KOREA, ah ha

2005-05-31T10:22:00.000-07:00

AH, and I can't forget to give a special shout out to the LAX gang...Thiney, Wilf, Pitties, Kevie, Atte, Mike, Clinty, Timmy Toot, Meliss, etc for the Birthday Lovin. I loved the cards and package(s)...especially the jewelry box with everyones random, freefallin' HAIRS! Much love.

2005-05-30T13:16:00.000-07:00

Hey EVERYONE. hope you enjoy the pics. This might be my last update for awhile...as i have shown throughout the semester, i am not the best at updating. i cant beleive i only have about 3 weeks left here. my time here has been amazing, it would be impossible to accurately sum up in words. once the semester ends, i will take a lil tour of asia...singapore, malaysia, thailand, cambodia, and beijing...wooo hooo cant wait. I will return back to the U.S. on July 14th. ahh cant wait to reunite with all of you!!! byebye love mandyyyyyyyyyyy

2005-05-30T13:12:00.000-07:00

dinner with my beloved korean class...my teacher is the pale faced one in the front/middle. super nice, even though she thinks my korean kinda sucks. after we finished eating dinner, we pressured her to come out to the famous ladies night club/bar at the seoul hilton, she agreed...drank, and danced up a storm with her all time fav. class.

2005-05-30T13:10:00.000-07:00

night out with my korean class

2005-05-30T13:03:00.001-07:00

HEY EVERYONE!

2005-05-30T13:03:00.000-07:00

favorite lil guy

2005-05-30T13:01:00.001-07:00

sinchon day view

2005-05-30T13:01:00.000-07:00

sinchon night view

2005-05-30T12:59:00.000-07:00

the top line reads "mo-sheen-tang" which is dog meat stew...koreans are infamous for eating dog...but its really not as popular as many thinkit is

2005-05-30T12:57:00.001-07:00

yes, this is me sampling dog meat. so disgusting, really chewy and nasty ass aftertaste

2005-05-30T12:57:00.000-07:00

class field trip to the Seodaemun jail. all time fav teacher in korea...absolutely hilarious. a girl came late to class one week wearing big sunglasses and a baseball cap...the first thing that the prof. lee says is, "ohhh noo "oh no, i been here so many times now. mina, why you dress like that, you north korean spy or something..." this jail was owned by the japanese during the japanese invasion. while we were touring asked Prof Lee if she is having fun (because she looked bored), she replies, i only have fun if there are japanese students with me, then i show them what they did to us, no one hurt my korean pride...no one"

2005-05-30T12:51:00.000-07:00

a group of us decided to head east of seoul to hit up the beaches of sokcho, cruise through the fish market, and to hike through seoraksan national park...an enjoyable long weekend except for long bus ride to and fro...the only time in my life when i havent been able to fall asleep anywhere

2005-05-30T12:49:00.000-07:00

women working hard at the fish market

2005-05-30T12:48:00.001-07:00

fishing village in sokcho

2005-05-30T12:48:00.000-07:00

HEYYYYYYYYYY

2005-05-30T12:47:00.002-07:00

top

2005-05-30T12:47:00.001-07:00

naturesque

2005-05-30T12:47:00.000-07:00

koreas finest

2005-05-30T12:44:00.000-07:00

giant buddha at seoraksan national park

2005-05-30T12:43:00.001-07:00

so cool, dont deny it

2005-05-30T12:43:00.000-07:00

yonsei taekwondo performance during global week

2005-05-30T12:42:00.000-07:00

traditional korean clothing is called Hanbok...so festive and fun i love it

2005-05-30T12:41:00.001-07:00

traditional korean get-ups

2005-05-30T12:41:00.000-07:00

a dayview from the top of the mountain. it is located about 2 minutes from campus.

2005-05-30T12:40:00.000-07:00

me doing some late night mountain climbing.

2005-05-30T12:39:00.000-07:00

inside the temple right before the lady told me i wasnt allowed to take pics. OHH, and the commentary on the first pic related to the DMZ below is courtesy of CNN.

2005-05-30T12:37:00.000-07:00

lantern festival for buddhas birthday.

