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!
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