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!