The First Few Weeks in Korea: First Few days
Wow, where do I begin?
I've been in Seoul, Korea for just over a month now. Although time has gone by quite fast, and I can also say that a lot has happened in just these few weeks. But perhaps, the very beginning is a good place to start.
I shall start off with Vancouver International Airport. I left at 3am on Thursday, August 19th (basically Wednesday night). My family, my cousin, and 4 of my Japanese friends came to see me off at the airport. It was very nice to receive thoughtful cards from family members. My sister even made me a pack of inspirational quotes, in addition to her long letter to me (I love long letters!). My cousin made me a photo album of various good times we spent together over the last few years. However, everyone told me that I could only read these cards once I got in.
But even before I got to read those wonderful thoughtful cards, I, of course, had to say goodbye. I knew that there was definitely going to be some tear-shedding, because I would be gone for a very long time, but I didn't expect that the crying would start so early. Even before I got to saying goodbye to my family, I was already crying when I said goodbye to my friends!
Once that difficult goodbye was over, and I went in, where I met an old friend. The funny thing was I actually saw her when I was saying goodbye to my family, but at that point, I was too teary eyed to really focus on anything but saying goodbye to my family. I also forgot where I had met her, because I had only met her once....which is quite strange for me, because usually I'm quite good at remembering faces/names/where we met or a combination of those. I guess the goodbyes were getting to me. She was heading back home to Japan after her life in Vancouver, while I was leaving my life in Vancouver for a new one in Seoul. We were on the same flight to Beijing, where I then transferred to another flight to Seoul. I mostly slept during those flights...and then voila, SEOUL at last! It was around noon or so on Friday, Aug 20th.
My friend came to pick me up from the airport, and we took a bus together back to the city. The airport is actually located in Incheon, a city next to Seoul. I dropped my stuff off at the guest-house where I was staying and then we had lunch. We ordered 낙지 볶음 (Nakji Bokkum) or Fried Octopus. Although he said that it wasn't spicy for him... I found it sooo spicy! Between each bite I often had to wipe my nose from the sniffles I got from the spiciness and I had to drink lots of water. Thankfully, this was the spiciest Korean dish I have had. Ever. To this day. At that time, I thought, "Wow, if this is what not-so-spicy-food is in Korea, I don't know how I can handle spicy food then!". I do have to say that Korean food in Korea is a bit more spicier than Korean food in Vancouver. But I love it.
After that, it was back to the guest house for a much wanted shower! For dinner, I just bought a bunch of yummy buns at "Paris Baguette", and ate them as I watched TV (yes, there was a TV in my room, full of Korean dramas and TV programs!), and re-read the cards family and friends had given me. After, I went up to the main area to use my laptop - wireless didn't work in the rooms. I met a couple of Singaporean girls, and one of them was going to attend KU too. I also met a bunch of Japanese girls who were also going to attend KU - but only for a 3 week program. It was such a relief for me to speak Japanese again. It had only been perhaps a day or two without me using Japanese and I already missed it. For those of you that don't know, I have a number of Japanese friends that I try to converse with in Japanese (or rather sometimes half Japanese and half English) including my home-stay and good friend Hiroko. Although I am not fluent in Japanese, I can usually comfortably hold an every day conversation without too much stalling in the conversation... in Korean, and especially when I first arrived, my vocabulary and knowledge of the Korean language was very limited, and therefore would take a lot more brain power than say speaking in English or Japanese. I do, however, mix these two languages at times. At first, I would often utter あの。。"Ano..." which is similar to the English "um" in Japanese when I wasn't sure what to say in Korean, and often I would fill in Korean sentences with は "wa" for subject particles... once, when speaking to a Japanese friend I said お金없어요 or "Okane obseoyo". "Okane" is money in Japanese, and "obseoyo" is to not have in Korean... I wanted it to come out all in Japanese, but Korean managed to slip out as well! This is also not my first time mixing up languages. When I was in Quebec last year for a French learning program (and no, I cannot speak it now, I have unfortunately forgotten quite a lot of it), my brain would fit French words into the Japanese sentence structure even though I believe French is much closer to English than Japanese sentence structure. I have also said あの。。"