elaine-abroad

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 6

The Departure and Home

I’ve been home for almost a week now and everyone has been bothering me to finish this series off with one last volume. 

Sunday was the last full day of peace we would all have before saying farewell to Ewha and Seoul. Grace and I decided to save going to Gangnam for last because of a very long awaited viewpoint we wanted to go to (I’ll reveal in a bit). 

To start off the day, we headed to Hongdae for brunch. There we stopped at this place called Rachel’s Kitchen and had the cutest spread of souffle pancakes and drinks. I remember when Vivian and I along with our other friend went to a souffle pancake cafe during winter break. It was good, but not super worth the wait and price. These pancakes however were delicious and definitely deserved my money. I was also just excited to finally live out my dreams of having ice cream for breakfast.

I got melon pancakes with melon pieces, melon whipped cream, and vanilla ice cream, as well as a strawberry latte which was literally strawberries, milk, and strawberry ice cream.

With our bellies full of wonderfulness, we took the subway all the way to the Gangnam district. I was searching up what to do there and read about this street called Kpop Road. The website said it was in a dense shopping district and that sometimes idols stopped by. That sounded quite appealing to us so we decided to go.

It was pretty underwhelming and disappointing though. Kstar Road was basically a project to honor famous kpop groups through statues along the road. There were no kpop related stores or anything.

In fact, it was filled with all the high-end, designer stores instead. The exteriors of the buildings were very nice to look at, but there was nothing for us there which was saddening.

After deciding there was nothing to do in that area, we took the subway back to where the Starfield COEX mall was because apparently that was where the viewpoint we wanted to see was. It actually isn’t even a viewpoint, but Grace and I thought it would be funny to pay a visit to the infamous Gangnam Style Statue. Yes, there is an actual Gangnam Style Statue. Other people think it’s stupid, but I think it makes sense especially with all that Psy has done for the kpop industry. He walked so groups like BTS could run.

Grace wanted a pic with the hands doing the hands in front of the hands doing the hands, but there were a lot of people there when we arrived. Unsurprisingly though, they were all foreigners. It was really cringe watching them take solo, couple, and family pictures especially since they would pose in a way that looked like mid dance, but funny at the same time. Eventually I got Grace to get up there. Fun fact, Gangnam Style plays on repeat in the area.

Eager to get out of the rain, we ventured back to the COEX mall and decided to pay the aquarium a visit since we didn’t get to go last time. Unfortunately it was extremely crowded and packed with screaming kids, so we decided to walk around and get dinner first. Before that though, we saw this vending machine that dispensed various ice cream bars. It looked cool so we treated ourselves.

I don’t know how we didn’t learn our lesson from the mall food last time, but we didn’t and sat down at this Middle Eastern place. I wanted this smoked salmon pita, but they said it wouldn’t be ready until thirty minutes later so I was forced to pick something else on the spot. Funnily enough though, they took so long that it reached the time the pita would’ve been done at which was kind of dumb. Grace was upset because she purposely picked this chickpea pasta because it didn’t say chicken or beef in front of it like the other menu options but still showed up with meat.

My meal was actually not bad, but the meat took more chewing than I would’ve liked.

We only had an hour after that until the aquarium closed so we rushed on over. I’m not sure how they managed to fit one inside a mall, but I guess it’s how they have the biggest underground mall in the world.

We were greeted with prairie dogs which were definitely the cutest animals inside. I’m also not sure how they thought prairie dogs fit the aquarium scene. They were super cute though.

We also saw turtles, otters, and various fish.

I wanted to see the penguins the most, but of course our mall food had very conveniently caught up with me and suddenly I didn’t feel so good. We barely got to look at the penguins before I suggested we go back home because I was also just tired. The instructions given by our Naver Map app were contradictory every time and it was getting annoying.