2005-05-30T12:36:00.001-07:00

work it SK

2005-05-30T12:36:00.000-07:00

a crazy night with a local korean who proved how hospitable koreans really are. joost took five us to meet up with SK for dinner, drinks and clubbing. SK dropped well over $500 dollars for all of us to eat, drink (he bought 2 whiskey sets that cost $125 per set), eat, club ($25 entry fee-he paid for all of us), and he even gave us plenty of money for the taxi ride home. this behavior, however, is common for korean to exhibit, especially considering that we are students and SK recently got hired to work in the financial dept at Samsung. gotta love koreans.

2005-05-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

The Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) that divides the two Koreas is the most heavily fortified border in the world, bristling with watchtowers, razor wire, landmines, tank-traps and heavy weaponry.
On either side of its 151-mile (248 km) length almost two million troops face each other off ready to go to war at a moment's notice.
They have been on a hair trigger for almost 50 years, ever since the last shot was fired in the Korean War and an uneasy truce came into force.
Officially that war has not yet ended -- no formal peace deal has ever been signed and the war could start again at any moment.
Between North and South is a strip of rugged no man's land -- the DMZ proper -- averaging two and a half miles (4km) wide.
A sense of tension fills the air -- along with, from time to time, the sounds of martial music and propaganda blasted out from giant speakers installed along the North Korean side.
Also on the North Korean side is what the Guinness Book of Records lists as the world's tallest flagpole soaring some 160 meters (525ft) into the air.

Flashpoint
Monitoring the edgy standoff is a small group of Swiss and Swedish officers who make up the Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission.
For its part North Korea is thought to maintain about one million troops along its side of the frontier.
On the southern side, stationed alongside some 600,000 South Korean soldiers are 37,000 U.S. troops, one of the largest single overseas deployments of American forces.
If North Korean forces ever crossed the DMZ again the United States is automatically at war -- under a 1954 treaty backed by United Nations resolutions the U.S. is committed to defend South Korea.
Although one of the world's major flashpoints, the DMZ has become a major tourist attraction drawing in hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.
Many come to gawp at the rigid North Korean soldiers stationed along the frontline.
Others take in visits to one of a number of tunnels dug secretly under the DMZ by the North for use in a possible invasion.
Virtually undisturbed for half a century the zone has also become a rugged natural haven for several endangered species including the white-naped and red-crowned cranes as well as nearly extinct Korean subspecies of tiger and leopard.
Former president Bill Clinton described the DMZ as the scariest place in the world.

2005-05-30T12:23:00.001-07:00

DMZ museum

2005-05-30T12:23:00.000-07:00

ROK soldier in the UN building...the north side border runs right down the middle of this room

2005-05-30T12:21:00.000-07:00

a straight arrow shot at a north korean building (if you look close you can see a north korean commie). the blue buildings are UN buildings and the soldier is a ROK (republic of korean soldier) standing in the traditional taekwondo-ready pose. everything we did and said was recorded by the north koreans. before we were allowed to go to this checkpoint, we had to sign a waiver basically absolving the UNC and the American military from any blame should we get shot or blown up by the communists. .we could see window curtains moving and binoculars flaring from the north korean side...it was definitely an odd feeling.

2005-05-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

this is literally part of the line that separates north and south korea...wow, here i am standing in commie-ville.

2005-05-30T12:09:00.000-07:00

this is the north korean flag...it is recorded in the guiness book of world records as being the biggest flag in the world. although it looks like only a spec, dont be disillusioned...it weighs over 600 pounds and takes 50 (weak) communist soldiers to raise it.

2005-05-30T12:04:00.000-07:00

a view of north korea from the dora observatory. picture taking is regulated pretty intensely. they had this yellow line that was about 5 meters back from the balcony, making is virtually impossible to take a clear picture due to all the fog and wall. so of course being the scam artist that i am, i took a few pictures from the ledge when the soldiers werent looking. yes, that is north korea.

2005-05-30T11:58:00.000-07:00

optimistic statue at the DMZ

2005-05-30T11:44:00.000-07:00

the intense preparation for the flippy cup tournament. hosts: the americans. location: i-house patio.

2005-05-30T11:42:00.001-07:00

winning team for sure.

