Adventures in Korea: 먼저

Wow, I really need to update this more frequently, since a lot has happened in the last week! I'll try to recall everything as best I can!

I started classes this week, and so far I think I will like them all. Monday, I only had two: North Korean Elite and Advanced Korean. In North Korean Elite on the first day, we just went over the syllabus, but the other two classes that week we talked about the different offices in the North Korean government and the different generations of North Korean elite, and what historical events in North Korea helped shape them. It was all very interesting, I don't know much of anything about North Korea right now and I'm hoping that by the end of this and the other two North Korea classes I'm taking, I will know a lot! Monday evening I went to my first Korean language class. Originally, I was the only one to sign up for Advanced Korean, and was told if more people didn't sign up, it would be dropped. Fortunately however, enough people switched from the intermediate level to make the class 5 people, just enough to constitute a class. I showed up Monday and a student from the intermediate class who had switched came in soon after, but since it was just some "placement" testing that day, none of the other intermediate students did (as they'd already taken the test) and the one who did show up just kind of sat there. When the professor came in, he looked at me and very slowly and cautiously asked my name in Korean. I later found out that he also teaches intermediate class, and speaks very little English, but a lot of the people in intermediate didn't know enough Korean to understand him, hence why he was nervous about my ability level. I answered, and he gave me the test. It was all very basic and easy questions, like what is your name, where are you from, what are your hobbies, etc. To make up for the fact that they were so basic, I attempted to answer them all with unnecessarily complicated grammar rules, in hopes of showing what I know. After I had to write a brief introduction, so instead of just rehashing the stuff I'd answered earlier, I talked about my career goals, aspirations, and passions, where I'd traveled, my past experiences in Korea, and ended by saying I intended to study diligently during the semester I'm here. He took the test from my, read it, stopped, looked at me, then just nodded and told me (in Korean, just assume any conversation I write out between him and I is in Korean from this point forward) that it was very well written. We talked back and forth a bit, he told me that we wouldn't have class again that week, that we were supposed to use the level 2 book but can't, asked me questions about the time I spent in Korea during the summer, and about my past experience with Korean language in my home university. After he was done talking, he kind of laughed a little and relief-sighed at the same time, then thanked me, after which we both laughed. I have my second language class tomorrow, I hope it goes well. My two other North Korean classes, one on literature & art and the other on propaganda & mobilization, were on Tuesday and Wednesday, both taught by the same professor, a Russian woman who insists we call her Tatiana, her first name, since her surname is too long and Russian to pronounce. So far I love both of those classes, and I think they will be my favorites of the semester. My eyes were just glued to her throughout class, and I found everything she had to talk about fascinating. After class, some of my fellow students were talking about how they had to force themselves to take notes just so they wouldn't fall asleep, but I don't know how. My last class was Korean Culture, on Friday. However, the night before, I misread the time it started for two hours later than the actual time, so when I left for the class that day, I ran into Kaitie, asked her if she was going to Culture class, and she looked at me strangely and told me it just ended. Oops.

