Thursday, September 27, 2012

Q & A

I've actually gotten quite a few good questions asked of me about actually studying abroad. I figured I'd put together a few questions and answer them for everyone reading.
  • How did you get to Korea?
    • I applied to my home university’s study abroad program for a few years in a row. They had an exchange program with Yonsei University, so I took advantage of that! If you're in University, search out your study abroad department! If you have yet to enter University, study hard and when you get to your college start planning for what you want to do! When the time is right, find your study abroad office and go ahead with youre plans!
  • How did you get to study in Korea through your study abroad?
    • I worked very hard and was persistent. I was very passionate and wouldn’t give up on my goal to study in Korea, so I did my best in my classes and on my application to study abroad. It’s a little complicated, but after three years, I was able to be accepted and was then sent on my merry way! My advice for those who want to study in Korea is to not give up. I could have given up four times before I was accepted, but I didn’t and that’s the reason I’m here now. Someone who has convinced themselves they have failed are only holding themselves back! Believe you will fail and you already have failed…believe in yourself and your goal and you’re already halfway to success~! Just keep trying!
  • How much did it cost to study in Korea?
    • This is a sketchy question but I’ve been asked it quite a bit. As an exchange student through my university, I paid tuition to my home school. So I paid whatever it cost back home for tuition, not what it costs here. It was about $1,500 for a plane ticket (a little over, I think), and my single dorm room on campus cost around ~$2,500. Korea itself is also expensive: clothes, eating out at restaurants, drinking….all of these things can make a significant impact on the wallet.
  • What is your major/minor
    • My major is English Literature and my minor is Asian Studies.
  • What classes are you taking at Yonsei?
    • Mostly Korean studies courses. Taking these will finish my minor for me. I am currently taking Introduction to Korean Studies, Communication Media in Korea, Contemporary Korean Cinema and Society, and Early Modern Korea and its Historical Sites in Seoul.
  • Do I have to know Korean to apply to Yonsei?
    • To apply to Yonsei as an exchange student (or to the KLI program) you don’t have to know any Korean at all. They offer English courses (all of mine are taught in English only). If you are wondering about applying to Yonsei University as a regular student, I would think you’d have to know Korean, but I’m not sure.
  • Are you in KLI (Korean Language Institute)?
    • No, I’m not….so I probably won’t be much help for those with KLI questions!
  • Pros/Cons of Korea?
    • Pros :
      • Everything is insanely convenient. Food everywhere, shops on every floor of every shopping building, the subways…everything!
      • The food. The food is so good here. Korean food tastes best in Korea, and the bad-for-you foods taste just as amazing! There are a good variety of foods to try every day because there are so many places to choose from.
      • The nightlife. I’m somewhat of a fun-killer, I suppose, as I don’t drink much or party at all…but the nightlife I’ve experienced is great! Myeongdong is super exciting, and hanging out at bars with friends is a great night to be had!
    • Cons :
      • No Netflix in Korea. Haha, kidding. (I’m not kidding Netflix. Fix this.)
      • You feel very much like an outsider in Korea if you don’t look Korean.
      • The food. Wait, food can’t be a pro and a con! Yes, it can and it is. They have such good food that you can put on weight very easily. Be careful…you won’t lose weight just by coming here!
      • Korea is expensive…Koreans love brands and designers. Some of the quality of clothing is like what I’d pay $15 for back home, but it’s marked here as $80. They love the idea of designer and brand here!

If there are any other questions my readers have, please tell me and I'll gladly answer them! I hope that these answers were helpful! They can be questions about me, about Korea, or about study abroad! I'll be glad to help you all out!

Sinchon!

So I awkwardly realized that I had yet to take photos of where I'm actually living. The city, that is. Sinchon is absolutely a great place to be if you're someone my age. There are tons of fun things to do (노래방! 노래방!) and it's just a fun place to be. So I met with Kristen (because I was having extreme withdrawls from being cooped indoors from my sickness...) and we went out to eat! I took photos along the route to just show what Sinchon looks like from my perspective. The way I take to get to the main drag of Sinchon is really green and pretty~








And then you read the famous Yonsei crosswalk!



then through a tunnel....

And you hit the main Sinchon street! There are tons of offshoot streets to adventure down, too. I took some photos of those roads as well~









After wandering for a bit, Kristen and I decided to go to a hole-in-the-wall (almost literally) place to eat that sold Katsu!



Brightly lit and delicious! I'd list the name of the place...but to be honest, I didn't even look. All we saw was some photos and the word "Katsu" and we went on in.

