korea adventures
Weekly updates about the things I'm up to. Mainly so my grandma doesn't worry too much about me.
I can't believe that I only have a month left in Korea! It's been about four months since I first arrived, and I've been able to do so much around the country. I had to regularly use my winter jacket when going outside this week, but thankfully my landlord turned on the heater inside my goshiwon! Since it's the end of the semester, the projects, presentations, and studying are starting to pile up.
On Monday morning, I headed back to Seoul from Busan. We got to Busan station pretty early and had breakfast and did a little bit of homework before getting on the train. It was about a 3 hour train ride and another 45 minutes to get back to my goshiwon from Seoul Station. The trains have wifi on them, but the outlets weren't working. When I arrived in Gwanak-gu, it was lightly snowing. I couldn't really tell that it was snowing, but I could see little flakes on my black jacket. I also picked up lunch from Salady and exchanged money. I was exhausted after a fun weekend in Busan, but I still had class later that day. On Tuesday, my morning class got cancelled, which was perfect because I could go and pick up my ARC from the Immigration Office. I am relieved that I finally got my ARC. Now I don't have to worry about changing phone plans. Since I only have a month left in Korea, I don't want to go through the hassle of setting up the QR code. The QR code is used for contact tracing when eating at restaurants or entering stores, but I will continue writing my phone number down on paper. On my way back from the office, I paid for my Korean National Health insurance at the convenience store and also picked up a mini cream sandwich and a bagged drink. I went to a Michelin restaurant on Thursday called Minami. It was located near Seoul National University of Education Station. They are known for their soba, so I ordered a tororo soba. I don't think I've had tororo before, but it has an interesting texture and not much flavor. I thought that it was good, but it wasn't anything special considering it was a Michelin restaurant. On Friday, I went near Ewha Woman's University to go shopping. There are a lot of cheap clothing stores in the area, and you can find shirts starting at 5,000 won. Most of these clothing stores are one size, and they do not let you try on the one size items, which kind of sucks. They will let you try on items like pants though. After shopping around for a bit, I went to Sinchon to eat at Sulbing. I don't even know what Bingsu count I'm at at this point, but I ordered a cheese snowflake one. I've tried almost every Bingsu on the Sulbing menu. I had the SNU Buddy Food Festival on Saturday. For this event, there were two Korean students and three foreign students. We decided to make one Korean dish and one foreign dish. Since I don't really know how to cook, I suggested loco moco as the foreign dish. We bought microwavable rice, eggs (the only thing I know how to cook), and frozen meat patties. We also bought katsu sauce, since I don't think they sell gravy packets in Korea. For the Korean dish, the Korean buddies made tteokbokki. We rented a shared kitchen, which had a dining table and all of the supplies needed to prepare the food. The food was pretty good! On Sunday, I went to a Hawaii themed lunch with other UH students. It was a restaurant called Waves located near Mullae Station. This was the third Hawaii themed restaurant that I've been to, and the menus have all been very different. I had a fried avocado plate, which wasn't really anything Hawaii-like, but it was delicious! At night, I went bowling in Gangnam for the final SNU buddy event of the semester. This bowling alley was fun because sometimes colored pins would be placed, and if you got a strike, you would get a free chip or drink. One of the girls in our group won us a free chip and drink!
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I can't believe that I only have a little over a month left of being in Korea! Midterms are done, but I've had more papers recently. I went to Busan at the end of the week.
