My new apartment and meeting my friend from India

I am finally all moved into my new apartment and I can confidently say that I absolutely love it!  I want to give a huge shout-out to Lea, another Boren scholar here and a good friend, who helped me move the entire day. Not only did she help me move my luggage but she stayed with me to unpack and go shopping for all the items I needed. I can't thank her enough because there was no way I could've moved by myself.

The space is perfect for one person, it doesn't feel cramped nor does it feel like there is wasted space. The apartment is a studio apartment, although the kitchenette has its own little room when you enter the apartment. The bathroom also has a bathtub which is somewhat rare in Korea for studio apartments. Most studio apartments have bathrooms where the bathroom is the shower space, so anytime you wash everything gets wet. Even though there is a bathtub there was no pole or shower curtain, but I bought them really cheap so it really wasn't an issue.

Bathtub with the shower curtain.

Another bathroom photo.

An adorable bear mat I bought for the bathroom.

The apartment came furnished, so there's a desk, desk chair, bed, wardrobe, full refrigerator, TV, and small table. The owner was also really nice and provided me with sheets and a drying rack for my clothes. The apartment is "old" for Korean standards but it doesn't feel old. The space is really clean and it doesn't feel aged by any means.

View of the TV and desk.

View of the bed.

View of the fridge and wardrobe.

My little kitchenette!

Luckily there is a store called Daiso in Korea that sells a bunch of functional, cheap, and often adorable household items. It is actually pretty hard to find items there that are over 10,000 won, so it's perfect for a college student's budget. I had to buy a pan, pot, plates, bowls, silverware, laundry basket, shoe basket, waste baskets, hangers, bathroom stuff, etc. and I didn't spend more than 100,000 won. I also did some light grocery shopping to make sure that I have at least some food for breakfast.

There are two downsides to the apartment so far, but they really aren't that bad. First, the wifi router that I bought didn't work so I had to consult with the company to get a new one. Right now I'm connected to the internet through an ethernet cord. The internet is fast though and I have data on my photo in case I need to access the internet, so it really isn't an issue and it'll be resolved soon. Another downside is that I don't have my own washer, but instead there's one on every floor and there's only four apartments on each floor so they're rarely, if at all, all being used at the same so that it is also not a big issue.

The location of the apartment is quite interesting. I'm located in between the Sinchon subway station and Sogang subway station. I'm about a 3-minute walk away from the Sinchon station and about a 10-minute away from Yonsei University. My apartment is also where all the "love hotels" are located in Sinchon. Love hotels are where couples go to have, you can guess it, because a lot of places in Korea don't allow overnight guests, especially places where college students live. Love hotels in Korea are actually really nice and many choose to stay there instead of regular hotels because they are cleaner and more fancy. Unlike the perception that similar places may get in the United States or other countries, love hotels in Korea are actually very safe as well as the areas they are in. I haven't faced any issues yet and I don't think I ever will. The area that my apartment is in also has a random assortment of other buildings including a church, traditional houses, a Buddhist temple, a dry cleaning place, and a couple of restaurants. It's a unique area in Sinchon and it has already made for some good stories.

In my opinion, probably the best part of this apartment is my rooftop. Most Korean apartments don't have rooftop access so the fact that I do is awesome and I've already made some of my friends jealous, haha. I have a fantastic view of the city and I've already periodically gone up there just to look at the buildings. I'm also located on the top floor so the rooftop is only a couple stairs away. It's nice knowing that if I ever feel somewhat claustrophobic in my apartment, I can go to the rooftop for some peace of mind.

 A view from the rooftop during the day.

A view from the rooftop during the night.

After moving and running errands all day on Saturday, I immediately passed out and slept really well on my first night in the apartment. The area I'm in is very quiet and I rarely hear my neighbors so I'm able to be very productive in a calming environment. It is so rewarding to finally live completely on my alone and even more awesome that I started to do it in a foreign country. I've had terrible issues with roommates in the past so it's nice to finally have my own space to do what I want and to keep it clean. I already know it's going to be hard to leave the apartment 8 months from now.

