home to check email, register for my Korean class (Drop/Add started today) and write this blog post!
So there you have it, you're all updated!
As soon as I finish laundry at 3:50 I'm gonna run to my second Korean class, so I'll talk to you guys later!
Love,
Janet

Room Tour

This is a tour of my dorm room at Yonsei. Unfortunately I forgot that people don't see things at a 90 degree angle, and so I tilted my camera long-ways for a good portion of the video, so you're gonna have to tilt your heads a little. I'm so sorry!

Anyways yep, enjoy!

Love,

Janet