This week was also spent better getting to know Jochiwon, my new friends, and my roommates. Sunday, I went into town for lunch with Kaitie. Not much was open, but I found a guk-su (type of noodles) restaurant with an all Korean menu. I ordered Bibimguksu (noodles in a chili sauce) for myself, and asked Kaitie if she wanted me to pick her out something since she is still learning Korean and didn't know what the foods were. I ordered her gamja (potato) mandu (dumplings), since she doesn't like spicy food. It was all delicious. On the way back I stopped at Paris Baguette to buy "squid ink bread", which I had seen earlier but was too afraid to try. My curiosity got the better of me, however, and I couldn't help myself. Turns out there was a hotdog inside the lump of black bread, and the whole thing tasted like a room temperature, slightly fishy corndog (but admittedly, I enjoyed it). Later that night, my roommates told me that it was tradition for roommates to eat together late the night before the first day of the semester, which I thought was a lovely idea. So they ordered Kimbitang, vegetables and fried pork with melted cheese, covered in a red sweet and spicy sauce and kimchi. When they came back from picking it up from the delivery guy downstairs, I tried to pay them back for some of it, but they outright refused to accept my money, saying they wanted to treat me since it was my first semester here. The food was amazing and the conversation was even better. Sumin set the food on top of a set of drawers from under her desk that rolls out, and we all pulled our chairs around it and shared from the giant plate of kimbitang (which we managed to still eat all of!). I asked Sumin and Sophia about themselves, and they returned the questions. I found out that they were both raised Buddhist but don't practice any religion of their own, they both have boyfriends (one of the first things anyone is asked in Korea, along with "where are you from" and "how old are you"), that Sumin used to want to be a teacher but now is majoring in business and wants to work for a heavy machinery company such as Hyundai, that Sophia wants to be a flight attendant and that's all she's ever wanted to be for her entire life, Sumin has one younger brother, Sophia has two older brothers, and they both used to really want sisters, Sumin has been to Myanmar to volunteer at an orphanage, and Sophia has volunteered in the Phillipines, and goes to Seoul twice a month to volunteer there too. There were times where the language barrier made it difficult to fully express ourselves, but we managed to work through it and figure it out. They're both great people and I don't think I could have asked for better roommates.
Before classes on Monday, Sophia, Sumin, and I decided to go to HomePlus, the Korean equivalent of WalMart, to buy some dorm necessities that we could share (such as toilet paper, laundry detergent, shampoo and conditioner, etc). Homeplus is almost three miles from the university, and we took the bus for about a mile (it only has two stops, the university and the stairs outside of Jochiwon Station) and walked the rest of the way. I'm glad they knew where they were going, because I had no idea. It was outside of what everyone calls "town", which is walled in by metal and train tracks, and we walked alongside roads and highways I didn't recognize in the slightest. Finally, we arrived at the gigantic building that it HomePlus, only to find the doors gated and locked shut. Fortunately, we realized that the store opens at 10am, and though we had left at 9am, with the long walk it was already past 9:50 by time we got there. So, we waited out in the cold for ten or so minutes, then went in to shop. I was really impressed by the amount of stuff that was there. Although it was similar to any other Super Market type store in the US, I just hadn't seen something like that in Korea. It was strange yet cool to see things like quail eggs, silkworm pupa, and the same sort of precooked whole chicken you find in the US, except with the neck and arms left on. After we bought everything we needed, we were all hungry and decided to eat at Lotteria, a fast food restaurant owned by Lotte, I think the largest food company in Korea (seriously just about every prepackaged food I see here says "Lotte" on it). Sophia and I got shrimp burgers (a patty made out of shrimp, tasty), and Sumin just got an icecream cone. We had put all of our groceries in a cardboard box, rather than bags (since bags cost here), and took a taxi back to the dorm. In the taxi, I was happy that I could understand a lot of Sumin and the driver's conversation. He asked her where she was from, but since Korean doesn't often use "you", "he", "she", or anything like that, the question literally translated is similar to "where come from". Since Sumin is Korean, she assumed he was asking about me, and pointed to me and said "she came from America", and he pointed to her and asked again, emphasizing that he meant her. She laughed and said Korea, and then he laughed and said "oh, you look Chinese!". She said people tell her that a lot, and people say she looks like Mulan, which made all of us laugh.
