WELCOME TO 12월 !

Welcome to December ! 

Korea’s winter is coming~ and is said to be brutal every year. Yet.. tomorrow’s weather should be a high of 10 degrees …. CELSIUS (relatively warm late-fall weather) !! But some days this past week haven’t gotten above freezing temperature. >.<

So how can your age be one or two years older in Korea ?

• When you are conceived, you are considered 0
• When you are born, you are 1
• On your birthday, you stay the same age (people still celebrate their birthdays)
• Every January 1st, EVERYONE ages 1 year

So this means… someone born on December 31st will become age 2 the next day !

Ex: I’m 21 outside of Korea ; 22 in Korea. I have a July 8th birthday, so I’m two years older from January 1 to July 7, and one year older from July 8 to December 31.

The age system is very very important here ; the biggest thing about the Korean language is that your speech changes depending on how much older the person you’re talking to is. I often hear the question “how old are you?” 

Last Tuesday, I went to my first PC방 – Computer rooms – which you can see everywhere on the streets. These are places you can go to relieve stress playing League of Legends, Starcraft Brood War, or Korean or Japanese computer games.

You can also go here to just use the internet.

It’s maybe $1/hr …can’t remember xP

I just wanna point out how cool the East Asian talley system is ; here is the block of five: 正  Stroke order: http://sites.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/12412/2013/11/%E6%AD%A3-order.gif

You can use this at some restaurants when you’re given a pad of the menu names and a block for the quantity to order. 

Also, money is kinda cool too. 

The bills increase a bit in size and include [1 5 10 and 50] thousand Won (KRW, 원, ₩)

The value amount is almost the same as dollar divided by 1000. This eliminates the need for a decimal point.

Aaaaand there’s a woman on the 50000 !!

Since Thanksgiving is an American holiday, the only place to find real Thanksgiving food in Seoul is in the Itaewon district (which placed #1 on my personal Top 7 Things to Fear in Korea). SO INSTEAD– Some of the Americans and I went to Outback Steak’ouse – Yes, Aussie-themed American food) – for a decent substitute of chicken and mashed potatoes, which was a fantastic $20 dinner =D …well, really good but expensive. We got a photo with the waiter because he had cool hair~

Earlier that day for lunch, I had one of my get-lost adventures in BongChunDong. There’s not too much interesting there ; I went there because I was really curious and wanted to find the exact location of the setting of this well-known Korean horror comic: 

http://comic.naver.com/webtoon/detail.nhn?titleId=350217&no=31&weekday=tue 

And~

I ate an entire Hot Chicken Pizza (pictured left) in Bongchun-dong …  

Outback Steakhouse dinner on the right

..I see a lot of pizzas with corn as a topping on pizzas, like the one above.

If you’ve been skipping my music discussions (it’s okay ; KPOP is a crappy genre), definitely try this one—

How ’bout some really classic 90s music: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3zIGP8ATkM

Jaurim 자우림 (meaning “Purple Rainforest) has been releasing albums since 1997 and hits the 90s sound very well. Their singer YoonAh Kim is currently 39-years-old — surprised ?? :3

I’d say the best part about this group is YoonAh’s range of voices ; the best example is probably in her weirder songs.

What’s your age in Korea ???  =P xP xP

Comment with your birthday and Korean age as a guess and I’ll lecha double check

~Ry  ^-^

This blog has been brought to you by the letter 월 “Weol”

and

얀얀초콜릿맛 Japanese Chocolate Dip Biscuit Snack