We then made our way to Cafe Iceberry because we were really craving to try their waffles...and ice cream. And it was such a good decision. It was delicious!





We were able to grab the seat next to the open doors (it's on the second floor, so we were at the level with the green trees!) and we could feel the breeze and look out. It was really relaxing, but the best part came when we got our food...



Chocolate waffle with bananas that also came with a side of ice cream...it tasted like whipped cream just in ice cream form! They were so good, they tasted like soft, fresh brownies TT___TT We also got a two flavor ice cream: blueberry as one flavor and cranberry strawberry as our second! They were both amazing and even had pieces of fruit in them. So, so delicious.

And that was essentially our day!



For all those sticking with my blog and keeping up, thank you! If you have any questions, just email me and I'll gladly answer!

P.S - I'm feeling better. I've still got a stuffy nose and have chronic man-voice, but otherwise I feel as though I'm on the rebound from this cold! (knock on wood...), so for those worried, no need to fret! Also, my dad says hi to everyone. I dunno, we're talking on kakao and he wanted me to say hello!

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

난 아파요 ㅠㅠ

I'm sorry for the lack of updates, but I haven't been doing anything the past two days. I've come down with a pretty wicked cold. Aside from going to classes yesterday, I've been in bed most of the time...it's really awful!

I was just brought some medicine by Joi though. She's become a life-saver now! Hopefully by tomorrow I'll be making a recovery. I have a presentation tomorrow...so I'm really hopeful for it! Haha!

Also, my cousin Matt has made it to Spain to play professional basketball! Congrats, cousin! I hope everything goes smoothly and you have an amazing season and enjoy your team mates. I'm rooting for you!

Now it's time for me to crawl down to the convenience store to get some food and then crawl back up here to continue on this presentation ㅠㅠ;;;

Friday, September 21, 2012

Dog Café


Yesterday Kristen and I went to Myeongdong to get some shopping done. While we were there (and after loading up on some clothing essentials), we were dead set on finding the dog café there. Since most blogs are very vague or completely unhelpful on giving directions to find the dog café, we were lucky that the giant snoopy costume was out and willing to point us in the right direction! The snoopy costume is a great way of advertising the café, as it really is a hole-in-the-wall, hard to find place. (I’m going to make a video of how to walk there from the subway station soon for those who go to Korea and want to find this place!) It's called Kangaji Cafe~

It’s similar to a cat café in the way that you buy a drink and that’s your ticket into the dog café. It’s the same price, $8, as the cat café. But it’s also very different…the dogs actually want to come to you. They want you to pet them and play with them, you’re allowed to hold them, and it’s extremely fun. When you walk in, it does smell like dog. But for me, it was somewhat comforting. You don’t see many dogs here, and coming from a home where I grew up with three dogs over my time growing up, it’s been difficult without a furry companion who craves my attention and love! It was a very cute place and the dogs all were really happy to see each new person!


The first thing I noticed after sitting on the floor was that there was a dog in a little car! It was so cute!


The bottom was a bed, and this dog really enjoyed being in there. The man in the plaid shirt in both of those photos must have been the owner of the dog café. When he walked in the dogs went crazy and wouldn’t leave his side! They jumped on him and whined for his attention, and he gave each and every single one a pat on the head and some love. He really seemed to love the dogs and wanted them all to be very happy and comfortable.

We sat on the floor because it was a lot easier for the dogs to come see us and give us some love! Even though sometimes dogs would go potty on the floor, the people working would instantaneously clean up the mess and sterilize the area very well. After the owner sat down and the dogs mellowed out again, we finally started getting visitors~

They had both big dogs and small dogs. This border collie was very strange, but he did come see us a few times. He always was looking at the floor and kept digging. He chased other dogs when they were playing, too.  Then there was this small dog that was absolutely adorable. It wore a little vest, and it was actually someone else’s dog.

See, visitors to the café can bring their dogs to play! It was so sweet and loved having its butt scratched. It even played like my dog back home did, chomping down gently onto your hands and wanting to wrestle~ I actually had a life-long friend made within ten minutes of walking through the door.


This little girl was one of the smallest dogs in the café. She came over to me and I picked her up, and that was it. She was set on me for the entire three hours we stayed there. Within five minutes she had curled up in my lap and dozed off. Eventually the male dachshund found Kristen and we had a staff person snap a photo for us~

You can’t really see mine because she’s so burrowed into my stomach sleeping like a baby! After a bit, the owner was playing with one dog and he laid it down on its back…


And it just stayed like that! It just laid there for a little bit. These dogs must worship him because my dog would be squirming like a maniac if I even tried to lay her on her back! Then, all went crazy. The owner started giving handfuls of doggy treats to people in the café, and the dogs went nuts!