Ano..." when trying to speak Malay, which should be my mother-tongue. My mom always laughs at me when this happens, which makes me think "ummm" again, and therefore utter "ano" again, which makes her laugh...and then the cycle continues for a while until I can really force myself not to say "ano..". I have also been trying to learn Malay too. I would like to say I can understand jists of everyday conversations but some would argue my ability is even worse than that. I also cannot speak Malay very well, if at all. Once, I blurted out Japanese into my sister's ear when I was intending for it to come out in Malay. We were at some community function and I only wanted my sister to understand me (hence my intention of using Malay as it was not a Malay event) but instead, no one understood me...>.< Anyways, enough of my language confusion history, and back to Seoul! But I must warn you, these posts will not solely be on Seoul but will likely include tangents on past experiences and opinions. The next day (Saturday), a different Korean friend met me at the guesthouse and we took a taxi back to the Gositel (고시탤) or dorm-like place, where I would be staying. I found out there was no wireless internet, so, after giving me a little tour of our University and Anam, which is an area right by our uni full of restaurants, noraebangs (Karaoke), and lots of other little places, I also bought my internet cable. The campus is beautiful. I love it. It definitely beats SFU (Simon Fraser University, my home university). It has an old, traditional, and perhaps at times, slightly Harry Potter-esque feel (well some of the buildings) while still having many facilities, a bunch of places to eat (good for hungry Mana!) and also being right next to Anam (also full of food places...again..good for hungry Mana!haha). SFU has much less variety, and also is a lot more expensive. Food in general here is more cheaper than in Vancouver, but coffee/desserts are about the same. I still haven't explored all of it yet, and this is only the main campus. There is the science campus (also right by Anam) and another campus for health sciences?? and another one in Sejong?? Me in front of International Studies Hall (my major) and behind the front gates
My room. Quite small, but I heard that some other people who live at other Gositels, have even smaller rooms. Atleast mine comes with my own washroom, and a mini fridge. Korea University is paying for my last month here though. Perhaps they felt bad after causing a lot of stress to many exchange students. I was only emailed the address of the Gositel 4 days before I left. And I had even called KU several times before that inquiring about the address, but they only had a name, and since the building is new, there was no website or number. Originally I had applied to CJ-International house, the on-campus housing, but even though I payed my deposit very early on, I didn't get a spot. It seems the system is quite strange because there were others that payed on the deposit on the very first day of the 30-day time span, and still didn't get it. And, I met some people that payed their deposit much later on, and still got in, and one guy said he didn't even pay his deposit, and was still secured a spot! He decided not to go with CJ in the end though. So I'm really not sure how they organized who got into CJ and who didn't. Anyways, I'm quite content with the place I stay in. I have my own privacy, but at the same time I can easily have dinner with the girls on my floor. I have only had 2 issues in my room. One, there is a gap between the bottom of the washroom door and the floor, which caused my whole room to be slightly flooded one morning. I had to miss my first class because of that. It also got to under my desk where the power bar of my laptop was about halfway submerged in water. I quickly took it out and dried it, but I think that is probably why my laptop doesn't fully turn off when I want it to half the time now. I told the Ahjusshi (아저씨 -Korean word for uncle, older man, etc ) manager of Gositel about my problem, and he helped me to clean it up. Later on, he fixed the problem by taping up the ends of the door. The second problem I have is that when it rains hard, a little bit of water drips into my room, so I have to put a container at the end of the window sill to catch the water.
My room, the common area on my floor, the view from my window (right side then left side)
The first girl I met on my floor was my next-door-neighbour, who is also originally from Singapore, but she is studying in France. Actually, when I first got here, I met way more Singaporeans than I did Canadians. I hang out with other Singaporeans a lot. We did grocery shopping together at Home plus with my Korean friend that brought me to my gositel, on Sunday. We both bought a loooot of stuff, but I guess that was needed... with moving to a new place and empty fridges that is!
So, on my floor there are 3 of us who are originally from Singapore, 2 girls and myself, as well as as a girl from France (also from the same uni as Andrea), a Korean Unni who studied in the States , 3 Korean-Canadian girls from U of Calgary, and a girl from Hong Kong. Our friend from the Netherlands used to live where one of the Korean-Canadian girl lives now. She only stayed in Seoul for about a month - she went back to the Netherlands.