Monday rolled around and I had to meet up with my classmates from both classes before the farewell ceremony to set up our art pieces that were going to be displayed. I didn’t want to show my painting stuff especially since our teacher was making us show more than one thing and I just wanted to pack it all up. Here’s a pic with some of other people’s works though.

The farewell ceremony had a lot more happening than the welcoming. We had several performances from students who were taking Korean traditional music and dance. Unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures or videos. We were given certificates of completion though and I snapped this with all of our names in it.

We mostly went back to packing since most of us would be leaving the next day. Some people were even leaving that day so there weren’t many people walking around. Bianca, Grace, and I decided to have one more night to hang out and enjoy our time together so we first got dinner at this tteokbokki place.

We knew we wanted to do karaoke but we were pretty stuffed. Along the way we stopped at multiple photobooth stores to take a couple goofy pictures. I’m not kidding when I say there are more photobooth shops along the streets than anything else. Seoul is run by photobooths and cafes. And they’re not those janky booths they have in arcades in the US either. They have all sorts of accessories like headbands with animal ears, crowns, hats, funky glasses, and props. Some of them even have community hair straighteners, curlers, and perfume.

It was pretty fun taking dumb pics with them. We bought some drinks and snacks to enjoy before karaoke where we spent 2.5 hours. Grace carried for sure and seemed to be having a blast. She knew most of the kpop songs we picked and shouted confidently even though none of us knew a speck of Korean. I had to of course document every time we received a score 100 which was more than we expected.

We stayed out pretty late until midnight. I had to say bye to Bianca until school started because she was going back home to China for the first time in two years and was leaving through a different airport. Grace was going to my airport so I decided to tag along even if it meant we had to leave at the crack of dawn (her flight was at 10 something).

After an insane amount of time and struggle, we finally managed to get to her gate. Neither of us were happy at this point and wanted nothing more than to go home. I sat with her until she boarded the plane which was nice but also sad when I was alone and had to go to my own gate.

The plane food was pretty good this time too, but I don’t think it can top the treatment I got on the way to Korea. I noticed that the flight attendants this time were real skimpy with the drink portions. The cups were way smaller and filled very ungenerously so that kind of sucked. I was also not super eager to eat breakfast since the options were omelet and porridge. Eggs on planes are a big no-no for me, but I saw what the porridge option looked like. I did like that they gave me fresh fruit on the side. I’d been deprived of fresh produce. I love my nightly bowl of fruit and I wasn’t getting that in Seoul.

Everyone keeps asking me how my trip was and if I miss Korea. I’m going to be honest, I did really enjoy all my experiences, but I am very happy to come back. It feels so much more normal, but that’s probably just me not liking to go out of my comfort zone. I’m not saying Korea was uncomfortable in a bad way, but it definitely was not something I could’ve done without a lot of prep. So I’m proud of myself. 

Anyways, I’m happy to be back because I get to see my silly dog and friends. I feel like I lost a lot of time to hang out with people I don’t get to see during the school year.

To make up for lost time, Vivian, our other friend, and I took it upon ourselves to watch the new Barbie movie. We even got the Barbie ice cream from Coldstone.

And just like that my normal schedule picked back up like nothing ever happened. I’m back doing slave work for my unpaid internship which is boring, but at least I get to have fun on the weekends at my museum job. We saw what seemed like a stray cat this time and went out to give it water and pets. It’s very cute and friendly.

Long story short, it was a fun trip and I won’t be forgetting it any time soon, but as with any trip I’ve gone on, home is the best place for me. Traveling as an introvert is challenging.

To end this series, I have a few thanks to give. Thanks to my parents for funding this trip because I make no money. Thanks to my boyfriend who suggested I blog even though I know he’s only read the first volume so far. Thanks to my best friend for telling me she read all of the updates and for existing. And thanks to everyone else who had to make a Tumblr account to read this because Tumblr is stupid like that.

That’s it from me. See you next time maybe.