On Monday, I went to two places in Sharosu-gil that I've been wanting to try. This placed called Cafe Mignon had a beautiful display of fake food that I've walked past quite a few times. The tarts on display were not the same as the ones they had for sale inside, and sadly they didn't have the exact one I wanted. I only wanted one tart, but the worker told me that if I want it for take out, I need to get a minimum of two tarts. I ended up trying apricot and earl gray. The apricot one was delicious, but the earl gray one tasted like alcohol. The second place I picked up food from was Dos Tacos. It was like any other Mexican restaurant I've been to. A lot of restaurants are located on the second floor, and Dos Tacos is one of the restaurants. On Tuesday, one of my friends sent me a TikTok of this user named annainseoul. Her videos have gone viral recently because she mixes the bagged drinks from the convenience stores. After seeing that video, I was inspired to try her drink creation. I bought a bagged chocolate milk, a bottle of strawberry milk, and a cup of ice, and I mixed it all together. I basically made strawberry chocolate milk, and it was delicious! I also bought curry udon. The next day, I went back to the convenience store to buy another bagged drink and cup of ice. Each convenience store sells different flavors, but I like the variety the CU's carry compared to the GS25's. I bought a Jeju Hanrabong Ade, which was basically like a Hi-C Orange. On Thursday, the air quality was really bad. I was in desperate need for food, so I went for a quick walk to try and find something to eat. I found a hotteok stand near SNU station, but they only had the sweet one. It was only 1,000 won, so I decided to buy it. I also bought a wrap from Paris Baguette and a hot and spicy flavored sun chips from 711. The sun chips were also recommended on the annainseoul tiktok account. On Friday afternoon, I headed up to Seoul Station to take the KTX train to Busan. The KTX trains are high speed trains that travel long distances across Korea. Seoul Station is huge, but it is pretty easy to find the KTX trains if you follow the signs. When buying train tickets, they don't tell you what platform number your train departs from, so you have to wait for your train number to appear on a screen. Only the trains soon to be departing are displayed on the screen, so it doesn't help much to arrive at Seoul Station too early. Our platform number was not displayed until around 20 minutes before our departure time. I ate lunch at McDonald's and bought a sandwich from Paris Croissant, which I was planning to eat on the train. The train ride was about 2.5 hours, and a guy sitting behind me said that I couldn't eat. We arrived in Busan around 7PM, and it was an hour train ride to our hotel near Haeundae Beach. We stayed at an Ibis Ambassador, which was a reasonable price per night. However, hotels in Asia are pretty strict about the number of people who stay in each room. The max number of people they would allow for the reservation was 2 people, so I had to hide while my two friends checked in. Luckily there was a McDonald's right across the street, so I bought a Plum Chiller to keep myself occupied while they checked in. On Saturday, I had a full day. I had a really good experience with the last Trazy tour I did to Nami Island, so I decided to do another tour in Busan. The tour was really good because the tour guide was very knowledgeable, and we were able to stop at the main attractions. I believe most Trazy tours have an English speaking tour guide and provide admission and bus transportation to all of the attractions. Although Busan does have public transportation, it does not come as frequently as Seoul, so it is often better to drive to reach the tourist destinations. The first place we went to was the Haedong Yonggunsa Temple. This temple is unlike other temples in Korea because it is on the cliffs overlooking the ocean. The views from here were spectacular and reminded me of home. Our next stop was lunch and Taejongdae. The best part of these tours is that the tour guides are super knowledgeable, so they know the best places to eat! I had lunch at a Korean-Chinese restaurant and ate a delicious fried rice. Taejongdae is on the coast and is a bit of a hike down to a lighthouse. There is a beautiful view of the ocean and mountain, and it kind of reminded me of Pololu Valley in a way. Our third stop of the day was Songdo Beach Skywalk. This beach was the first beach opened to the public in Korea. From the beach, there were beautiful views of the city and ocean. The last stop of the day was Gamcheon Cultural Village. After the Korean War, many people moved to Busan, making this area very run down. Later, the government wanted to revitalize the area and encouraged artists to come and paint. Today, this village is known for the colorful buildings and is what I think of when I think of Busan. The views here were beautiful, especially since we came around sunset time. A vendor was selling something pretty innovative: a toasted marshmallow with ice cream inside. After a long day, we got dropped off at Haeundae Station. Sunday was our last full day in Busan. For breakfast, we ate at McDonald's. I had a decaf latte, hashbrown, lettuce tomato egg muffin, and pancakes. We checked out Haeundae Beach before heading to the Busan Aquarium. Pro tip: always check online (Trazy or Klook) for discounts on tickets. The Busan Aquarium was pretty cool and had lots of decorations for photos. After, we went to Museum Dah. If you've ever been to TeamLab in Japan, this museum is similar but way smaller. The museum is very vibrant and focuses on digital art. It was located next to a Shinsegae, so we ate lunch in the basement. This was possibly the worst lunch I've had. I ordered a spaghetti salad, and according to the picture, it looked like I would get iceberg lettuce with spaghetti and tomato sauce. I was very wrong. I got noodles with spicy kale. We also went to Yongdusan Park to see Busan Tower. There wasn't anything too exciting here, and it was quite a hike to get to the park from the train station. We went down a random elevator and were lead to a shopping street that looked just like Myeongdong. We bought boba at Gong Cha and shopped around for a bit. There was even a group playing music! After a long day, we headed back to our hotel. This was my first week in awhile which I didn't have a midterm! However, I still have papers to write for three of my classes. I'll also be going to Busan soon, so I have been working hard to get those papers done. Compared to back at home, I have so much more free time due to a combination of less activities, not having a job, and the class structure (less busy work, more larger projects/papers). I've been using a lot of my mornings (later afternoon in Hawaii) to network, interview, and apply for jobs. I know that I will not have this luxury once I go home.
