My third week was quite eventful! My classes at Sogang University began and I also turned 19. "Bummer!" you may say. "Since the drinking age in Korea is 20."
Luckily for me, the lunar new year is also counted as a birthday in Korea, so my Korean age is 20. Thus I am free to drink at will! Those of you who know about my relationship with Liquid Courage (that would be you, Eric), rest assured that my inclinations still have not changed. I think I'm probably the only non-freshman at OSU who still has not been to a house party...to each his own, right? :)
The week started off with a placement test for my classes, which took me all of five minutes because I could only answer the first three questions (out of maybe fifty, including some short answers). Unsurprisingly, I was placed in level 1A.
Prior to that morning, I'd already had a hunch that my program seemed a little disorganized, and the placement testing mostly confirmed that. It's not disastrously so, but basically this is what happened: the week before they'd sent out an email asking us to be at the testing place at 9am sharp, and yet when we all arrived, the man handing out exams told us we should go find a coffee shop to hang out in for a while because testing didn't begin until 10am. This miscommunication was particularly inconvenient for those of us living off campus...aka me, because the apartment I'm staying in is more than an hour's subway ride away and I had gotten up pretty early to make sure I could be at the university on time.
On the bright side, I discovered that I do not, in fact, need to wake up at 6am.
The students had all been separated into Group A and Group B, each switching off on placement test and orientation. After a lunch break from noon to 2pm, my group had orientation. It was pretty straightforward. They pretty much just told us everything that I had already obsessively read over a few dozen times on the website.
After that finished up I went to go meet Ji-seon (who I'd met the day before, if you recall) and we went to Lotte World and basically had the best day ever. This is the bonding experience I mentioned in the last post.
Since it had been a rainy day, Lotte World had a promotion to get into the park for 12,000 won instead of 32,000 won. If you drop the last three zeros, you basically get the dollar equivalent for Korean prices. So yeah, 60% off, not bad at all! Some of the rides were closed because of the weather, but I still had a magical time. This is probably my favorite memory in Korea so far.
I had seen pictures of Lotte World, but to actually be inside was beyond anything I'd imagined. When we walked in my eyes resembled saucers because there was just so many cool things!! Including but not limited to "balloon" rides.
Luckily Ji-seon and I are roller coaster-compatible, so we rode pretty much everything that was open and had such a good time.
I thought they all did a fantastic job. I was so impressed that before we left we asked the Customer Service desk for the phone number of the performance department, and a few days later (when we finally remembered to call!) we thanked them for their hard work. I think doing this is even less common in Korea than it is in America, because the other side of the line sounded really surprised, haha. I'm glad I remembered to do it. I think people don't say thank you to workers often enough.
I was actually very impressed with every employee at Lotte World, though, not just the dancers. Everyone seemed to be working their hardest to ensure a good time for the customers. You know those obnoxious teenagers working in American theme parks who never ever smile and always speak in monotone and usually look like they're about to fall asleep no matter what they're doing? I didn't see any of those. Not one! Ask me how much I missed them. ;)
We stayed until after 10pm, and actually were about to leave when a laser show began! It was so cool!!
There were even things blowing up!!
What a great afternoon.
And then the next morning, I slept in all the way until 7am! A pretty good way to start off my birthday, right?
I hadn't been expecting this at all, but JB woke up when I did to have breakfast with me. I didn't realize this until later but that actually meant a lot to me, because I know he never gets up that early unless he has to and eating by myself would have kinda sucked.
As per Korean tradition, I ate seaweed soup.
Seaweed soup was originally meant for new moms, to help them regain their strength, but over time it became commonplace for mothers to make it for their children on their children's birthdays.
Seaweed soup was originally meant for new moms, to help them regain their strength, but over time it became commonplace for mothers to make it for their children on their children's birthdays.
Since I was having such a pleasant conversation with JB over breakfast I left the house a little later than I meant to, and I was floored at how big of a difference 5 minutes can make. On Monday morning I'd caught the 7:44 train and it had been fine, but that day I had to take the 7:49 train. I will not be making that mistake again! It wasn't so bad the entire hour I was in the subway, but there were a solid ten stops where I felt distinctly sardiney. My personal space has never felt so invaded by so many people at once before.
