Anonymous said: hi! I noticed that you're doing KLI but you're not staying in the SK Global house or the I-House? Did you get to choose where you wanted to dorm?
Nope. They placed me in the Muak House.
posted 9 months ago / 0 notes / reblog
My access to internet has been super limited since I’ve arrived Korea. Updating daily is nothing, but a huge… huge hassle. However, now that I have reliable internet connection, I will update again starting today. :)
June 23rd, 2011
I just finished unpacking and setting up my room at my dorm in Yonsei. We (meaning people who attended the ‘field trip’) just got back from Gyeong-ju. If anyone is considering on applying to Yonsei’s KLI program next summer. Please keep in mind that the trip will consist of long bus rides, hot weather, humid air, and unpredictable rain.
I’ve already been to Gyeong-ju with my mother literally three days before I first left for this field trip. So, everything we saw with KLI, I’ve already seen. I’m fortunate enough to be able to go ahead since I really enjoy history, but I was overall just pissy and unhappy with the weather, haha.
The hotel we stayed at for two nights was fine… except for the fact that it had no working air conditioner. I’m surprised I was able to sleep at all… It was so humid and terrible. The food quality was good, the sauna was reasonable&cheap, but the hotel employees hated our guts. Here’s why:
- During orientation, it was clear that a majority of students had equivalent personalities to frat-boys and bitches.
- Thus, liquor and drugs.
- Loud drunk college students.
- Messy ass rooms… the entire 6th floor was dominated by us.
- Majority have little-to-no Korean speaking abilities. They were super frustrated with us (not me!!!).
Overall, the trip was extremely just an opportunity for a majority of the students to meet, hang out, and drink. As for me, everything… but the latter. I don’t particularly enjoy drinking with strangers (even if it is the medium they were taking to get to know each other).
Anyway, now that I’ve talked a small tidbit about my trip with Yonsei KLI to Gyeongju. I’m going to complain and talk about how miserable Yonsei is with organization. As soon as we arrived back to Yonsei, we were instructed to eat our dinner. It was about 2,500 KRW~3,000 KRW. It was a clean, but smaller than I expected. The portions were pretty big, though…. Kimchi was very good (finally).
After we ate, we took the shuttle bus back to our dorm rooms (I am staying at Muak Dorms). There are different sections to the dorm rooms: the girls hall & the boys hall. Neither gender can enter into each other’s halls… to prevent nasty shit happening. These halls were very… uh… frustrating. I was super annoyed. Why?
- During check-in, they literally just said, “OKAY, GO!” I was confused to wear to go… there were no signs or anybody to give instructions. It was as if they thought we knew where we were going. We were all standing there like, “WHAT DO WE DO???!!!”
- One guard. There’s about 60 or so girls about to move into the dorms with about half of them moving into an already occupied room (like me). They didn’t organize roommates based on what program, but based on availability.
- No elevators. Yes, I did just carry my near 100lb suitcase, 20lb carry-on, and my camera bag up about 10 flights of steep-stairs.
- I can’t walk in the halls. I understand that no shoes in the house/room is very… standard, but can we all at least bring our shoes in? The halls were FULL of shoes and basket-full of shampoos/products/etc. It was hard to bring my suitcase through the halls… let alone walk through the halls.
I blasted the air conditioner. Sat on the floor and just calmed down for a bit before I started to unpack and whatnot. The room itself is very small… it is about the size of one half of a suiteroom back at my home university. Of course, my uni (Soka University of America) spoils us terribly with such a huge room and bathroom per unit… but yeah, this is tiny. They provided us with a bed cover wrapping, sheet, quilt, pillow full of straws, and a pillow case. The locks on the doors are super interesting and high-tech. Its a pass-code and it pretty much turns into a little locking transformer (okay, not really).
The internet was terribly easy to set-up… especially for a foreign IP address. For those who don’t know, you’ll need to change your settings on your computer (at most places) in order to use the internet. Even though it was pretty easy for me, it wasn’t easy for a majority of the girls in the hall. They’re still sitting in the lobby using the wireless internet… and I’m too tired to offer to help them.
The showers/bathrooms are cleaner than I expected. It is a community washroom. Three toilets/shower stalls/sinks on each wing of the hall; total of 6 each floor… I’m not too excited to see what they look like in the morning.
