So, once again its been a while since I’ve written anything. I’ve been busy with school work and trying to stay healthy. Last week, right after the tsunami and earthquake in Japan, foreigners in Korea really started freaking out about the radiation coming here. Despite what all the news said, people still were under the impression that the radiation was going to somehow make its way to Korea. So after a couple of city-wide sirens as practice for the city, a couple of students from my school decided they didn’t want to risk the chance of getting any sort of radiation poisoning and they went back home. As far as I know, the people who went home have gone home for good and won’t be coming back for any of the time they were supposed to be studying abroad (kind of a waste!).
After the radiation scare, things have pretty much fallen back into the normal routine (as much of a routine as an exchange student can have here, at least). Last weekend we took one of our French friends out for his last night in Korea, and then he left the next day. After he left, the exchange students went on a field trip to a performance called “Nanta”. I wish I could have taken pictures or videos, because just saying it’s a cooking show really doesn’t give the whole story. It’s a cooking show that has dance in it and comedy and gives the audience the opportunity to participate in the show… it’s a lot of things, but the amount of cooking they actually did was basically zero. Here’s the best video I could find on youtube. The banging sounds are all knives and they’re chopping vegetables, but thats basically all they do with the food. Cut up a lot of food, then throw it away. Too bad, really. It’s kind of a waste. But anyway, the performance was fun and it was something I think almost all tourists who come to Seoul, do. However, Nanta does perform in over 250 cities internationally so maybe some of you can hunt one down near you sometime 🙂 After Nanta, we walked around and saw the oldest Catholic Church is Seoul.
Since it’s the oldest Catholic Church in Seoul, it makes me think its probably the oldest one in Korea too, but I’m not certain about that. Anyway, there was a wedding going on while we were trying to look at it which made things a little weird, but the church was pretty and the stained glass was pretty, as always. We didn’t stay too long because it felt a little weird just standing in the back of someone’s wedding without knowing them. After the church, we went to the Korea National Museum. The Museum is huge. It’s really amazing how big it actually is. The museum itself is divided up into different sections, but for being such a big museum, it doesn’t seem to have a ton of stuff in it really. We had already done a lot of walking that day which made it hard to be too interested in seeing all the museum had inside, but even still, it was cool to go and see some of the things they have inside. We always go out for dinner on Saturdays because the dorm doesn’t provide dinner for us that day, so this time after all the walking we did, we went to a small Korean restaurant near the campus. We had to take our shoes off and sit on the floor and everything. At the beginning they bring out all sorts of little side dishes that you’re supposed to share, but they aren’t really big enough for more than one person, so most of the time when we come with such a big group, they bring a couple of those “side” dishes per table. In addition to those side dishes they brought us something called “Makgulli”.
Its traditional Korean rice wine, and to be honest, I hate it. It’s milky and has way more alcohol in it than regular wine. I think its one of those drinks that’s just supposed to be a compliment to the meal, but of course a lot of the kids from my school were drinking cup-fulls of it at a time and quickly started getting drunk off of it. Anyway, its not something I’d order for myself. Oh and by the way, the toilet paper on the table has been questioned a couple times. As far as I know, it was what we were supposed to use for napkins. There weren’t any other napkins on the table, and thats what everyone else in the restaurant was using it for. Really, really strange. The dinner itself was really good. I’m not sure what its called or even what all is in it, but the Koreans always tell us it’s a Korean pancake.
Its not a pancake because its much much thicker and there’s tons of stuff inside of it, so maybe its more like a Korean pizza. Either way, there’s potato and onion and squid inside. Its really really good. But it comes straight off the grill and its really hot at first. I think my picture even got some of the steam coming off of it.
That all happened on Saturday, and Sunday was the day I took to do my homework and catch up on sleep, unfortunately it didn’t really help. I’ve been fighting some sickness that everyone else in the dorms seems to have also. It hasn’t been fun and I haven’t had my voice for a majority of the week, but I’ve been sleeping as much as possible (which is why there aren’t many pictures from this week, sorry!). However, last night I decided to finally go out and do something to make myself feel better. My friends and I went to a soccer game at the Seoul World Cup Stadium which was pretty cool. Korea vs. Honduras.
I’m not usually a huge soccer fan, but the atmosphere is really cool. We had seats, but if you don’t want to sit down to watch the game, most people just walk up to the front part of the stadium and stand up to cheer and dance and swear and yell at the other team. As soon as we got there, we all bought shirts for the Korean team, and we also got scarves and the girls all bought these headbands with devil horns on them (the Korean team is the Red Devils).
Once we all had our Korean stuff on, we were all way more excited about the game itself. It was cold outside and there wasn’t really much to warm us up other than to stand up and be part of the big crowd towards the field, but it was fun to be in the middle of all the people who are really serious about soccer. Oh, and Korea won!
Today I’m planning on going to Bukchon Hanok Village. It’s a traditional Korean village that has been preserved in the middle of Seoul. After we go there, we’re going to go for a bike ride along the Han River. Lots of pictures to come after today!
Hope everything is going well at home. I heard about the snow! It sounds terrible. It’s cold here, but at least we don’t have any snow! As for the people who don’t live in State College or in an area where there was snow, consider yourself lucky! I’ll try to write more this week once I have some more pictures to post! Lots of love to all.
Location: Seoul, South Korea