2005-05-30T11:42:00.000-07:00

i-house picnic love

2005-05-30T11:41:00.000-07:00

i-house picnic fun...international exchange director behind me having the time of his life, umm yeah

2005-05-30T11:37:00.000-07:00

my university hosts this ridiculously huge event called AKARAKA. it is kinda like homecoming back in the states, but think 10 billion (yes billion) times bigger. it is held at yonsei's outdoor ampitheatre, which holds who knows how many people. they bring in crazy famous korean stars...it wasnt as cool for me as a foreigner because they spoke in all korean...but it would be the equivalent of UW-LaX bringing huge stars like Oprah, Usher, B. Spears, Tiger Woods, Tim McGraw, etc

2005-05-30T11:36:00.000-07:00

tommy hilfiger was one of the sponsors for Akaraka. ok, please take a close look at this ad. look at the asian girl in the yellow dress on the right...photo-shopped in/cut and paste action like no other! she totally doesnt fit in and you know it. go asians

2005-05-30T11:26:00.000-07:00

akaraka akaraka akaraka

2005-05-30T11:25:00.000-07:00

AKAROCKIN' yo

2005-05-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

AKARAKA!!!

2005-05-30T11:22:00.000-07:00

we decided to take an extended weekend to some west coast islands that you can just ferry-hop to. not too tropical or exotic, but fun nonetheless

2005-05-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

west coast island crizzzzzzewwww

2005-05-30T11:19:00.000-07:00

ohhhh the seafood, even though i am not really that crazy about the food, it was still yummy

2005-05-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

island hopping weekend. see the hotel that looks like a cruise ship...thats where we stayed...sick n wrong

2005-05-30T11:17:00.000-07:00

west coast islands on the yellow sea...i seriously love the run-down vibe from this pic...

2005-05-30T11:14:00.000-07:00

seoul motor show 2005

2005-05-30T11:13:00.000-07:00

dear dudley and petri dish, i took this just for you, pretty saucy, eh?

2005-05-30T11:12:00.000-07:00

hey dudley, two-toner replacement? please...

2005-05-30T11:10:00.000-07:00

birthday dindin...21, finally! but thanks for the fun times thiney weenie, haha

2005-05-30T11:09:00.000-07:00

birfday bar

2005-05-30T11:07:00.000-07:00

the party continues...singin' up a storm

2005-05-30T11:06:00.000-07:00

last ones standing...7am baby

2005-05-30T11:04:00.000-07:00

this is brad holding the shirt we bought him for his b-day...when we first saw it at the markets, we thought it just a horrible PUMA knock-off since the spelling is wrong. actually, PAMA means perm or fro in korean...

2005-05-30T11:01:00.000-07:00

at the jagermeister party...somehow a handful of us from the i-house got free vip status and saved ourselves the $125 entrance free...wooooooo...

2005-05-30T10:59:00.000-07:00

jagermeister party...joe (iowa), me, willem (netherlands), youngsun (jersey), and salvador (mexie)

2005-05-30T10:53:00.000-07:00

hard core norebong (karoake club) action...i believe we were singing shape of my heart by BSB. if you think my singing is bad in person, wait till you hear it loud and proud on the mic, word.

2005-05-30T10:50:00.000-07:00

here are all of the street vendors rockin the streets together in perfect unity..notice the hottt asian red headbands. they were out of business for maybe 2 days.

2005-05-30T10:47:00.000-07:00

here are some korean popo's at a protest in my district of seoul. supposedly selling "street food" in korea is illegal, but they clearly dont enforce it because street vendor stands dominate every street in seoul...korean popo's trying to be hardcore, hah

2005-05-30T10:43:00.000-07:00

kimbap making party with the host moms...mine look the best, hands down.

2005-05-30T10:42:00.000-07:00

korean food called Kimbap...I can make this for y'all when I get home because i bought the lil roller thingie. its consists of seaweed, sticky rice, veggies, and meat...oh soooo tasty. the other day i bought some not knowing it there were anchovies in them...i nearly puked on myself

2005-04-05T11:10:00.000-07:00

mysterious korea

2005-04-05T11:09:00.000-07:00

4, 3, 2, 1 BUNGEE! wow, horrible form.

2005-04-05T10:59:00.000-07:00

4, 3, 2, 1 BUNGEE?!?

2005-04-05T10:50:00.001-07:00

hangin out

2005-04-05T10:50:00.000-07:00

Joost (from the netherlands)...perfect form!

