DMZ Trip!

Last Friday the culture class took a trip to the De Militarised Zone at Imingak, it was a really, really, really surreal day, it almost felt like we were in North Korea already when we got up there. First we stopped at a park just before the DMZ where we had to leave our coach and get onto a special coach for visitors to the DMZ. We arrived a bit late for the first trip there, so we waited for two hours in one of the weirdest places ever. There was a small theme park by the car park which was nearly completely empty, a group of school children were on one of the rides, but other than that it was completely deserted, although the rides were still lit up and had music playing...

Next to that was a park with really strange pieces of art strewn about. It felt like we were walking into a very odd dream, some of the sculptures were made of glass, others brightly coloured and some were just twisted and warped so much that I couldn't tell what they were. I'm still not quite sure why the park was there...

Creepy dream park

At the edges of the car park were shops selling North Korean products, although I'm not sure if they were actually North Korean, or just a tourist gimmick, I didn't buy anything.

When we got onto the coach we had to travel through an obstacle course to get to the DMZ, first we were stopped before the bridge leading to the DMZ where a soldier came on board to check the papers from the driver, then across the bridge there were loads of barriers meaning that the coach had to zig zag its way across. Once we were there were loads of no entry signs, fences heaped with barbed wire, soldiers and worrying signs warning of mines.

Our first stop in the DMZ was the third tunnel, one of the tunnels North Korea was trying to build to enter South Korea. We got onto a small cart type thing and were taken down a very narrow tunnel. At first it was really quite scary, the tunnel was so small the edges of the cart (only wide enough for three people to squish on each row) were right by the walls, the ceiling was also in an arch shape, so the two people at either edge had to duck there heads in. Once the cart reached the bottom we got to explore down the tunnel until we reached a lot of barbed wire and a big metal door with a small gap to peek through at the North Korean side. It was really fun going into the tunnel, but it did feel like a horror movie ready to happen, what with the scary looking door, low ceilings, and general damp, dark coldness of the tunnel.

Next we headed to an observation deck where we could look through binoculars at North Korea, this was definitely my favourite part of the trip. It was really weird to look into a country which is so tightly guarded and not often seen by outsiders. Looking over we could see the Kaesong Industrial park, where North and South Korea had been trying to work together to produce goods until their relations took a turn for the worse. I also spotted a few North Koreans working in the fields and got a good look at some houses.

A not at all posed photo of me pointing at North Korea

North Korea

Finally in the DMZ we headed to the train station that had been built in case North and South Korean relations improved.

Visiting the DMZ was really strange, despite all the soldiers and barbed wire it seemed like a really calm quiet place, because there were no people living there (aside from soldiers) the countryside in the area was really pretty.

If you're ever in South Korea I'd definitely recommend a trip to the DMZ, it's really quite interesting.

Gyeongsangbuk-do Overnight Trip

I'm going to start by saying that there I have been doing so much since last I posted that I'm having a hard time remembering everything! So far I've only been posting about the big events and trips I've been taking, but I think the smaller stuff is important too, so from now on I'll be trying to post at least every other week even if I haven't been up to much.

A couple of weeks ago the culture class had an overnight trip to Gyeongsangbuk-do in the East, which has many Buddhist cultural heritage sites and also UNESCO world cultural heritage sites.

The first place we headed to was the Daereungwon Tomb Complex. It was a gorgeously sunny day and we got to wander around the grounds where all the tombs were. The tombs themselves just looked like small hills dotted around, but when we went inside one it was full of thousand year old treasures and the bodies of the dead King and Queen.

Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures inside the tomb

Such a beautiful day!

Some of the tombs

Next we headed to the Gyeongju National Museum, which had artifacts from the tombs and also ancient art from the area.

Outside the museum

Then we headed up the mountain to visit the Bulguksa temple which we wandered around for a few hours. It was great fun to explore around all the different buildings surrounded by trees and rivers.

Late that evening we headed to the Anapji pond which was gorgeous. It was dark when we arrived, but the place was lit up by hundreds of lights which were reflected in the clear water. 

The next day we visited Andong Hahoe village in the foothills of the Hwasan Moutain, a traditional Korean village. This village was a lot bigger than I'd imagined and was still a functioning village with people still living in the traditional house. When we went there was an apple festival taking place, where we got to taste free samples of the most delicious apples I've ever eaten in my life (or that might just be because I hadn't eaten an apple in so long...). Near the village was an amazing mask museum, full of Korean traditional masks and a few masks from around the world.

This guy saw me about to take a photo and immediately grabbed his pipe and glasses to pose!

Love the ears on this guy

Nightmare fuel

Hopefully there won't be such a large gap between my posts from now on!

Koyonjeon Games and Busan Trip

Somehow I'm already in my seventh week of being in Korea, I have no idea how the time has flown by so quickly, sometimes it seems as though I arrived here yesterday, other times it's as if I've been here forever. Since I last wrote a blog post I've been incredibly busy, there's so much to do and see here in Korea! Firstly there was the weekend of the Koyeonjeon games, a huge sports event between rival universities Yonsei and KU, and then the Korean culture class had a field trip to the seaside city of Busan.

