Midterm week....

Next week is midterms week, so I've been bogged down with writing papers and working on group presentations. I haven't been able to go out much and do anything aside from eat, so I don't really have much of an update to give. ㅠㅠ

Tomorrow after class, though, two of my friends and I will be heading to Busan! So after the weekend (and my Monday midterm) I will have an update!

So until then, bye bye~!!! I hope you all have a good weekend and (if you still have any left) good luck on your own midterm exams!

Lord Sandwich and Dance Class

Today I met up with Kristen for lunch after her KLI class let out and we decided to go to Lord Sandwich. It's right down the road from SK Global and my friend KaylaAnn who was here last year said she loved the place, so we decided to check it out.

By the way, as you can see, the weather is finally getting better! It's nice and cool outside now. Anyway, this is the outside of the building. SK Global, my dorm, is literally just a hop, skip and a jump behind this building. From the outside it looks sort of like a jail so we had no idea what to expect.

I knew going in the prices would be high, as I was told by a girl in one of my classes, but the food was absolutely amazing. First of all, the inside of the building is completely different from the outside. Whoever designed this interior and building needs an award.

They even played classical music while you ate, it was awesome. I wish I could buy this place and make it my home! If I ever become a millionaire, I'm keeping this design in mind, haha. Anyway, Kristen and I both decided on a steak sandwich and iced chocolate latte. First we were brought our drinks.

Ice chocolate lattes here are essentially iced hot cocoa...delicious. Then, finally, our sandwiches. It was so, so heavenly.

It seriously was amazing. It tasted so good, and the greens they used weren't those regular lettuce greens. These were legit. And the steak was exactly like a steak back home Seriously, it was expensive, but I ate very well. The sandwich was big, too.

As you can see, we destroyed our meal (except for the tomatoes cause ew). Kristen and I sat in a really cool place with a huge photo next to us.

Anyway, it was really fun to eat there. Then, I decided to go along with Kristen to a dance class. It's a Kpop dance class and it was absolutely fun. I've never really danced before, but I wasn't half bad. This class the teacher had prepared a routine to G-Dragon's "Crayon", a super fun song.


It's probably not most people's cup of tea (at least my family reading this back home), but I happen to love the song and the dance was so fun to do. The class was taught in Korean, but extremely easy to understand. I actually had to think about the language to really notice they weren't speaking a language I understood. The teacher was awesome, too. She was so natural with her moves, I was impressed. Every so often she'd translate a lyric, but every one she did I already knew what it meant in Korean. It was a nice gesture though, haha.

I'll probably be going back every Monday because it was so fun! Today was a pretty good day, and my Busan trip starts this Friday! So for now...I'm off to work on my papers that I have to do for midterms. Ahh...

Lucy Hair

Okay, I’d gotten bored of my hair. Very, very bored. I was nervous to try and get it done here in Korea because of the language barrier and I’d heard some horror stories about Juno Hair, which is supposed to specialize in foreign hair. After searching online, I found good reviews about a place in Sinchon, Lucy Hair. Since everything I’d heard had been simply praise (and they were in my very own city!) I made an appointment and just a day later, I was sitting in the chair. (I was using my Samsung Galaxt tablet to take pictures, sorry! The color is a little misleading~)

It’s a nice interior, very welcoming.

A very nice man did my hair. His name is Dennis (Dennis 아저씨~ㅋㅋ) and he was spectacular! He was very charming and fun to work with. I brought in initial things I wanted, but ended up just trusting him on what twist he wanted to run with.

He added the color (red highlights with a darker brown base), which took a while, then let me sit. After, another man washed my hair and then Dennis did a special treatment to my hair. They also took off the edges of the color that may have gotten on my skin. Then, they washed my hair a second time and started the cut.

I absolutely love how it turned out. My hair originally was pretty boring (my old color had faded out), and I was in desperate want for some bangs to come back to my life! So before and after:

I really love it, it’s something new for me and it feels great! I think I look good, too, which is a plus! Haha! Anyway, I had my appointment set for 11am and walked out at around 1:30. The color, cut, treatment, etc…everything I’d gotten done to my hair was only $150. A full color/highlight, and trim! I was sure it would cost more! And I paid in cash, so I got a discount…about $7/$8 off!