Little nick-nacks: very small convenience store downstairs, along with a laundry room & dry cleaning service, cafeteria, and computer room. You have to buy your cafeteria ticket at the convenience store in order to get food from the cafeteria (its right across from each other). I’m on the 5th floor, so I have a bit of a walk down to the 1st floor. ~_~ I guess I really will lose weight by the time I get back to America.
As for my roommate, Yonsei’s KLI program arranged the dorm-room mates based on availablity. Therefore, my roommate is already a student at Yonsei (either undergrad or grad). I have no idea how I’m going to socialize with her, but I hope we get along. I haven’t seen her yet and I’m not too entirely sure when I will… there is a curfew, so I’m expecting she should be walking in soon.
Oh, yeah. Curfew is midnight. They won’t let you in past 1am… 2 warnings and you’re out! This campus is ridiculous huge and big. They offer a shuttle service here and there, but I can only imagine how terrible it will be to bus all of us everything morning/etc.
I have a placement exam tomorrow. I wonder where I’ll be placed.
I know I don’t have any photos up, but I”ll post them with tomorrow’s post. Since… I’m tired now. I’m going to go to sleep.
posted 11 months ago / 5 notes / reblog
June 14th, 2011
Very basic morning, but it was the best sleep I’ve had since I’ve landed. Haevichi Hotel really is a great place… the bed was literally a cloud. Anyway, we went downstairs to breakfast and quickly gathered our things and headed out to our first destination. We went to a tangerine farm that tried selling us a bunch of shit, but they gave us a free tangerines! Jeju Island is known for their tangerines and their horses. When Jeju was first found, there were an abundance of horses. Anyway, we went to Oedolgae for some sight-seeing. A drama was filmed there… I forgot the title, but there’s a picture of it on my slideshow thingy above. Afterwards, we went to Seyun Bridge for some sight-seeing, but got on a boat soon after. For those who watch Khuntoria’s “We Got Married,” it was the bridge that Nichkhun and Victoria took a picture on in Jeju Island. Anyway, the boat ride was fun - the captain was really funny… he was wearing women’s clothing and a fake bra.
Ate food nearby the bay in Jeju Island and visited some folk village… it was very nice, ahah. The guide for the village was super funny, she made me hit drums for her while she danced. We visited Seopjikoji for a little bit and headed back to the hotel. It was an exhausting day… I can’t even walk right anymore, haha. Eating in Jeju has been really hard for the past couple days because the tour guide/bus has ordered only seafood, but today we got to ddokdehji (black pig?) bulgogi. It was as good as people say it was good.
posted 11 months ago / 1 note / reblog
June 13th, 2011
My mom and I woke up at 5:40am-ish to get ready to check-out and head to Gimpo airport. We took a taxi since we were too tired to deal with the subway. Once we got there, we got our boarding passes and went to go eat some foods. We both had curry-rice at some small restuarant at the airport. Afterwards, I went to Starbucks in hope that I can get my strawberry black tea with 9 pumps of classic venti, BUT they looked at me crazy. I even taught them how to make it, but they continued to believe I was insane.
We boarded and landed in an hour at Jeju. It wasn’t RAINING!!! In all of Korea, it rains the most in Jeju island. For anyone that knows Korean weather, Summer is dreadful. It is hot and it rains… making the entire country a sauna, but fortunately, we had great weather when we landed. Met up with the tour guide that my mom booked and headed to Yongdam(?). It was just a little beach with a lot of old people fishing. Got back onto the bus and drove to a restuarant that was apparently popular… it tasted like poop, but “2Days1Night” (korean variety show) ate there… so I got to see Kang Ho Dong’s signature and stuff. :)
Got back onto the bus and it took us to some Bonzai garden. It was really pretty, but pretty boring, too. Went to a maritime museum… boring. Back on that bus… and into a show!!! The show was super cool, but the best part was not the breakdancers or anything, but it was the drummers!!! The drummers were all female and they were SO COOL!!! I think my mom and I both turned lesbian for them for a little bit. The show was called “Arirang Party” by Choi Sori. I really suggest it if you plan to visit Jeju Island! They were amazing!
Ate, multiple museums, and then headed to our hotel - which by the way, is AMAZING!!! This hotel room is twice the size of our room back in Renaissance Seoul Hotel and the bathroom is five times the size… I am not exagerrating! The hotel has a huge gym and a beautiful swimming pool, too. When you go to the pool entrance, there is a sauna/locker-room for each gender to your left, towels on your right, swimming gear/fun stuff next to the towels, and a pool that connects through a tunnel (inside to the outside) in front of you. It is SO PRETTY!!! The best part has to be that when you’re swimming underwater… there is music. SPEAKERS UNDER THE WATER!!!!!!! I felt like my life had a soundtrack… it was playing Beautiful Soul by Jesse McCartney. It made me miss Bryce more because he sang it to me once… hehehe.