-Elaine

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 5 Part 2

The most anticipated part of the week was my trip to Busan. There was a lot of switching up with the original plan which was to go for the weekend with Grace and Bianca. It ended up being that Bianca was staying the whole weekend, I was only going for a day, and Grace wasn’t going at all.

I remember being obsessed with the movie Train to Busan a couple years ago. Vivian and I even made both of our families watch it. It felt surreal to take the same exact route from Seoul Station to Busan Station.

Our already long 3 hour ride was delayed so we ended up getting there an hour after, at around 2:20 pm. I knew it was going to be a long day as my return ride was leaving shortly after 10 pm so we had to hustle. We took this mini tour bus to one of the cultural villages. The bus ride was absolutely insane and ten times worse than the worst MBus driver. 

The actual village was super pretty and nice to look at. It was refreshing to see so much color in one space and on buildings after being surrounded by bland high rises in Seoul. This layout reminded me a lot of San Francisco and Capitola Beach. It was very quiet too which was nice.

Bianca told me this was where a lot of refugees went to live after the Korean War so it was a lot more traditional than the trendy cafes and buildings elsewhere. The village was painted and decorated as a part of the Village Art Project, and has become a tourist attraction since. There were a lot of houses and old people there.

My favorite part was this trinket shop near the entrance. There was this cute golden retriever dog named Honey Jar and there was a sign that said to call him Jar.

The entrance had all the fun foods and snacks as the rest of the village was mostly houses and older restaurants.

I liked how there were little stories behind parts of the village. This stairway was called Stairway to See Stars because people would feel dizzy when going up the 148 steps with heavy loads on their backs.

We couldn’t stay too long at the village and booked it to the beach. Apparently Haeundae Beach is the most famous beach in Busan, but it was a little underwhelming. I’m sure the night view is more impressive than what we saw though. It just looked like sand on the side of the road, but it was peaceful. Swimming wasn’t even permitted, but I did see people surfing at the coast.

Bianca’s kind of an old man and likes to do old people things. Busan is her type of life. She would love it to sit on the beach, hike mountains, go fishing, and watch the sunset every day of her life. She says she just walks and walks when she’s traveling alone and gets up to 20-30,000 steps. She told me she was going to climb a mountain the next day.

It wasn’t long before our beach train time slot. 

We rode sideways and saw the water. It was pretty, but nowhere near as nice as our sky capsule ride.

We booked a ride from 7:30 - 8 pm and it was actually the most perfect timeslot. We got to see the entire sunset and night lights.

We got off at the Blue Line Park which was filled with lights.

We both wanted to try authentic raw marinated crabs, but all the crab restaurants closed at 8 so we couldn’t get them. We opted for this porridge place that also served seafood dishes. Again, I’m not big into seafood, but we were in Busan so we felt obligated.

I got this bean sprout hangover soup which had an abalone in it. It was my first time trying an abalone.

Anyways I was really nervous about traveling back by myself. Bianca was so nice and took a taxi with me back to the station before going to her hotel. Once I got there I found out that my train departure was being delayed by half an hour. I waited by myself and eventually boarded. It was very scary because I had booked the last train from Busan to Seoul of the night so I couldn’t afford to mess up.

Luckily I did not mess up and got to Seoul at around 1:30 am. I immediately felt a lot safer there than Busan. I don’t know why but Busan was a little scary. We passed by buildings with totally busted windows and a lot of the city looked less populated/abandoned. There were also a significantly less amount of traffic lights which was intimidating. 

The subway didn’t start again until 5 am and I didn’t want to call a taxi/get in by myself so I walked about 40 minutes back to campus. It honestly wasn’t even that bad because of all the street lights. There were still shop owners out cleaning up and people walking around.

I came back and took the whole day to sleep and rest. Grace and I went to the witch restaurant again, but this time in Hongdae because there looked to be more menu options. We also wanted the blue blood bag drink this time. 