2005-04-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

bungee crew

2005-04-05T10:46:00.000-07:00

bungee certified

2005-04-05T10:45:00.000-07:00

mask making with host fams

2005-04-05T10:44:00.001-07:00

ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh

2005-04-05T10:44:00.000-07:00

please look closely to see the crowded subway lines

2005-04-05T10:43:00.000-07:00

rock stacking...ancient buddhist tradition

2005-04-05T10:42:00.000-07:00

outdoors time

2005-04-05T10:41:00.001-07:00

bikes

2005-04-05T10:41:00.000-07:00

businessman workin the bumper car at Lotte World (Korean Disneyworld)

2005-04-05T10:39:00.001-07:00

koreas version of cheerleaders?

2005-04-05T10:39:00.000-07:00

soccer time

2005-04-05T10:38:00.000-07:00

KOREA, baby!

2005-04-05T10:37:00.000-07:00

Yonsei U post game victory celebration at the Seoul World Cup stadium

2005-04-05T10:36:00.000-07:00

sweatfest begins

2005-04-05T10:35:00.001-07:00

HOTTTTTTT!

2005-04-05T10:35:00.000-07:00

charcoal sauna...indoors.

2005-04-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

salsa dancing with iowa joe...reppin the midwest aka worst salsa dancers on the floor

2005-04-05T10:33:00.000-07:00

pre salsa dancing

2005-04-05T10:32:00.001-07:00

street vendor late night eats

2005-04-05T10:32:00.000-07:00

Dondaemun...crazy shopping district. Open till 5am.

2005-04-05T10:31:00.000-07:00

mama sook yeong's cookin.

2005-04-05T10:29:00.001-07:00

host fizzzzam

2005-04-05T10:29:00.000-07:00

nature!!! too bad it was frozen.

2005-04-05T10:27:00.000-07:00

hahahaha, stephan eating a bug. popular street vendor food. i spit mine out...crunchy on the outside, juice on the inside...

2005-04-05T10:25:00.000-07:00

me cooking...korean style. It's kind of like a pancake/omelet with onions, sea weed, squid, and other fun stuff

2005-04-05T10:18:00.000-07:00

new fav bar...the mushroom bar

heart and SEOUL

2005-04-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Heyyyyyyy! Ok, I know I should be updating this thing more often, but everyone knows how slacker I can get when it comes to this kind of stuff. Anyways, life is grand here. So I will try to fill y’all in as to what I have been doing since my last update….oh man, its been awhile. Here we ggggggggggggoooo…

Classes started, and well…they aren’t too bad. Korean language (6 credits, 10 hours/wk) is so fricken intense. And you should all be proud of me because I am moving up and on from the being the worst student, hehe. The rankings change every day, though. But I won’t lie, it’s a good time filled with non-stop laughter, lots of questions in English, swearing, and some really messed up sounding Korean. The class is very interactive, so you cant be bashful with speaking out loud in front of the class. During the first week of class I would seriously have a heart attack every time I had to speak. And it sounds so weird...everyone puts their own lil twang into the sounds. And of course, I have created some Korean slang.
One of my other classes, Korean American Assimilation, is a riot. The teacher is the funniest little Korean woman ever. She loves to use the word “hanky panky.”. And the first day of class, when I stumbled into class late…she said the following-“Oh no sweety, you late to my class. You must be Amanda. Now, since you late…I spank you, naughty girl, hehehe.” Please tell me that is a weird thing for a professor to say! It takes a while to get used to the Korean accents, but the teachers are extremely friendly.

I have a host family now. I don’t live with them, but I hang out with them about once a week. The mom speaks very little English, and the dad speaks no English at all. The kids are 11 and 14, and they speak some English. I met them at the Global Lounge on campus and then we went out to dinner with some of my other friends and their host families. It was really fun and the best thing is…they wouldn’t stop feeding us (Go free food!). We went to this really nice restaurant and stuffed ourselves like crazy. And its so funny, because all of the women say “I so happy” (not I’m so happy) when they are done eating, I love it. And then all the women had remembered that we said our favorite food was Mondu (dumplings) so they took us to street vendor and fed us more. We tried to refuse, but they insisted by pushing us into the vendor tent, sitting us down, and stuffing fish and chicken on a stick in our mouths…yum. Prior to departing, we had to plan our first official activity. So, my host family invited me to stay at their house for the weekend…kind of an intimate first activity with some random people I don’t even know. But the overnight was good…I felt bad because I was a bit late arriving at the subway station. It takes about an hour to get there. And I always have to call them when I am on my way…and I hate it because I try to speak Korean but it ends up being a mix of Korean and English, and then I just throw the phone to my roommate and she arranges everything…awkwardddddddddd. And they say my name “Mendy.” For breakfast, they eat real food. We had bulgolgi (bbq meat, onions, peppers, etc) for breakfast, that would be like having a juicy hamburger for breakfast in the U.S. All in all, the host fam program has been great. I have met lots of other families through the program, which is cool.

