더워 더워 더워

"Hot hot hot" being the title meaning. I'm really glad that I decided to come in Korea for the fall, winter, and spring (yay experiencing the other seasons!) considering that summer here is unbearably hot...and rainy, a very unpleasant combo. With lack of classes still going on (thank God they're starting next week--I've been horribly bored) part of me wants to hang out with the friends I have made so far, but part of me wants to just stay in when the sun is beating and making everything unpleasant...well, at least fall is arriving soon :). So because of that I don't have much to say for this week.

Looking back at my last post title is pretty ironic, because these past two days I've had food poisoning and did end up throwing up twice >_<. Very unpleasant experience--possibly from not grilling some meat enough at one of those Korean BBQ places, or something else, I don't really know. But I'm recovering now! Mm what did I do this week? Saw some friends who were just in Korea for the week--my friend Silvia who I haven't seen for about two years and for anyone who knows Sei in Morse College, I saw her too :)! She had just arrived in from Taiwan also on the Light Fellowship! We ended up eating at a delicious 순두부 place which I mentioned in this blog from last summer too. I always enjoy it when the waiters arrange the 반찬 in such a colorful manner haha:
Afterwards was yummy 팥빙수. Personally I like it unmixed or anything but other people like to mash it up:
Personally I think the mashed-up one looks like vomit ;) (hm, I should probably stop having a vomit-themed blog).
Blast from the past--Chikae and Greg from last year, yay! We were talking about how Asian people really drink like no water. In a picture from early on in my blog I have a picture of Korean cups, which are at least 3 times smaller than American cups. Greg and I could not fathom how Koreans, who 1) eat spicy foods 2) eat salty foods 3) live in a hot environment and 4) drink a lot, can live on such little water...Chikae (who is Japanese) thought it was amusing that our cups in America are so much bigger haha. And of course, at the restaurant, Greg and I had to get up at least 5 times to refill our cups while she didn't get up even once. Of course, maybe we need to drink so much water because we're spoiled on such large cups of water. Hm.
After eating here we went to a pizza place, but not for the pizza haha. It was the only place I've ever seen that actually had W2,000 coffee, with most places serving coffee for between W4,000-6,000, which might as well be a meal! Ridiculous how much coffee is, but I can't argue that sitting at a cafe with friends while talking or studying for a final is lots of fun because cafe atmospheres here are great :). I have to admit, though, that seeing the brick walls and tabasco sauce and parmesan cheese made me really itch to have a pizza. Alas, I've still gotta wait for my money to go through :(, but once it does I'll feel less guilty about spending money on random things haha.
Waffles seem to be really really popular here, and I don't blame them--I miss waffles and pancakes so much and as soon as I get my money I'll be willing to spend it on these yummy but delicious dishes :). Of course, there are also the W1000 ones in the subway which are delicious as well. Mmm, now I feel like I've gotta get some haha. I was talking with my friends about how it would be great if there were an IHOP here and how they would make so much money! Well, my friends and I decided to search "IHOP Seoul" on google. Well we got this:

"I had an wonderful time at the IHOP Seoul Meeting. I really felt Jesus actually touch my heart, and this feeling was shared with many of my friends who were there also. ...

After searching a bit more, we found out that IHOP here is the "International House of Prayer." Boo, isn't it the INTERNATIONAL house of pancakes? Totally should be in Seoul :(.

Alas, maybe I'll try "One Tree Hill" (I really do wonder if that's ripped off the TV show name...), a new place down the street that was not here last summer that serves pancakes and waffles.

Wow, this was probably one of the most mundane and boring posts I've written. Sorry everyone, let's hope next week is more eventful ㅠ.ㅠ (Korean smileys are fun).

토할 것 같다...

First of all, forgive any blurry photos--the focus on my lens is unfortunately broken :( so I can't focus that well.

I think I'll start using Korean in my titles for this blog :). The line above was said by one of the Korean girls, Yuna, who I went with to Lotte World with, one of the largest indoor amusement parks in the world, when we rode one of those "tea cup" like rides haha (phew, what an embedded sentence). It means "I think I'm going to throw up" xP.