Nothing really happened on Tuesday except classes. Wednesday, when I'd normally have 6 straight hours of classes, I only had 4 since my Korean class was cancelled. I still woke up early enough for breakfast however, since I knew I was going to be sitting in the same room for four hours. That day, they had a Western style breakfast option, which my roommates and I all picked. I had a pastry, a salad, soup, and pasta in a red sauce. I couldn't finish it, since the big thing in Koreanized Western food is that they add a ton of sugar to it, it was all just too overbearingly sweet. When asked later what the pasta tasted like, the best analogy I could come up with was the same sauce used in elementary school cafeteria spaghetti, but with a few cups of sugar added and cut up hotdogs inside, at which people laughed and agreed so I guess that's as accurate a description as any. After the three North Korea classes were over, all of which I share with Tara and two of which I share with Kaitie, the three of us decided to go get lunch. We weren't sure where, until while we were walking Tara saw a delivery driver for Dos Mas, and said we should go there and get burritos. Dos Mas is a "Mexican" restaurant owned by a local Korean man. Now, while if you're expecting an authentic Mexican burrito you will probably not be too pleased, I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed my chicken burrito, which had stereotypical Korean white sticky rice, a gochujang (Korean pepper paste) based sauce, pickled cabbage, and processed American cheese slices all wrapped up inside.
Thursday was probably my busiest day, even though it was free of classes. It was a cloudy and rainy day, and Sophia asked if I wanted to get Kal Guk Soo with her for lunch, since it's something a lot of Koreans like in cloudy weather. We walked to the restaurant, which was quite crowded. We managed to get two of the last spots (it was a restaurant where you sit on the floor), and Sophia ordered the Kal Guk Soo. A pot of clams in broth is brought to the table and put on a burner there to boil, and after it starts boiling, you add in handmade noodles that are on the side and let them cook too. It was really delicious, the clams had a really fresh taste and the whole meal tasted vaguely ocean-y, and it definitely did hit the spot in that weather. Afterwards, we headed back and Sophia went to class. Sumin had asked me the night before if I wanted to exercise with her that Thursday. She's very athletic and always invites me along with her, so that time I finally said yes, to which she said "really??" then was very excited and happy. So the first thing I did Thursday was tutor her in English (part of my agreement as an exchange student here), where we worked on pronunciation and intonation. After doing that, we changed and went to the dormitories next to ours, which have yoga rooms in the basement. We signed out a yoga room, then went and did some old Korean aerobics-type videos she had on her phone. Even though Koreans are much more reserved in their movements, even when it comes to workout videos, it was still pretty tiring. After going back to my room to shower, I contacted Kaitie to ask if she wanted to go to town with me so I could buy a backpack, to which she said yes. Sophia soon came back to the room (Sumin's boyfriend had come up from his military service to visit, so working out was the last I saw of her for a few days) and I invited her along too. The three of us walked around town until I found a stationary store Tara and I had gone to on my first trip into town, which sold backpacks, and I picked one out I liked, while Kaitie chose some both adorable and hilarious pens (hilarious because of the poor English, my favorite example was an environmentalist pen that read "We are giraffe, mostly of us are not die for natural enemy, but for human"). Afterwards, the three of us ate dinner in a Japanese restaurant. Sophia got sushi and udon, Kaitie got fried pork over curry noodles, and I got a fried pork cutlet with cheese inside (whenever I have the opportunity to eat cheese here, I take it) served with rice, soup, and cabbage. That night I got back to the dorm and figured I'd turn in for the night, but around 7:20, Theresa (whom I sat next to at the beer and chicken place the one time I went) messaged me and said that some people were going out that night, and asked if I'd come too. I said sure and asked when, and she said 7:30. So I rushed to get ready and met them outside. There were 10 of us in the group, all foreigners except for one Korean person who was in the ITS program last semester, because the Korean ITS students were having their own party that night. We went to a foreigner bar called Touch, where there were a lot of other foreigners. I was really surprised and wondered where they had come from since all of the foreigners at the university know each other and they seemed older, so we just assumed they were all English teachers (as the only other logical option is military, but we're nowhere close to a military base). We drank and played games and talked for a few hours, then decided to go to Noraebang (the Korean equivalent of Karaoke, except you rent out your own room). We stayed there until around 11:15, then decided that since curfew is at midnight, we ought to head back. As we made it farther back, we started running into more and more Korean students, including a bunch of (totally wasted) Korean ITS students on the way back from their party, and a bunch of (equally wasted) Korean freshman, coming back from a sort of... freshman initiation held in a bar every year. The group grew as we saw people we recognized, we all walked together and talked and a few of us even bought some convenience store icecream on the way back. At one point I was kind of walking by myself as the minigroups within the group kept splitting and changing, and a Korean girl ran up to me, locked her arm in mine, and introduced herself and starting talking to me, it was really nice. I was behind Theresa when the three boys we sat with at the beer and chicken place the week prior approached her