Author Archives: vmn5020

KIM SOO HYUN

[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.

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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.

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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:

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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

Coffee Shop Heaven

Hi everyone! So today was my first day in Seoul. I just finished window shopping near Ewha Women’s University, which has a lot of cute little clothing and make up shops, and now I am cooling down in my room.
Let me go back a little bit and update you on my journey here. The flight was fine, albiet, very lenghthy. I started off at Pittsburgh at 7a.m. and then moved onto Toronto and then to Vancouver on Air Canada. Everything went smoothly and all my connecting flights were on time and I honestly couldn’t ask for a better flight. I was sitting next to a Canadian college student named Megan who was on her way to visit her friend. After I got to Incheon Airport, I went through customs painlessly and then got onto one of the airport buses into Seoul for about nine dollars. From the airport to Seoul it takes about thirty to forty minutes and I was all ready to get to my guesthouse which was a two minute walk from the bus stop, except I started talking to this Australian college student sitting next to me on the bus and I must’ve missed it. Whoops. After getting off at a random bus stop and debating on what to do, especially since it was starting to get dark, I awkwardly hailed a taxi. Luckily, the driver was really nice and knew where Ewha Women’s University was and I figured if I could get there, then I could find my guesthouse. On the way there, the taxi driver was very friendly and even tried to communicate with me in English, while I tried to communicate back in the little Korean I know. He even gave me candy (yes, Mom, I know I am not supposed to take candy from strangers) and pointed out monuments on the way there. When I got there, it had gotten really dark and there were still crowds of people walking around, but with some spotty GPS navigation, I finally made it to the guesthouse. However, I was disheartened to see that after they kind of adventure I had that day, I would have to walk up two flights of stairs with outrageously overpacked suitcase. Then out of nowhere, like an angel of light and goodness, a little old woman came and grabbed one end of my suitcase, and helped me carry it up they stairs. As quickly as she had appeared to rescue me, she was gone. Okay, maybe it didn’t happen exactly like that, but I was touched nonetheless. The receptionist at the gueshouse was also very nice and I was grateful that my room had air conditioning. By the time I flopped down on my bed, a sweaty, hot mess, I remembered the haunting words of the stewardess telling me not to go to sleep until you would normally go to sleep. I groaned as a looked at the 7:20 p.m. on my phone and reluctantly cleaned up, unpacked a little and headed out again. I walked up and down the street, but ended up getting some triangle kimbap and a couple of cans of soda at the convenience store next to the guesthouse. I was so exhausted and I wasn’t even that hungry, but I went up to my room and ate one of the triangle kimbaps and tried, but failed to watch an episode of the X-Files (in Korea, Hulu and Netflix are blocked, but I subscribed to a VPN hiding service so I could cheat and still watch it). By the time, I couldn’t keep my eyes open any longer, the clock read 9:30, but I called it “close enough” and with that I was out for the count.
When I woke up feeling more than refreshed, and texted my Dad for a good twenty minutes. I then laughed metaphorically in the face of the stewardess who told me to not go to bed so early. I work the graveyard shift, so I am going to go ahead and brag and say jetlag is no obstacle for me. I showered and got dressed and went down in the common area for a breakfast of toast and hardboiled eggs and after that I went out again, this time in daylight. Since Sogang is about two blocks away from my guesthouse, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to scout it out for tomorrow. The campus was relatively big for being in a city and it has a huge soccer field in the middle where I watched some guys playing soccer. After that, as I said before I just did A LOT of window shopping, and resisted the urge to buy everything. I did indulge in some make up and a bracelet. I safely crossed the bridge that is ordering food at a restaurant in another language (phew) and I had some hot, but delicious bowl of udon. I even went and got probably the best manicure of my life (the nail salon girl must’ve spent thirty minutes on my cuticles!). 
It is now 3:45 p.m. as I write this, and since starting this blog entry, I have cooled down sufficiently and I am ready to go back out again. Since it is kind of late, I am not feeling confident enough to try the subway quite yet. I just want to note that everyone I have encountered so far have been more than friendly and I am beyond grateful for that. The fact that people have been trying to speak to me in English (without me asking if they knew how) makes me want to learn more Korean. 
When you read other blog posts, they always tell you to beware of culture shock, like it’s some sort of disease or paralysis that you can catch while you’re away from home and by all means I am not saying that it doesn’t exist. Except rather than call it culture shock, I would call it something else. I feel like it’s something in between culture shock and wonder lust. I mean, it’s only my first full day here and I am a little overwhelmed, but in a good way and not at all in a frightened or I miss the way things are back home kind of way. It’s only 8:20p.m, but I think I am ready to call it a night. Not because I am tired, but more because I want to kind of take it all in a little bit (and because it’s raining right now). Before I came back to the guesthouse, I went to a coffeeshop called Coffine Gurunaru, finished reading the Ocean at the End of the Lake by Neil Gaiman, which is a short, but not short enough to be a short story, novel. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who has an afternoon on the sun porch, with a glass of sweet tea, to spare. It was kind of quirky, but it was the kind of novel that had a lot of hidden backstory, so you wish it went on forever. However, I think if it did go on forever, it would lose its magic. As I sidenote, though, maybe it’s because I am in university-type of area, but there are coffeeshops EVERYWHERE and a lot of them are open until around midnight (hint hint nudge nudge, Irvings). 
Okay, I think I will finally bring this blog post to an end. I am glad I applied to the Geoblogging program, because even though I am not huge on keeping journals, I have at least thoroughly enjoyed writing this blog post. I hope it wasn’t too informal. I just took an copyediting class this past semester, so I am really concious about typos now, but since I am writing this on the go and I don’t have my handy dandy blue editing pencil with me and I couldn’t fit the Chicago Manual of Style in my suitcase, you will have to excuse any errors that slipped through probably only one read through. I am really not trying to sound pretentious, I’m pretty sure I got a B- in that class. Film majors often say that being a film major has ruined movies for them because now they just have to overanalyze them. Well, I can say with confidence that being an English major hasn’t ruined books for me, but it has made me extremely paranoid and given me a strong sense of inferiority in comparison to my peers who have far more interesting blog posts than myself. 
Tomorrow I check into the dorms, so this is goodnight! I hope to post more about that soon. 