On Sunday I experienced a moment that I didn't think would ever realistically happen in my life: I met a classmate and good friend from when I lived and went to an international school in India. He is Korean but lived in India for pretty much his whole life and he has completed two years at New York University but is now currently serving in the army since Korea has male conscription. We met for lunch and coffee and talked for about 6 hours. The last time we talked in person was 8 years ago, so we had a lot of catching up to do. It was such a strange but wonderful moment to have two distinct but important parts of my life bridge together. We both would have never expected to meet again in Korea and we plan to meet again in the future. In fact he's going to send a request to the army to see if I can visit him at his base next month. And he'll be back at NYU when I'm back in the U.S. so I plan on visiting him in New York City as well, especially since I've never been to NYC.

My friend Hisu and I!

It's crazy how life works out that way sometimes and I'm hoping I can have similar experiences in the future with all my friends from the past. Each week here never fails to surprise me and make me happy so I can only expect the future ones to be even better. See you next week!

Nami Island, Chuncheon, League of Legends, and midterms

I can thankfully say that midterms are FINALLY over! I'm quite proud of the fact that I survived a 5-day Korean midterm. On Thursday I had to read two passages out loud in front of the class to be graded on my pronunciation, intonation, and speed. Each student randomly picked two passages from our reading book and of course I got the most difficult passages to read. I was fine for most of the reading but there were some spots that were tongue-twisters and so I would slow down a bit, which unfortunately probably lost me points on speed and intonation. I can read Korean fine. In fact I learned how to read Korean within a week. The difficult part is reading very fluently, which is actually quite challenging.

On Friday we had our roleplaying exam. The class was divided into groups of partners and we had to write a 16-turn skit, memorize it, and then act it out in front of the class. We had three scenarios to choose from and my partner Becca and I chose to do the shopkeeper-customer scenario. We memorized and acted our lines perfectly so the only thing I can imagine us getting marked down for is if we made a mistake when writing the skit. I also had my midterm exam paper for my North Korea class due that day. We had to answer a prompt that asked whether we supported conservative or progressive policy toward North Korea, so whether reciprocity should matter between North and South Korea or whether the South should continue to give unconditional assistance to North Korea. I ended up arguing for the conservative side because there were more examples that could support that argument.

To take a break from midterms and venture outside of the city, my friends and I visited Nami Island which was about a two hour trip outside of Seoul. We took the subway and then we took a ferry to the island. It's so amazing to think that you can take the subway from downtown Seoul to another city for two hours and the ride will cost you around 2,000 won. Nami Island is famous in Korea for a couple of reasons: the trees during autumn, the animals on the island, the relaxing (and often romantic) activities you can do on the island, and it was where a famous Korean movie was filmed, Winter Sonata. Despite the small size of the island, you can also rent a cabin to stay there for the night with friends.

A lane of gimpo trees on Nami Island.

It was such a fresh breath of air being outside of the city. I love Seoul, but sometimes I need to be in a more quiet landscape where you have animals running around and the beautiful scenery to look at. Speaking of animals, Nami Island has squirrels with fluffy ears and they are the cutest critters. It was difficult trying to take a photo of them because they move so fast. Being in Nami showed me how much Seoul lacks animals. It's kind of strange actually. Usually in large cities there are stray dogs and cats wandering around but in Seoul that is not the case. I've seen maybe three stray cats since I've been here and that's it. Nami also has ostriches and magpies.

 Ostriches!

Squirrels with fluffy ears a.k.a. the cutest animals ever.

Since the island is small and well, an island, it is surrounded by water and you can easily walk around the whole island in about an hour at a leisurely pace. I had extreme deja vu the whole time because the island really reminded me of northern Michigan in the fall. When I updated my profile photo on Facebook with me standing by the water a couple of people actually thought I was in Michigan and not Korea. The island is filled with beautiful trees, flowers, fields, and pathways. It was a really great spot for photos, and my friends and I definitely took advantage of that fact and had several photo shoots, haha. There are other activities you can do on the island as well like rent a bike, a boat, etc. and there are restaurants and a gift shop on the island where you can eat and do a little shopping. I really want to visit the island again in the wintertime and perhaps rent a cabin with some friends. I can't express how refreshing it was being in nature again and I know I'm going to crave that feeling again in the future.

