Trip to the highest point of Seoul

Soo.. I think the weekend before last weekend I went to the Namsan Tower or N Seoul Tower together with 2 Finnish girls. It's an observation and communication tower located on Namsan mountain here in central Seoul. We decided to go in the evening when it's dark to see all the city lights and try to beat other tourists.. oh well.. I forgot that it was White Day here which is the Valentine's Day for girls (only guys get flowers and chocolate here on the actual Valentine's Day that we know and celebrate) and apparently the Namsan Tower is the hotspot for lovebirds and couples and is super romantic. I have to say that it was a little depressing seeing sooo many happy Korean couples when I miss Kaby so much haha but I got over it. Anyways.. because of the White Day there were A LOT of people trying to spend a romantic date night by the tower and stuff so we had to wait like an hour or even more just to get onto the Namsan Cable Car to take up the mountain and then we only had to walk up some stairs for maybe 5-10 mins to get to the bottom of the tower. On the bottom of the tower they have a lot of restaurants and souvenir and gift shops.. Really expensive though but we didn't expect anything else.
When you buy the ticket to be able to visit the observation decks of the tower you also get a number and then you have to wait until it's your turn to get onto the elevators for the decks.. The sad thing was that because of it being so crowded we had to wait an hour to get into the elevators and then you have to wait just as long if you want to take the elevators back down. But we still managed to enjoy our time there and the view was really impressive :)

elevator to get to the Namsan Cable Car station

Sooo pretty :)

These hearts were everywhere.. art from a local artist.. makes the place even more romantic

Yes.. those are locks of couples :D they are EVERYWHERE and then on top of each other and millions of them haha

What a huge city

Klaara and Siina

Yummyyy.. one potato on a stick dipped in some batter, fried with some seasoning

Siina's birthday and traditional Korean BBQ

Yesterday it was Siina's birthday and we thought we'd celebrate that at a traditional barbecue place. They only had meat.. and I didn't even know which kind of meat... but we guessed it was beef. It first I was a little hesitant because I'm not a big meat-fan and they didn't really have any side dishes like vegetables or noodles or rice or so but it ended up being super delicious and a lot of fun ;)

Oh and look at this cute lipstick I bought.. (South Korea=cute) hahaha And the interesting thing is that for example in Germany, when something is cute it doesn't have a good quality or is expensive but Koreans just pay so much attention to detailed and qualitative packaging, with everything! And this lipstick lasted so freaking long on my lips.. unbelievable.. even throughout the barbecuing.

Ready to go :D

Klaara and Daphnee trying to imitate the way Korean girls take pics :D

I found actual cider at a bar we went to :D

At the bars here you don't get peanuts or anything else with your drinks but yummy shrimp chips :D a

We also drank Soju.. THE Korean liquor that everyone drinks here. I heard it would be sweet and you don't even realize you're drinking alcohol but.. I would rather describe it as tasting like watered down Vodka with some artificial sweetener in it haha not really yummy

Orientation Day and my first week

On the 27th was the orientation day for all the visiting and exchange students.

There were like 300 or so of us and a lot of Finnish, French, Dutch and also German people. But the orientation day wasn't really special because we just got introduced to the President of the university and the head of the international affairs office at SKKU and then we went through all the important things that most of us had already read about in the handbook the uni send us before hand but it was still a great day to meet a lot of other exchange students. 

After sitting trough hours of talking we got name tags and got separated into different groups of people that had the same Korean buddies and that were later on supposed to walk around the campus together for a campus tour. 

I was in group J.. surprise surprise.. that letter is haunting me haha but my group members were sadly not very talkative or open. They mostly stayed with people they already knew or spoke their native language.. that kind of sucked haha but oh well.. can't do anything about that. The Korean students walking with us were mostly more open though. Everyone except for my buddy.. BLAKE :D Every time I caught him looking at me he quickly looked away and started playing with his phone or so. I guess he was just shy or so?! But he really did not say a single word to me that day haha but I have to say after he reacted that way I was a little intimidated to talk to him too. But no worries, we still have a lot of time to meet up and we also have some meet ups planned with the whole group :)

Coming to my first week.. 

This is what my schedule looks like.. Yep, I know.. what a cute piece of paper right? :D Absolutely EVERYTHING here is cute haha Anyways, I don't have class on Mondays BUT my first class on tuesday is in on of the buildings highest up on the hill that my university is on. So I walk to the subway station, take the subway for about 5-10mins and then I only have to walk about 10 mins to get to the main gate of SKKU but then I have to walk uphill.. and I mean San Francisco-like uphill.. for almost 20 mins.. including climbing up the craziest amount of stairs. haha And they say that North Korea is the side that has all the mountains and hills :D 

So I have to do that every Tuesday, Thursday and Friday :O And on Tuesday I was super exhausted when I got up there. :D I just wanted to take a shower and go back to sleep haha but I guess I will get used to it and the exercise will be good for me too ;) 

This is a map of my campus. And I walk from the main gate to the Togye Hall of Humanities. Yep, there is actually a shuttle bus but since I already have to pay for the subway whenever I have to go to university I'd rather save the money for the shuttle bus ;) But I also have classes in the International Hall or the Business Hall.

