korea adventures
Weekly updates about the things I'm up to. Mainly so my grandma doesn't worry too much about me.
This Monday was another holiday to celebrate Hangul Day. As mentioned in my previous blog post, although Monday is a holiday, we will be having make up classes later in the semester. This is definitely not something I'm used to. A holiday should be a holiday, right?
Because I had Monday off, I went to Ikea. It is technically not located in Seoul, so we took one of the red buses for about 40 minutes. Red buses travel further distances to cities other than Seoul, blue buses travel within Seoul, and green buses travel short distances within a district. This was my first time at an Ikea, and it was quite an experience. I ate lunch there, and it was insanely busy. It was definitely much more crowded than UH's Campus Center. I had plant balls, teriyaki tofu, and a slice of raspberry chocolate cake, and everything was delicious. Next to the Ikea, there was a Lotte Mall. We spent some time in there finding winter clothes, since the temperatures at the end of the week are expected to drop to the 30s! On Wednesday, I went to campus to get my fingerprints scanned for my ARC, and the line was really long. Apparently, my fingerprints had gotten scanned somehow, which I was really confused about, so hopefully all of my documents get processed correctly. I also made an appointment to get my flu shot on campus. It was 33,000 won for the shot, and everyone at the health center was able to speak English, making the process really easy. Since I was on campus, I enjoyed lunch at the Student Center for under $2. My meal came with salad, kimchee, rice, soup, and tomato egg. In Korea, buying a cup of ice and drinks in bags is fairly popular at convenience stores. I bought a bag of peach iced tea and a cup of ice, but most of the bagged drinks have coffee in them. Since I don't have class on Fridays, I went to the Hangeul Museum and National Museum of Korea. This Friday was SNU's birthday, so a few friends didn't have class as well. The graphics in the Hangeul Museum were cool, but a lot of the descriptions were in Korean, so I couldn't understand much. The National Museum of Korea is gigantic! There was so much cool artwork to see, and even after spending 2 hours there, we didn't even see a fraction of the museum. The best part of these two museums is that they are located right next to each other and admission is free. Finding lunch near the museum was quite a struggle though, since it was around 2PM. We came across a Korean snack shop selling fried foods and tteokbokki. I had fried mandu and seaweed filled with glass noodles, and I think those have been my favorite Korean foods so far. On Saturday, it was my friends birthday. We went to the Hyundai Department Store in Sinchon for dinner. It was also the first cold day in Seoul, and it was around 40 degrees. I had to use my down jacket and wear my ultra warm heattech from Uniqlo for my walk to the station. Usually the basement of department stores are more affordable, but since it was his birthday, we decided to eat on the 10th floor instead, where the restaurants are a bit nicer. We ate Korean food, and it came with so many side dishes for a reasonable price. We also had dessert in the department store as well. I had a fruit bingsu (bingsu count: 9? I've lost track), and I was genuinely confused as to why it was called "fruit" bingsu and not "strawberry" bingsu at first. To my surprise, hidden under the flaky ice, it was filled with fruits like kiwi, banana, and pineapple. It's always nice to have fruit, since it is kind of a luxury when in Korea. On Sunday, I went with SNU Buddy to visit the Jong-gu district. We ate lunch at a previous Michelin restaurant, and I had bibimbap. Before lunch that day, I had the assumption that all Michelin restaurants were high end, but I learned that there are a handful of affordable ones as well. After eating lunch, we headed to the Seoul Museum of Art located near City Hall. This museum had a handful of digital aspects, along with printed paintings and photographs.
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AuthorStudying abroad at Seoul National University! Archives
December 2021
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