This place is absolutely awesome and the best salon experience I’ve had! The staff was inviting, spoke English well, and had amazing techniques. I’m extremely impressed. They did a top knotch job for a wonderful price. If you are in Sinchon, make sure to find Lucy Hair and get your hair done!

Korean Findings~

So since I don't have much to talk about today (I spent the entire afternoon writing a paper. I finished it and I feel confident!), I figured I could talk about some things in Korea that I've bought or found that I really enjoy. But first...

There's some color on the tips of the trees! Hooray! Autumn is my favorite season and I'm incredibly sad I'll miss it back home. The smell of burning leaves, hoddie weather, crisp air....ahh, I miss it so much! Hopefully this means it's coming for Korea, too~

Anyway, some fun things in Korea that you either have to get or do!

• Korean Socks

Korea has some of the best socks I've ever seen! They're cheap, widely available  and totally adorable to a painful degree. These are only a few I've bought so far. (I've had my eye on a pair that had manta rays on them for a while...)

As a person who's completely enamored by cute things, Korean socks were like a gift from above. They even have funny socks.

Yep, Gangnam Style socks. They were only 1,000won....a little less than 1USD! So hard to pass these up when you pass by street vendors selling them.

• Pony Brown

I've just recently been opened up to Pony Brown, a brand of super adorable stationary supplies. They have a really cute style of art and love bright, vibrant colors.

They were cheap and the little notebooks are thread bound, making them really easy to write in. The pens are some of the best I've ever written with, too. And of course, insanely adorable. Girls, go find this brand and stock up! The message on the back is even just as cute!

• Sticker Booths

Oh my god...sticker booths should be a thing in America! They are so fun and no matter what, you look good!

I've yet to get a very big one, which I want so badly, but I will sometime! I'm so addicted and I've only done it twice. Despite being very quick and sometimes confusing, they're really a blast with your friends~

• Food

That's a pretty broad section...but I've had some amazing foods in the past few days! first of all, Korean Krispy Kreme. They are no joke here.

They even have themed donuts! The pumpkin ones (as I was told by the friends who ate them) have a pumpkin jelly-like filling. I took a taste and it was so delicious...they had so many flavors. My favorite, by far, was a Hazelnut...something. I don't remember the whole title.

Yep. Nutella in a donut. It might be the most delicious thing I've ever had. I'm gonna get it again soon. When in Rome, right? Haha. Well, when in Korea...do as Koreans do! And they do donuts so, so right. The next is somewhat similar. Some people might not know this, but Korea doesn't have a separate type of foods for breakfast like in the West. It's hard to find a good American breakfast here!

This, though, was so amazing. It was at Tomo Cafe again in Sinchon. It came with the half waffle, scrambled eggs, sausage/bacon, a banana, and a salad. It was so heavenly I thought I would cry! Tomo Cafe does it so well, I was very impressed! I've heard that Butterfingers is a supposed AMAZING breakfast place for westerners, so I'll have to check that place out soon and report back. Now back to Korean food!

I had 도시락 (doshirak) for dinner tonight. It's Korea's version of a bento box. I got 소고기 (beef) and tonkatsu. It came with a side of sweet pickles (YES!), pickled...something yellow, kimchi, and rice. The beef tasted like my mom's pot roast back home...so tasty! It was really good and incredibly cheap. It was about 3,500won. I'll be eating here again soon!

• Advertisments

I must be used to midwestern, not-cool advertisements because Korea has the COOLEST!

This was at the COEX mall, and I was so excited to see it! I've never seen anything Zelda this big before in my life, so I made my friend stop and take a picture of me with it, haha! They also have Kpop idols as big as walls, too.

It's Junsu (Xiah) from TVXQ/JYJ. They had a whole wall of the JYJ guys playing Nintendo DS, I just took a photo of Junsu because my friend loves him and I had to show her. But you see stuff like this all over. I've seen so much Big Bang and CNBlue advertisements that are the size of my bedroom back home!

