Steph's Seoul

Okay so my bad. I know I have not updated in over a month....oops.

Well the bad news is that this post will have no pictures. The reason: I lost my phone. Yes that's right, my iPhone is probabaly somewhere in China right now with someone looking through all my stuff...
Luckily a friend of mine gave me his older smart phone that I can use while I am here. Thanks Turki!!! Unfortunately every time I go to the phone store to get a phone number there is a different problem. The first time was with my iPhone saying it wasn't unlocked, then something about my bank account and then yesterday the store was open but it was a holiday so you can't contract. Why be open then?!?!
Well I'll get a number soon, hopefully.

So what else has happened in the month of May you ask. I'm not really sure any more either :D
Mari, Brenda, and Benny came to Korea so we got to hang out some. Kim and I picked them up from the airport, but we were late because the trains were really stupid. Some of the trains only go halfway to the airport then turn around and go back or just stop. We realized this too late and had to wait about 20min at random stop for the right train. At least we made it though, right?

I also took my final exams, and passed!! Some of my grades were better and some were a little worse. I feel that the final exam was twice as hard as the midterm and I know there are a lot of people that would agree with me. After finals we got a 3 week break, which ends next Wednesday (I'm not ready to go back yet). I'm also a little sad the semester is over because as soon as you start really getting to know the people in your class, it's over. About 3/4 of the students in my class all returned home, so next semester I will be in a class with all new classmates and teachers. It's like that dreadful first day of school every 12 weeks!!!!! I did make 2 good friends from class, one is Japanese and she will be back for the next level. The other girl is French, but sadly she had to return to France. *cries*

Oh this is the highlight of my break! About 3 weeks ago I was walking down the street with Kim when I saw someone that looked kind of familiar. I decided to call out his name, and to my surprise it really was him. Who is "him" you ask? He is Solomon, a friend I met 3 years ago while studying in Japan. We haven't seen each other in 3 years and haven't talked in about 1 year. He is in the US Army stationed in Korea. He took Kim and I to the base to show us around and we were able to buy some American goods like medicine and shampoo!!!

I started tutoring a little bit of English but my "agent" is pushy, greedy and crazy. All the people she finds for me are 2 hours away from my house and she wants me to tutor 2-3 people in a row since I am already going that way, which wouldn't be too bad if it didn't take me 2 hours there and back and be during the middle of the week, when I have class. So I would have to leave by 2 and not get home until 11:30 at night, then still have to eat and do my homework and sleep for class the next. She doesn't understand why this isn't going to work. I know I need to work but my schooling is more important to me. One of the students said he is willing to drive to where I live every other week, which I don't mind. Also that student doesn't speak any English at all. He seems to be okay with me being his tutor but I really have no idea how to teach English in Korea... this will be an adventure.

So I know I've mentioned this before but I kind of live in the middle of nowhere, right? Well the good news is that the club/bar/music/coffee/food/younger generation hangout place is less then a 20min bus ride from my place. Kim and I go there almost every weekend even if its just to eat, walk around, or just get us out of the house. We meet friends there a lot because there are so many different things to do. On the weekends at night people set up on the street to perform. It's pretty interesting to just walk around and look at the different performances.

I'm not saying I'm fluent in Korean yet, because I'm not, but I can tell I have gotten better. Kim and I have made some friends that don't speak any English so the only way to communicate is in Korean. I know that they dumb it down and use really simple Korean for us but hey we are still having conversations in Korean, right?!?!

Ah yesterday my beautiful cousin Nikki got married. Unfortunately I could not be there but I was able to skype my brother and watch the wedding.Everything looked amazing! Congrats Nikki and Danny!!!!!


Well I think that's really it. My life really isn't that exciting here, it's just like any other broke college student life. If there is anything in particular you guys are curious about (School, Korea, ME!) just let me know and I'll try to post about it.

I miss you all and love you~

Stephanie <3

Hello all!!
Sorry for a late update (again). It's getting harder to keep up with this.. or maybe I am just getting lazy???