Anyways, I'll divide up my posts so it's not so overwhelming!
I've been in Seoul, Korea for just over a month now. Although time has gone by quite fast, and I can also say that a lot has happened in just these few weeks. But perhaps, the very beginning is a good place to start.
I shall start off with Vancouver International Airport. I left at 3am on Thursday, August 19th (basically Wednesday night). My family, my cousin, and 4 of my Japanese friends came to see me off at the airport. It was very nice to receive thoughtful cards from family members. My sister even made me a pack of inspirational quotes, in addition to her long letter to me (I love long letters!). My cousin made me a photo album of various good times we spent together over the last few years. However, everyone told me that I could only read these cards once I got in.
But even before I got to read those wonderful thoughtful cards, I, of course, had to say goodbye. I knew that there was definitely going to be some tear-shedding, because I would be gone for a very long time, but I didn't expect that the crying would start so early. Even before I got to saying goodbye to my family, I was already crying when I said goodbye to my friends!
Once that difficult goodbye was over, and I went in, where I met an old friend. The funny thing was I actually saw her when I was saying goodbye to my family, but at that point, I was too teary eyed to really focus on anything but saying goodbye to my family. I also forgot where I had met her, because I had only met her once....which is quite strange for me, because usually I'm quite good at remembering faces/names/where we met or a combination of those. I guess the goodbyes were getting to me. She was heading back home to Japan after her life in Vancouver, while I was leaving my life in Vancouver for a new one in Seoul. We were on the same flight to Beijing, where I then transferred to another flight to Seoul. I mostly slept during those flights...and then voila, SEOUL at last! It was around noon or so on Friday, Aug 20th.
My friend came to pick me up from the airport, and we took a bus together back to the city. The airport is actually located in Incheon, a city next to Seoul. I dropped my stuff off at the guest-house where I was staying and then we had lunch. We ordered 낙지 볶음 (Nakji Bokkum) or Fried Octopus. Although he said that it wasn't spicy for him... I found it sooo spicy! Between each bite I often had to wipe my nose from the sniffles I got from the spiciness and I had to drink lots of water. Thankfully, this was the spiciest Korean dish I have had. Ever. To this day. At that time, I thought, "Wow, if this is what not-so-spicy-food is in Korea, I don't know how I can handle spicy food then!". I do have to say that Korean food in Korea is a bit more spicier than Korean food in Vancouver. But I love it.
After that, it was back to the guest house for a much wanted shower! For dinner, I just bought a bunch of yummy buns at "Paris Baguette", and ate them as I watched TV (yes, there was a TV in my room, full of Korean dramas and TV programs!), and re-read the cards family and friends had given me. After, I went up to the main area to use my laptop - wireless didn't work in the rooms. I met a couple of Singaporean girls, and one of them was going to attend KU too. I also met a bunch of Japanese girls who were also going to attend KU - but only for a 3 week program. It was such a relief for me to speak Japanese again. It had only been perhaps a day or two without me using Japanese and I already missed it. For those of you that don't know, I have a number of Japanese friends that I try to converse with in Japanese (or rather sometimes half Japanese and half English) including my home-stay and good friend Hiroko. Although I am not fluent in Japanese, I can usually comfortably hold an every day conversation without too much stalling in the conversation... in Korean, and especially when I first arrived, my vocabulary and knowledge of the Korean language was very limited, and therefore would take a lot more brain power than say speaking in English or Japanese. I do, however, mix these two languages at times. At first, I would often utter あの。。"Ano..." which is similar to the English "um" in Japanese when I wasn't sure what to say in Korean, and often I would fill in Korean sentences with は "wa" for subject particles... once, when speaking to a Japanese friend I said お金없어요 or "Okane obseoyo". "Okane" is money in Japanese, and "obseoyo" is to not have in Korean... I wanted it to come out all in Japanese, but Korean managed to slip out as well! This is also not my first time mixing up languages. When I was in Quebec last year for a French learning program (and no, I cannot speak it now, I have unfortunately forgotten quite a lot of it), my brain would fit French words into the Japanese sentence structure even though I believe French is much closer to English than Japanese sentence structure. I have also said あの。。"