I started my Monday pretty early, since I was meeting with someone back at home. I practically did nothing all day until I had class at 3:30PM. For lunch, I bought my favorite ricotta salad from Salady. I've also been obsessed with this bakery near the Gwanak-gu office. I bought a chocolate covered pretzel, and it was really good! The pretzel wasn't a regular pretzel, and it had sesame seeds inside of it. After classes on Tuesday, I went to dinner with a friend in Sharosu-gil. She is from Japan, so she wanted to eat Japanese food. In Sharosu-gil, there are many different types of restaurants, and we found a place that had ramen. For dessert, I bought a rolo ice cream from the convenience store. Before I started class on Wednesday, I went grocery shopping at my usual grocery store. It was quite an expensive trip because I bought a tiny jar of peanut butter for almost $7... I've also been craving Auntie Anne's pretzels, so I ordered a cup of cream cheese filled pretzel sticks. I also bought a roll of kimbap from the LaBab near the Gwanak-gu Office. I've walked past that LaBab so many times, but this was my first time trying it. After classes on Thursday, a friend invited me to cook. She is part of a diversity committee through SNU, and the school occasionally provides them with groceries to make diverse meals. The theme of the dinner was French food, so we had ratatouille and crepes. I helped cut the vegetables for the ratatouille and mix the batter for the crepe. It was also Peppero day, so we ate Peppero! Peppero day is basically another Valentine's day in Korea that was created by the company. On Friday, I had a virtual lunch event with people back at home. I wanted to eat something a little different, so I bought a black bread with cheese and tomatoes from the same bakery near Gwanak-gu Office. A lot of places near my goshiwon do not open until 11 or later, so it was hard to find take-out when I was looking for food. After that, I rode the train to Namdaemun Market. The market had so many different vendors selling everything you could think of, including a lot of fake luxury brands, clothes, skin care, jewelry, and food. Looking inside of the shops made me feel quite overwhelmed and somewhat claustrophobic. It was basically like Ohana Hale Marketplace in Hawaii, but like a thousand times more crowded. At Namdaemun Market, I tried hotteok for the first time, and it was so good! Hotteok is Korean pancake, and there are both sweet and savory flavors. The sweet one was filled with red bean, and the savory one was filled with vegetable japchae. After exploring almost every aisle at Namdaemun, I walked to Myeong-dong to eat at Din Tai Fung. The last time I ate at DTF was back in 2019 in Taiwan, so when I found out there was one in Korea, I had to go back to get my all time favorite chocolate XLB. For dessert, I went to McDonald's and had a strawberry oreo mcflurry and churro. We also shopped around Myeong-dong for a bit to find winter clothes. On Saturday, I went ice skating with SNU buddy. This was my first time going ice skating in a few years, and it was a lot of fun! The ice rink we went to was called Waikiki Mokdong Ice Rink. We bought tickets from a machine which allowed us to skate for two hours and rent skates. I thought it was interesting that we were required to wear a helmet while skating. In the middle of the ice rink, younger children were having classes. They were very talented, so it was cool to see them do a lot of tricks. After ice skating, we went to a Coffee Bean to relax. I totally forgot that it is the holiday season, so it was a nice surprise to see my hot chocolate in a holiday themed sleeve. On Sunday, I went to Icheon with SNU Buddy. It was quite a long way from my goshiwon. I rode the train to Gwang-byeon station, and from there, we bought tickets to ride a bus to Icheon. It was a direct hour long bus ride to the city, and we had to take a taxi to get to the pottery village. Public transportation outside of Seoul is not as frequent, so it was more convenient for us to take a taxi. Once we arrived in the pottery village, we ate lunch at a Korean restaurant. My SNU buddy said that the town is known for good rice, so I had a bibimbap. I thought the rice was good, but I especially enjoyed the banchan. After lunch, we went to a pottery class. We all made different things, but I made a small bowl. The workers were extremely helpful and spoke English very well. One of the workers said she is going to Hawaii next month! After our class, we walked around the village. Icheon is known for ceramics, so there were a lot of small shops selling ceramic goods. It is such a peaceful town with beautiful architecture. We also ate at a cafe that was beautifully designed and had a nice view of the sunset and mountain. This week had my last midterm! I'll have a slight break from studying until finals begin in early December. I do have a 10 page Korean History paper to write, so I will also have to work on that in the upcoming weeks. Time is flying by, and I can't believe it's already November!