I got this mummy pizza that was pretty good. One thing stood out to me and that was that all of the pizzas said that they were made with pastry dough. That was true as it was super flaky. I was able to eat more that way which was nice. It’s interesting to see how everything in Korea is made to be sweet. I know that a lot of my classmates aren’t real big fans of that.

Seeing as I leave very soon, I am trying to get one more full day of fun. I’m really disappointed that the Ewha merch shop has been closed for the rest of the month because I wasn’t able to buy anything. 

It’s definitely been an experience I’ll never forget, but I do want to go home.

-Elaine

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 5 Part 1

Week 4

I definitely tried to fit as much as I could into this last week to ensure I didn’t leave Korea feeling like I missed something. It was a little tiring doing that and wrapping up classes with final projects, but I’m ready to come home. 

To start off, Grace, Bianca, and I headed over to Itaewon on Sunday. To be honest, I wasn’t really sure what there was to do besides the club nightlife, but I thought that I can’t leave without paying at least one visit. The other two didn’t want to go to the famous street where the tragic crowd crushing incident occurred last Halloween so we ventured to the main streets and some smaller ones. We were feeling peckish after arrival so we went to a cafe that sold Western styled breakfast.

I got berry compote french toast, Bianca got egg's Benedict, and Grace got banana walnut pancakes

They weren’t really good at serving us at the same time so I got my dish a good while after the others. Grace also eats faster than my boyfriend so it felt a little weird eating when she was almost done but that’s pretty much how it’s been when hanging out with her. 

Grace is apparently a big Barbie fan, so much so that it’s been on her list of possible Halloween costumes for a couple of years now. It just so happens that there was a Barbie cafe in Itaewon so we tried going there. Unfortunately all the tables were full and we had to put down a number, but only Grace had a working number. We never got a call and it was probably because it was an American number or something.

We went to a bingsu place instead to combat the heat though. Bianca and I shared this injeolmi flavored one. Injeolmi is basically a sweet rice cake covered in roasted soybean powder. I’m not sure how to really describe it, but the powder is dry and tastes nutty. I’m pretty sure it’s the same powder used on Japanese raindrop cakes.

It was also raining that day so we kind of decided to head back. There wasn’t much that caught our attention in Itaewon, but it was nice to visit.

On Monday, our painting teacher made us paint outside. It was not the most ideal, but I ended up painting a view of campus.

After class, the three of us headed back to Myeongdong to see the nightlife and street food market. I was pretty dead set on coming back with cash. Before we got into the vendors, we did some shopping and got dinner.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get photos of the fruit mochi I bought, but it was seriously worth my money. It looked like this though.

I also got this honeycomb and ice cream taiyaki. You’ve probably seen taiyaki before – it’s that fish-shaped cake. They served it with a small chunk of honeycomb and that was the first time I tried actual honeycomb which was cool. It was fun chewing on the wax.

On Tuesday, Grace and I got to go to the Starfield COEX Mall for our visual journal field trip. It’s pretty awesome that we were able to go on so many field trips for that class and that we got to go to a mall of all places. The mall was absolutely enormous. There was only one floor for shops, but we literally kept getting lost because of its size. Other cool things were attached like this massive library, aquarium, and movie theater.

We sat down inside the mall for some food and got what was probably the most incorrect Indian food I’ve ever had. I say incorrect because the flavor was okay, but the execution and everything was wrong. I’m no Indian food expert, but I questioned a lot of the things. The drinks were wrong and had the wrong consistency, they used the wrong rice (we had to pay and it was such a small portion too) – things like that. I guess that’s what we get for trying to get Indian food inside of a mall in the middle of Korea.

That night’s food made up for it though. One of the girls I hung out with after the Everland trip was turning 21. That same group went out for dinner to celebrate. We got kbbq in Hongdae because we all wanted to experience getting kbbq in Korea at least once. To be completely honest, it was a little pricey for the amount of food, but that was probably because of the fact that we had to share. I guess I’ve been spoiled by the kbbq buffets back home.

