Hi everyone!
This is my first blog post from Seoul, South Korea. It's now day 3 and I've got so much to talk about! I'm absolutely loving it.
I arrived on Wednesday 28th at 17:00 at Inchon Airport. A pick-up service had been arranged, so we made the 90 minute journey to Hanyang University campus. Luckily I met 3 other people on the Qatar Airways flight to Seoul who were also part of the exchange. We all shared the pick-up service and all got to know each other on the way. I'm staying in 'Dormitory 2' which is a dormitory reserved for high achieving local students who have gained a scholarship to live on campus. Myself and the other native English speaking exchange students are staying here to help the locals with their English skills which we're more than happy to do.
I'm sharing a room with a British/Vietnamese guy called Duc- our room has two beds, two desks, lot's of storage space and also an en-suite/wet room. Unfortunately our air conditioning wasn't working the first night we arrived, so it was a very sweaty sleep in the 85% humidity! Luckily it has now been fixed! The campus is huge and the facilities are really impressive with an olympic sports gymnasium where the Olympic Volleyball was held in 1988- there are over 60 buildings. The campus is built onto the side of a hill. At orientation on Friday we were told that we'd all be leaving a lot "thinner" due to all the climbing/walking we'd be doing over the next semester!!
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| New (multicultural) friends! |
It's such an exciting experience- seeing new things and meeting new people. There are over 350+ exchange students this semester with the majority coming from Europe. So far myself in Duc seem to be the only two British students?! With such a diverse student body, I'm looking forward to interacting with different people from different countries and backgrounds.
When we arrived we had to go straight out to buy bedding. Luckily I had already brought pillows and bed sheets from home but I had no duvet. Myself and Gaib, a student from New York bravely boarded the 2220 bus in front of our dorm and paid 1000KRW (57p) to get to EMart, a big department store about 10 minutes away. It was so exciting- everything was in Korean and no one spoke English! We managed to get our things and made it back to the dorm. The area around the university is very student based- a lot of bars and cheap restaurants. We met one of the guys that was on our flight, Christian from Spain who was with a Korean friend. He took us to a local restaurant where you cook your own food?! There is a BBQ in the middle of the table and the waiter comes over with a big pork joint and cuts it into small pieces. Once cooked you take the meat (with chopsticks!) and dip it into Soy sauce with fried onions- very tasty! After 3 days of eating with chopsticks, I'm now becoming a pro! This sort of meal is called 'Sam gyap sa'.
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| Sam gyap sa. |
On Thursday morning when we woke up after a sweaty sleep, I looked outside to torrential rain- never seen rain like it. Korea is just coming to the end of the rain season, so it will be on and off for the next couple of weeks into September. I met my mentor, Hyejin in the afternoon who is a 21 year old from Seoul. However she classes herself as 22, as in Korea they also add on the 9 months of pregnancy to their age...this was the first I'd ever heard of this. She took me to another local Korean restaurant where she introduced me to 'Tak gal bi' (spicy chicken fried rice) and then for dessert, 'Pat ping soo' (iced milk shavings with beans and rice cakes). You may notice in my blog from now on that I may talk a lot about food...in Korea eating out is SO CHEAP- it costs on average £3-5 for a full meal which fills you up big time. In Korea the stereotypical 3/4 main hobbies are eating, drinking and walking...and working! We then went on a tour of the campus so I could see it in the day light. She was very helpful and showed me where my classes would be starting on Monday (2nd Sept), as she is also a Media Communications student.
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| Pat ping soo. |
On Friday, we decided to do some sight seeing after our orientation and pizza (papa John's) morning. We went to Changdeokgung Palace which is a UNESCO World Heritage Property and is arguably the most beautiful of the 4 palaces in Seoul. Getting here involved using the subway for the first time. It was so quick, efficient and clean. Seoul has a population of 10.58 million (2011), so their public transport system is amazing. We can use our student ID cards as a Tmoney card which we can top up to use to pay for transport and also groceries in certain stores. Travelling is also really cheap, so your 10,000KRW (£5.76) will last you a while! I'm as shocked as you that Korean currency goes up in thousands. £100= 173,000KRW! The palace was incredible and only cost £2 to enter. Korean society is very polite and conservative during the day (at night it's a different story- trust me!)...I learnt this the hard way when a middle-aged Korean woman 'shoosht' me on the subway because I was apparently talking too loudly. It was only after this request that I realised that all Koreans on the subway sit quietly and keep themselves to themselves....ooops!
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| Changdeokgung Palace. |
That night we had the exchange student welcome party which was at a club called BarFly in the Sinchon district which is on the same subway line as Hanyang university station. It was a party for all the exchange students who had arrived in Seoul, not necessarily just studying at Hanyang, but also the other Korean universities- free bar from 9-12 for £6. Koreans know how to party and drink. The local favourite drink is 'Souju' which tastes like watered down vodka. They drink it straight over dinner from the bottle- young and old! We got a taxi back from the Sinchon District as the subway closes after 12. As time went on and after we had crossed the Han River, I knew something wasn't right...we were headed for ANYANG, not HANyang. Most local Koreans can't speak very good English so it was a challenge to try explain to the taxi driver where we were meant to be. I eventually managed to show him my student ID which worked as it has the Korean for Hanyang on it. A costly mistake! A journey between the two would take up to an hour on the subway. Rookie error!
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| Outside the clubs in Sinchon. |
Today, we went to the Nasman & North Seoul Tower. A tower right in the geographical centre/heart of Seoul which stands 238m above sea level on one of Seoul's may mountains. The views of the city were breathtaking and the pictures don't do it justice. Again it was really cheap and easy to get there by subway and bus and admission only cost £5- probably the most expensive tourist attraction here. I was glad to get another one of Seoul's top 10 attractions done before I start the semester on Monday.
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| North Seoul Tower. |
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| One of the breathtaking views of Seoul City. |
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| Standing right in the geographical centre of Seoul! |
I don't think it has really sunk in yet that I will be staying in South Korea for the next 4 months. I'm sure once I'm settled, it will. It's an amazing opportunity. I hope you've enjoyed reading this post. I wish I could show you ALL the pictures I've taken. I have uploaded them all onto my Facebook. I look forward to sharing my adventures with you next week.
Ben :)
