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!