The professors here expect much more from the students than in Denmark. And every time you use electronics for anything else but note taking they deduct points from your final grade but you won't find out about that until you receive your transcript. And then we have to do in class quizzes every week and have mid-terms and finals and essays and assignments. Yeah, typical for every university but the amount is not what I'm used to.. reading 6 chapters for one class and preparing a presentation, quiz and essay for one week just for one class? :D A lot of work, but I accept the challenge ;) 

In the classes I have in the Togye Hall of Humanities I'm the only foreigner in the class. And during my first class some Korean girls would turn around look and me and start giggling and stuff like that haha and I really stand out not just because I'm a foreigner but actually because I'm blonde. And in one of the classes the people don't even want to interact with me at all which seems so weird to me because I wouldn't expect such a closed mind behavior from the younger generation of Koreans. But we'll see what the time brings. Maybe they just have to get used to me. 

So if I haven't mentioned it already I have 2 classes with just Koreans and then 1 business class with a mix of exchange and Korean students and 2 classes only for and with exchange students.

On of them is called Contemporary Korean Society and Culture. At first I thought the professor is a little witch and it will be a hard semester but it turns out.. yh she can be a witch but she is not just talking about the society and culture in general but also very passionate about given us a proper insight to what this country is actually about and has been to and why people turned from shamanism to christianity and buddhism and then why there are 46% of South Korea, that have no affiliation at all but then why shamanism is still practiced and believed in and will probably never die out. 

It is just so interesting to listen to her and also some of her personal experiences and other experiences of people she came across while doing research. About the Japanese-Korean war and how people have never been given time to deal with the trauma and sadness and everything had just been kept quiet about and that the society only now starts to deal with some of their past..

These are the things that make the classes with her so interesting and that is also what gives us a much better understanding about the Koreans and why especially elderly Koreans still have prejudices against foreigners. But you really can't generalize it like that either though.. 

My experiences with elderly Koreans have been super diverse: from being pushed away and ignored, to being asked to get up and sit somewhere else in the subway because they didn't wanna sit next to me but then also completely different. Like yesterday where Siina and I had some street food together and I just tried hers and an old lady came over and smiled and laughed and patted me on the back and said that I will get used to it :D and then on the subway there was an old lady, that badly wanted me to sit next to her and then she gave me some kind of rubbery weird dried fish slice to taste and it was kind of gross and really not nice but really sweet of her. Btw, in Korea there is no way you can decline anything from an elder person because they are to have respect for and be nice and polite too. So that's what I did.. there's really no reason to be rude actually I'm happy when someone smiles at me and is so nice and doesn't just stare and looks away when I turn :D 

A lot of the Koreans consider foreigners that are blonde directly to be Americans though. We hear that a whole lot.. American? And then when we try to tell them we're from Finland, Sweden, Germany, France... they don't understand haha but at least when we say Europe, they get an idea ;) 

Gyeongbokgung Palace

I'm sorry that it took me so long to write this post.. But time just flew by and I just finished my first week of classes yesterday and it was exhausting haha But more about that in the next post ;)

So.. after checking out Myeong Dong, we just jumped on the subway and decided to go to the biggest and main palace here in Seoul.. the Gyeongbokgung Palace.

My roommate Daphnee and me :)

Koreans like taking pictures with their hands like that because a v-shaped face is one of the many things that girls should have to be considered beautiful. So by putting their hands on their faces like that they create this v-shape illusion on photos.

Wow.. or? I thought this was so beautiful and amazing and right in between al these skyscrapers. This was really a very impressive day were you actually realize, that this is Korea. I love it and the weather was great and and the people were nice and when we went there it was actually the last wednesday of the month, so we got in for free :D It really felt like we were meant to see this palace on that day. 

When we were on our way out, there was a guy who came up to us and in broken English tried to ask us if we would hold his pad for him hahaha And we were like: What?? And after some back and forth it turned out that he wanted to take a picture of us smiling, holding and using his samsung tablet :D He was actually so nice and such a weird experience that we just did it haha And then there was another that wanted to take a picture with us in front of the palace and just chat. A really funny day :)

We also went to check out the national museum which is right by the Gyeongbokgung Palace but by that time we were already tired and exhausted and our feet were hurting so we decided to just check out one of the floors and then head back to Myeong-Dong to get some dinner.

King's throne

Siina (my Finnish friend)

huuuge palace map

crown jewels

the wives were seriously wearing that on their heads :-O

 Siina and Daphnee

So this was my first time eating Korean food and the way they cooked it looked so interesting and it smelled so nice and delicious but oh my gosh.. I have never had anything as spicy as this. And I never eat hot food anyways haha This just burned out all my taste buds haha All the red stuff is some kind of chili paste. I really couldn't enjoy the food because it was just way too spicy but then another thing: they only give you a spoon for rice or chop sticks for the rest :D and I have to say.. i should've practiced more to eat with chop sticks before coming to Korea :D But I guess I'm slowly but surely getting used to it ;)