On Monday, I went to dinner with my cell, a group of international and native students through Yonsei Global’s Mentors Club. We had samgyupsal, or Korean BBQ. It was really good. The meat was like really thick bacon and you could grill it with garlic, peppers and other delicious things. After dinner, we all went to a place to play board games. Yes, board games. There are places here where you pay to sit in a room to play board games. There was a wide variety to choose from. My little group played a card game similar to slapjack and a monkey tower game. It was really fun. Seeing as how it was a Monday night, we didn’t stay out too late, but a few of us managed to grab ice cream at one of the local Baskin Robbins on the way back to school. The perfect end to the good day.
On Tuesday night, I went to my Language Exchange Program orientation. Language Exchange is another program that I signed up for through Yonsei Global, which matches one international student with one native student. Through this pairing, the two can help each other learn the other’s language and can build a friendship. It was a little nerve-wracking, I will admit. We went in and were told exactly which seat in the auditorium to sit in. Our partner would come sit right next to us! My Language Exchange partner is awesome! Her name is Hwa-Shin. The two of us had dinner that night in Sinchon and then walked around drinking coffee. She taught me a little Korean and I taught her a little bit of English. It was really fun! I think it will be a very fun semester!
On Friday, I had my first quiz in my Korean Language class. It was over all of the vowels and consonants that we had learned in the previous 2 weeks. It consisted of listening to our seunsangmin (professor) say different vowels and words and writing them down, and having to choose the correct word on multiple choice questions. I did a lot better than I thought I would. I only got 5 wrong out of around 50 or so. It was a good start!
Friday night we went out to this place that has really yummy soup. It had stuff like pepperoni, sausage, veggies, spices, etc. It was AMAZING. We will definitely have to go back there again!
We conquered our meal quickly.
This past weekend was the Chuseok holiday in Korea, which is comparable to our Thanksgiving in the States. A lot of Koreans travel back to their hometowns for the holiday to spend the time with family. We had the weekend off from school as well as Monday and Tuesday, so we had lots of time to go exploring!
Saturday was a day full of Korean royal palaces. We went to all 5 of the royal palaces in Seoul in 1 day! We thought that it would be quite a challenge, but we visited them all at a comfortable pace in under 6 hours. Not too shabby! Some were definitely larger and more exciting than others.
The first one we visited was덕수궁 (Deoksugung). It was so pretty! My favorite part of visiting all of the palaces was not simply being able to see all of the history there was, but rather how the city of Seoul has been built up around these traditional palaces. I tried to take a lot of pictures with this in mind.
Aegyo.
Korea old and new.
Beautiful paths.
Really interesting statues on the side of the road. They were people but they were smushed! WHAT?
Shout out to my MediaLab friends! World Vision in Seoul! It was parked right outside from where we ate lunch! The Korean characters under the logo say "wol-duh bi-chon." Hehe.
Lunch! We are pretty sure they gave us extra chicken for free. Such nice people!
Korean McDonalds.
The next palace was경희궁 (Gyeonghuigung). It was a little hard to find because it was basically hidden in between modern structures. We used a city map for help, and when we should have been able to see it from where we were standing, we couldn’t! The entrance turned out to be hiding behind a wall. Out of all 5 palaces, this one was definitely the smallest and had the least amount of things to see. One reason was that they had the large amphitheater set up for some type of performance and we weren’t allowed in. But it was still pretty cool.
Front Gate.
Pretty architecture.
On the way to the next palace...
Pretty stream.
We found a cute little fountain...
...and couldn't help but play in it.
An old rail car.
To get to the third palace, we walked down Gwanghwamun Square, one of the most recognizable streets in Seoul. There are huge statues of Admiral Yi Sunshin (a great military hero) and King Sejong (he invented Hangul), as well as a huge fountain that you can play in. It leads up to the main gate of the palace.
Admiral Yi Sun-sin.
The plaza.
King Sejong and me doing my signature pose.
We even went underground where they have an entire museum/exhibit all about King Sejong! Pretty darn snazzy!
The entrance. Time to go underground!
Turtle ship.
This is made out of notes people wrote! So cool!
경복궁 (Gyeongbokgung) is the largest palace out of them all. It was also my favorite out of all of them because there was the most to see! However, out of all of them, it definitely had the biggest crowd. It was packed full of people!
A view from the plaza. Here comes a running soldier!
Main gate.
Inside. It's so big!
I thought this lady's shirt was funny.
Living like a king.
Quick photo op during a little break from walking around.
After about a 10-15 minute walk, we hit the fourth palace of the day, 창덕궁 (Changdeokgung).
I think it has been a few centuries since those lamp shades were dusted.
We were able to enter the last palace while inside the previous one, since they are right next to each other. The final palace of the day was 창영궁 (Changgyeonggung).
A three-way high five for accomplishing our goal!
Stay tuned for my next updates (coming very soon)! I will share my experiences at Lotte World, Namsan Tower and more!
안녕하세요!
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