Another lane of trees.

A view of the water on the island.

Since Nami is close to Chuncheon and Chuncheon is known for its dakkalbi which I've been meaning to try for awhile, we headed there for some dinner and walking around. Dakkalbi is a spicy chicken dish with cabbage, rice-cake, and sweet potatoes. We went to one of the more famous restaurants and I was so happy by how good the dish was. It was spicy but not too spicy and also a little sweet. After eating we walked around the city for a little and then got ice cream at Baskin Robbins. It was a little strange being in a Korean city and not being in Seoul only because the whole time you expect the city to be bigger and more bustling with people but then you have to remind yourself that it isn't Seoul. What was also interesting about Chuncheon was the amount of stores that sell hiking gear. Hiking is a popular past-time for Koreans since 70% of the Korean peninsula is mountainous. If you go out into the countryside like we did, I would say that about 80% of the people on the subway besides us were all wearing hiking gear because that's what they decided to do that day. The older generation also tends to hike more than the younger generation.

Dakkalbi.

One of the streets in Chuncheon.

A couple of weeks ago, after hearing a classmate in my Korean class talk about it, I bought my ticket to the see the League of Legends 2014 World Championship. I was sort of familiar with the computer game but I wanted to go for the experience. I went on Sunday with two friends to the World Cup Stadium about a 20-minute subway ride away and it ended up being one of the best decisions I've made since I've been here. It was a very unique experience because it was treated like a sports game, but instead it was a championship for a computer game. There were a TON of people there, mostly guys. For once in my life actually the men's bathroom line was consistently longer than the women's bathroom line and it was great, haha. I bought a ticket for the cheapest section of seats for $20 which was not bad at all. What made the experience even greater was that Imagine Dragons performed and they even performed their most popular songs. I also received a gift bag filled with cool items like a League of Legends cloak, a light-up bracelet, a skin code, and banging sticks. Watching the gameplay was also really, really fun. I'm not familiar with the gameplay that much but my friend that I was with plays a lot so she was explaining how things worked. I also enjoy watching people play video games in general, rather than playing myself, so I thoroughly enjoyed watching the best players of the world compete with each other. The championship lasted for four hours but instead of being bored like most sports games I actually had fun. So for $20 I experienced something really unique, saw Imagine Dragons, and got a bunch of free items. Looking back it was almost too good to be true. Being at the championship also made me really want to start playing League of Legends. And to make things even better, the Korean team (Samsung White) ended up winning!

A view of the gameplay from our seats. The lights were awesome!

My friends and I posing with our cloaks after Samsung White won!

The happiness high I got from the weekend worked to push me through the rest of midterms the following week. On Monday I had my Reunification class exam and my oral exam in Korean. The Reunification exam was almost a joke. All I had to do was memorize terms and short answers from the study guide and then write them on the exam. I finished the exam in about 20 minutes and I'd be shocked if I didn't get a 100%. Luckily I'm learning things from the reading in that class because the midterm did not help me learn the material at all because it was review from my past international relations courses at MSU. We had to define easy terms like neorealism or unipolarity, which I already knew going into the class. Korean, on the other hand, was a lot harder. Each student was given a time to come into class on Monday to complete an oral interview that was supposed to last for 7 minutes. No matter how much I prepare for oral exams, I always get nervous and this time was no different. Although even though we were told it was a interview, it wasn't really an interview. Instead the teacher asked us 4 questions and for each question we had to answer with at least 4 sentences. The questions that were asked were about my life in Korea, what food I like, where I go shopping, and what I plan to buy for my friends when I return to the US. I studied a lot for the oral exam and anticipated which questions she was going to ask, so I actually did much better than I expected. The teacher was also really impressed as well. She asked me how I speak so well and I talked about how I live with a host family and that I speak with my Korean friends. She also said I sounded like a Kyopo, which is a member of the Korean diaspora, and that was definitely the biggest compliment I've received in my Korean learning so far.

