The Difference between a Seoul and New York

Due to requests, I'm adding a LOT more pictures to this post.

So what I came to probably notice most in my first few days here are the roads in Seoul (or at least the one I cross to get to Sogang). I thought New York and New Haven streets were bad enough...until I came to Seoul.
I know it's really hard to see, but if you look carefully at the very left side of the picture, you'll see an arrow that turns into the other lane. That, my friends, is known (well, by my words), as the "U-Turn" lane. Yes, U-Turns are basically allowed just before any crosswalk. It took me a while to figure out why some cars would stop at green lights and go at red ones. After a bit of my oh-so-good logic (lol), I realized that a lane was specially made for U-Turns. It makes me wonder how there aren't more accidents here.
Here's a picture of the Sinchon Rotary, a large circular area in which to get from one part of the circle to another, the best way is walking underground in the Sinchon station and out another. I'm not sure if crossing the street is possible here (though you can't really see it from this angle--I'll get a better picture some time, I promise). Jessica says it is, but she says "it's basically like playing Frogger with your body." I'm still mastering jaywalking in Seoul--quite a different art from New York or New Haven jaywalking. I think even just Seoul street walking is a skill in itself (hm, unintended pun there).
Now Yongsan is quite a great place to check out. Yeah, I know I'm weird, taking a picture of a map, but it's such a good map! If you click the picture you can zoom in and you'll notice that the floors and each area arranged by what you can by in them. You can pretty much find anything here--ESPECIALLY electronics. Walking around on a floor full of cameras, electronic dictionaries, tripods, etc. is quite the experience I've gotta say. Oh right, once again, Jessica and I were asked if we were brother and sister. Just never ends haha.
This is just a cool picture of the subway train arriving in Sinchon station. But it lets me sort of segue into hanging out in Itaewon with Min Geol, since I took this picture while we waited for the train. Walking around Itaewon is walking around tourist central. Western stores everywhere (Coldstone and Quizno's, for instance) and expensive stores...geez I wasn't aware jeans and sneakers could cost SO much. These were 130,000won at LEAST a piece (~$130). We didn't stay in Itaewon too long, but I'll probably check it out again some time--so what if I reek of foreigner =P.

Checking out the Sejong Memorial Museum with Ryan and Jessica was fun--it was nice in that it was touristy...but not too touristy because there were no English guidebooks so we got Korean ones. Yay illiteracy! Unfortunately, we weren't allowed to take pictures inside, but that didn't stop me from catching a few cool pictures before the lady was about to get us deported :). Pretty awesome checking out all this stuff related to the King that created our beloved kanadaramabasa...ajachakatapaha alphabet...I mean Hangeul ^^.
If you zoom in, you MIGHT be able to see some of the really old Hangeul. It's pretty intense.Some fun statues outside of the Sejong Memorial Museum. Here's Jessica, mimicking one of them.
After checking out King Sejong's crib, we went to the nearby tombs of Yeonghwiwon 영휘원 and Sunginwon 숭인원, a favorite concubine of an emperor whose wife was slain by the Japanese and a son of said king who died mysteriously in Japan while his parents were visiting Korea...strange descriptions that seem to undermine the fame of said people...but maybe it's just a bad translation...regardless, the tombs were quite beautiful.
I'll also take a moment here to show off my telephoto lens in taking pictures of some statuettes on top of one of the buildings on the site :).
Ryan and Jessica decide to take a break and scope out some ajummas.

I'm not creepy at all, using my telephoto lens to check out this ajumma picnic. Yeah, so it's creepy, but you gotta love it, especially the action shot of the ajumma playing Yutnori 윷놀이.Let me take a moment here to discuss how much I love the term ajumma 아줌마. The idea of a term to cover middle-aged women who have this certain physique and air about them that you can only understand by experiencing it is just so fascinating to me. Ryan, Jessica, and I found this ajumma picnic to be the most adorable scenes ever, not to mention a perfect capture of this Koreanness...now I'm just spewing random words. But seriously, it's a great term, and should be popularized :P.
