[warning this post is 100% not proofread, I apologize]

Hi, everyone. Wow, so where do I begin? First off, I should say that I probably should have posted much sooner than this, but to be frank, I’ve been so busy since I moved in last Saturday! It’s just been a whirlwind of an experience for this past week. I told my roommate that even though we’ve only been here for a week, I feel like I’ve already been here for a month.

I don’t think I will be able to cover everything, but I will try to get through it in chronological order. On Saturday, we were allowed to move into the dorm which was quick and painless. I tried, and failed, to find one of the other students from my university. Even though I couldn’t find her, I did meet her roomate, a student from Norway, and we went out and walked around Edae. After finally answering the call of our stomachs, we just stopped in a random restaurant and received a very hot bowl of sundaeguk, which is like a blood sausage soup with some other pork goodies mixed in. On that note, in Korea there are specialty restaurants, which means they only serve one or two things. For example, this particular restaurant made a killer bowl of sundaeguk, but they wouldn’t serve galbi or bibimbap, which is so different from the America where you try to fit as many items as possible on two lamenated pages. I am reminded of the the Great Chef Gordon Ramsey, and his philosophy that the less menu items, the better. If you go to a restaurant and they have seventy different menu items, it means that they sacrifice quality in the name of quanitity. On the other hand, if you have maybe ten items or less, that means that the chefs know how to cook those ten dishes really well. Okay, I am wasting my cyberspace talking about food. At the end of the day: sundaeguk = good.

When we came back from sundaeguk adventure, I met my roommate, Elaine. She is a third year at a university in Perth. I really like this program because there is such a diverse group of students taking it. I mean, there are quite a few Americans and Australians, a couple of British girls and some students from China and Singapore (and one student from Norway). I feel like I am getting a multicultural experience while just remaining in one city. It makes me think of how many students I don’t interact with at Penn State, people my age, but from different walks of life and with different ideals and goals. Anyways, my roommate is really down to Earth. I’ve been out a couple of times with her and a few of her friends from her university. We had bingsu in Sinchon and we walked around Myeongdong, both places just a few stops away from Sogang.

As I think I mentioned before, I’ve been reading a lot of other people’s blogs about Seoul, and a good majority of them reach the same conclusion: the Seoul metro system is supreme. At first I thought they were exaggerating, but I can affirm that they are one hundred percent correct. It’s clean, quick, cheap, and the complete opposite of confusing. It is probably one of Seoul’s best features.

One of Seoul’s other best features is, and I was not expecting this one, the shopping. Now don’t get me wrong. I love to shop. Even though I don’t have a bursting closet, at home I love walking around and looking at clothes and trinkets. A lot of people come to Seoul to shop, and now I know why. I don’t think I’ve seen so many outlets and malls and tiny little shops with hair accessories in my entire life. I certainly come to Seoul to shop, but so far it has been one of my favorite things to do since I got here. Myeongdong and Edae have been my favorites so far, but I might update that list as my visit here progresses. I went to Hondgae three times, but didn’t really look in the shops all too much.

However, today I visited Hongdae’s Free Market, which happens every Saturday in the Children’s Park and it was fantastic. The Free Market is composed of a bunch of vendors selling their homemade goods like keychains, stationary, painted shoes, wallets, fans, chimes, jewelry, etc. It would be a good place to get unique and charming gifts for friends and family, things that are a little less tourist-y. It’s definitely a place that I am going to visit on another Saturday, this time with maybe a little more cash.

On Thursday, two other American students and myself went to Gangnam (yes, that Gangnam) to see the Coex Aquarium in the Coex Mall. Gangnam is located in Southern Seoul, on the other side of the Han River, which is a much newer neighborhood than Mapo (the neighborhood Sogang is in). I have an undying love of aquariums and Coex satisfied the cravings of a landlocked college-town girl. It didn’t hurt that not only there were cool fish, but also an overabundance of cute Korean toddlers shouting 물골기.

