방문 방문~

"Visit visit~"

So as a quick update to what's happened these two weeks other than the ear issue and getting used to Level 6, these two weeks also involved two of my friends visiting from other countries!

Not just that though, but I've been seeing lots of familiar faces lately! Don't you love it when you haven't seen someone for a long time and you finally get to see them again? That's when Koreans say "반갑다!", which is also used for "Nice to meet you!" For one familiar face, those following my blog two years ago will remember my Japanese friend Yoshiko, who continued at Sogang after me but then returned to Japan and is now back and taking Level 6 with us, woo! :D So two weekends ago, Yoshiko, Kana, Henry, and I met up with Kyunghee (the girlfriend of my friend Greg from Level 3) and her friends to celebrate Kyunghee's birthday!
Tandoori chicken mm~
Chicken Paneer and Lamb Masala. Ah how I've missed Indian food :).
To butt in quickly here, living in Seoul for a long time has made me notice one thing--I cannot go for a long time without super varied food! Out of Korean food that is within normal price ranges, there really isn't much variation (this day 찌개 stew, that day 삼겹살 samgyupsal--Korean bacon, next day 볶음밥 fried rice, rinse, repeat). Korean food is very delicious, but as with anything (and perhaps because I am spoiled by how many different kinds of foods there are in New York) it does get tiring and repetitive after a while, and foreign food is normally very expensive (at least 3-4x more expensive than normal Korean food). Alas! Henry actually took me to an American diner the other day and we were both pleasantly surprised by how it actually was really good and reminiscent of good old-fashioned American diners! (and now back to the topic).
Hapypy birthday Kyunghee :D. Yummy pudding cake!
After dinner, we went to a cafe (not this one) but I just found this very amusing hahaha.
My green tea latte in the cafe.

Okay, now for the visitors! One was former Korea Light Fellow Heeseung, who is studying abroad in London this semester and came to Seoul for a few days. For people who have been following my blog (or Heeseung's when she was here, or River's when he was here) you'll recognize Meng Ju in this picture :D!
As you can see we had yummy yummy fried chicken (it's funny how popular fried chicken is in Asia! This place, called The Frypan also has really amazing fried chicken! I was pleasantly impressed :D).

My second visitor (unfortunately, did not take pictures that day) was Arthur, who is studying in Beijing and is my high school friend Angela's friend (phew what a link) and you'll have seen pictures of him if you saw my post about Beijing! He was here for a weekend and found Seoul awesome (who would expect less? :D) I also learned that day that the Korean practice of playing the most popular songs on repeat forever (such that it is impossible to not know what the popular songs of the moment are) extends as well to Lady Gaga (as we heard Telephone at least 20 times that night). Go Lady Gaga.
Another visit was from Henry's mother once more (who also visited earlier this year). She took Henry, Kana, and I to a yummy 한정식 restaurant (where you will get about 20-30ish small 반찬 small dishes of food as you can see below) in Insadong.
We then finished our trip in a tea shop where I tried an interesting drink--a ginseng smoothie haha. As expected, it was bitter and had that "good for your health taste" but to be honest, it wasn't bad! To be honest, I'd try it again ^^.
Also fun fact: for those who studied Level 4 at Sogang University, or seen the Level 4 book, they will know "Brian Barry" a famous 탱화 (Buddhist art) artist who became a monk and has lived in Korea for over 40 years. Funny enough, Henry's mom knew him from Peace Corps! What a small world! :D

What else to say in this post? I've been feeling much more confident about my Korean lately! Hanging out with my Korean friend and two of her Korean friends such that I was also able to hear how they spoke to each other (Koreans definitely speak to each other differently than they will to foreigners from my experience, but I guess that's anyone right?) and actually understand most of it was pretty awesome! Also, after going through Level 5 and a bit of Level 6 video class, I'm actually feeling good about watching dramas without subtitles. I've begun 찬란한 유산 (Brilliant Legacy, Shining Inheritance...you can translate it in a few ways) recently and even though there are some scenes where I have to repeat the scene to hear what they're saying, and sometimes even then I don't catch everything, I get a good deal! It's still frustrating to not understand everything though...I wonder if my parents felt that or still feel that when they watch American TV, hmm.

On the other hand, I think my English speaking skills have dropped o_O. I noticed that when I was talking to Arthur, I would ramble on about something and then think to myself, wait, there is no way that what I just said made any sense in English...almost as if I was saying it in a Korean way? I don't know! Weird! Hehe :).