After that brief and unrepeated ordeal, however, it was on to my very first day of classes! My teachers are all really adorable young Korean women who all seem to have graduated from Sogang. They're so nice and so wonderful, and are one of my favorite aspects of the program. That day we just learned really simple things, like how to introduce yourself and how to say, "Nice to meet you." I also purchased my textbooks, which came out of this wonderful pile of academic joy:
My textbook and my workbook altogether were 40,000won, which by American standards is really cheap, but all of the people who had done the program the year before said with shock that prices had really gone up.
After classes ended in the afternoon there was an orientation to meet my Korean conversation partner. Her name sounds like "Sunny," so that's just what I've taken to calling her. She's super nice! She's a psychology major geting ready to graduate next semester, I believe. She says she has no idea what she wants do to. During the orientation we played some "get to know each other" games (which I thought was silly because there were at least 100 people there).
Then I was off to meet BB and Ji-seon and some others for celebratory birthday dinner! We ate at Miz Container, which I have secretly renamed to Miz Contain Yourself because the waiters are all wildly attractive.
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| They were doing some sort of cool, manly pep talk or something. |
We literally ate a pan of cooked cheese. Actually, two pans. And a huge plate of risotto, complete with pieces of bacon. And french fries that were literally dripping with oil.
I have never eaten like that before in my life! And even though it was one of the tastiest things I've ever had, I think I will probably avoid eating it ever again, haha.
Not only did we basically eat our weight in high blood pressure and heart disease, but afterwards we continued on to a cafe for some bingsoo!
And everybody even got me a little cake. I felt so so special. It was such an amazing evening.
When I went home, there was even more cake waiting for me!
Honestly at that point I was pretty sure that if I took another bite of anything I would come apart at the seams, but I couldn't exactly say no. So I took one for the team. :)
Incidentally/luckily, I could not locate either cakes after that night because the kitchen is a bona fide maze of freezers and fridges. When I finally got frustrated a week later and asked JB where they were, all he could tell me was that he'd eaten them already. My cakes!! Without asking me!!!! Some people are just jerks, am I right? Just kidding. ;) He'd assumed I wasn't eating them because I didn't like them.
On Wednesday I met Sunny, my conversation partner, and we walked around Hongdae. You may recall that I went there with BB the previous week. Or maybe it was two weeks prior? Anyway, I remembered how to get to some of the really really cool shops he and I had been to, such as the dango shop.
After revisiting those places we circled back and found a really adorable and somewhat pricey vegetarian restaurant called Sukara. On the way there was a shop with puppies and kittens!! Just like in the movies!!!
I got pretty excited. I really wanted to go in and play with them, but Sunny said that probably would have upset the shopkeeper. So, no kitties for me. :( However, at the restaurant I did order my first alcohol beverage! A kumquat mojito.
I highly recommend it, if you're into sweet things. I really hate the taste of alcohol, but that was delicious.
The meal itself was also excellent.
I basically had soup and salad, but I'm writing this particular bit of this post ten months after eating this meal and unfortunately I don't remember what the specific tastes of anything were except for the chick peas, which were really spicey! So I ate them with the salad. So delish.
After eating while we were heading back to the subway station, we passed by the coffee shop where Coffee Prince was filmed!!! (Coffee Prince is a classic k-drama. You can't call yourself a k-drama fan unless you've watched Coffee Prince. It's one of my top 3 favorite dramas of all time.) So we stopped in for some refreshments.
Since Korea is a capitalist country and since Coffee Prince is kind of a big deal, the price of this simple lemonade is such that I won't tell you the exact number, but basically take whatever price you think is reasonable for that kind of drink and double it. Actually, triple it. I had to quadruple it the price from my original guess.. But it was Coffee Prince!! I had to!
Was it worth it? Probably not. Being so fresh to this land, however, I feel compelled to try everything, no matter what the cost.
And that's all I remember about that! Thanks for sticking through the barrage of pictures.
And that's all I remember about that! Thanks for sticking through the barrage of pictures.
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