In case you couldn’t tell, bingsu is a big deal here. And of course we ended the night with some. We shared some new flavors: tiramisu and mango apple cheese. 

Wednesday was pretty uneventful. I had my painting final and we were given 2 hours to paint anything we wanted to, using the techniques we learned. It could be the plants we learned, something from Korea, or just anything we wanted. I painted the key parts of Korea for me which was basically Ewha’s ECC and all the field trips. I also included some flowers we learned.

For dinner Grace and I went to this place called Witch’s Kitchen. It’s a witch themed restaurant with a vibe crossed between Halloween and Harry Potter. Some of the food options were decorated in a way that made it all more fun.

We were most excited for the drinks. I heard that they served them in blood bags and that they did. Each table had one of those liquid IV stands they give people at the hospital and filled them with our drinks. We got to control how much we wanted in our cups and it was really fun.

I spent the rest of the night working hard on my visual journal project. I made a pop up book of where I’ve gone to in Seoul, basically the same thing as my painting final. It was a little bit of a risk since I’d never made a pop up book before. Albeit a little simple, it was a lot of fun. There was this lady that came into one of my classes in the second semester of freshman year who taught us the most basic techniques of pop up book making and I’ve wanted to give it a try ever since.

We had a mini exhibition within our class the next day and it was cool seeing what everyone else came up with.

Later that day, Bianca and I went out to check out the Gwangjang market, a traditional street market with lots of street vendors and mini restaurants. It was still light out when we got there so we got this white peach bingsu while we waited for the sun to set.

My friend Iris told me to go to Cheonggyecheon Stream which I’m pretty sure is the man-made stream my dad told me to check out as well. It stretched out for quite long. Here it is before the sunset.

Once we got back to the market, it was definitely a lot more lively. There were four main paths that we looked at.

We were looking for one thing to eat and luckily many of the restaurants there sold it. I’m serious when I say don’t knock it till you try it because multiple of my friends expressed their disgust, but it was actually pretty good. I’ve wanted to try this for the longest time ever and have always seen mukbangers and foodies eat this. 

For those who haven’t been to guess it, it’s raw squid. This is often confused with live squid. To be fair, people here do actually eat live squid, but the raw squid we had was just raw, NOT alive. It’s only called live squid because the tentacle nerves continue to move after being chopped up. 

Anyways, it was doused in sesame oil which made it good for me. I’m not a seafood girlie and don’t even know why I liked it, but it was fun to eat. We also got bibimbap with beef tartare (also raw) which was also good. This day was all about trying traditional things so instead of getting a basic drink, I opted for Sikhye, a traditional Korean fermented rice drink. I kept seeing it on the street there so I decided to try it out. I noted how it looked like something my mom had always made and Bianca said that was because Korea always steals stuff from China.

We also ordered bindaetteok, a mung bean pancake with bean sprouts in it. It was very very good.

We were quite full at the end of this so decided to get a snack that was truly authentic and worth it. I wanted Hotteok, a sweet filled pancake. My mom sometimes makes this for breakfast so it was cool to have it from the actual streets.

The stream was really nice to look at and walk along once dark. We spent a little more time there before going back.

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 4

Volume 4

Week 3

This past week has been the slowest and least exciting week so far. There have been many ups and downs. Some days have been fun and others have made me kind of want to go home. It also rained the entire week which made going out a lot more inconvenient and annoying. 

To start off the week, Grace and I went out to a cafe. There was a girl who sat near us in our painting class who recommended going to this specific cafe because it was a Harry Potter themed one and after hearing that, we really wanted to go. Overall, it was a little underwhelming. I don’t think it registered that it was a cafe and not an actual Harry Potter attraction. You had to buy a drink to enter and the floors we could go to were just seating spaces that had a Hogwarts vibe.