and asked if she remembered their names, which she (after some help from other people giving her hints) did. This came in handy as about five minutes later they all saw me and approached, and one was like "do you remember my name?" and I said "of course, it's JungHo!" to which he was shocked. The other two were immediately asking "what about my name??" and I said "you're Paul and you're Daniel!" and they all just laughed and said "ooooooooooooh!". If I hadn't been listening to Theresa talk to them, there's no way I would have remembered their names, but thankfully I was able to fake it. We all made it back to the dorm safely and about 5 minutes shy of curfew (around curfew there are even Korean students wearing sashes and waving flashlights making sure to rush everyone inside), and I got to my room, stayed up for a little while to chat with my American friends online who were just waking up, and then promptly fell asleep.
Friday, as I already said I missed my class (that's what I get for checking the time while exhausted and tipsy), but had made plans to go to Seoul that weekend. Kaitie and her roommates were going Friday after classes, and I asked if I could tag along just until we get there. We took the train, which is about 1.5 hours, but couldn't get a seated ticket. Instead, we all bought standing tickets, and stood in the cafe car (though eventually we found places off to the side to sit down on the floor. While in Seoul, I visited Hoehyeon, Anam (where I spent the summer), and Hongdae (a very trendy, hip, young area of Seoul). I spent the night in Hoehyeon, then headed off to Anam around 11am. I walked around town and campus, saw my old dorm building and class buildings, then sat outside and enjoyed the beautiful 70 degree weather while soaking up the nostalgia of being back at the KU main campus. Later, I went to Hongdae, where I met some other foreigners (one other university student abroad, who was the same year and major as me, some English teachers and some military personnel). I ended up going with them to the Hongdae "Trick Eye" museum, a museum of paintings made to look like optical illusions that you could join in. Unfortunately, my camera does terribly in low light settings so most of my pictures are blurry, but it was still fun to see the paintings, and even more fun to see the Koreans all taking pictures of each other. Afterwards, we went to TGI Friday's (they have those in Seoul, who knew?) where I got pasta in a spicy alfredo sauce with mushrooms, which was so western, filling, and just hit the spot (I love Korean food, don't get me wrong, but I do often miss dairy). We were there for a couple of hours talking, when a Korean waitress told us there was going to be a cocktail demonstration at the bar (like, flashy bartending and such) and asked if we'd like to go see, which we of course did. So we filled up most of the bar, and when the bartender came out started clapping and cheering like madmen (or... Americans), which drew over more Koreans to come see. He did some cool tricks and was really funny and entertaining. Afterwards, we chatted with him and a Korean waitress who was also at the bar, and they taught us some Korean words and slang. Afterwards, we all left and walked around for a bit, even stopping in to visit a Korean sex shop, which was amusing. Koreans are incredibly reserved in public, so I honestly hadn't even stopped to thing that a shop like that could exist in Korea (though, anything is possible in Seoul!). Afterwards, what was left of the group (three of the nine had left by this point to head back home) was going to go get coffee and talk some more, but it was almost 9pm and I had plans to be back before curfew that night, so we exchanged contact information and I said goodbye. I took the subway back to Seoul station, then bought a train ticket back to Jochiwon. I had a standing ticket again, but this time the car was absolutely packed. I was pressed up against a wall while Koreans shoved past me, and couldn't even sit on the floor. Fortunately, after the first half hour it cleared up enough for me to sit as curled up as possible on the floor (still having to stand every once in a while to let someone past) and after an hour room on a bench opened up and I was able to sit comfortably for the last thirty minutes of the ride. I arrived back in Jochiwon around 11pm, and though I was tired, decided to save taxi fare and walk back to the dorm, arriving around 11:30pm, with still a half hour until curfew. I almost immediately showered, since I smelled like... Seoul, and went to bed around 1am, with my throat slightly sore and nose slightly burning.
I woke up this morning with that slight soreness turned into full fledged pain, and unable to breathe through my nose and barely able to talk. I got up and moved around, which help clear my nose and now I can talk (albeit scratchily). Another ITS student gave me some medicine, which I definitely appreciate. Though I'd rather not be sick, I knew I would be eventually (everyone does while abroad!) and I'm glad it happened after my trip to Seoul. Hopefully I'm well enough to go to classes tomorrow!

(Warning: Massive photo dump ahead!)

Kimbitang with my roommates Sunday

Crossing the bridge leading to town

Squid ink bread!

Almost at Homeplus

Clooooooooosed

Inside HomePlus

Chickens!

Silkworm Pupa!

Eggs!

Shrimp burger from Lotteria

In North Korean Elites class, the professor I think forgot to make the powerpoint entirely in English, and used the opportunity to quiz the Korean students on the English names of the titles listed in Korean for the benefit of the five or so foreigners in the class.