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| Cat cafe rules |
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| Green tea latte |
Sunday, July 7, 2013
Fish Market, Yeouido Park, Banpo Bridge
We went to the fish market and there were so many vendors!
Since I don't eat seafood, the owner was really nice and prepared kimchi fried rice for me and gave me sweet rice balls too!
After eating we went to Yeouido Park (여의도 공원). Some areas:
And we did a bit of people & scenery watching...
Then finally we went to Banpo Bridge to see the water show (반포대교 달빛무지개분수)!
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| The people in front of me were so cute haha |
Friday, July 5, 2013
Lotte World & Baseball
It's the first weekend after classes! For the ISC program field trip this time, we went to Lotte World theme park. Then in the evening I went with a group of friends to a baseball game. Here are some pictures from the trip:
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| Group 4 of ISC taking a picture after entering |
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| Lotte World ice rink! |
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| Watching the skaters |
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| The 4D Shooting Theatre was a group game in which you had to shoot monsters! I scored 20th out of the theater. :P |
They served chicken, rice cake, etc. in a cup on top of cola
so you could have a free hand! Super convenient!
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| This little girl was so cute! She wanted to hug her balloon pet instead of roll it. |
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| In the Lotte shopping mall, they were carving melons :) |
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| Time for baseball! Doosan Bears vs. Samsung Lions |
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| Ready for the game with rice cake snack and tea |
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| Inside the stadium, when the game begins ^^ |
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| The crowd that we cheered with (Doosan fans) |
We made it back at 11:30pm. It was a good but very exhausting day!
Wednesday, July 3, 2013
Classes Day 2
I really like my intro to sociology professor. He seems very understanding, and his grading method is ideal! For example, our tests are multiple choice, but we have room for explanation if we think something about the question is ambiguous. That way, we can still get credit with a good explanation even if we mark the "incorrect" answer. :)
Korean language was interesting. I ended up exchanging my book, but the book indicated in the syllabus was wrong and I had the right one to begin with! All this effort for nothing ahah...
Anyway, today's lesson was just a review. We played a counting game in which one person starts with 1, then the next person says 2, and so on, but anyone that gets a number containing 3, 6, or 9 in the last digit claps instead of saying the number. Unfortunately, I'm super bad at games and also with numbers. The punishment for messing up was to sing. I sang the ABCs by the teacher's suggestion. I don't know how I feel about games having punishments, because I will lose each time haha.
Today I went to lunch with a group from Singapore. I think 95% of people I meet of KU international students are from there! It is a little
difficult for me to understand what they say sometimes since their intonation, speech rate, and some words (loanwords) are different. They also told me they tend to omit a lot of words while speaking. I didn't know much about Singaporean English or Singlish when I came here, so I am trying my best to keep up!
Korean language was interesting. I ended up exchanging my book, but the book indicated in the syllabus was wrong and I had the right one to begin with! All this effort for nothing ahah...
Anyway, today's lesson was just a review. We played a counting game in which one person starts with 1, then the next person says 2, and so on, but anyone that gets a number containing 3, 6, or 9 in the last digit claps instead of saying the number. Unfortunately, I'm super bad at games and also with numbers. The punishment for messing up was to sing. I sang the ABCs by the teacher's suggestion. I don't know how I feel about games having punishments, because I will lose each time haha.
Today I went to lunch with a group from Singapore. I think 95% of people I meet of KU international students are from there! It is a little
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| ramyun shop bibimbap |
For lunch we went to a ramyun shop, but I had bibimbap (5000 won). It was like $3 cheaper than we can find in Ventura. The portions are still too big for me alone though, so I feel bad because it's hard to finish.
I hadn't seen the main entrance of the school until heading back from lunch. It's pretty! Also, no rain today!
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| KU |
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Classes Day 1
Wow, it was crazy today. Half of my day was spent being lost!