We had our listening and reading test on Tuesday for Korean. The reading was a piece of cake. We had an hour to answer questions about passages from our reading book and because I prepared so much for the reading exam on Thursday, I pretty much had the meanings of the passages memorized. I didn't have to even read the passages on the exam which meant I got done with the exam in about 25 minutes. I feel confident about that part of the exam as well. However, the listening exam was a totally different story. I felt confident with my answers for the first two pages but towards the end of the exam the conversations we had to listen to and the questions we had to answer became much more complex. For example, you had two tries to listen to a conversation between two people and you had to answer 3 to 5 questions about that conversation. So 3 questions might be three statements that you have to say if they're true or false and then 2 questions where you have to write out the response. So you have to be listening to the conversation while also remembering the questions so you can answer them correctly. And if you can't keep track of the names in the conversation and who is talking to who, you can't answer the questions correctly. Also, if you make a spelling mistake in the written answer but other than that got the answer correct, you still get the whole response wrong. So long story short, the listening was really hard and I'm expecting to get around a 75% on it. I'll be shocked if I get above an 80% on that part of the exam.

Lastly on Wednesday we ended the Korean midterm with the writing section. I studied a lot for this part of the exam because I knew it counted the most for the entire Korean midterm. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the exam was much easier than I expected. I think I did really well which definitely brightened my mood for the rest of the week. The exam consisted of filling in the blanks with vocabulary words, writing sentences with certain grammar points, true and false questions with grammar points, a passage where we had to convert it from formal speaking to casual speaking, and then a short essay at the end. I was so relieved to finally be done with the Korean midterm, mostly because it lasted for so many days. I hopefully find out the scores on all the parts of the exam soon and hopefully I received high scores because this class counts towards my GPA so I want to do well.

Like I said in my last blog post I move into my apartment on Saturday so in a couple of days I'll update everyone how apartment living in Seoul is!

Yon-ko-jeon and preparing for midterms

This week was relatively normal and low-key except for the weekend. On Friday and Saturday was an event called Yon-ko-jeon. Yonsei University and Korea University, two big rivals, compete with each other in a series of sports games including baseball, basketball, ice hockey, rugby, and soccer. What is unique about Yon-ko-jeon in comparison to other sports events is the amount of cheering. You spend the entirety of the game going through various cheers that each have their own dance. For those who are unfamiliar with the dances like myself, they had what are called Blue Knights stand on a stage by the field of whichever game was being played and dance so you could follow. What was strange about the event is that instead of watching the game, you watch the Blue Knights and focus on cheering. It was very odd when we continued to cheer after Korea University scored a goal or points but everyone didn't seem to mind.

Olympic Park, where Yon-ko-jeon was held. 

I went to the opening ceremony on Friday and then I had to head back before baseball started because I didn't want to miss my North Korea class. Yon-ko-jeon was held at the Olympic Park near Jamsil, which is about a 40-50 minute subway ride from Sinchon. It was neat being in the stadium that was built 26 years ago for the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. On Saturday I went to watch rugby with calligraphy club but I had to leave afterwards because I unfortunately caught a cold the night before and I wasn't feeling well enough to stand and cheer for hours.

Calligraphy club at Yon-ko-jeon!

Another photo from Yon-ko-jeon.