When I first arrived in Korea, I tried a chain called Pizza School, and it is known for its interesting pizza toppings. I've been thinking about the different pizza flavors, so for lunch on Monday, I picked up a sweet potato pizza. The sauce that they put on the pizza is super good, and it's made fresh! I will be back another day to try some of their other weird flavors. I've also been trying the different bagged drinks from the convenience stores, and I had the grapefruit ade. The ades are really sweet, so it tastes good when watered down. I had my third and final midterm on Tuesday, so it is nice to have a break until finals start in early December. After classes on Tuesday, I went for a walk in the Gwanaksan Park. It is crazy how much the leaves have changed color since the last time I went about a month ago. There is still some green, but the majority of trees are a beautiful brown, yellow, or red. It's so cool experiencing a real fall for the first time! I had a very, very long day on Wednesday. Due to the Hawaii time difference, I had an interview at 5:15AM, followed by 3 more events, class that ended at 5:30PM, and ended the day meeting with my friends to plan a trip. I thought that drinking a bagged hazelnut latte from the convenience store would make me feel energized, but it actually made me feel so sick when trying to sleep. I have been trying to get my body adjusted to coffee, but I think my stomach is not a big fan. I do enjoy the taste of coffee, so I guess I will suffer until my stomach gets used to it. I also think the coffee beans in Korea are different because I would never be so affected by the coffee at home. As a reward for making it through the long day, I bought myself a chocolate scone from a bakery near the Gwanak Office. On Wednesday afternoon, I received an email from HireDiversity (ARC company) that I needed to get my fingerprints scanned. I was quite confused because when I went to get my fingerprints scanned three weeks ago, the lady said they already had it on file. I knew that that was probably wrong because that was not the case for anyone else, but I did not want to make a big deal about it. I faced the consequences of not speaking up. On Thursday morning, I went to the same building I went to three weeks ago to get my fingerprints scanned and found out that this wasn't the right place to go to. The place I was actually supposed to go to was the Seoul Immigration Office, which was about an hour away. I hurried to the train station because I had a meeting at 11:30, and it was already 9:15. Luckily, when I got to the immigration office, there was no line to get my fingerprints scanned, and I was able to make it to my meeting on time. I am still quite frustrated that this happened, and now I'm worried that I will not get my ARC in time. Everyone else from SNU already got theirs, but I will just have to wait for now. On Friday, I went to a Hawaii themed restaurant for dinner in the Parnas Mall, which is connected to Coex. I was really craving an acai bowl, so I got one that had strawberries, bananas, and blueberries on it. It definitely wasn't as good as home, but it was enough to satisfy my craving. The acai bowl was rather small, so I also got this mashed potato and egg dish from EggSlut. Inside a lot of higher-end malls, there are a lot of sales going on for the beginning of Fall. In the open spaces where people typically walk, vendors are selling coats/warm clothes for up to 90% off. It's crazy to think that these vendors have so much trust in people; if stores sold clothes like this in the US, it would probably get stolen. After dinner, I went to the Olympic World Park because there was a giant statue of the red light green light doll from Squid Game. The doll is already creepy but seeing her at night in the middle of an empty park was even creepier. On Saturday, my SNU buddy group went to a place called Sports Monster located in Hanam, which is about 1.5 hours away from SNU Station. We met up at Jamsil station for lunch at a cafe called Cafe Mamas, and I had a mushroom panini. I always find it so interesting how some restaurants alter the food, as my panini had cranberries in it, but it actually tasted really good. Sports Monster was a lot of fun, and there was so much to do inside. There was a trampoline, digital racing, and even karaoke, but the most fun activity was a 6 course obstacle. For the obstacle, we were about 25 feet up in the air, and not all parts of the obstacle had a net below. We were wearing a helmet and harness, but the fact of not having a net below really made my adrenaline rush. In the course, we got to jump from 8m, walk across unstable blocks of wood/rope, and rock climb! It was a bit scary but a lot of fun. We were only allowed to stay at Sports Monster for two hours, so we headed back to SNU station. For dinner, some of us ate at a Vietnamese restaurant in Sharosugil, and I had pho. I ate at a souffle pancake cafe on Sunday in Sharosugil. I ordered a fruit souffle, and it reminded me of the farmers market back at home, since it was topped with different fruits like figs, grapefruit, grapes, lilikoi, dragonfruit, and pineapple. I love how most of my fruit consumption during my exchange has been coming from desserts. After eating, we also picked up kimbap and made our way to Bukhansan National Park to hike. It was about 1.5 hours to get to the start of the trail via bus and train. The mountain was beautiful, and since it is fall, the leaves were beautiful on the path up. Unfortunately we started too late/the sun sets too early, so we decided that it would be best to turn around to avoid hiking back in the dark. In addition, since all of the leaves were falling, it made certain parts quite dangerous and slippery. We headed back to a transfer station and ate Indian food in the Lotte Mall. I had honey butter naan and a palak, and both items were delicious! I finished one of my midterms last week, and this week consisted of midterm #2 for my digital marketing class. I just have one more midterm next week Tuesday!