It was still cool though. I got the “jelly smoothie” which tasted like bubblegum and had some candy on top. Grace’s matcha drink looked a lot more related to the theme and even had a chocolate Sorting Hat on top.

Because it was raining, we wanted to find other indoor places to go to. Unfortunately all the nearby shopping centers were either not what we were looking for or one that we had already gone to. To continue with the cafe theme though, we wanted to go to another animal one. There was a sheep cafe relatively near so we headed to that. 

The sheep weren’t actually in the cafe area for reasonable reasons. We weren’t really looking for more sweets at that time and wanted to get some real food so we ended up leaving. I had to get some close ups of the sheep before we left though.

We went to a small place that had noodles. It was similar to that one katsu curry place we went to previously where you order on a kiosk and pick a spot along the counter to sit at.

We went back after because it was raining so hard. It cleared up later so Bianca and I went to this burger place called Mom’s Touch for dinner.

My order here was similar to what I got at Lotteria only the patty was replaced by a slab of fried chicken. It was pretty good but a little saucier than I would have liked. Anyways, that was the end of my weekend.

The start of this school week was dreaded. On Monday, I had my traditional painting midterm as well as my visual journal project presentation. I have a lot of frustration for this painting class and this midterm session only added to that.

Basically, we were given the choice to paint either the orchid or the chrysanthemum, or both, on a folding fan that we’d purchased. It could be literally anything, any composition, but it could only be using those two plants. I for some reason just couldn’t get the orchid down and was somehow painting the chrysanthemum better so I decided I was going to paint only chrysanthemums. We were given some time to practice and I felt good. My practice chrysanthemums were looking really nice and I was semi confident in myself. I even tried practicing the orchid because I had the chrysanthemum down.

I definitely think I could’ve done better in the midterm, but it’s really not as easy as it looks. The folding fan is not a flat surface as the paper is obviously very folded. The paper is a lot thicker and of a different texture than our practice paper, meaning it can hold different amounts of water before bleeding. The practice paper bleeds really easily so I adjusted, but when I tried to apply that to the fan, it was too little water and ultimately too dry.

I hated how the chrysanthemums were turning out on the fan so I put in an orchid. It also didn’t register that I could’ve created a visually interesting composition, but I kind of just threw multiple flowers together.

Now, that wasn’t even the worst of it. After we finished painting, my teacher gave each of us 10 sticky notes and told us to go around, look at everyone’s work, and put our sticky notes on our favorites. I thought this was messed up and humiliating because someone with a “meh” fan could have 20 votes because of their friends while someone else could have a better fan but only 5 votes. Some designs were definitely better than others and vice versa, but I didn’t like it. I felt like it was a public display of who had a “better/worse” fan, but art is subjective.

It didn’t really help that I got a whopping 4 notes (3 being from my own friends). I mean I wasn’t super happy with my work, but I think it deserved more votes than it got. My teacher said we had to upload a pic with the number of votes we got to the portal. I didn’t want the grade to be based on the number of votes because I’m pretty sure mine was one of the least favorites so I snuck in 3 pity votes from myself. It’s a little pathetic, but I was a little scared.

For my visual journal class, we were supposed to come up with a picture book story, create characters, and draw out a couple scenes. Some of the presentations were really impressive so I felt a little insecure about my work. Fortunately people liked my story idea so I felt a lot better. I won’t say much, but my story is about the little people behind traffic lights because I used to think people actually manually controlled the lights when I was younger. Here are my characters:

The next day we were finally introduced to colors in our painting class and had to paint flowers. It was hard to say the least. I can paint multicolored flowers with watercolors fine, but this was getting on my nerves.

To add to our list of visual journal field trips, we went to the National Museum of Korea where we were given an hour-long tour. My favorite part was the video that played on all the walls in the room.

