Hiking in Seoul!

On the weekend of May 4th, I went to Seoul with my Korean friend May. She had to volunteer for a children's festival so I figured that I would tag along and just go exploring in Seoul while she was volunteering! Across the river from the festival I found some nice trails to hike and do some exploring in the Korean wilderness! It was nice and relaxing! The flowers were all in bloom, even the Tulips, which are my favorite flowers!

The path to cross the river!

The beginning of the hiking trails lined with beautiful flowers!

My lovely Tulips!

The waterfall I found while exploring! 

A nice picture from across the river!

My friend May teaching children about the importance of water conservation! 

The 2013 Lotus Lantern Festival!

On May 11th I went to Seoul to experience the 2013 Lotus Lantern Festival, which is a celebration that takes place the weekend before Buddha's birthday! This year Buddha's birthday was on Friday, May 17th so the festival took place May 10th-12th. Here is a link to read more about the different events that took place at this year's Lotus Lantern Festival. I went to the Lotus Lantern Parade and it was awesome to watch. The light up dragon was my favorite part. I hope you enjoy the pictures!

My favorite Picture! :)

Happy Suwon! :)

A question that I get from a lot of my friends back home in America is "What is your favorite part of/and or place in Korea?" Well I would like to answer that question now! Most people would probably assume that Seoul is my favorite city since it has so much to offer, but my favorite place in Korea is actually a city called Suwon, which is about 30 minutes by train south of Seoul. This also ties into one of my favorite experiences in Korea, which was going to Hwaseong Fortress, which is located in Suwon! I also spend a lot of time in Suwon and occasionally get to experience a homestay with a lovely and very kind Korean family!  I took a day trip to Suwon during midterm exams with one of my closest friends here, Charlotte, but I call her Charles :) and we went exploring around the city and throughout Hwaseong Fortress. We found a nice spot in Hwaseong Fortress, to sit and talk about life. It was wonderful because we were surrounded by the wonders of Korean nature with the sun shining nice and bright and the flowers in full bloom. It was a beautiful sight and we even got some yummy Suwon strawberries! Suwon is a great place and if you ever come to Korea, I definitely recommend that you visit Hwaseong Fortress as well as the city of Suwon!! 

It is Happy Suwon!! Where Gil is from! And it is happier than Seoul!! :)

Here is a picture of part of Suwon from Hwaseong Fortress! 

Here is a building within the walls of Hwaseong Fortress! It is pretty!

 

My picture with Charles!! We were at Suwon station waiting for the train to go to Jochiwon!

This past Friday we went on another trip for culture class! This time we went to 속리산면, which is a Korean National Park that has a Buddhist temple and a few trails to hike. Camping is also an option there! It was very peaceful living the life of contemplation. I had a lot of deep and meaningful thoughts. We even saw a few Monks and one of them waved when he walked past us. It was really interesting looking around and seeing all of the Buddha statues and all of the Buddhists that came to practice their religion. It was a really pretty location too!

                     This is the giant Buddha and then there are a lot of little Buddhas within the buildings.

Here is one of the buildings with the little Buddhas. I would have taken a picture of the inside but picture taking was strictly prohibited, so here is the pretty outside of the building!

Here is the beautiful view of the mountains! I bet it is really pretty during the fall! 

Everland!!

This past weekend, I met up with Gil in Suwon and then we went to Everland together! Everland is the largest theme park in South Korea and is considered by many to be the Korean equivalent to Disney World.  It was a lot of fun!! Not only was it a beautiful day outside thanks to the sunshiny weather, but we went during the Tulip festival, which was awesome because they are my favorite flower!!

My favorite ride was called the T Express and Gil actually recorded me during the entire ride. It was the biggest and fastest ride there, which is why the wait was so long. We stood in line for two hours but the wait was definitely worth it!!  The T Express can be seen in the distance of the photo below. It is the wooden roller coaster with the really steep drop at the very beginning.

At the end of the night right before Everland closed, we watched the fireworks display together. They were so pretty and it was a great way to end the night! I had a lot of fun!! Thank you Gil for planning such a fun day!! It was amazing!! : )

Membership Training!

This past weekend, I had a wonderful adventure with all of my Semi-Classic friends! We went to MT, which is Membership Training for Semi-Classic. MT for Semi-Classic took place on an Island called 안면도, which is on the west coast of Korea. Most of the weekend was rainy so we did not spend very much time outdoors but we were able to visit the beach for a little while even though it was freezing cold!! However, the purpose of Membership Training is to create friendships within the Semi-Classic club by getting to know everyone better! We played many Korean games which were a lot of fun even if they were challenging due to the fact that they were all in Korean. However, our teammates were very nice and helpful when it came to translating the rules for us foreigners. We ate and drank to follow the Korean cultural customs and traditions and I even got to experience leading my first FM!! FM is an introduction cheer that is led by one person and all in Korean and it was so much fun!! I just have to memorize it now!! I wish I had pictures to post but maybe I can get some sent to me to post later. I ended up growing closer to a lot of amazing people and had a ton of fun! I am ready for the next practice to come to see them all again!