Since I don't start class until late on Monday, I walked down to the market to restock on a bunch of groceries. On my way back from the market, I stopped at a restaurant for Korean food. I tried a Korean fried seaweed roll a few weeks ago, and my friend mentioned that this place next to the Burger King has a lot of Korean food which I might like. I believe the card reader was broken, but luckily I had cash on me. The worker was super nice and gave me a discount on my food because she felt bad that I had to pay with cash. There was also this vendor on the side of the road that I bought a twisted donut like thing from. I went to the GS25 as well, and when I entered, I could not understand what the worker was trying to tell me. As I walked more into the store, he kept talking to me in Korean and pointed towards the door, so I guess he was trying to tell me to leave. I'm still not sure why he didn't want me in there. I went to a different GS25 up the road to buy my musubi, and this stores card reader wasn't working as well! I later found out that SK was down, which is probably why everywhere could only take cash (and possibly why the worker asked me to leave the first GS25?). I needed a lot of food for the day because I was supposed to have class from 3:30-6:20PM and 7-9:50PM. The later class was one of the makeup classes for the holidays in previous weeks. Luckily the first class was only from 3:30-5:30, so the second class started at 6:30 and ended at 8:30. It was not fun having class for an extended period of time. Tuesday is usually my busy day, but since my Sustainable Business Management class has a midterm next week, she let us out of class really early. I bought a musubi from the convenience store and it's kimchee rice with corn and cheese in the middle. I tried this musubi before, but I swear it got 10x spicier than the last time I had it. After my classes ended, I went to a cafe to study for my Digital Marketing midterm that was just a few days away. After my midterm on Thursday, I decided to go for a walk to check out campus. My professor said that campus was beautiful, and he was definitely not wrong. My iPhone quality did not do a great job of capturing the autumn colors. Since I was on campus, I met up with a friend for dinner at Olive Tree, one of the restaurants near the dorms. We also grabbed tea at a very popular study cafe called Blue Pot. On Friday, I met up with one of my coaches friends for dinner. It is crazy what a small world Hawaii is! He took me and a few of his friends (also with Hawaii ties) to a somewhat Hawaii inspired restaurant called Katabuta near Samgakji Station. There were items like loco moco, poke, beef stew, and spam musubis, but most of the items had a Korean twist to it. The loco moco had a garlic tomato sauce, and the beef stew was made with ground beef and was spicy! We also went out for bingsu at Sulbing after. I think this is bingsu #11. This was also my first time riding in a car since my arrival to Korea. On Saturday, I participated in the SNU Buddy Squid Game. It was a super fun event, and we played 6 different games, which were the games played in the show. I didn't do very well, but I loved the creativity that went into planning the event. Later in the day, I went to Lotte World. Pro tip: buy your Lotte World tickets online from Klook to save lots of money. Since it was the day before Halloween, it was extremely crowded and definitely not COVID friendly. Even though we got there at 6PM, we were still able to watch a zombie show, ride two rides, and eat dinner all before the park closed at 9PM. I went to Hybe Insight on Sunday, which is a Kpop museum. I showed up to the museum wearing my blue surgical mask (which really makes you stand out as a foreigner in Korea), and the worker gave me a KN94 (basically what 90% of the Korean population wears) to change into. It was a very interactive museum, and I loved how digitized everything was, without taking away the feeling of a traditional museum. There was an app to download ahead of time to guide you through the museum, as well as an AR game in one of the exhibits. I'm not a big Kpop fan, but it was still fun to look around. After the museum, I ate KBBQ. I also went shopping at I Park Mall/Yongsan Station and had a shake and fries from Shake Shack. While eating my dessert, it started raining hard, and there was thunder and lighting too, despite the Apple weather forecast saying it's only partly cloudy. I didn't have an umbrella with me, and it would have been super unpleasant to walk to the bus stop to get back home. I went to Daiso to look for an umbrella, and there was a group of at least 20 people doing the exact same thing. I couldn't understand what one of the workers was yelling, but she must've been super stressed (and confused) about how many people were coming into the store. |
AuthorStudying abroad at Seoul National University! Archives
December 2021
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