This weekend and today was a fun-packed session with Light Fellow Director Kelly, Dean Rowe of International Education and Fellowship Programs, Dean Gentry of Student Affairs, and our beloved Korean teacher Angela 선생님! It was great finally having all the fellows together in one place and meeting the people who gave us the opportunity to come here and seeing Angela again. So much thanks to Kelly, Dean Rowe, and Dean Gentry for our opportunity and this wonderful weekend!
All us Sogang fellows first met up with the administrators at a small restaurant near the university.
Following lunch was a trip to see student living conditions. First was Ryan's tiny cubicle.
Then Philip's cozy hasukjip room.
Followed by a trip to Beans & Berries to eat some yummy 팥빙수 patbingsu--frozen yogurt with red beans and other fruits. Mmmm!
After eating patbingsu and relaxing and talking, we headed to Apgujeong 압구정 to eat dinner at Samwon Garden, a rather high-scale restaurant (but that's expected of Gangnam 강남) ^^. Before eating dinner, though, we stopped at a playground and relived our childhood :).
Strangely enough, the playground had exercise machines, like this elliptical and an oblique muscles workout machine...they had almost no resistance though.
Here's the restaurant, with its beautiful facade and waterfalls around.
Some of the kalbi grilling.
Yummy dessert of some cinnamon-tasting liquid and red beans.
We were actually able to get all the fellows and administrators here--great feat!
The next day was a trip to the DMZ. It's pretty crazy how close Seoul is to the border of North Korea. Here are sculptures of a reenactment of when North Korean soldiers broke through the fence to try to assassinate the president.
The fence itself--yup, that's North Korea on the other side.
Heading to higher ground, we took a picture together.
A little unnerving, all the signs that said "mine," as if it were no big deal. Just a little note, like "Caution," "Ped Xing," "No Standing," etc.
Mmm, Philip, 선생님, and I shared some 오댕, fish balls in soup. Very delicious! Oh, and the red things in the background (which we didn't eat), silkworms. DELICIOUS (ha...ha...ha...).
We then went to lunch--strangely enough, locals aren't allowed here...why? I really can't think of a good reason.
Mmm, bibimbap 비빔밥 :).
We followed up by going to the Freedom Bridge, 임진각. Very nice view of South Korea from here.
Pictures of the singers of this beautiful song. The original singer on the right is North Korean--the singer on the left did a cover of it. The music was played while were in this area and it was definitely a very pretty song.
Dean Gentry gives a "lesson" to the students haha. Quite amusing!
A children's song about killing American soldiers o_o.
Our tour guide told us about how orange juice is actually a delicacy in North Korea--but also that they apparently have extremely high quality beer.
Differences in vocabulary between North Korean Korean 조선말 and South Korean Korean 한국말.
As close as I could get with my telephoto lens--the derelict buildings of southern North Korea.
Beautiful scenery though!
It's always very interesting to see how countries see themselves--I know that Thailand sees itself as an elephant's head--after all the elephant is a royal animal in Thailand--and it's easy to see the resemblance in the country. Korea as a tiger is interesting as well ^^.
Terry poses with some seemingly random statues, making a creepy face while he's at it haha.
For dinner, we went to our "secret place," an affectionate nickname for our favorite meat cooking restaurant. Yes, this looks gross :). It's 불삼겹살, marinated Samgyupsal, which is literally "Three layers flesh." Delicious delicious pork, but soooo bad for you because of how much fat there is. Very clearly, I am going to become fat and then die because of this delicious dish :).
Ryan skillfully cuts the pork kalbi, having come to the secret place too many times to count.
The next day, I missed the morning fun, having overslept, but I met up with everyone for lunch--where we had delicious 만두국, dumpling soup, or 칼국수, noodles. Very good, traditional Korean food.
Following lunch, we went to see this great show called Nanta, a play about chefs trying to prepare food for a wedding. The show has very few or no words, so all "dialogue" is done in gibberish and gestures. The actors also do very cool stunts with cooking materials, like tossing and catching plates, doing cartwheels, doing knife tricks, cutting vegetable tricks, etc. And to top it off, there is a lot of music done by the performers by banging or "playing" the cooking items, such as knife on table, frying pans, etc., as percussion instruments. It was really fun to watch and so hilarious! Especially with the audience participation, the actors involved the audience and also made fun of some at some points, including 선생님, because she wasn't following along with one of the acts! Excellent excellent show, I'd recommend it to anyone coming here!
After the show, we went to Insadong so anyone who wanted to shop could. This was an interesting area that winded upwards with stores on the side. The design, as you can see, is pretty unique ^^.
Becky bought some delicious 호박떡 pumpkin rice cakes--stating that this was the reason she came to Korea haha.
Dinner was Korean-Chinese food, including 자장면 black soybean noodles and 탕수육 sweet and sour pork. Mmm.
After Insadong, we took the Light Fellowship administrators to the one thing you MUST do if you are in Korea. And I believe this is what, the fourth time now? Haha. Karaoke 노래방! Dean Gentry starts off by beautifully singing "Georgia on my Mind," as requested by 선생님.
Kelly follows up by dazzling us with a Korean song!
As Dean Gentry and Dean Rowe sing "What A Wonderful World," everyone sways along to the peaceful beat.
Philip imitates the Wonder Girls while singing one of their songs haha.
Finally 선생님 goes up and sings a Korean song, awing us with her voice!
Kelly and Dean Rowe sing "Can't Help Falling In Love With You," an Elvis classic that everyone knows and therefore sings along to!
Yes, a very random picture haha, but a quick commentary: living in a hasukjip can be quite annoying what with 공동생활 community life and all. As a prime example, I often find myself unable to do laundry or to dry my laundry because the hangers or racks are taken by someone else who's drying clothing. So I recently devised a solution by tying floss to my pipe and my window, inspired by Philip telling us a story of all his clothes falling from his floss clothesline. Yes, it is strange, but it works! Now I've just lost about a tenth perhaps of my floss, but you gotta do what you gotta do to dry clothing :).
Today, we headed to meet up with everyone at 2PM at the front gate of Yonsei. Because we had some extra time, we hit up an arcade, which is SO cheap here! Andy and Ryan had quite some fun playing Metal Slug haha.
We took the train to Yeouido 여의도, near the 한강 Han River, a beautiful park that stretches along a...not so beautiful, very polluted river.
Just before getting on our cruise, we went through a souvenir shop. Here, Ryan and Jesse sport their stylish backpacks haha.
Smile everyone!
It's always nice to take a relaxing cruise and observe the scenery and buildings from another point of view.
I was actually hoping to get a picture of a dragonfly earlier on, but this little guy just landed on one of the posts of our ships. Lucky for me! Dragonflies are SO abundant throughout Seoul--I prefer them the other bugs that intrude in my room >_<. 선생님 told us that when the dragonflies begin to appear, it means spring is coming. 
After our cruise, we took 선생님 to a well-known 순두부 Soondubu, a special kind of tofu soup (with one's desired choice of meat) restaurant. Yummy 반찬 (side dishes) too!
Mmmm, my dumpling 순두부, with an egg that you can just crack yourself right into the soup ^^.
I couldn't help but feel bad for the fish after we ravished it ._., but it was so delicious T_T.
While walking home, Jesse spotted this girl with a really pretty bird on her shoulder. Whoa! Pretty awesome sight!Anyway, expect another post when I get back from Jeju. If all goes well, we'll have beautiful days ahead to look forward to :D.
