As uni has been progressing at a rapid pace lately, i've been a little too busy to post. Sorry!! This post will catch you up to speed on my recent shenanigans.
So next week is mid-terms, but luckily for moi I don't actually have any exams, just normal morning Korean classes and one 3-4 page article comparison due the week after next. So, despite most others running around stressing out, I'm actually going to enjoy this week, as I don't have to attend my two politics classes, just Korean. Tuesday i'm going to head to Cheonan after class to visit my onni, my Korean friend and her baby and husband for the night. I'm so excited to see them as it's been two months. Time is really flying by here. I was talking to a friend who is only here for one semester and she's only here for another 8 weeks. I'll be really sad when all my friends from this semester leave, boo!
Hmm, so Spring has sort of arrived here. The weather started warming up last week, it even hit 18 degrees one day which was so nice. Unfortunately, it didn't last and it's bloody cold again. However, the short spurt of warmer weather did lead to the blossoming of several flower trees, and Seoul is really starting to look wonderful. As the cherry blossoms only blossom for about two weeks, on Thursday night a few of us braved the weather and went to Yeouido, a man made island/financial & broadcasting district, on the south side of the Han river for the cherry blossom festival. It was beautiful, the flowers are so pretty and it was lit up nicely. Very romantic, though shame I went with a bunch of girls (and one guy, but Ki Seong doesn't count)
The dragon was made from the lids of gum and candy boxes. It was really cool.
Afterward we headed back to Shinchon and had a couple of drinks, but it was an early night as I had class the next morning, plus I wasn't feeling very well. The constant changes in weather has been messing with everyone and there's a cold/flu sickness that's going around the dorm at the moment. I was actually really sick on the Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday but am feeling a lot better now. It's such a pain being sick here, as asides from having lots to do, it also really sucks being sick when you're away from home. Also, my Korean teacher said H1N1 was also going around, so I really hope that's not what I have/had. I've been anti-bacterialising everything. Plus, I'm going to make more of an effort to eat more fruit and veggies, as I haven't been eating enough I don't think.
Last week saw me just busy during the week with uni work. I have about 3 hours of Korean homework every night, so by Friday I was dying to socialise with people as I hadn't seen anyone. After class I went to Itaewon to get some more work done on my back and neck. I've paid for 10 sessions as I know i'll use them here. Things are just not designed for tall people, so i'm constantly not sitting properly. Plus, in all my classes, the desks are low and my legs are too long for the desks, they hit the bag holder underneath, so I have to dangle them under and out the front. I look like a complete fool, I might take a photo and post it. So after my massage, I met up with my friend Grace to do a bit of shopping. Word on the street had it that Itaewon was the place to find large (aka normal) size girly shoes, and i'm determined to be able to buy shoes here, so we went shoe hunting. In Korean sizes, they usually only go up to 250 (size 6-7 aussie). I'm a size 9, which is 265 here, which is considered godzilla-like. And the good news is...I found some shoes! I paid 40,000 won for a pair of black patent kitten heels, so i think I got ripped off. The sales guy wanted 50,000 originally, but despite getting 10,000 off, I still feel overcharged, but I was so excited to have found shoes that fit me and that I liked, i just paid. I'm currently wearing them while I type this to wear them in. No photo unfortunately. But, I did have my camera and I took a photo of the best-named ladies clothes shop :
Classic. It makes me laugh everytime I see it. After doing shopping Grace and I decided to have Thai for dinner. It's my first Thai experience in Korea, and it was actually really good. Plus, we got 20% discount, which was even better! I had a chicken penang curry and it was delicious.
After dinner we headed back to Shinchon. I said goodbye to Grace and then met up with Vanessa, Alvin, Cindy and Cindy's friend (whose name I can't remember sorry!) for drinking and partying. We wanted to go to a place called Little Tokyo, but it had been booked out, so we went to a bar called Adventure instead where we drank a lot of Yogurt Soju. What did we drink I hear you say...well it's called yogurt soju and it's soju mixed with Yakult. It's really good. Plus, we were boosting the soju-ness by adding an extra bottle of soju into the jug.