The Koyeonjeon games were amazing, on Friday we went to the baseball game, I've never watched a baseball game before in my life, and although I had no idea what was going on there was a really exciting atmosphere which was great to be a part of. Saturday's games were my favourite though, we had really good seats right in the middle of the stands and got to watch the rugby (which we won!) and the football (which we lost...). More important than the sports themselves was the cheering. Both Yonsei and KU had cheers to sing along to the games with, and even when our team lost KU kept cheering even louder than Yonsei, spilling out onto the pitch to dance and sing. I've never known anywhere to have a stronger school spirit than KU, whose students had a huge street party, drinking and singing the cheers well into the night.

The crowd

People were more interested in the cheer than the game

Ku Students spilling out onto the pitch to cheer some more

Me!

The next week the Korean culture class took a day trip to Busan in the South. The trip took 4 hours by coach (which I mostly slept through). Our first port of call was the United Nations Memorial Park where we learnt about the Korean war and got to walk around the park. The park itself was beautiful, quiet and very peaceful with beautiful memorials. Next we headed over to Heundae beach to relax and have a paddle in the sea, I was just sad that I hadn't thought to bring a swimsuit!

There are lots more exciting trips and activities planned for this month, so I'll be taking lots of photos for my next blog post!

Seoul and Soju

It feels like I've been in Korea for ages, I can't believe I only arrived two and a half weeks ago!

This week saw the start of classes (the actual reason for being here...). They seem to be more like lessons rather than the lectures I'm used to back at home, and the class sizes are really small too which is different, but quite a nice change. For anyone interested these are my classes:

• Beginners Korean - Fairly obvious, in this one I'm taught how to read, write and understand Korean, despite everyone telling me how easy it is to write in Korean it hasn't clicked for me yet!
• Korean Culture - I've only had the introduction for this one, but it seems like we're going on field trips! Very looking forward to those.
• North Korean Leadership - The only one which has already had a test (a mini quiz really but still...). For someone who knows next to nothing about North Korea this one is really interesting.
• North Korean Mass Media - This ones really interesting, we're looking at North Korean media and analysing it, and it is rather strange...
• Badminton - I thought I should do something active and I assumed that because I did badminton at school when I was 16 I'd be halfway decent at it now...not so, but it is good exercise.

This weekend was my first weekend in Seoul and it was fantastic. The train is only 7100 won (about £4), and the train takes about an hour and a half to get there. We had a wander around shopping, ate some truly excellent food and then booked into a great hostel (the Kimchee hostel in Hongdae if you're ever in need of a cheap place to stay in Seoul).

Shopping time

All this food before the main meat dish arrived!

After that we started our night out in Hongdae, it was crowded and noisy and fabulous, the only problem was that some of us (including me) had left our IDs at the hostel, so we had a bit of a walk around trying to find a club that would let us in. Despite the fact that I was wearing killer heels (literally killing my feet one toe at a time) I really enjoyed the wander around Hongdae at night. There were so many friendly people around (some sober, some not so sober) and the whole place had a really great vibe. Eventually we did find a place to spend the rest of the night, although I can't remember what it was called I can remember that it was near a playground that had music and lots of people drinking and laughing in it.

The journey back to Seoul was not as good...we sat in a hungover haze trying to stay as still as possible until we could return to our dorms and fall asleep. But I would definitely do it all over again (with different shoes this time...).

This is what a hangover looks like...(in the food car of the train)

Til next week :)

Arriving In Korea!

Hello! This is going to be my blog/diary type thing for my study abroad year at Korea University in South Korea, around 8880km away from and 9 hours ahead of England.

My first week here has been hectic to say the least. After 17 hours of flying, 21 hours of waiting in airports and a visa arriving the morning before I flew out, I finally arrived at Korea University in Sejong. The first few days have been a blur of orientation sessions, drinking and going downtown to pick up supplies. It's been busy and fun, but I'm looking forward to settling into a schedule next week.

My card got blocked for a few days due to suspicious activity (= me forgetting to tell the bank I was going to Korea), so I haven't been able to go on the huge shopping spree I wanted to. However now that my card is back in working order I'm ready to start spending obscene amounts of money in all the gorgeous shops.

So far I haven't experienced a huge culture shock. The food is amazing, most meals aren't as spicy as I expected, the people are friendly and helpful, especially my two lovely roommates, and so far I've been far too busy to even think about homesickness.

Lots of things are different in Korea to back home. People are friendlier and more polite here, which is definitely helping me to settle in. Also today I saw someone wandering round a shop with a cat over his shoulder, I don't know if that is a Korean thing or if he was just being odd, but I want to start going shopping with cats on my shoulders.

Looking forward to next week!

My halls!