Due to my financial status, I am unable to live with my host family any longer because the cost of living with them is much higher than if I were to live in my own apartment. I conditionally received the Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowship, but the Asian Studies Center is working out the details of whether I am actually able to receive the award since I also received the Boren scholarship. If I don't receive FLAS I can't live with my host family so instead of taking the risk and waiting, I decided to find an apartment to move into. After watching rugby I met with a realtor and we looked at some apartments that fell within my price range and what I wanted, which was primarily location and the apartment being fully furnished. I feel in love with the second apartment which is a little older than other apartments but the room is bigger, it's furnished, and it has an AWESOME rooftop. I move in on October 25th so I will take some photos then. As much as I love living with a host family, it'll be nice to be independent again in my own apartment. The apartment is also a 10-15 minute walk to Yonsei so I will save a lot of money on not having to take the subway every day.

Midterms start this week on Friday and go until Wednesday. For my Reunification class I just have to memorize some terms and for my North Korea class I have a short two-page paper I have to write. What I am worried about is my Korean language midterm, which is four days long. On Friday I have to act out a skit that I wrote and memorized with my classmate. On Monday I have an oral interview with my teacher, on Tuesday is listening and reading, and on Wednesday is writing. Unlike my two content classes which are just pass/fail for me, in Korean the grade actually affects my GPA so I want to do really well in the class. Luckily I have a lot of credits already from my studying at MSU but a 6 credit class can still affect your GPA a considerable amount depending on how bad you do. So because I will be concentrating on studying for midterms, I won't be writing a blog until the end of next week or possibly after I move into my apartment. Hopefully my blog next week will sound positive!

Since I'm already on the topic of apartments, I will talk about apartment living and renting in Seoul. What is unique about apartments in Seoul and in Korea in general is the amount of the deposit. Deposits here are very high. I'm paying $2,000 and that is on the cheaper side. Usually they are $5,000 or $10,000. However, the higher the deposit you pay the lower your rent is. I'm paying $600 a month for my apartment, which includes rent, utilities, and building fees. Sometimes the deposit is so high that you don't even have to pay rent. It's a lot of money you have to put up front but you end up getting all the money back at the end of your contract. And the reason they can make the deposit so high is that the next person renting the apartment will pay that same deposit, so the owner is not losing out on any money. Additionally, a lot of one-room apartments, which is what I will be living in, have strict rules regarding who can come over. Most one-rooms won't allow overnight guests or a night of hanging out with your friends. Fortunately the apartment I will be staying at I can have long-term guests and I can have people over to hang out. I'm already planning on having a mini party on the rooftop.

This week's post has been shorter than previous weeks but I'll have a lot to talk about next week so I will see you then!

I'm finally 21!

This week marks the week I finally turn 21! As every week thus far, it was also filled with a lot of fun events. First of all I bought my plane ticket on Monday to return home. I'll be arriving in the good ol' US of A on June 30, 2015. I booked the ticket through American Airlines and the good thing about AA is that they allow two free checked bags if you are traveling from South Korea. I was planning on just paying for an extra suitcase when I return but now I don't have to!

On Wednesday I met with Jeong Bin to go over our usual language exchange but this week was different. When he walked in he surprised me with a green tea latte (my favorite) and a birthday present! He noticed I always have a water bottle with me so he bought me a thermos which I can put my water in. It was so thoughtful and unexpected! During the exchange we also talked a lot about traveling in other parts of Korea. He gave me good advice about which transportation to use and what towns/cities to visit. There's a train that you can take an unlimited amount of times for a week and the ticket only costs 40,000-50,000 won. With the information he gave me it looks like I need to start planning some future trips. Later that night So Yeong, my mentor, and I went to get some sushi for dinner. We both bonded over our love for seafood so it was only appropriate that we hit up a sushi restaurant in Sinchon as a pre-celebration for my birthday. We ended the night with some dessert at a place called Pie Hole. I had to explain to her why I thought the name was so funny because the phrase "pie hole" is slang for mouth. We got a warm brownie with ice cream and a maple pie, which tasted pretty darn similar to pecan pie. We talked about a lot of things and I found out that I'm the only buddy she hangs out with from our group. I guess I feel honored that I'm outgoing enough that that is the case but the other exchange students are totally missing out on having a fun time with her.

So Yeong and I at Pie Hole.