My week kind of went downhill from there. Tuesday night was when I started feeling weird and then I woke up on Wednesday with a cold. Wednesday and Thursday were the worst days of my trip and I blame it on the weather/air. My friend Bianca thinks I got Covid from the club. Grace got sick after me and Bianca was fine so that kind of proved her wrong.

I left my room Thursday evening to get some food with Bianca. We revisited the pho restaurant and it made me feel a lot better.

I was trying my best to recover for the Friday field trip to Everland, an amusement park. I was looking forward to this trip for a while now so I definitely didn’t want to miss it. Unfortunately it was raining and the school emailed us saying that they weren’t going to cancel or postpone it. We suited up with cheap raincoats and umbrellas, and headed out.

The start of this trip was just another example of how unorganized this program is. We had an intern named Kyle leading us this time and he got us to the entrance at about 9:40 am. When the park opened at 10, we started going in before the staff stopped us.

Apparently, the school never bought us our tickets and didn’t tell Kyle either so he thought we were good to go when actually we weren’t. He had to go and buy 50 tickets. He would’ve probably known to buy tickets if he had all the money we paid, but if he didn’t know then I wonder if they had given him money to buy them. They better have paid him back if he had to use his own money. I felt bad for him but some people said how they didn’t and showed their annoyance.

There were literally no rides open because of the rain. We went on one roller coaster without our raincoats and came out pretty wet. After looking at the map, I saw that there were only three actual roller coasters which is disappointing because I thought it would match Great America.  We found out there was a zoo attached to the park so we ended up spending most of our time there.

It was funny to see the animals hiding from the rain as well.

We went on a lot of safari rides where we saw many lions, tigers, and bears. 

We even got to see a giraffe being fed up close!

We ended up doing a lot of indoor things like the 4d show, ghost shooting ride, and show with actors.

Everland was not as cool as my friend made it sound like. It was still fun and I made some new friends out of it. I hung out with Deborah, this girl I met when I first checked in, and her roommate for the day, and then her other friends that night. We went out for dinner together and even got bingsu for dessert.

It was interesting to see what kind of non art/STAMPS students were in the program. I found out one person in our group was from Uzbekistan and another was from Turkey but pursuing her PhD in Hong Kong.

They wanted to go to a karaoke place and we ended up staying there for over an hour. It was pretty fun, especially since we picked kpop songs with English and only sang the English.

To start off the weekend, Grace and I took a trip to the Myeongdong district. I liked the atmosphere because it was absolutely filled with street food vendors. There were also more foreigners than Hongdae which surprised me. We ended up leaving but vowing to come back for the vendors as they only accepted cash.

Later that evening we brought Bianca along and went to the Korean stew place from before. It was very good again.

Like I said, this week was a little lamer than I wanted it to be. The weather sucked and I got sick, but at least it ended better than it started. It feels weird that three whole weeks are gone and I only have one more week left. I know it will be bittersweet to leave, but I do want to go home.

-Elaine

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 3 Part 2

The first thing I noticed on the island was that it was very green and had a LOT of trees. There were trees everywhere and even stood on either side of the main walkway.

We mostly walked around and visited small galleries/stores. I took a few pictures of the different plant life too.

The fee for this trip made us question what they were using it on, but after seeing the bus, zipline, and lunch provided it made more sense. We went to a restaurant in the park and had Korean bbq.

Afterwards we spotted a sky bike ride. There were actually a lot of ways to get around and view the park such as normal bikes, double seater bikes, three wheeled segways, some sort of bike/cart/tractor that sat like four people, and our sky bike. It didn’t get us around, but we were able to have a leisurely ride above ground.

There were also some interesting animals that lived on the island. We got to see a handful of ostriches in an enclosure. They were huge. There were also a lot of peacocks that didn’t seem afraid of people. And then there was the occasional bunny rabbit that the little kids tried to pet and feed.

Much like the Hangang River, there were a bunch of watersports parks along the stream. We were able to watch people hold onto inflatables as motorboats pulled them across the water. It looked like a whole lot of fun.