Took a shower and talked to my boyfie again! Then K.O.
Gotta say the best part about the trip (minus talking to my boyfie) was the hotel room. It took forever getting here, but that drive was worth it. The hotel is called Haevichi Hotel. This place is STUNNING & so technologically advanced. I feel like I’m in TRON (Not only that, but it has car prototypes here on display… ksja;fdjafdalfjasfasfsdf! I love cars…).
MissyouBryce<3
posted 11 months ago / 4 notes / reblog
June 12th, 2011
I woke up around 9am because my mother was complaining about her bank cards not working. She never listens to me, but even after I explained why she had to do it. So, for those of you guys that don’t frequently travel, please remember to call your bank to let them know you’ll be using your cards out of the country. If you use it without letting them know, it is most likely that they’ll block your card until you CALL them. This is their way to prevent theft and fraud overseas.
Anyway, woke up fighting with my mom and fixing ALL of her cards. Jaehyun oppa came by our hotel room with his girlfriend to meet us for lunch. We ate at a traditional restarant… it was indeed a beautiful experience, but the food was disgusting. My mom, my cousin, and I… we all looked at each other like: … nasty. Jaehyun oppa’s girlfriend eats anything, so she didn’t seem to care, hahaha…
We drove back to his house because my mom wanted to meet my grandmother and my aunt before we left for Jeju Island. I was planning to hang out with Hyeji unnie at Itaewon, but she ended up being caught up at work. So, we all just ate samgyupsal and Jaehyun oppa drove us back to our hotel room.
At night, I finally got to talk to my boyfriend after nearly a week of no-talking. I miss him verrry much, but that meanie doesn’t even care. :( He didn’t even try to contact me… so sad! What kind of boyfriend does that? :( Anyway~ I got to talk to him, so it was all betterrr. I was worried that he was still sick since I left California during his cold.
After thaaat, I knocked out all over again. It seems like I’m tired EVERY night… ho-hum.
posted 11 months ago / 1 note / reblog
June 11th, 2011
Sorry, I’ve been super horrible at keeping up with this, but I made little notes in my head to always remember to write… so here I am. I’m going to write up about three days worth of stuff (in different posts of course/I’m going to change the post dates, too).
Today was a very long and exhausting day… I went to eat breakfast with my mom. Nothing in Seoul seems to be open anymore before 5pm, so we had to hunt this restaurant down. It was really good… or was I just too hungry? Afterwards, we went back to our hotel room, but then decided to go to Lotte Mall near Myeong-dong. AND HOLY CRAP, KOREA IS CRAZY!!! My mom and I found my Gucci wallet (which I got for about 500-600) in a smaller version, but they were selling it for 650!!! We saw that and walked straight back out and took a taxi out to my cousin’s house.
We met with my fambam again, but I got to meet my cousin’s significant others. Jaehyun’s cousin is suuuper nice and she’s only about three years older than I am (Jaehyun oppa is four years), so I didn’t feel too much like the complete baby of the family. He wanted to take me to Namsan for excursion, but we had to drop off my mother at the subway back in Yeoksam-dong. She was going to see my uncle in Pyeongchang. Traffic was terrible, it took literally two-three hours. So, in the end, I couldn’t go to Namsan… we just ate and met with Hyeji unnie back at Tom N Toms in Sadong.
Jaehyun oppa and his girlfriend left to meet with their friends for drinking/etc. Hyeji unnie and I went to the bookstore to look around and get some books since it was on the way to the subway. We took the subway to Gangnam-gu to look around and stuff. While we were walking, she stopped me and asked, “do you know what this is?” and started pressing buttons on one of those LCD advertisements in the middle of the streets. Turns out that it was a picture stand thingy! You just stand in the street and it takes a picture of you. I uploaded it, so take a look. :)
We ended up bored since everything except bars, karaoke places, hofs, cafes, and resturants were closed. Seems like a lot, but neither of us were hungry… so we ended up going to karaoke. :) Afterwards, Hyeji unnie called her boyfriend and he picked us up. He took me back to my hotel, but my mother wasn’t there yet. I was going to stay up and wait for her, but I… KNOCKED. THE. HELL. OUT. I was so exhausted, ahhaha…
posted 11 months ago / 0 notes / reblog
June 10th, 2011 (Korea-time!)