On Friday, I went on a field trip around Seoul. Every course has to take a field trip on one of the Fridays, and the field trip for my seminar happened to be the first one. We started off at the Seoul’s National Museum of Korea, which felt like it could be a section of the Met in New York. We then went to the Gyeongbokgung Palace, one of the five palaces in Seoul. I couldn’t believe how enormous and well-preserved. Korea has a history that is full of tragedy and oppression, but even through the Japanese occupation and the Korean War, monuments like the palace remained for the most part undisturbed, a snapshot of history against the backdrop of modernity.

Even though the palace was amazing, the sweltering heat and our hasty tour guide made it difficult to enjoy one place before we were shuffled off to the next location. We went to another museum and then we caught a glimpse of the famous Blue House (where the President of Korea lives). My friend from Penn State, Ji Young, was also on the tour, and while the tour guide gave us the polished basics, Ji Young gave me a more real look at all the places we went to. Like how even though the palace was preserved, the Japanese stole so many artifacts from Korea during the occupation, and destroyed a priceless statue of Buddha. Or how the new president, even though she is a woman and is a strong symbol of feminism, she is also the daughter of a former dictator of Korea, and many of the people who support her, only do so because she is the daughter of the former leader. We then went to a Kpop hologram concert in Lotte Fitin department store where we watched “performances” by Big Bang, 2NE1, and Psy. When I got there, I thought it would be kind of a cheesy show, like it would just be a prerecorded 3-D concert, but it was actually pretty amazing! I was so shocked when Big Bang came out on stage, because it actually looked like they were there in the flesh. They combined performance with special effects, which definitely enhanced the experience. Even if you aren’t particularly fond of Kpop, I would recommend anyone to go to the show, even just to witness that technology. I mean, who knows, we could be watching hologram movies like that one day. Goodbye dizzying 3-D movies, hello hologram shirtless Chris Evans. Okay don’t give me that look, I know you were all thinking it too the moment I said hologram movies. Then we went to an outdoor stream near City Hall, where people, especially business people, can go out and walk along the water. It’s very relaxing and there were even some little fishes in the stream as well!

Yesterday, I went to the Dongdaemun Cultural and History Park with two students from Penn State who were in my Korean class, but are doing the summer program at Yonsei University. It’s actually quite a remarkable structure, and it houses exhibition halls. We went to the “My Love From the Stars” exhibition, which has the sets from an immensely popular Korean drama. That drama has taken Korea and a good percentage of Asia by storm. You can see the pictures on the main stars, Kim Soo Hyun and Jun Ji Hyun, in cafe windows and on skin care products. Even the lipstick color that Jun Ji Hyun’s character, a brand that normally costs around thirty dollars, is going for hundreds of dollars for a single tube on eBay. At the park, there was also a Weta exhibition, but we didn’t have time to visit that one. We then went to a barbeque restaurant and had a couple of drinks of soju before we called it a night.

Even though it’s really hard not to feel like a mega-American tourist (especially  on the field trip) I will concede to being a self-proclaimed church tourist. I love going to different churches, even when church is not in session. I just think that cathedrals are so astounding and breathtaking and every single one is different. This morning I went to an English service at the Seoul Anglican Cathedral next to City Hall.

The church itself was beautiful, sporting mixture of traditional and ancient Roman influences in its design. According to another blog, it was somewhat completed in 1926, but wasn’t fully completed until 1996 where they found the lost original blueprints in England. One of the members of the church also told me that the cathedral also couldn’t be fully completed because it was built during the Japanese occupation, and the Japanese prohibited the building to be in the shape of the cross (since Chrisitianity was not the official religion of Japan).

Since I am not Anglican, I was a little lost during the service, so I might go to a Presbyterian church next Sunday. I also really want to visit the Myeongdong Cathedral at some point as well, in addition to the many other churches on my list. If anyone in Italy or Europe is reading this, please visit some cool cathedrals, if only for my sake. Cathedral hopping is usually one of my favorite things to do when traveling.

Alright, sorry for the long post. I will try to update sooner for my next post, and maybe talk more about my classes. Until then, have a food spam and some cool street performances:

AND I WOULD BE REMISS IF I DID NOT PUT AT LEAST ONE KPOP VIDEO. This is the new song “Overdose” from a really popular group right now called EXO.

Location: Seoul, South Korea