Later on we met up with Andy and ate dinner--a picture taken afterwards shown here. Of course, we naturally had to continue our Korean experiences, so what better way to do that than to go do Noraebang 노래방, that is, Karaoke! Now I've had experiences in New York with my friends in Ktown or Flushing...many, many times. The 노래방 in Korea's very similar--the same books and karaoke set used, but there's something great about doing it in Korea haha. Only one Korean song, 너를 사랑해 (I love you--I know, how can you get more original than that?) was sung, however, and Andy did the honors, but hopefully we can change that by the end of our trip ;).
For our 노래방 excursion, we were joined by Nate (a rising senior who's not studying Korean but who's spending a bit of time here), Becky, and Jesse. Pretty great picture of Jessica and Becky really getting into dancing to the music here :).
Of course, we had to sing many throwbacks--Barbie Girl being that oh-so-unbearable-but-ridiculously-catchy bubblegum pop song that we just HAD to sing hehe.
And who can forget Soulja Boy? At which point everyone just HAD to get up. A few of us even cranked it--as you can see Andy doing so here.
It was a pretty awesome experience--that we will repeat--many, many times. Afterwards, we regrouped at McDonald's (I know, complete opposite of "Korean experience"). It's interesting to see what sauce you get with French Fries in different countries. In America of course, you get ketchup. In Thailand, you get Sriracha, the brand name hot sauce. And in Korea, you get bulgogi sauce. Fun stuff, in my opinion.
I couldn't decide which picture to delete so I just decided to keep these both. It's hard to decide when the first picture is clear but has two people blinking and the second one has great expressions from everyone but is slightly blurry.
The next day, Jessica, Ryan, Andy, and I met up with Andy's mom to try some Chuncheon Chicken Kalbi 춘천 닭갈비 in a restaurant in Sinchon. It was delicious and very messy, hence why they gave us bibs to wear as you can see here ^^. Quite different from other Korean food I've tried, but delicious as expected.
Afterwards they used the leftover chicken kalbi sauce to marinate some rice and vegetables for a delicious combination that tastes vaguely like fried rice. It's always great to meet parents and see how similar they are to their child(ren). And they just always seem to take you to delicious restaurants too...thanks so much Andy's mom :D!
Today in class we were making up 동아리 posters (that is, student club posters). Because I was part of the "photo club" 사진 동아리, I decided to bring in my camera :). This would be Jonathan 조나단 and Cho Shin 조신 (or her Chinese name, Zhao Chen), my fellow photo club members. Cho Shin then took the camera from me and took pictures of some other groups.
This would be our 말하기 (speaking) teacher with Iwon 이원, Kang 두원캉 (Chinese Du Wen Kang), and Hai 하이 (Chinese He Yi), part of the "eating club" 먹는 동아리 (which makes me think of Princeton, which makes me think of that Princeton kid in my 쓰기 [writing] class, which makes me wonder if he knows my best friend Zayn...anyway, I'm rambling again).
Here are Reiko 레이코 from Japan, Masako 마사코 also from Japan, and Pagi 바기 from Mongolia (whose Mongolian name is much longer but I can't remember it). They had the "alcohol club" 술 동아리. Funny enough, they won the competition to see who could get the most "members" from other class haha.
After class Min Geol and I went to get lunch and then we studied in the Aruppe Building 아루페관. I'm still trying to figure out what Aruppe means...eventually Masako from our class joined us with her friend Rie 리에 (also from Japan) and we had a studying party (and by studying party I mean we just talked and got to know each other. It was really fun!)
So after hanging out with new class friends, I went to meet up with Donghyuk 김동혁, my friend from my Chinese class at Yale who is from Korea, at Yonsei University 연세대. I find it pretty amusing that just like we have HYP for Harvard, Princeton, and Yale in America, Korea has SKY for Seoul, Korea, and Yonsei Universities. Funny how creative people get with acronyms.