Gyeongbokgung Palace!

Here is a picture of Gyeongbokgung Palace! It is an interesting location in Seoul because I would have pictured it to be in the middle of a more rural area, but it is surrounded by the busy city life of Seoul. I have not had the chance to go inside yet though. We arrived too late and did not realize that you have to buy your ticket an hour before the palace closes. It was sad but we ended up having fun in Insadong with shopping and eating Poop bread. I will be going back soon though! Hopefully with my roommates!! :)

That is my friend Lauren from Central eating Poop bread in Insadong!! It is not really poop, so do not be alarmed!!!! :) It is bread that is filled with a red bean paste and the bread is in the shape of poop.

Bulgogi!

My next picture is of Bulgogi! There are a few different ways Bulgogi which is beef and there are a few different ways it can be served. The first picture is of Bulgogi Jjigae which is like a beef stew in a broth. It was pretty good! It was also served with rice and of course, what is a Korean dish without a little bit of Kimchi on the side!? Kimchi is served with every dish in Korea! The people here are very proud of there Kimchi!!

Bulgogi Jjigae:

Bulgogi:

Here is more Bulgogi (pictured above), but it is spicy Bulgogi. In the center of the dish is a pepper sauce to mix in with the beef and the vegetables on top! You can mix in a little bit or a lot depending on how spicy you like it! This dish is my favorite thing that I have eaten in Korea so far. Once it was all mixed up I took a piece of lettace and put some of that Bulgogi and vegetable mixture in the middle with some rice and rolled it up like a lettace wrap. It was so yummy!

Side dishes:

When you go to a restaurant in Korea you have a main dish and rice but you always get side dishes as well! These are all side dishes that were served with the Bulgogi! Bottom left was jellyfish, which was an awkward texture, above the jellyfish are vegetables, above the vegetables were vegetable pancakes, then there were anchovies to the right of the pancakes, underneath the anchovies, we had pickled radish, some type of  sauce, raw garlic, and then the famous Kimchi that is served with everything!

Korean Toast!

So everyone has been waiting to see some pictures of my adventures in Korea so I am going to start by posting some pictures of the many different types of food that I have been eating for the past week. So, here is my first food posting!

Korean Toast:

The above picture is of Korean toast! I went out to lunch with my roommates to the Issac for some toast! Now when they said we were going to get toast I thought of toasted bread with butter, because that is how I like to eat it in America! Korean toast is more like a sandwich with toasted bread. The toast that I ate was actually called Pizza Toast, which had pizza sauce, mozzarella cheese, pepperoni and pickles on it. It was so tasty! The pickles part might sound weird but Koreans always eat pickles with pizza and other foods that have a lot of cheese on it, because they eat cheese so infrequently that they actually have a harder time digesting it than Americans do since Americans eat cheese all of the time. It was an interesting fact to learn! So if you ever go to a pizza place in Korea, your pizza will most likely be served with a side of pickles, but if you do not like them you do not have to eat them!

My new roommates!

Late last night I got to meet my new Korean roommates as they moved in! They are both very nice but a little bit shy. I am sure we will be great friends! They are both from Seoul and they both asked me if I like Kpop so we began talking about B.A.P! They know of B.A.P which is awesome and one of them even said she would like to take me to a B.A.P concert sometime! They are big fans of Big Bang and B2st as well so we might go to concerts for them if we get the chance! One is an English major that is trying to study abroad at CMU, so hopefully I can help make her hopes of coming to CMU a reality! My other roommate is a business administration major. They both like to share stories with me about their culture which is amazing! I really like learning about their culture!

Korea University!

The name of the University I am attending is Korea University, Sejong campus in Jochiwon. My major is North Koreanology to go along side my studies at Central Michigan University as an International Relations major. I have not met my roommates yet, but they should be moved in by Thursday and I am very excited to meet them!! All of the Korean students that I have met so far have been so nice and incredibly helpful with my transition to being in another country and trying to find my way around campus and the city of Jochiwon! I have orientation for the next three days and am already learning a lot! I am even starting to learn a little bit of Korean! I can only imagine how much Korean I will be able to learn from my roommates! I am also here to help teach them English, so hopefully I will be able to help them a lot! I am very excited to meet them!! :)

1st day and night in Korea!

Yesterday was a big day! I left for my journey to Korea and it has been quite an adventure already!! I arrived at Incheon International Airport at about 3:30pm KST which was about 1:30am EST! After dropping everything off at the hotel, it was adventure time!! I went exploring around the hotel on the same island the airport was located on with my friend Lauren, which I am very thankful that we flew into Korea together! We had our first experience buying snacks at a little market! I accidentally bought steak flavored Cheetos...but it was cool looking at everything written in Korean! Now it is currently 11:00am KST which is about 9:00pm EST and we are at the airport again watching President Park Geun-Hye (the first female president of The Republic of Korea) take office today as we wait to meet up with our representative from the school!