It’s actually the morning after my first day in Korea, but I was visiting family throughout the day and was way too awfully tired to even think about blogging. I’ll start with talking about the airport, flying, landing, and my first day in Korea. :)
Flying to Korea
The lines were not as long as I expected at LAX. We left the house around 10:00 arriving shortly after 10:30. The gentleman who gave us our boarding passes was extremely nice. My mother packed literally enough for three people so her bags were pretty heavy, but he let her go for free, haha… We eye-shopped around the duty-free area and waited to board at 11:50. The flight wasn’t a terrible flight, for once I didn’t get a middle seat!!! I got an aisle seat, so I was able to sleep semi-comfortably. However, my mom ended up getting a middle seat, but she wouldn’t have mind so much if the man at the window seat wasn’t a complete asshole. I could tell immediately that he was English because of his terrible teeth, reeked of cigarettes, and as soon as he started talking… it only confirmed my assumption. He had such a terrible manners. We eventually landed and took a taxi to our hotel room.
First day in Korea
The taxi driver was a very nice person. It was a nice exchange for the terrible English dude. He dropped us off at our hotel (We are staying at the Rennasiance in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu). It’s quite lovely, actually… much prettier than I expected. The beds are like clouds… so wonderful, haha.
Anyway, after we settled into our room, my cousins came and greeted us. Both Hyeji unnie and Jaehyun oppa came! I haven’t seen Jaehyun oppa since I was very tiny, but its nice to know that he remembers me well, haha. We chatted a little bit in the room and headed to their house. I met my grandmother, my aunt, and their obnoxious dog. It was a very small, but cozy home… small apartment above a dangujang (pool-house). Hyeji unnie and I watched TV and played with our iPads, but eventually we left for the downtown area in Gonsan(sp?)-dong. We had tea and drinks, but I did so much sight-seeing in the area. It was soooo damn colourful. I was under the impression it was Thursday, but I forgot Korea is a day ahead. No wonder there were so many people… it was Friday!
Jaehyun oppa drived us back to our hotel room. I took a bath and tried so hard to stay awake since it was only 4pm. I eventually fell asleep at around 6pm, but my cousin came to my room at around 9pm to go eat… but I was soooooooooooooooooo tired that I didn’t go. My mother went though, haha.
That’s the end of my first day. I may be going to Itaewon today or do some more looking around in Gangnam. It’s been awfully too long since I’ve last visited Korea, so I don’t recognize anything, haha.
posted 11 months ago / 0 notes / reblog
Hey, you!
This is my blog dedicated to my Summer 2011 trip to Korea. I’ve been to Korea a few times already, but I wanted to try and see if I can update with a blog for all of my friends back in California (and my loving boyfriend in Australia!).
Just a brief itinerary/information of my trip:
- I leave June 9th, 2011 at 12:20AM till August 16th, 2011.
- My mother is coming with me for the first couple weeks. She wants to go to Jeju Island, Busan, and the other nonsense for family and touristy reasons. It’s been thirty years since she lived in Korea, so she wanted to treat herself on a vacation. She’ll be leaving the end of June back to California by herself.
- After she leaves, I’ll be admitting into Yonsei University’s Summer Korean Language Institute till about the end of July. I’m there to improve my Korean even though I am a native speaker.
- At the start of August, my friend from my university back home will be visiting Korea before she goes to China for her study abroad. We’ll be hanging out till about August 10th.
- August 10th to about August 16th, I’ll be with my family just visiting and having fun. :)
Why am I going to Korea this Summer?
- I miss my family (actually, just a few).
- Travel reasons - photography reasons!!!
- Practice my Korean, improve my Korean…
- I am interested in getting my MA in Korean Studies/International Studies from Yonsei University. I want to see the campus myself & try to associate with a few professors to get their opinions about the program.
- I will be meeting my advisor/mentor from my university since he’ll be visiting Korea (for some reasons I didn’t really ask him about).
- Hopefully, try and do some research about my senior-thesis. My senior-thesis will either be about the Images and Representations of South Korea from the media/entertainment or Korean Culture VS Korean-American Culture. I’m going to try and conduct a few interviews with native Koreans about both topics. :)
I hope that answers a bit of everyone’s questions for now. I am not too sure how frequent I will be, but I will do my best to update this blog daily. I am so excited!!! :)
posted 12 months ago / 3 notes / reblog