But I'll get back to Lotte World later! Not much happened this week--lots of settling down. I finally have a cell phone yay! And Bob and I got shelves delivered to us! So no more piles of clothes lying on the floor where the ants can get to them u_u. We spent hours on Saturday walking around Namdaemun Market, trying to find shelves, and people looked at us like we were crazy when we asked if they knew where we could buy shelves haha. The next day, we went to a 재활용 (recycling) center, which is apparently like Salvation Army...and found out it was closed T_T. But shortly after that, we went to Ahyeon Market and lo and behold, tons and tons of shelves (that all looked the same, not to mention)! Now we know where to go if we need furniture :).

On Sunday Bob, Dana, and I celebrated Sneha's birthday, another Yalie who's living here for a year! Bob got this adorable monkey cake for her, of whose destruction you can watch in picture sequence :D!

진짜 인정없네...hahaha. In other words, how cruel! :P But it was delicious :D.

Also a hilarious discovery made by Bob

If you look at the girl in the green shirt, that would be 리엔 (which sounds like "LeAnn" to me) from CHINA. Look at the book she's holding--not only is it RED, but it says MARX on it. Hahaha oh Sogang. How we love you.

I also had my first experience at a DVD bang yesterday. The concepts of bangs (pronounced bahng) is actually pretty cool. They're private rooms where you get to do a multitude things with friends--examples being noraebangs, for karaoke, board game bangs, to play board games, and as mentioned, DVD bangs, to watch movies with friends on a big screen. The couches you get to lie down on are actually pretty luxurious and reallyyyy comfortable! It's pretty great. Now you just have to erase from your mind the fact that some people use DVD bangs to hook up in and then you can enjoy your movie :P. Sneha, Dana, Bob, and I watched "Seducing Mr. Perfect" which apparently became famous for its usage of each character responding to each other in their respective languages (so the protagonist female, played by Uhm Jung-Hwa, speaks in Korean while the protagonist male, played by Daniel Henney--a famous half Korean, half British actor, responds in English, because he can't speak Korean). Personally I think it's an odd concept, and it's sort of weird that an actor can make it big in Korean cinema despite not speaking a word of Korean...a bit hegemonistic in my opinion. Dana and I were ranting about the fact that he doesn't speak Korean and is super arrogant in the movie, basically being in the movie only for being a pretty face haha.

But anyway, on Tuesday, I went to Lotte World, as I mentioned, with Bob, four of his friends that he met on Sogang's Gyeongju trip, and two of those friends' friends.
Meet Margaret 마가렛, Yuna 윤아, Hyeonmi 현미, William 윌리엄, Semun 세문, Donghwa 동화, and Bob 로버트!

Despite Lotte World being an indoor amusement park, we all still sweated like pigs when waiting in lines, which were often not very well air-conditioned...all lines should totally have seats in them--that would at least make the experience somewhat more comfortable :). What's also funny is that in Lotte World soooo many people were wearing these silly bunny ears or bows that they were selling, including the guys too haha.
이쁘죠? It's pretty isn't it? Hahaha. It's interesting what's more "acceptable" in different cultures, in that you won't be made fun of for it.
It's also great to see nuns having fun in an amusement park as well :D. Not to mention this nun's amazing visor. So if you read my previous posts from last summer, you'll know there's a whole culture of middle-aged Korean women called "ajummas 아줌마." Ajummas are well-known for having a distinct style of dress, including permed hair, a flowery shirt, bright pants, and VISORS. Now this nun has a particularly intense visor haha, one of the more intense ones I've seen for sure.
More wonderful examples of Engrish--Drunken Basket hahaha. That was the name of the teacup ride we took. And I guess it's a fairly apt name. After all, the spinning made Yuna say the line that's the namesake of this post hahaha.