Location: Seoul, South Korea

Still in State College

Hi everyone,

My name is Veronica and I will be your Geoblogging representative for the Summer 2014 semester at Sogang University in Seoul, South Korea. I just want to give myself a little introduction before I start this blog. I am an English major going into my senior year this fall, although I think I’ve had senioritis since the first day of freshman year. I have a concentration in professional and media writing and I have a minor in Italian. You might be wondering why I am going to South Korea instead of Italy for a round of education abroad, but I will get to that in a moment. I was not born, but I was raised in State College and I am twenty years old. I work two jobs, one is at the front desk at the hotel and the other is a reference assistant at the university library. I pretty much work every single day of the week, so not working for a few weeks will be refreshing in and of itself, not to mention spending those weeks in another country! In my free time (which is rare) I like to cross stitch, read, or play video games. I subscribe to too many video streaming websites, which I am sure you can guess what the side effects of that would be (my current addiction is The X-Files). Ashamedly, I spend a good portion of my paycheck on eating out or fueling my bubble tea addiction and the other half of my paycheck usually goes to my gas guzzling hand-me-down car. What I am trying to say is that you should probably expect some food posts. 
So back to the question of why Seoul? Why go to South Korea, especially after only one shotgun semester of Korean? Well I had a couple of options in front of me: I could go to Italy for my Italian minor or I could do the Literary London program for my English major, or I could go somewhere completely different like Seoul. When I was browsing the programs, the Sogang program seemed like a great option for me. The courses seemed really interesting and the program seemed pretty all-inclusive. Plus, Seoul is one of the trendiest and rapidly growing cities in the world! While I am there, I will be taking two courses at Sogang, the first being course on the history of Korean literature, and the second is a Korean language seminar. We just got our syllabi for the courses and I am pretty stoked to say the least. 
Even though I will be taking classes four day out of the week, I want to make the most of my time in Seoul (hopefully without getting too lost). I’ve been spending, albiet, a little too much time on travel sites, and I found a cool bucket list on my favorite site Seoulistic. There is another site that is super helpful on events or popular places to go called Seoul Sync. I would definitely check them out if you’re interested. I have about nine extra days in Korea after the summer program ends and I am the middle of planning out what I should do with those days. I have a really good friend who lives in Seoul during the summer, so I might stay with her and her family for a couple of days, but I was also was thinking about going to Busan and maybe even Japan if I can pull it off. I just really want to take in as much as possible and learn as much as I can while I am there because I might not get this kind of opportunity again.
Anyway, I won’t make this post too long. I still have a lot of packing to do and I am still waiting diligently for my visa approval. The days are going by so quickly, I only have eleven more days until I leave (June 19th)!
One more thing I wanted to add: I made a travel twitter so if you want to follow, my twitter handle is @coconutgelato and I also have an instagram, although I don’t know how much I will use it because I don’t use it a lot now, but that one is @beroberos. 
See you in Seoul!
Veronica

Location: State College, PA