During the week we met a friend and had Chimek (치맥) which is chicken and beer. It was absolutely delicious!!

Ahh I got my overall midterm score it was a 88.7%. My speaking test turned out to be my best one. I hope to get better on the final exam now that I know how the testing is done!

Mommy sent me a nice big package full of delicious food! (If any of you would like to send some stuff to I wouldn't object!).


My friend let me a book that is called 'The Little Prince (어린 왕자) It is written in English and Korean so my goal is to be able to read it all in Korean and understand it! I don't know how long that will take though.

This past Friday we had a culture class (문화 수업) and went on a field trip. We went to Namiseom (남이섬) which is an island about 1 1/2 hours from Seoul. It was a lot of fun and very beautiful. Also the air there was amazing, it was so fresh and clean, very different from Seoul.


Yesterday Kim and I did some spring cleaning. We straightened everything in our room and cleaned it all. It took all of an hour to do our whole room because of how big (small) it is. We also met up with my friend that  I met last time I was in Seoul. First we went to a park (World Cup Park월드컵 공원) which was on top of a mountain (or big hill?). We had to climb up about 300 stairs then down the other side which had about 400. Then we sat by the river and watched the sun set. Afterwards we went and got delicious, greasy, hamburgers and fries. They tasted amazing!





Doing laundry here kind of sucks. We don't have a dryer so we have to hang dry our clothes on a rack and  our clothes get stiff and somewhat uncomfortable to wear. Also they get stretched out some because they don't shrink back in the dryer.

Today Kim and I met up with our friends' parents' friends. (Confusing right?) Our friend and his parents live in Michigan but they wanted Kim and I to meet up with their family friends. And I am glad we did. They are a very nice family. They picked us up from our campus and took us out to a delicious Korean style 5 or 6 course meal. Then afterwards they drove up the mountain side so we could see an amazing view of Seoul. Later they took us to a Buddhist temple where we saw a famous Korean hanbok (한복, traditional clothing) designer. After they took us to Myongdong (명동) to see Seoul's largest church and bought us coffee. After that Kim and I walked around and did some shopping and then came home.





And now we are caught up to the present. I hope you all enjoyed this long, fun, picture filled post.
I also hope you like the new background background and set up of the blog.

Love you all!!
Stephanie

OH BONUS WEEK! Finally pictures of my boarding house (하숙집)!!!!

Sorry for the late update, I've been busy (and lazy).

Like I said last week I was going out to see two friends that I hadn't seen in a very long time. We went and ate the chicken soup, then sat and drank coffee and just talked. It was really nice seeing them and hopefully get to see more of them.

So after visiting the immigration office, waiting for 5 hours and failing to make my alien registration card the first time I was finally able to do it this time! Kim and I waited about 4 1/2 hours this time and at first they had some trouble with me because of Visa was messed up but in the end they fixed my visa so I now have it for one year and they made my card! We are still working on Kim's hopefully tomorrow everything will be worked out.

So the names will get more creative as we go...hopefully..

Anyways. Most of you probably already know that when going on a trip the planning starts wayyyyyy before you actually go. My planning for Korea went like this: i want to go, mom says no, i say yes, stress, money problems, miscommunication, issues, stress, money problems, excitement, more money issues, pack, leave.

BUTTT on the way here there were some issues. When Kim and I landed in Japan they didn't want to let Kim into the country because she had yet to make her visa (our school said it was fine) so we waited while they called Korea and they let us in! THENN in Korea they didn't want to let me in because when they made my visa they made a mistake. Instead of a 1 year visa, I had a 1 day visa... oops. I had to sit in the office while they fixed it and they were all laughing saying how funny it is. Then instead of giving it to me for 1 year they gave me a 6 month one, so I have to renew it. After that things went pretty smoothly.