Korea celebrates its national foundation on October 3 so we didn't have school on Friday (yay for more holidays!). So on Thursday night after my KLI class I went with the calligraphy club to a bar restaurant for an event that included other clubs from Yonsei. I would say at least 10 clubs were represented at the restaurant and there were 6 of us from calligraphy club. For 10,000 won we could get unlimited food and drinks and towards the end of the night they played some games with prizes for the winners. In one of the games we played Korea's version of rock, paper, scissors and I actually made it to the final round. I went up to the stage, had to introduce myself, and then I played the final round which I unfortunately lost. I'm not going to lie and say it wasn't an awkward moment because it was. Lea and I were the only white foreigners in the restaurant so I don't think other students expected me to be on the stage. But I managed to hopefully not make a fool of myself and now I know I'm pretty darn good at rock, paper, scissors.

The beautiful ladies of calligraphy club.

On Friday Lea, Marisa, and I went to the Seoul Zoo and, obviously, saw a lot of animals. Two moments stood out to me on the trip though (I won't go into details about the zoo because all zoos are essentially the same). Since the zoo is on a mountain, one of the ways to get to the zoo from the entrance is by taking a sky lift. We wanted the day to be relaxing so we bought a pass that allowed us to take the sky lift multiple times which was a great decision. After walking around a lot it was so peaceful to be up in the air looking at the mountains, a lake, and the zoo attractions. The other moment was when when we were looking at raccoons and sloths who happened to be in the same cage. I thought it was very strange that they were in the same cage since they come from different regions and do not get along that well (they were fighting when we watched them). We stood in front of the cage for probably ten minutes just watching a raccoon engage with two sloths, who were actually moving quite a bit. I also learned that raccoons can scale walls and can do so upside down. We were also only a foot away from the cage so being able to see the animals that close in person made it more memorable. After the zoo we headed to Hongdae because I wanted to check out the H&M and Forever 21 there to see if I was able to find shoes. Korea only carries up to a size 8/8.5 in women's shoes but I figured since those two stores were Western that they would have my size but I was wrong. It looks like if I ever want to buy shoes here I'll have to do so online which is really frustrating because I'm not able to try them on beforehand. Next to the stores was a Taco Bell and since I was curious to see if it tasted different from the U.S. we went there for dinner. I was also craving some Southwestern food so Taco Bell seemed appropriate. I'm still surprised that Seoul has a Taco Bell since it's one of the few American fast food restaurants that really isn't found that much outside of the U.S. I think having a Taco Bell in Seoul speaks to how tight and long-lasting U.S.-Korea relations have been in comparison to other countries. And to those who were wondering, the Taco Bell in Seoul does taste the same as in the U.S. I ordered a crunchwrap supreme and nachos and I felt like I was back in EL.

One of our views taking the sky lift.

Apparently raccoons can scale walls.

Saturday was birthday day! It was strange celebrating my 21st not in the U.S. because it isn't seen as a special birthday here since the drinking age is 19. Nonetheless I still had a great day. It started when I was woken up by my host family to breakfast and birthday cake. In Korea it is traditional to eat a seaweed soup called miyeokguk so I ate that as well as other dishes including my favorite tofu dish. Later in the day Lea, Marisa, and I met in Hongdae to eat at an American breakfast restaurant. American breakfast food is one of my favorite things to eat so when a friend in my KLI class told me about the restaurant I was stoked to go. And to my happiness this restaurant did in fact have REAL American breakfast food. It felt just like home and it was exactly what I wanted. We decided that we are probably going to go there once a month and make it a Sunday brunch ritual (I honestly wouldn't mind going there every week, haha).

A morning feast of delicious Korean food.

My first birthday cake of the day given to me by my host family.