This afternoon, I took my Korean placement exam. They said my writing is really good but my speaking is not (unsurprising :P), so they put me in BegIII to improve it. I am happy about this, because I can focus on speaking now instead of memorizing the grammar and vocabulary.
Korean language is the only class in which we have to buy our textbooks from the campus bookstore, so I went looking for the store. I had no idea what the store was called or anything, so it took me forever to find someone who could point me in the right direction. The black line below was pretty much my path to finding the bookstore, a journey in the pouring rain and high winds...
I finally found out that the shop is in Central Plaza (the purple box) and is called Uni Store. But even once I got inside of Central Plaza, there were so many shops that I had to walk back and forth a few times before I saw it. I didn't know which textbook I needed since I didn't have the syllabus with me, so I tried to open the syllabus on my phone... But of course, it needed a Korean viewer to read, so I just made an educational guess about which to buy (the level down needed text 1 and the level up needed text 3, so naturally I assumed text 2!). Well... I bought the wrong one. I hope they accept exchanges.
On another note, I saw their linguistics section in the bookstore! We use some of the same books. :)
Finally I tried to return to the dorms, but it was still raining really hard and I struggled to keep my umbrella from turning inside out. I ended up missing my turn and walking up a hill to the medical center before finding the way. I was soaking, and my phone was reacting to the moisture for a few hours after I got back. I guess it just wasn't my day. I hope tomorrow brings better luck!
This afternoon, I took my Korean placement exam. They said my writing is really good but my speaking is not (unsurprising :P), so they put me in BegIII to improve it. I am happy about this, because I can focus on speaking now instead of memorizing the grammar and vocabulary.
Korean language is the only class in which we have to buy our textbooks from the campus bookstore, so I went looking for the store. I had no idea what the store was called or anything, so it took me forever to find someone who could point me in the right direction. The black line below was pretty much my path to finding the bookstore, a journey in the pouring rain and high winds...
I finally found out that the shop is in Central Plaza (the purple box) and is called Uni Store. But even once I got inside of Central Plaza, there were so many shops that I had to walk back and forth a few times before I saw it. I didn't know which textbook I needed since I didn't have the syllabus with me, so I tried to open the syllabus on my phone... But of course, it needed a Korean viewer to read, so I just made an educational guess about which to buy (the level down needed text 1 and the level up needed text 3, so naturally I assumed text 2!). Well... I bought the wrong one. I hope they accept exchanges.
On another note, I saw their linguistics section in the bookstore! We use some of the same books. :)
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| Syntax by Carnie is up there too (in the dictionary section?) |
Orientation
Today was orientation! This was our schedule for the day:
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| The building orientation was held in (Inchon Memorial Hall) |
The orientation wasn't particularly interesting. The KU cheering squad performance was to teach us how to do the school cheers. The audience is expected to be very involved, and there are several songs to learn... they are much more active than the chant we have at our school. Here's one of them ahaha:
For lunch I tagged along with a student from my home university and a group of people I just met outside the hall orientation was held in. We went to a ramen place near KU, then later found a bar lounge which was really cozy inside. They serve alcohol and coffee. :)
During the campus tour I met another linguistics student from Canada. I don't meet any ling majors often, so I was surprised! After the campus tour we had a chicken and beer party, and I spent time with a few girls from Singapore and some KU buddies (student volunteers). One of the buddies took me to get vegetable kimbap so that I could eat too. ^^
After the party I went with the girls and a few others from Singapore to the Hongdae area near Hongik University. Some of them wanted haircuts and styling so we went to Juno Hair.
From what I saw, the haircuts are a little expensive here, maybe $100 with styling. But they offer a free drink with a snack, even to those of us who are just waiting. The haircuts turned out really nice. Two of us did not get our hair styled, so we went shopping on the streets. All the vendors pretty much had the same things outside the shop on sale.
Then we went to get cold noodles for a snack/dinner. I had 비빔 냉면 (bibim naengmyeon) which was spicy but good!
By this time the haircuts were finished and we left to return to the dorms....
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