Once here Kim and I went straight to our home. Our home is a 하숙집 (ha sook jip) which is a boarding house. A lady and her family owns a house and there are about 10 students who live here. She makes breakfast and dinner everyday for us (included in rent!!). We share our "apartment" with one other girl. Think of it as an apartment that you get into from the outside of the building. Once you open the door there is a mini kitchen and mini fridge. Then there are two rooms. Kim and I share one and the girl has the other one. We also share a bathroom. I've never actually met her. Every time I say hi (in Korean) she puts her head down and walks away :(

Now on to the good stuff: what I've done since I've gotten here!
The first couple days was unpacking, buying necessary items for the apartment(TP, Shampoo, etc) and meeting old friends. 이모  (owner of the house) pronounced "emo" took us to the market to buy stuff and it was hard. She speaks no English and kept asking us questions and pointing at things saying "you need to buy" but we had no idea what it was. We later figured out it was fabric softener and laundry detergent.  Kim and I met a lot of friends, ate delicious food and shopped a lot.

Story Time!!
 We went to a place called Dongdaemun and had a horrific run in with a sales clerk. Kim just pointed at this cute jacket so the sales clerk pulled her into the stall and made her try it on. They then made me try on something. They tried to get me to squat down and take my shirt off so I could see what it looked like without a shirt on underneath. Okay so let me explain, the shops at these "malls" are not like ours. They are about 6' wide and 3' deep. If you are at a department store they are like our malls but smaller, and more expensive. Any ways, I just tried it on over my shirt but didn't really like it. So they start putting the clothes in a bag, Kim and I look at each other like uhhhh???? We tell the lady "Sorry we don't like it, we arent going to buy it" and she goes ape shit. Starts yelling at us and grabbing us and wont let us leave. Kim and I literally ran while apologizing and avoided that part of the mall.

We started school last Wednesday and were placed into level 2. At first I was really nervous and didn't get what was going on but I'm doing okay now. The class is taught entirely in Korean, no English allowed. I have people in my class from Belgium, France, Taiwan, Japan, Hong Kong and Thailand. It's interesting trying to communicate with each other because none of us really share a common language, except Korean.


That's about the extent of what has happened so far..
The future post will be shorter, with pictures and kept up to date. This was a catch up post (which I did a horrible job on, sorry).

Until next time,
Stephanie

Hello there.
(Disclaimer: this will probably be the most boring post because I'm getting all the basics out. Sorry. Read anyways!!!!)
 For those of you that don't know who I am or what this blog is about, let me explain a little. My name is Stephanie, I am 24 years old (25 in Korean age, I'll explain later) and I come from Michigan, USA. I came to Korea on March 5, 2013 and will be living here for about 1 year. I will attend a language school where I will study Korean language everyday. I would like to become a translator and my ultimate goal is to be  someone who translates movies and TV shows.
I actually have already graduated college with my degree in Marketing and had a minor in East Asian Studies. I already studied abroad in Japan for a semester in 2010 and did a cultural exchange in Korea for a month back in 2011.
I became interested in Korean culture, history, language, music and everything else after I met my roommate freshman year in college. She was a Korean who was adopted by an American family and had an interest in Japanese music,culture and TV. After that I accidentally stumbled onto Korean music and TV because I couldn't tell the difference. I then decided to study abroad in Japan and my roommate and I went together. While I was there I made some friends from around the world, a lot of whom were Korean. They really helped to grow my interest in Korea. After that I decided to join the Korean club at school, go to Korea and take a language course. I made a lot of Korean friends and my interest in Korea grew bigger. I really didn't know what I wanted to do when I graduated so I decided to study Korean in Korea for a year! And here we are now!!!!! (My friend Kim is also here with me studying.)
Most of you probably don't know much about Korea, right? Here is a brief summary: There is a North and South Korea. I am in South, North is communist. It is not a third world country. South Korea is about the size of Kentucky or Indiana. The capital in Seoul (where I live). About 1/2 of Korea's population lives in Seoul. Its the second largest metropolitan area in the world. Korean is the only written language in the world that has records of how it was made. Not everyone is short the average height for Korean men is 5' 8 1/2" ( 173cm) for women its 5' 3 1/2" (161cm).   Hmmmm.... I'll insert more cultural tidbits in with my blogs.

I think that is all for now. I'll update again soon!

Stephanie