I have been volunteering at the orphanage on Saturdays. The first day of class, we got to give the kids Western names…it was really fun. This one little girl was really stuck on having the name ******, and we kept trying to tell her that it was kind of white trashy (I censored out the name because I was scared someone might have the name), but we couldn’t stop her, so that’s her name. hahaha. The kids get really out of control and it’s oh so hard to keep their attention. But its fun and the kids enjoy having volunteers there, even though some are SOOOO sassy …sass factor 10 for sure. Some can be mean, too, which I don’t blame them. One girl bites me every time I leave…its strange.

Myself, as well as my two friends, Brad and Shelley, went to a charcoal sauna/public bath with Brad’s host parents and their friend. They give you baggy monk style clothes, and then they have like a bunch of random rooms, cold room, meditation room, exersice room, etc. And then you walk outside, and there are 4 different sauna caves that you can enter…they have diff temps…hot, hotter, hottt to the max, and OMG HOTTTTTTTT. You enter the cave and sit or lie down with other randoms and just SWEAT like a mofo. You all know how bad I sweat, especially on the nose…oh man it was bad…but felt good. But the hottest room is CRAZY HOT. You have to wear special socks and you have to bring in wood pads for your butt and feet so you don’t burn yourself. We went in…and no…it hurt to breath…and my skin felt like it was going to melt off…so we all ran out after about 15 seconds and everyone outside laughed…crazy Asians I tell ya. It was insane. And then of course I hated the nakedness in the public bath are. Ewwww, all the old naked woman just chilling and scrubbing off all of their dried sweat and dead skin…need I say more?.

Last weekend, about group of us from the I-house took a fieldtrip with an organization called Adventure Korea. We went bungee jumping, biking, and hiking. It was so nice to get out of the city…it seemed as if I hadn’t seen nature in like 10 years. The bungee jumping was insane, I will admit, I hated it and don’t think I would ever do it again. I got all geared up and up to the top via the old raggedy elevator (it broke twice, haha)…and I was so scared. When it was my turn…I kept telling the Korean workers that I was SOOOOOO scared and that I didn’t know what to do…but they didn’t know what I was saying...the only English they knew was 4,3,2,1 BUNGEE! Not to mention the bungee ropes were so old and tattered, seriously I think they were from the Titanic or something. And I took so long just standing and complaining that they basically ended up pushing me off. I hated the feeling…and I flailed and screamed like a baby. I have it all on video tape.

I got a job working for a language center director. I am helping him edit books and tapes. They are basically English proficiency tests for Korean businessmen. Easy work, good pay.

Some of my friends, who are theatre or cinematography majors, dragged me to audition for a play here, A Midsummers Nights Dream. It is a huge production that Yonsei does every 5 years with a nationally reknown director. I auditioned for the part of a fairy, they really wanted foreigners for this part. They played weird music and we just danced around like psychos. One Korean student was hilarious…I don’t know if she is trying to be funny, but she took someone’s water bottle and started squirting it all over, even at the directors table…and then at the end he was like, “hey are you going to clean this up?” I busted out laughing. Well, I guess they liked us, because we all got parts. However, I decided not to accept the part because they practice like 5 hours a day.

I went to World Cup qualifying game…Korean VS Uzbekistan. GO korea, We won! So fun and crazy. The local Korean fans and workers were amazing. They showed how friendly Koreans really are. They let us direct cheers in to the loud speaker, fed us tons of their food, gave us free Korea gear, etc etc etc.

Randomness begins… now! Koreans eat really loud and nasty…they always slurp their noodles and soup and chomp really loud…but that’s always share. Koreans also say “Is it delicious” or “Was it beautiful?”…always! The best way to tell the difference between a Korean man and Japanese man is to look at their eyebrows…Japanese men pluck their eyebrows very pretty, Korean men don’t. Korean men carry bags, well actually I should say purses. And I don’t mean manly bags, I mean Louis Vuittons and Gucci bags.

Alright, I could go on for years with random stories and ramblings, but I will stop now. I miss all of you and hope to hear from you soon. Send me an email anytime.