All in all, although I'd have to say Lotte World cannot match up to Six Flags, I definitely had a lot of fun, plus it was awesome meeting Korean people, yay :D! Let's take a moment, though, and note the similarities between Lotte World's design and Disney World hahaha.
Design, blueness, the lights that come up at night, and...two characters that look strangely like raccoon versions of Mickey and Minnie Mouse (note the bow on the female squirrel)? Hahaha oh Korea :).

Back to the East

And I'm back in Korea! :D Thank you lots to the Light Fellowship!

So it's been a long year since I last updated, and looking back on my posts, I realize how silly I sound when I blog haha. But that's okay, I'm sure I'll look back on this year's posts too and laugh at myself.

And now I'm really here, for a whole 9 months too. Phew, that's pretty ridiculous--it'll be triple the time I was here last year, not to mention the longest I've been away from home, by far, but I'm sure I'll learn a lot of life lessons, and of course, greatly improve my Korean (hopefully :D). I've also found out recently that the Department of Defense rates Korean as the hardest language for English speakers for learn (a Category V language, which includes no other language in their list), requiring 75 to 88 weeks to learn to proficiency (not even fluency).

Wonderful.

What have I gotten myself into? Well, I solace myself with the thought that after Korean, any future languages I learn will be a walk in the park :), maybe. I had my interview today for placement into Sogang University's language program and I absolutely blew it. Just before it, I had lunch with my friend 민걸 who I hadn't seen since last summer (he doesn't speak English) and I felt really really confident about my Korean after talking to him. But I entered the room and absolutely froze and sweated profusely (gross, I know) from nervousness! Not only did I completely blank out on responding but the way I formed my sentences were so horribly poor that I felt like I belonged in Level 1! Well, at least I can't fall back into Level 3 since I graduated from it. So I placed into Level 4, despite doing a second year of Korean after doing Level 3 while studying Level 4 with Angela 선생님's help. Ah well, I guess at least I'll know all the material. I also have to get used to speaking in Korean again (gosh three months working in a baby lab and not speaking a word of Korean to anyone can really deteriorate your ability!). Hopefully these two weeks I have before classes start will gear me up for class at least, if not a chance to advance to Level 5 (which may be too scary anyway).

But backtracking a bit, I should probably give some background. My flight was pretty awesome--I had the wonderful luck of having 3 seats all to myself (a couple was next to me, but they moved to other seats--did I offend them? I don't know). So I lay down over all of them and slept for a good 6 or 7 hours, effectively conquering my jetlag (or so I think =]).

I'm staying in an apartment near Hyundai Department Store with another Light Fellow, Bob, whose blog you can read here: http://bobinseoul.blogspot.com

It's pretty nice! Fairly spacious, with all the amenities that we really need. I'll take some pictures and upload them some time soon. Only problem is for some reason we have a lot of ants. We don't even know where they're coming from, considering we don't have any food. Oh well, better than cockroaches or mosquitoes. Hopefully they'll go away and we won't have to call an exterminator...I don't even know how we would begin to explain wanting an exterminator in Korean hahahaha.

Setting up my bank account was pretty ridiculous, considering there's SO much bank terminology I barely understand in English, let alone in Korean. But at least I understood the most important points and I did a lot of smiling and nodding :). I don't know if even a year here will allow me to understand bank jargon (in any language ;]). Next up is getting my cell phone plan...which will require me to get an alien registration card first. Great. Official business and logistics never cease to be the bane of my existence!

Well, it's time for me to meet up with Heeseung, Tiffany (two girls from my Korean 132/142 class) and our first semester TA Sally for dinner! Yay!

Edit: Okay here are some pictures of my room with Bob. As you can see, it's much larger than my 하숙집 last year :).

Random lonely plant that the last tenants left behind...
탈모 means hair loss, so I guess we're near a hair loss health clinic or something XD.

Lotsa luggage strewn around--we're getting shelves soon!

And because Engrish is amazing: this seems to be a photocopy from an English-learning book that Bob found (I guess it was left behind by the last tenants). You can click the picture to see the awesome conversation and see that despite all the normal comparisons, the last one just had to be "AIDS and the Common Cold"!

And some more Engrish for fun :D.