A drinking game - loser takes a drink (so they also win really)
We had a lot of fun, but Vanessa accidentally fell when coming back form the bathroom in the middle of the bar, and banged her knee really badly. The trooper she is however, kept partying, but the bruise on her knee was epic and is still there. She has photos, and I think she's lucky that she was drunk when she did it, otherwise it would have hurt a lot more! (Sorry Vanessa, but I had to mention it ~ that bruise was phenomenal! lol)
After Adventure we went to Barfly, the local dorm hangout bar. It was a theme night titled 'This Is Korea' and people were told to dress like a Korean. It was actually a really fun night as most people from the dorm were there, plus a bunch of Korean students from Yonsei so it was a good mix of people. I was wearing white shoes though and they got so trashed from all the muck on the floor I ended up throwing them out the next day. They were beyond saving which is sad as they were super comfortable. But anyway. One thing about clubs here that kinds sucks is that people can still smoke. I'd forgotten what it's like to go out and come home reeking of cigarettes. It's really disgusting, i'm glad you can't smoke in Australian clubs/venues. It's much better.
On the Saturday afternoon I'd heard about a puppy cafe in Hongdae (where you can play with the dogs, not eat them as many have asked me) plus I wanted to go check out the free market as I'd heard it was good, so Inge, Cindy, Mio and I headed there. The puppy cafe was a no-go as it was too packed and we would have had to wait 30mins, so another time. The market however was fantastic. I even got a 10 second portrait done because I could (it was 10won, but I paid 500 won, so 50c). Though I have to say, the guy DID NOT draw me in a flattering way. It's hideous, but it was fun.
After our attempt to visit the puppy cafe failed, we decided we'd go get some Mexican for dinner., so we went to Dos Tacos. I had a beef and bean burrito and it was so good. Avocado and sour cream....magic.
Someone mentioned that I talk about food a lot in my blog and I guess I do, but I love good food, and Korea has some great restaurants and some interesting food places that we don't have at home, so I'm going to keep blogging about it. Plus, that's kinda of what we do here..we eat out all the time as our kitchen is crap, plus it's cheaper than buying the ingredients. And it's delicious! hahaha
So this past week I just did uni work, get sick and go see some flowers. But on Friday night I met with Inge, Vanessa, Cindy and Catalina for dinner. We were meeting to discuss our trip to Shanghai, which is happening on the 13th May. Inge, Catalina and I are going for 4 nights to check out World Expo and also do some shopping and sightseeing. It's going to be great. As we were walking to Shinchon for dinner, Catalina suggested we go to the 7 Luck Casino instead, where you get drinks and dinner free when you gamble. So off we went. It was a lot of fun, dinner was good, had a drink, but being sick meant I wasn't up for a big night. I lost 30,000 won ($30 bucks aussie) playing a game similar to Yahtzee. It was heaps of fun, i'll definitely go back at another time.
Yesterday I wanted to do some shopping so I met up with Vanessa and Angie and we went to Myeongdong, a shopping mecca in Seoul. I'd heard about a famous Kalguksu (hand cut noodle soup) restaurant and so we went there for lunch. The queue was out the door, but the wait was really short and the food was incredible. I'm not a huge fan of Kalguksu as it's normally made with a seafood broth, but this one is made with a beef broth and it's really delicious. It was one of the best meals i've had here I think.
We went shopping after lunch and I spent up big time. I really needed some new makeup and moisturiser, so we went to Lotte Department store and spent about an hour in the makeup section tryign stuff on. It was really fun. I ended up buying a foundation, base and blusher from RMK that's really good and a new mascara from Dior. We then decided we needed some new clothes and hit the laneways looking for bargains. I ended up with a nice stash of shirts for when it gets warmer, and they only cost me $5 each. We get so rorted for clothes in Australia, it's crazy. Here's some pics of my stash (and I love all the free stuff you get here when you buy things, so good!):
I spent a fair bit of cash, but i've been really good with my money so far, plus my student payments start next week so i thought why not!
So today I need to do some study as I haven't done any this weekend, plus some general housekeeping stuff. Tomorrow I need to go sort out my tourist visa for China. I think i'm going to get a multiple entry visa as I really want to go to Beijing as well while i'm in this region, so I'll probably go later in the year. Hopefully it's not a total pain in the neck to organise!