My mailing address is:

Mandy LaBreche
International House, Rm. 204
100 Daeshin-dong, Sodaemoon-gu
Seoul 120-160, KOREA
LOVE MANDY!

beautiful SEOUL

2005-03-09T00:43:00.000-08:00

Wow, my apologies on this extremely late first update! It has been nearly 2 weeks (actually 3, now) since I first arrived in Seoul…and what can I say…I love it. The plane ride was oh-so long. I think my total flying time was over 18 hours. Luckily, I sat by this awesome Korean-American woman. She answered lots of my questions and helped me at the airports. During the flight from Chicago to Seoul she literally slept for 10+ hours crouched up in a little ball…weird. I honestly was hoping the plane would experience some type of turbulence because I really had to go to the bathroom and I would have felt bad for waking her from such a deep slumber. With about 3 hours left till landing time in Tokyo, I finally got the courage to politely wake her up and go to the bathroom. On the walk to the bathroom, I saw that everyone was watching different movies on their individual viewing screens. I had never been on a plane where every seat had personal viewing screen for movies and stuff. So much for the set movie times, I could have been watching movies that whole time! Oh well, I did have my Gameboy. I played Tetris SO much that I got a blister on my thumb…sick n wrong. And I definitely busted out the Beef Jerky, but I felt like it getting too smelly so I smuggled it back in my bag. And I had my MP3 player with me, but I only have a select few songs on it. Caught Up by Usher, 1,2 Step by Ciara, Beautiful Soul (should be SEOUL) by Jesse McCartney, Baby It’s You by JoJo, Get Right by J-Lo and Bless the Broken Road by Rascal Flatts all got about 3 hours each of personal Mandy airtime…props.

So, I finally arrived in Seoul. I passed through the main gate with all my luggage where there was a crowd of random Asians, including a man with a picket sign that posted my name. The airport service got me from the airport to the International Dorm close to midnight. I was a little weirded out when I got to my room. I couldn’t help think thoughts such as “What the hell am I doing here” and “Is this really going to be my home for the next 5 months?” Yeah, no denying it, I was a little homesick.

Those feelings quickly faded. There was a half-day orientation for all Spring semester international students. There are lots of us, between 150-200. The professors and staff were so excited for us to be at Yonsei University. Some were a bit hard to understand, but they were funny and enthusiastic to say the least. Yonsei is basically the “Harvard” of Korea…very highly regarded. In order for a Korea native to be admitted into this university, they need to rank in the top 2% of their graduating class. Thank goodness for being a foreigner. We didn’t start class right away, so we had about 2 weeks to explore the city of Seoul. Korea has this strong old/traditional-new/modern dynamic, which makes the city and culture so fascinating. We toured a bunch of palaces and traditional villages, went to the Seoul Tower (8th highest tower in the world), hit up TONS of shopping districts, went to the World Cup Stadium, ate at various restaurants (traditional and modern/trendy), went on a boat cruise on the Han River, etc, etc, etc and of course…enjoyed the nightlife here (everything you dream of and more, haha). This city is never-ending, everyone says it puts NYC to shame. There are always crowds of people everywhere, the traffic is ridiculous at all hours of the day, live markets and vendor stands are always open…man! And another thing, the city never sleeps (no such thing as “bar time” here). After a night out in the town, sometimes we don’t arrive back at the dorm until 4, 5, 6am.

The style here is pretty hot, but sometimes tacky. One thing about Koreans, they always want to look their best... very image driven culture. Sweats and baggy sweatshirts don’t fit the Korean flava, if ya know what I mean. Louis Vuitton bags, Burberry scarves, fur, toggle coats, funky hats, Air Force Ones, diva heels, you name it…it’s here. You can “barter” for a deal almost anywhere. There are tons of markets, stands and indoor shopping complexes that are very densely packed. Many of the popular shopping districts see an average of 2 million shoppers in a day. I bought a really bomb coat with a fur hood…it can get very cold and windy and I needed a warmer coat…the NorthFace fleece didn’t cut it. They wanted 39,000won (39$), and to lower the price, I told her I only had 25,000won on me (when I really had much more than that)…so she finally gave in. Then, I realized I only had bills in increments of 10,000won. So I handed her 30,000won and she laughed and gave me sassy look, but gave me the appropriate change back, haha…cha ching! I even bartered for a cell phone the other day at this electronic-mart that is about 15 times bigger than Best Buy. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a phone, so I would only look if the vendors had a used phone selection. We saw this one in the case…seriously, the nastiest piece of poo phone ever…but it works and I got it for $8, score deal huh? The guy was embarrassed to sell it and when we had to look around for a charger, other vendors would point and laugh at it. So, yeah…I am turning into the queen of bartering.

