I had decided to make my blogs more infrequent since most of the stuff I do in Korea includes studying, going out to buy a snack, seeing the same people and doing the same things with them, and more studying. I figure enough has happened by now that I can update you!
On Monday, as we all know, I went to the Embassy to drop off my passport to get it renewed. I was able to use my credit card conversion-charge free! (They accepted in American dollars.) However, I was informed that I would have to send in two phone numbers and my two photos by mail later. I also accidentally took the government's copy of my charge receipt, and so they emailed me to send that in too. That would be fine, except I have NO idea how to use the 우체국 (post office) in Korea. More to come on that later!
On Tuesday I met up with Bomi, Alex, and Dayoung, per usual. The only eventful thing that happened there was that I forgot my umbrella and a thunderstorm started and so I had to borrow their very fashionable umbrella to take home (a nice brown-on-brown combination). I'm starting to realize that my shoes will never be dry in this country.
On Wednesday was the WesKo (Wesleyan Koreans) meetup at the Seoul Club! Yay! I was so excited to meet new freshmen, see old alums, and hang out with my current Wesleyan friends. We all got free t-shirts, too! (They're pretty cool-looking, actually.) Korean size smalls are a little smaller than American smalls, by the way. My shirt is pretty fitted. (Good thing I'm eating so many vegetables and walking everywhere!)
At the meetup I sat with Jeffrey, Jamie, Gaeun, Gayin, Matthew, and John Fong, who had just arrived from Hong Kong that morning! Gayin, John, Jeffrey and I had met up at the subway and taken a cab to the club together so my arrival wasn't as awkward as I had thought it would be. I felt a little weird being the only non-Korean there (perrr usual) but then two non-Korean '08 alums showed up and I felt a little better. Gaeun and I grabbed a glass of wine and socialized, and then the food was served. I had a hot dog (mmm USA!) and a salad, corn on the cob, beets, and little cream cheese things for dessert. It was pretty good. Probably because it was a hoity-toity country club. Anyways, I got to meet two alums that I've been hearing a lot about lately, Charlie (Cheolhyun) and Moon (Moonsik) who graduated around the time I came to Wes. Charlie was wearing a Cleveland Indians baseball cap! YEAH CLEVELAND!! So we talked about that a little. It was Moon's birthday, which caused everyone to joke about him planning it for his birthday so that he could have a free party, haha (he was one of the main coordinators). Moon said he'd add me to WesKo Facebook group so that I could feel included. Yay networking!
Anyways, at the end we all posed for a picture together. It turned out pretty well, I'll attach a copy in my subsequent photo post.
On Thursday I woke up and planned my classes for Yonsei! I'm taking Korean Language, Korean-Japanese Relations, Comparative East Asian Cinema, Japanese Modern Literature, and Intro to Korean Music! After that I went to a 부동산 (real estate place) with Kyle to give my opinion on new apartments (since I am an expert at these things, obviously) as he had decided to change apartments. The real estate agent was really friendly and nice and talked to me even though I couldn't really understand half of what he was saying, but he spoke slowly and I got the jist. One of the things I really hate is when a cashier just points at the total instead of saying it out loud for me, or when a person just assumes I won't know what they're saying. If you're going to use violent hand gestures, at least give me the Korean that goes along with it!
After that, I met Matthew at the subway and we went out for dinner and dessert together! I had a fish-egg bibimbap and he had cold noodles. We tried each other's food and I decided that I definitely wanted to come back there again. It was great. Matthew went home and I hopped on the bus to Suwon.
Unfortunately, I got lost. This was WAY worse than when I got lost in New York City, though, because at least in New York people can help you pretty fluently. I spent an hour on the phone crying and reading signs trying to figure out where the heck I was. Turns out the bus dropped me off at Kyonggi University instead of Kyunghee University (OHH the immense difference!) I ended up having to grab a cab with this funny old Ahjussi who made Konglish conversation with me. He informed me that he's a singer and proceeded to wail along with a ballad on the radio, and then asked me what I was doing in Korea. When I told him I was attending Yonsei, he told me I was very smart, and then asked me if I liked Korean men. He gestured to himself to try to clarify to me, since he was asking in Korean, but that simple gesture complicated the question a lot because I didn't want to say that I liked a guy HIM that way, but I do like Korean guys. I was able to blurt out some answer that avoided the whole thing and we were on our way to the Yeongtong Home Plus. I met Angie there (at this point it was midnight, yikes!) and I passed out as soon as we got home to her apartment.
In the morning, it was time to go back to Seoul! Traveling was boring. During the day I went to the post office finally to mail all of my information to the embassy. The lady at the counter made me feel like a total dummy even though I wasn't doing anything wrong, just because I'd never used the courier system in Korea before. I went up to her and said, in Korean, "I don't know how to send mail in South Korea and I don't speak Korean well, is there someone here who speaks English?" and she just stared at me. I said "uhh...sorry..." in a very desperate way, hoping to get SOME kind of reaction out of her, and she just looks at me with this *wow what an idiot* face and says, in perfect English, "well, where were you intending to send the letter?" Thanks, lady, for being so accommodating. Eventually we got it all worked out and my info is now en route to the government! For dinner, I went back to the restaurant I ate at with Matthew and had the cold noodles (yummm) and then went home and went to sleep.
On Saturday, I was going to meet with Bomi and Dayoung but things didn't work out :(. Instead, I went to help Kyle out with moving his stuff a little (buy an apartment Thursday, move on Saturday - everything is fast in Korea) to his new place in Hapjeong. It's about one subway stop away from his old apartment. It was pretty uneventful. The moving truck driver asked him if he was from Japan (?) and naturally assumed that I was American. When we were in Hapjeong I found a cute little toy cow on the sidewalk and rescued him. I'm a hero! After everything was all moved in, I went home and retired for the day.
On Sunday, I bought a bunch of clothes and a giant comfy blanket for $16! A girl who had been teaching here was moving back to the states and sold me everything for really cheap. Thank you, Craigslist! After that, I took a nap and then I went grocery shopping at the World Cup Stadium!!! They call the complex SpoLand (Sport Land contraction?) and within the complex is a sauna called SpaLand! So cute, haha. The grocery store inside is called Home Plus (pronounced Home-uh Puh-lus-uh in Korea) and is a British/Korean department store chain. The food courts in Korea are amazing! You give the cashier your meal choice and she rings you out and gives you a number and an area to get your food at. You grab a table there and wait for your number to blink and a bell to ring and then go get your food. Water is self serve (self-serve water is kind of a thing in restaurants here) and you just eat your food and give the tray back to the window you got it from. The meal at Home Plus was HUGE (no, like you don't even understand how much food this was - I wish I'd taken a photo) and only cost about $12 USD. When I got home I unloaded groceries and made a spicy tuna mayonnaise with onion sandwich, too, and it was delicious. And then bed time!
Well, that's all that's been going on with my life lately. I'm going to make a post of funny t-shirts I've seen while in Korea so far in a few minutes.
Miss you guys!
Love,
Janet