Anyway, those are some fun things that have happened or I've seen lately!

Chuseok and Everland~

First and foremost, happy Chuseok! (Well, belated Chuseok at this point) I hope you all had a great time with your families if you celebrated! For those who don’t know Chuseok, it’s essentially Korean Thanksgiving. Everyone goes home to their families and has a big Korean feast! Sounds awesome, right? Well, since I’m here without a family to go home to, a few friends and I decided to do something fun instead of just sit around and do nothing! We heard that Everland (a huge Korean amusement park) had a huge discount for foreigners on Chuseok weekend, so we picked up some coupons and headed out there! It was just myself, Kristen, and a friend Marissa…but it was a blast!

First, we met at Gangnam station. From there we took a long, long bus ride. Thankfully we got seats on the bus, but some weren’t so lucky…

These people had to stand for at least 50 minutes straight! The view while riding there was really beautiful…so many green mountains. I didn’t get a photo, they all came out blury. (You’ll have to excuse the not-as-great quality of these photos, I used my hand-held camera instead of my Nikon camera.) When we finally arrived at Everland, we were so excited we were practically shaking in our shoes. During this time, they deck out the park in Halloween decorations!

It was so cute~ The park itself was so pretty and really, really huge! I was impressed. During our time there, I’d say 80% of people were foreigners and the rest were families with small children. Since Kristen and I hadn’t eaten at all that day, we stopped off to get some food. I, of course, got a katsu curry dish.

Surprise. Kristen and Marissa got other things that also looked and smelled so good TT___TT

The inside of the building was really pretty too~

I had to take a photo of it because the colors and contrast of lighting were too perfect to pass up…anyway, so after eating we headed outside to decide where to go first. The park had different sections that you walked to, and the surrounding area was so beautiful.

I’ve never been to a Disney park, but I don’t think they’re as pretty as this was. Huge mountains covered in green trees were all around the entire park and it made the day feel even better. It was definitely a fresh feeling coming from the big city of Seoul~ First we decided to go to the zoo area. We went to a place where they had some animals, they were so cute~

Then, we went on a river ride. The entrance had such beautiful banners hanging from the ceiling! (Sorry, once a photography major, always a photography major;;; )

Anyway, so these rides are some of my favorite in the world! It’s where you sit in a big circular thing and go down white water rapids! Kinda…anyway, it was so fun!

See, you know these rides. Anyway, it was so fun! After this section of the park we went to a…like, 60’s America themed part? I’m guessing, I dunno. Everything was old-timey cars, drive-ins and rock and roll. This part had lots of rides I couldn’t go on. Since I get dizzy really easily, I can’t do rides that spin in circles…which was almost every ride in this place. Kristen and Marissa, on the other hand, could go on them. They went on one that spins you around and up.

This is them before they got on the ride-o-doom. You can see the terror just in the background. They really said it was fun…I’ll take their word. We then moved elsewhere.

Ahh, such a pretty site everywhere you turned. The next place was “Aesop’s Village”. It was definitely a place for kids, but it had such a fun Dr. Seuss feel!

They had the most fun ride there, though. We went on it at least 7 times. They had a photozone, so we kept going on to make the weirdest, funniest faces we could at the camera.

Seriously, I think I got an ab workout from laughing at some of our pictures. It was really fun, and the people working this coaster must have thought we were insane. But we had a blast together here. After being here for a bit, we moved onto the gardens area. Oh my gosh, it was all so beautiful.

As you can see, they even decorated the gardens with the Halloween theme!

After this, we moved to the fountain and rose garden~

So pretty! Around 6:30, the sun started to set and all the themed lighting came on!

We walked around and really enjoyed seeing everything (and also enjoyed the cooler air that came with night time now~) and then stepped into another place to get something to eat!

Mmm, pizza and bulgogi spaghetti. So delicious! We really had good food here for pretty inexpensive. I was impressed, I’m used to the jacked up prices that rip you off back home. We walked around for about an hour more before we finally left, exhausted.

I’m going to post some photos of me and my friends, but I’ll put them under a cut so it doesn’t take up a ton of room!