I am meeting tons of awesome people. There are exchange students here from all over the world...Australia, Canada, Mexico, England, Russia, Brazil, China, the Netherlands and other European countries, etc, etc. They had fieldtrips into various parts of the city the first week we were here, so that was great to meet everyone in the international dorm. It was also a good experience to get familiar with the public transportation system here. Buses, cabs, and subways are all a must here. During our first time on the bus (they get SO crowded), we didn’t know that elders get priority for a seat. Any student who was sitting in an actual seat got the stare down from all the old women…it was hilarious…and we learned our lesson. I guess you could call it Confucian etiquette. There are lots of Korean-Americans on exchange here. Some adoptees and others whose families moved from Korea to the U.S. when they were younger. So many of the Koreans on exchange speak both English and Korean, which is helpful. There are also people from other parts of Asia, such as China, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, etc. It’s a true Asian Invasion up in herrre! We also got matched up with a Korean “Buddy/Mentor.” My buddys name is Jangwoo aka J-Bird. He is very helpful and enjoys hanging out me and my freinds. He helps me with my Korean, too. And most importantly, he wasn’t embarrassed of my stinginess and crazy bartering skills during the cell phone excursion. The university and international house/dorm have a done a really nice job at welcoming and accommodating all of us internationals. They reserved many different areas at restaurants, clubs, and hotels (including the Hilton Seoul; the nicest hotel in Korea) for all of us to eat, drink, and mingle.

The language barrier can be challenging, because people in the city at shops and restaurants think that I speak Korean…the get the hint right away when I speak in English, smile, or look confused. It really hasn’t been a big deal, but sometimes I feel like I am playing charades with people. It is a new feeling to be surrounded by Asians all the time. The only white, black, or Hispanic people that you see are typically the exchange students. My roomie is pretty cool, though. Her name is Soo and she goes to college in New Jersey. Her immediate family moved from Korea to the U.S. when she was younger. We are both laid back…and kinda messy. She is really nice and serves as a translator in many situations. However, sometimes when I am trying to go to sleep, she has her headphones on and I'm not sure if she realizes it…but she sings out lout (really loud!) to her music. Some stuff is in Korean and some in English. It is just too funny for me to even interrupt her. She tries to hit the high notes, but she just SO bad. I wish I could get an audio recording, because she might be worse than me!

The food is really tasty, definitely much different than everything that I am used to back in the states. Korea’s staple food Kimchi (it’s like pickled and fermented cabbage…aged to perfection and very spicy) is pretty nasty. I feel like I should like it because they serve it at every meal here…but yuck…it’s too weird. But most stuff I have tried is really good…dumplings, kimchi (like suchi, but wrapped in seaweed), pork cutlet, yellow radish, RICE, noodles, curry sauce, lots of seafood and squid and clams and stuff…it’s all pretty good...sometimes I call it SEOULfood, haha cute eh? And you can get LOTS of food for very cheap. I am slowly but surely becoming more efficient with chopsticks.

I just took a volunteer position at an orphanage in Seoul. I will be teaching English to groups of 10-15 young orphans every Saturday. I think it will be very challenging, but interesting and fun, nonetheless. I officially start this Saturday. Jobs here teaching conversational English pay really well, like 30,000-50,000 won an hour (30-50$). I am looking into getting a job, but a lot of the part time positions around Seoul want native English speakers to work with businessmen and office workers. I think that would be a little bit awkward having to talk about business with a company CEO…my slang and nicknames wouldn’t mix…or maybe it would create a new wave of international business communication???

But this update is getting hella long. SO I will cut it off now. I miss y’all and wish you could all be here with me. Email me anytime, I would love to hear from everyone. Oh, and yeah…I actually typed up this update about a week ago…but just now got to posting it on my blog…so it’s a little outdated by now…but I will try to update every few weeks! Enjoy the pics! YEAH…

2005-03-08T09:29:00.000-08:00

Sample size SEOUL