Ano..." when trying to speak Malay, which should be my mother-tongue. My mom always laughs at me when this happens, which makes me think "ummm" again, and therefore utter "ano" again, which makes her laugh...and then the cycle continues for a while until I can really force myself not to say "ano..". I have also been trying to learn Malay too. I would like to say I can understand jists of everyday conversations but some would argue my ability is even worse than that. I also cannot speak Malay very well, if at all. Once, I blurted out Japanese into my sister's ear when I was intending for it to come out in Malay. We were at some community function and I only wanted my sister to understand me (hence my intention of using Malay as it was not a Malay event) but instead, no one understood me...>.< Anyways, enough of my language confusion history, and back to Seoul! But I must warn you, these posts will not solely be on Seoul but will likely include tangents on past experiences and opinions. The next day (Saturday), a different Korean friend met me at the guesthouse and we took a taxi back to the Gositel (고시탤) or dorm-like place, where I would be staying. I found out there was no wireless internet, so, after giving me a little tour of our University and Anam, which is an area right by our uni full of restaurants, noraebangs (Karaoke), and lots of other little places, I also bought my internet cable. The campus is beautiful. I love it. It definitely beats SFU (Simon Fraser University, my home university). It has an old, traditional, and perhaps at times, slightly Harry Potter-esque feel (well some of the buildings) while still having many facilities, a bunch of places to eat (good for hungry Mana!) and also being right next to Anam (also full of food places...again..good for hungry Mana!haha). SFU has much less variety, and also is a lot more expensive. Food in general here is more cheaper than in Vancouver, but coffee/desserts are about the same. I still haven't explored all of it yet, and this is only the main campus. There is the science campus (also right by Anam) and another campus for health sciences?? and another one in Sejong?? Me in front of International Studies Hall (my major) and behind the front gates
My room. Quite small, but I heard that some other people who live at other Gositels, have even smaller rooms. Atleast mine comes with my own washroom, and a mini fridge. Korea University is paying for my last month here though. Perhaps they felt bad after causing a lot of stress to many exchange students. I was only emailed the address of the Gositel 4 days before I left. And I had even called KU several times before that inquiring about the address, but they only had a name, and since the building is new, there was no website or number. Originally I had applied to CJ-International house, the on-campus housing, but even though I payed my deposit very early on, I didn't get a spot. It seems the system is quite strange because there were others that payed on the deposit on the very first day of the 30-day time span, and still didn't get it. And, I met some people that payed their deposit much later on, and still got in, and one guy said he didn't even pay his deposit, and was still secured a spot! He decided not to go with CJ in the end though. So I'm really not sure how they organized who got into CJ and who didn't. Anyways, I'm quite content with the place I stay in. I have my own privacy, but at the same time I can easily have dinner with the girls on my floor. I have only had 2 issues in my room. One, there is a gap between the bottom of the washroom door and the floor, which caused my whole room to be slightly flooded one morning. I had to miss my first class because of that. It also got to under my desk where the power bar of my laptop was about halfway submerged in water. I quickly took it out and dried it, but I think that is probably why my laptop doesn't fully turn off when I want it to half the time now. I told the Ahjusshi (아저씨 -Korean word for uncle, older man, etc ) manager of Gositel about my problem, and he helped me to clean it up. Later on, he fixed the problem by taping up the ends of the door. The second problem I have is that when it rains hard, a little bit of water drips into my room, so I have to put a container at the end of the window sill to catch the water.
My room, the common area on my floor, the view from my window (right side then left side)
The first girl I met on my floor was my next-door-neighbour, who is also originally from Singapore, but she is studying in France. Actually, when I first got here, I met way more Singaporeans than I did Canadians. I hang out with other Singaporeans a lot. We did grocery shopping together at Home plus with my Korean friend that brought me to my gositel, on Sunday. We both bought a loooot of stuff, but I guess that was needed... with moving to a new place and empty fridges that is!
So, on my floor there are 3 of us who are originally from Singapore, 2 girls and myself, as well as as a girl from France (also from the same uni as Andrea), a Korean Unni who studied in the States , 3 Korean-Canadian girls from U of Calgary, and a girl from Hong Kong. Our friend from the Netherlands used to live where one of the Korean-Canadian girl lives now. She only stayed in Seoul for about a month - she went back to the Netherlands.
Anyways, I'll divide up my posts so it's not so overwhelming!
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