The day didn't end there. For dinner I invited my friends and we met up in Sinchon to eat at a Chinese restaurant. Just like the U.S. has American-Chinese food, Korea has Korean-Chinese food. One of the dishes is called tangseongyook which is essentially sweet and sour pork and it was delicious. Marisa and Lea were the sweetest friends ever and surprised me with a ice cream cake from Baskin Robbins. Seoul has an abundance of cute ice cream cakes and I was pumped to finally be able to try one! The cake looked like a honeycomb and each piece of the honeycomb was a different ice cream flavor. They purposely got the cake because it had a green tea flavor and they knew how much I love green tea ice cream. It's such a great feeling to have friends that actually care enough about you to know small details like that. We also enjoyed playing with the dry ice that came with the cake to keep it cold, haha. My friends got me cards (by the way, Korea has the best birthday cards), Marisa got me a Starbucks gift card (bless her soul), and Lea got me a Yonsei T-shirt which I was actually intending to buy this week for a school event (I'll save that for the next blog post) so that was convenient. At this point in my life I don't expect gifts for my birthday so it was so nice receiving them! Also when you're overseas you tend to appreciate the friends you have more than usual because you don't have your family and old social network to rely on.

My second delicious birthday cake made out of ice cream.

For the national foundation day Seoul has a huge hour and a half long fireworks show on the Han River. We headed to the river after dinner to see the show. Because of the crowd we didn't get super close to the fireworks but I was okay with it because if we did want to go in that area we would have had to wait around for 4-5 hours. We ended up watching the fireworks on a bridge across from the 63 Building and we saw them just fine. Each show was conducted by a different country and we stayed for two shows. My favorite fireworks were ones that made smiley faces in the sky since I've never seen those before. We left early to beat the crowd which I'm so happy we did because there was already a huge crowd leaving on the subway. We headed to Sincheon across the city (not to be mixed up with Sinchon) to get some maekkoli and to meet up with my two Korean friends. We ended up staying at the maekkoli bar for almost 4 hours drinking copious amounts of soju and maekkoli and playing drinking games. Between the 7 of us (we had a larger crowd earlier but a lot of people couldn't come to the bar) we drank around 8 bottles of soju and 6 jugs of maekkoli (the maekkoli was just so good though, especially the kiwi flavor). When we left the subway was closed so we caught a taxi back and thank goodness taxis in Seoul are super cheap. For a 20-minute ride totally across the city I only had to pay 6,000 won. By the end of that day I was exhausted so I drifted fast asleep. Not many people can say they spent their 21st birthday overseas and it will be a birthday I will always remember. It was also interesting getting messages from people for two days because of the time difference, haha.

My view of the fireworks.

Lastly on Sunday I went to Insadong, the historical and also very touristy part of Seoul, to buy calligraphy supplies with calligraphy club. Calligraphy is no joke. Some of the brushes I was looking at were 100,000 won and we even saw a small stone used for carving that was 500,000 won. I ended up buying a brush because that was all I needed for the moment and even though the brush was on sale for 50% off it was still 20,000 won. I plan on going to the club room this week and practicing my strokes more. We then went back to Sinchon and got lunch at a shabu shabu restaurant. Shabu shabu is the Korean version of hotpot and it was ridiculously good and super filing (there was just so much food!). My weekend overall was a fantastic food weekend. My taste buds were heavily, heavily spoiled.

A cultural aspect I will touch upon this week is dating. I'm not going to pretend I know everything about the culture of dating in Korea but I do know some things. When a couple dates in Korea they celebrate a lot more anniversaries than what Americans usually do. Instead of just a one-year anniversary, Koreans celebrate 100 days, 200 days, a year, and 500 days. The are even apps on phones that keep track of these dates. Sounds like a lot to remember, doesn't it? You will also see couples that dress alike. Some may wear the same shoes or the same shirts and then you see some that wear everything the same. If I can be incognito enough about it I think I might start documenting all the matching couples I see. If a couple did that in the U.S. they would most likely be made fun of but here it's so common that many people don't even think about it. Another aspect is that while dating, it isn't unusual for a Korean guy to say "I love you" after only a couple of weeks of dating. In my opinion that is ridiculously soon but they must not see it that way. The dating culture is something that if I looked into it more I could probably write an essay about it but for now this will suffice. I will see you next week!