Mini Trip to Japan!

This post is technically cheating because it'll be about my 4 and a bit day adventure in Japan instead of the usual Korean-ness! Because Japan and Korea are right next door to each other I have been wanting to go on a trip to Japan since I first knew I was going to Korea, so when a long weekend presented itself I, and and a few of my friends, jumped at the opportunity to go.

We decided to go to Osaka for our quick trip. Osaka is an awesome city for spending a few days or a long time, I wish I'd been able to stay longer! I'm definitely planning on going back to Japan at some point!

On our first day we arrived at the airport in the morning and decided to spend a relaxed day exploring the area around our hostel, we found a great restaurant to relax and eat yummy food and then we went to a huge anime and manga store. Everything was extra cute and extra expensive, so I decided to buy only one thing from a little toy vending machine, I got a cat being decapitated by a 50 yen coin....

Japan street selfie!

Anime store

The second day we took a trip to the incredibly beautiful Osaka castle, it was a gloriously hot day so we ate ice cream outside and then went right to the top of the castle to enjoy the view of the city before descending inside to visit the museum. I loved all the old armour, especially the crazy helmets with enormous horns sprouting from the top, some were twice the length of my arm!

The moat of the castle

Osaka Castle

Ice cream, the castle and me!

The view of Osaka

After Osaka castle we went downtown, ate more delicious Japanese food and explored some of the crazy awesome Japanese shops, including a great costume store with multicoloured wigs and over the top gorgeous outfits, I wish they'd let me take photos! We also visited a Japanese arcade and took 'beautifying' photo booth pictures, we got a bit carried away in the editing process afterwards...

Downtown

The third day we visited a shrine of the God of all students a.k.a. the instant ramen museum. This included a tunnel of historic ramen, the history of how instant ramen came to be (including a life size model of the creators house where he made the ramen), and the most fun part, a chance to make your own ramen. Afterwards we ate sushi, it was delicious, I wish I had some right now!

Jessica inside the tunnel of ramen!

The first instant ramen *bows down*

Tommy making his ramen

The fourth day was a lazy chilled day, we visited a temple, which had a market for home made goods in the grounds. We actually spent more time looking at the amazing things for sale rather than looking around the temple! Afterwards we spent our last bit of time in Japan going back downtown for a last look around the shops and a last meal of Japanese yumminess!

Unfortunately the next morning we had to say goodbye to Japan and come back to Korea to get back to work and finish our final presentations and study for exams! Ah well, until next time Japan!

(p.s. Thank you Tommy for being the best Japan guide and translator ever! We would have been lost and alone without you!)

Korean Speaking Contest and RedbullBCOne

Hi! Today is a lazy rainy day (which honestly are my favourite!), and I'm relaxing after a really rather busy week! This week started off on a really bad note with me falling over and smashing my face on the ground, which meant I got to see what a Korean hospital was like (very nice incidentally, with much shorter waiting times than in England!). Luckily my injuries were just superficial and they're healing nicely!

This week we also had the English and Korean speaking contests, which were great fun! Everyone put on a short presentation displaying their skills in either English or Korean, either with presentations, songs, poems or other things. Tommy and I decided to act out a really daft scene from a Korean drama where the girl realises that the boy she liked was actually a high school student. We decided to switch it up and make me the boy and Tommy the girl (because it's just more fun that way!). We actually managed to get third place! I definitely wasn't expecting that, but I was so happy!

Winners of the Korean Contest! (I'm hiding in the line up somewhere!)

We all got a rose and a certificate (the rose dripped water on my certificates cover!)

Yesterday a group of us went on an outing to Seoul to go to RedBullBCOne to watch the bboys battle. It was great fun, even though we were standing on couches and tables to see over people! I know absolutely nothing about dance or bboys, but it was awesome to watch, sometimes I couldn't actually believe that humans could move like that!

I forgot my camera so here's the event poster instead!

Although last week was super duper busy this week is going to be busier! On Thursday I'll be hopping on a plane with a few of my friends to spend a long weekend in Osaka! I've never been to Japan before and I'm incredibly excited!

On a really sad note my time in Korea is coming to an end far quicker than I would like! In just under 7 weeks I'll be back in England, I don't want to leave!