To next time! Tonight's Naoko and Hiroko's last night in Seoul before heading back to Japan and Saturday is Shaun's wedding so look forward to a post about that :).

3월말에 이럴 수가...

"This at the end of March..."

Phew, it's been a while! Sorry for the constant slow updates T_T. What with school picking up and preparing for my presentation time has not quite been on my side! But alas, tomorrow is my presentation and I'm set so now time has cleared up...for a bit at least hehe.

On the good news side, my Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss 돌발성 난청 seems to be gone (I hope)! I'm heading to the hospital once more tomorrow to test my hearing! That's pretty much my update for these past weeks--working on my presentation while dealing with my ear issues and relaxing a lot!

As for the point of this post? How crazy Korea's weather is! It's the end of March and somehow we got struck by a snowstorm today! Around 3PM as I was heading home with my friend, snowflakes began to fall and within a few minutes the snowflakes became huge, very reminiscent of the winter. Totally had that idea of New York being colder wrong, as did all my Korean (as well as other Asian) friends here who have the idea of New York snowing all the time haha. Of course, we have snow like this in New York as well but I don't think it's very common...and I've heard that the weather is what, between 50 and 70F there? It's definitely getting warmer here, with the average around 5 degrees Celsius (that's maybe low to mid 40s or so in Fahrenheit) but not warm enough! I'm guessing we'll probably have a few weeks of spring and then the temperature will just get super hot--but I guess that's what they say about Korea--3 days of hot and 3 days of cold? Some line like that that I can't quite remember!

Not to mention, yesterday was a perfectly sunny and rather warm day, while the day before we got hit by a sandstorm from China! Now that's the first time I've experienced 황사, literally "yellow sand," which blows in from deserts in China and Mongolia. Coming from a place that's not anywhere remotely close to a desert, I couldn't even imagine what a sandstorm would look like. I heard that the sandstorm in Beijing was one of the worst lately and that the one two days ago here was also very serious. It was quite an experience to look outside my window and see the sky covered in yellow. I have to admit, when I heard the bug screen door swing open from the strong winds, I freaked out for a second, thinking someone had climbed on to my balcony haha. Although the sandstorm was not as bad as I imagined it to be (I was expecting sand in my clothes and irritating my eyes, skin, etc.) but it actually didn't really feel like much when I headed out. What I did notice though was many cars' marred with sand today. Ah, I should've taken a picture of that sand.

For now, here are pictures of the snow today!
Oh and this was just because I decided to have some fun while washing dishes.

Wish me luck tomorrow! I hope my presentation on Optical Illusions will grab my classmates' attention ^^. Also, I think it's pretty awesome that I'm able to talk about such in a powerpoint presentation. Despite the fact that I am very far from being fluent or even close to proficient at Korean, there's a nice feeling of self-satisfaction in being able to say, "hey! I explained optical illusions in a powerpoint presentation in a foreign language!" :D

당신을 봅니다

"I see you"

Probably the most famous line from Avatar, which I finally got around to seeing! And not just in 3D, but in what Korea calls "4D"! "What's 4D?" is the question I usually get and what I wondered when I first heard of it too. Well apparently it combines 3D with the experience of those motion simulators you have in theme parks and sights and whatnot. So the chairs will move when the ships fly for example, or when Jake jumps into the water, a tiny splash of water dashes across your face, Neytiri shoots an arrow and a sharp wind zips past your cheek, in fight scenes, something will hit the back of your seat, some strings or something whip your leg. It was entertaining for sure, but worth the 18,000W? Well, maybe just for the experience, but I wouldn't pay for 4D again. As for my thoughts on Avatar? Beautiful, amazing graphics. Like WOW I could watch scenes from that world for days. The story? Not original in the least bit (very much like Pocahontas actually...just add songs and you've got Pocahontas with blue people) but still a feel-good movie that causes you to hate the villains, love the protagonists, and possibly even shed a tear at the sad scenes. All in all, I enjoyed it a lot (I mean, I loved Pocahontas after all)! Not to mention me being a linguistics geek had fun listening to the Na'vi language--which was subtitled in Korean of course, so there was (a little) Korean reading practice! Also, strangely enough, some of the characters' mumblings were difficult for me to fully understand, at which point I ended up having to read the Korean subtitles to figure out what they said (I don't know if that's just me or if I'm really losing my grasp of English haha!).
The mall where the theatre was--very very modernized and cutting-edge architecture :).
Henry sports the 3D glasses.
Story Noraebang! Lots of fun since always! And free ice cream :)
The stars--singing Bohemian Rhapsody hahaha.