Donghyuk took me around random parts of Seoul. I always finds it such a thrilling and refreshing experience to explore a new city.
For anyone who knows about what happened at Namdaemun 남대문, here's a picture of the site now:
What happened was that a few months ago, a man burned down the Namdaemun Gate, one of Korea's most famous landmarks. It's currently under reconstruction:
It's pretty impressive how fast they've gotten to work on it. It's pretty cool to see how much Koreans revere tradition.
Donghyuk then took me around the market at Namdaemun, which is blocks and blocks of stores. You could spend days shopping there...but I won't, as anyone who knows how much I dislike wandering and shopping could tell you :).
After exploring Namdaemun and a bit of Myeongdong 명동, Donghyuk took me to a Kalguksu Jip 칼 국수 집. Apparently Myeongdong is famous for Kalguksu, a noodle specialty.
Let me take another moment here to discuss another difference between Seoul and New York (or any part of America, or anywhere I have been so far). It seems that everything is just mini-sized here. Not only are rooms small, but even the CUPS are tiny. Koreans seem to seriously drink NO water...ever. This was one of the bigger cups I've encountered, most I find being half this size, and if you want to get water from a water dispenser in universities, you get, no, not a paper cup, but a paper ENVELOPE. Normally, in American restaurants, I refill my cup around 2-3 times. Here, it's at least 5-6.
Korean water drinking habits aside, the dumplings and kalguksu were delicious, and Donghyuk followed the Korean tradition of treating me to dinner, or as the Koreans would say, 한 턱 솔게. I learned some pretty good vocabulary and expressions from Donghyuk today, among them my favorite being "to be awkward." Although 이상해 could be a blanket term for anything remotely "strange," (since that's what 이상해 means) including "awkward" and also "sketchy," the slang term for "awkward" is 뻘쭘해, which is best used in an "awkward turtle" type situation. Pretty sweet term I've got to start using. It also led Donghyuk and me into an interesting conversation about distinctions made between certain things in some languages and not in others. For example, in Korean, there's no distinction between "funny" and "interesting," both are 재미있어. Also, "should," "must," and "have to" are all expressed by the grammatical ending -야 돼. And most confounding to me is "maybe" and "probably" both expressed by 아마, because I make a huge distinction when telling my friends that I "may" go somewhere and that I "probably" will go somewhere. But then Korean beats us out in multiple ways to address people depending on the situation and relation of the speaker to the audience and the subject of a sentence. When in a formal situation, such as a meeting, serving a customer, giving a presentation, having an interview, etc., the grammatical ending -(스)ㅂ니다 is used. When talking to a stranger or someone older in an informal situation, -요 is used. Among friends, the -요 is just dropped. Of course, things get more complicated when you have show respect for the subject of a sentence. Saying that your grandma is doing something adds an extra 시 to the verb ending to complicate the grammar (respectively for the different formalities becoming -십니다, -세요, -셔, or even other endings that I probably haven't learned yet). Or for a simpler example...think of ajumma. Subtleties in language, subtleties in language...
Once we finished at Myeongdong, we went around the City Hall or Sicheong 시청 area, considered fairly dangerous at night these days, because of protests (mostly from university students) about the government importing US beef believed to be infected with mad cow disease. Lately though, these protests have spread to larger issues about the new president's government.
Tensions aside though, I was able to capture some pretty beautiful pictures of the area. Thank you Nikon D50!
Yes, there are some ghosts in these pictures.
I wasn't able to get very close to the protesters of course but you can see quite a few candlelights here. Donghyuk told me that this is called 촛불 집회 or candlelight protest. There are a LOT of people here and it was getting a little noisy and rowdy, so we didn't stay too long.
To end off the day we waited for Andy in Sinchon Station (above) and met up with him to hang out.
Final difference between Seoul and New York? Much cleaner subway stations. And plants...well, at least in the subway stations.