They were all so excited! It was really cute, he kind of just threw some around us and the dogs swarmed in. The little girl in my lap wasn’t pleased and she looked around rather unhappily before burying her face into my hoodie again and dozing back to sleep. Then, after the treats were all eaten, this dog came and made friends with us. It had a little heart on it!


It got really close with Kristen, it loved sitting in her lap. (I’m sorry that I got an awkward picture of you in the background, dog café oppa! I didn’t know you were staring directly at my camera! >_< ) But this dog was a real sweetie.


When I put my camera real close, she didn’t move much at all and looked very curiously at the lens. That dog eventually left and another took its place on Kristen’s lap! This one really was one of the calmest dogs in the café.

You might notice that Kristen has gotten to experience love from many different dogs and I’ve not mentioned the puppies I got to hold. It’s because of her.


I wasn’t kidding when I said she didn’t move the whole three hours! She conked out and I was hers for the entire day! She even got mad at this dog


when it came over and I started to play with it. She growled and barked at it until I stopped playing and gave her attention again. She was really spoiled on me…I even tried to move once to get a picture of the Pug, but when I set her aside quickly and moved to the booth the Pug was sitting at, she followed me and chased the other dog away!

She made her way onto my lap again proudly. Just before we left, someone brought in their Boston Terrier to play around. Can you see it? It’s behind the chair! It was a ball of energy…for being such small dogs, they really need lots of exercise to survive well!


It was so hard to leave here….but I’m going back again Sunday~ I think one of the best parts about the dog cafe was that the owner and staff seemed to really love each dog a lot. They even had a few dogs who they said to be careful with because they could bite. One was in a small standing circled off area in the middle of the room, I think because it wasn't very social or because it could bite. But I liked seeing those things, because it means that they didn't get rid of a dog just for nipping or barking at people. In a place where it's hard to own and take care of a dog, they could easily not care and throw it out or into a pound, but they don't. I think it's very sweet and caring of the staff to love all the dogs that much!

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

Food Post 3!

The other day my friends took my to a curry place because they knew I loved Tonkatsu. They said that the restaraunt had amazing tonkatsu curry, and they were so right. It was a place called CoCo Ichibanya and it was right in Shinchon!

The front was really cool, they had mock-ups of some of the types of curry options they offered! I originally came for the tonkatsu, but some of the kinds on the board really beckoned to me.


I think next time I might have to try the veggies or the sausage one....mmm, so many options! But I was very determined to have my tonkatsu curry this first visit. I decided to not get any spiciness at all (because I'm sometimes wary of Korean "spiciness"), but I think next time I'll get 1 or 2 level spicy. I tasted my friends and it wasn't spicy much at all. The menu was incredibly foreign friendly and easy to understand.


There was a lot of English on it describing what each thing was and all that. It was really nice and it seemed like a good way to attract lots of business, especially with Yonsei right down the street. Both Sheetal and I ordered the Chicken Katsu curry and Kristen got the Hashed Beef curry.


It smelled absolutely awesome. Here's a shaky close-up shot!


It was so delicious. If you're in Shinchon and around the area, definitely hit this place up. I know I'll be going back a lot, it's such a comfortable place and the food was amazing! That night, after wandering around for a while, we decided to stop in at Holly's Coffee to see if they had some Bingsu we could try. Kristen and I had never had Bingsu, and decided midnight on a Wednesday was a good a time as any. We ordered the strawberry flavor.

For those who don't know what BingSu is, it's typically shaved ice, a flavor of ice cream plopped on top, fruit, and some mochi. I think traditionally it also has red beans and possibly corn flakes sometimes, but ours didn't have those things.

Tonight we had a Mentors Club meeting with our Cell 6 group again and we wound up going to a fish place. First we were given spicy....pork? I'm not sure what kind of meat it was, but it was really good.


After that came the fish. I'm not talking the kind of fish you get in mainstream American meals. I mean real, right from the river, recently caught fish.


That's it in the back there. I was really good because they roasted it outside over an open flame. The girls at the other side of the table helped me pick pieces off to eat, haha. 


There were a ton of us that showed up. So many, in fact, that the mentors had to sit at a completely different table across the restaurant! After we went to a bar to play some drinking games together, then to karaoke. It was a fun night together with some really cool people.

Anyway, tomorrow I have to be up early to meet with a friend for breakfast! It's 2am now where I am, and I'm exhausted!