Jeonju and Korean Culture

Hello! I'm taking a break from writing a paper right now (I promise I'll get right back to it after this!). Today is my sick day so I'm wrapped up in pyjamas and a blanket eating lots of chocolate. Loads of people seem to have come down with a cold recently, and despite drinking a huge amount of orange juice I've managed to get sick too!

A couple of weeks ago we had a trip to Jeonju, a city famous for food (bibimbap in particular), a national museum and the traditional Hanok village. The day we went was gorgeously sunny and the city was full of flowers.

Our first stop was to the National Jeonju museum, it was full of old relics from the area, including books, paintings, swords and miniature models of what the area looked like in the past.

Outside the museum

One of the books inside the museum

Such a nice day!

After the museum we found a restaurant and sampled some of the famous bibimbap (which I forgot to take a picture of!) which was delicious. With our tummies full we headed to the Hanok village and had a guided tour of the area. After the tour we got to explore the traditional houses by ourselves, there were loads and loads of storage areas. Once we found a building that was actually used as a house instead of a storage room we sat down and relaxed, soaking up the ambiance like the lazy students we are.

Pretending to be a Queen!

Jessica, Tommy and Bianca in the traditional village

Even the storage buildings look pretty!

Although it was a relatively short trip it was really enjoyable, the weather was fantastic, the food was delicious and the traditional village was really relaxing to wander around.

The week after we had a Korean culture assembly. A group of volunteers came to the university to teach us about Korean culture, we were shown how to do a big bow (and I was one of the people who went up on stage to try it out!), we were given traditional Korean snacks to eat and we were shown a few short videos about the origin of the Korean writing system, Hyundai and famous Korean artifacts.

After this we got to dress up in Hanbok (Korean traditional clothes), this was definitely the most fun part, and we took loads of photos!

Me and my roomie Eun Hee

Roomies! Soo Min, Eun Hee and me!

I want to keep this outfit!

All the pretty ITS students! (Can you spot me?)

Hopefully I'll recover soon and finish off my homework so I can focus on going on more trips around Korea! I've definitely got a few things in mind for the rest of the semester, I can't believe I've only got two months left in Korea! It's flown by!

Bulguksa Temple Trip

Hello! It's the middle of mid-terms right now, but luckily I don't have any exams! Unluckily I have a couple of essays and presentations to prepare instead! However, now that lent has ended I can finally eat chocolate again! (which makes writing essays so much easier!)

The week before last we headed to Bulguksa temple (we visited this place last semester too, which I wrote about here). The day we went was really lovely and warm, but unfortunately we didn't get to stay for long, as it was only a day trip and it was a four hour journey from our campus.

Aside from the trip I haven't been up to much lately. With no classes on right now I've been spending most of my time in the Sky Cafe where I'm working this semester, it's an English only speaking cafe, where students come to practice English (and to get free drinks and toast). Other than that I've had a few nights out in the teeny city of Jochiwon (so I'm very ready to head to Seoul again now that I can afford it!) Next month loads of things are going to be happening, so stay tuned for more exciting things to come!

Here's a few extra pictures of my life in Korea so far.

Me and my roomie Soo Min

I bought a penguin

Bangor love for international day

Mega Jenga

Angels

Yummyness

Hiking (and a quick catch up!)

It's been such a long time since I last wrote in my Korea blog and such a lot has happened! To keep it short (super duper short in fact) I've had a trip to Thailand, finished the Autumn semester, had a long Australia trip over the Christmas hols, gotten back to Korea, started the Spring semester, had a couple of Seoul trips and made loads of new friends!

To make that paragraph more interesting here are a few pictures:

Bangkok, Thailand

Bondi Beach, Australia

On the way to Seoul!

Back to now! Yesterday I went on a lovely hike through the countryside behind the campus with a couple of friends. Spring is definitely in the air, the weather was warm and sunny with a slight breeze, in other words it was perfect! The blossoms were coming out on the trees and I even had to take off my jumper!

We set off a bit too late in the day to make it the whole way up the mountain (my love of Sunday lie ins is to blame for that!), but I had a really lovely day and want to do it again! Hopefully next time I'll listen to my alarm clock...

Until next time!

x