What else to update from this week? Well, our friend Xue Qing is back from China and starting college here! Level 6 is definitely a very different experience from 5, what with 5 classes collapsing into 2 and the complete difference of the lessons themselves. I have to say though, I'm learning a LOT of vocabulary (a never ending battle as always), including a huge list of "feeling words" we received (with, for example, 8 words for regret 아쉬움, 6 words for sadness 슬픔, 5 words for shyness/embarrassment 부끄러움, etc. you get the gest) and yet still more ways to say "because" (I think we may be up to at least 15 now...I will not bother counting). Regardless, the freer class atmosphere gives us much more time to talk--which I think is good for increasing our level to be able to talk about advanced topics. It's funny though when I can carry out a discussion about something like the different viewpoints of people on the former president 박정희 who was both criticized for being dictator-like but also praised for leading Korea to become one of the fastest developing nations in the world and yet I only learned the word for "light bulb" the other day. Go figure haha. Language learning really has no set order, but maybe that's what makes it so fascinating...

On the darker side, I woke up on Saturday with an intense ringing in my left ear, accompanied by a muffled sound and what I noticed was different pitch perception in both ears (lower in my left one) as well as a marked drop in my hearing ability. I went to the doctor on Monday, who was unsure of whether it was an issue with my nerves or what's known as Ménière's Disease, which can lead to permanent hearing loss. After a few days, I went back, and because I didn't experience vertigo or dizziness, he concluded that it's probably not Ménière's Disease, and I was put on medication for Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss (SSHL), which I found out after doing some research on Google, is a great mystery in otolaryngology and so hopefully this medication will work and hopefully I will not experience permanent hearing loss (which would suck for video class and just for using a language in general =[). Ah, traveling has really led me to a bunch of random illnesses, eesh! Going to the doctor though made me yet more aware of how language learning is not linear. At one appointment, I understood virtually everything the doctor said, and then at the next almost nothing went into my head. Of course though, I was able to get and confirm the important information, so I can only hope this gets better! :)

And of course, I should end on a bright note--on Tuesday after seeing Avatar, I went to have dinner with one of my mom's best friend's son, Heesoo, who I've known since I was really really young. I hadn't seen him for a long time so it was quite interesting to recognize him again (I still have clear memories of home videos of us when I was maybe 6 or 7 and he was in his early teens). How the times change! He's starting studies at Korea University soon for graduate school. We had some delicious bibimbap at this Buddhist restaurant he took me too and then rounded off the (super snowy--there should NOT be this much snow in March...) night with tea.
The nutritious meal.
부추전--yummy Korean pancake with a scallion-like vegetable :).
Heesoo in front of the food.

Til next time! :)

你會說韓語嗎?

"Do you speak Korean?"

So I'm cheating and using Chinese for this title instead of Korean ^^. I figure since I went to China on vacation I can bend my rule a bit here hehe. As I had expected, I had no occasion to use Korean in Beijing, BUT funny (and luckily) enough I was able to use it on my way there!

Because I didn't take a direct flight to Beijing, I had to transfer at Dalian, where I ran into quite a few issues...first off our plane entered the airport about 20 minutes late, at 12:20PM. After immigration, I waited for my bags...for about half an hour >_<. That led me to get to the checkout counter at 1PM, at which point I was told that it was too late to get on the 1:30 flight (which I don't think was true...). Regardless, all of us on the Seoul flight were moved to the 3:40PM flight, but at around 3PM the weather suddenly got super foggy and rainy, leaving us stranded in the airport. After a few hours, I tried talked to the lady at the counter, except my Chinese wasn't advanced enough to fully understand her and for her to understand me. Luckily, this woman, who apparently had seen me reading a Korean book, came up to me and asked the title of this post "Do you speak Korean?" I told her yes and after she helped translate, I learned that she was a Choseonjok 조선족 朝鮮族, a Chinese person of North Korean descent. Her accent (different from anything I'd ever heard and somewhat similar to a Chinese accent...somewhat) took me a bit of time to get used to, but through her help, I was able to get a hotel room for the night and realize what was going on in all the chaos! We were woken up at 1AM in the morning to be taken to the airport, where I fell asleep waiting for announcements. Luckily a Chinese girl woke me up, helped me change my ticket to the new flight. We finally arrived in Beijing at 5AM, where the girl helped me call my friend who was originally going to pick me up, figure out where my hostel was and how to get there, and give the information to the employees so that they could send my luggage there (which was delayed about a day). By 7AM I made it to my hostel and promptly passed out for a few hours before going to meet Ian!