It wasn’t long before we had to catch the boat back to the mainland, but of course we had to grab some ice cream. I don’t usually touch strawberry ice cream, but it tasted like these strawberry yogurt bars my mom used to search far and wide for at Costco. I liked it a lot.

Later that night, I made history with myself. After heavy begging from Grace, she convinced Bianca and I to go to a club with her. I’ve never partied at frats or anything like that, so I was a little hesitant but I will not lie – I was a little curious. I also managed to drink a bottle of grapefruit flavored soju (it was miles better than the standard version) as well as some of Bianca’s Rum and Coke. I like Coke so it just tasted like the worst Coke ever. It wasn’t horrible though. I also was very surprised as I didn’t feel anything. I’m wondering if the alcohol percentage just wasn’t high or I inherited it. 

We ended up staying for a very long time, to the point where we had a bit over an hour before the subway system would be up and running again. No one wanted to wait that long so we ended up walking back. Thankfully, we were in Hongdae which is only two stops from Ewha. We still weren’t very happy when we had to walk from the gate next to our dorm to the front gate because it was locked in the early hours of the morning.

Both Bianca and I couldn’t sleep for very long and woke before noon. On our way to a porridge restaurant, we were stopped by a Vietnamese noodle soup restaurant and headed there instead. I was very pleased to have pho, but I definitely think the broth and the overall taste is better back at home.

We stopped by Mega Coffee and each picked up a frappe. I was very happy to have tried this place out because my mint frappe literally tasted like I was drinking mint chocolate chip ice cream, my favorite flavor. I get a mint chocolate chip ice cream cake every year for my birthday so it was nice. 

And lastly, the best part of the day: dinner. Bianca, Zoe, and I went to this Korean stew restaurant and thoroughly enjoyed everything. It was set up so that we had to get our own rice and sides so we could control how much we got. It was genuinely very good and I want to go back.

It’s weird to think that half of my trip is already over, especially since it feels like time is going by both slowly and fast. I’m sure it’s going to be bittersweet as the end nears, but I haven’t really been thinking about that. 

Anyways, come back next week where you get to see and hear about my horrible midterm painting. 

Bye bye

-Elaine

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 3 Part 1

Volume 3

Week 2

The second week was a lot less chaotic and eventful in general than the first. We all felt a little bit more accustomed to how things worked on campus. To start off the week, my friends and I decided to visit some Hangang parks to see the infamous Han River. Our first stop was at Ttukseom Park. This park was a little underwhelming when it came to attractions as the main thing was this tube and a waterpark that was packed to the brim with people. It was still quite busy though. One cool thing about this park is that I was able to see the Olympic Stadium.

Tube and Olympic Stadium in the back

The main reason why I wanted to go to this specific park was because I saw online that there were duck boats you could ride on in the river. Although they were a little janky-looking in how they were made, I still really wanted to go.

Our plan was to do “daytime” activities at Ttukseom Park before making our way to Yeouido Park for sunset, a supposed night market, and the water light show. Before we headed over to the other park, we stopped to eat.

Unfortunately, when we arrived at Yeouido Park, it was only around 6 pm and the sun wasn’t going to set for another two hours. The park itself was a lot bigger than the other one with vendors already set up.

To pass some time, we went to a couple of nearby malls. The first one we went was definitely too expensive for us, but I was in awe of the interior. The many floors and the literal waterfall inside gave for a sleek and elegant look.

We came back to the park as the sun was starting to set and headed over to the floating dome stage. The pictures we had seen had shown jets of water flying out and colorful lights as well so we were pretty excited.

However, even as the sky darkened, nothing happened. My best guess is that it was because we came on a Sunday. A lot of Koreans are religious and don’t do anything on Sundays. Many restaurants we’ve seen are closed on Sunday and consider it as a holiday. We were pretty disappointed and kind of just sat there for a bit before going home. The night sky with the street and traffic lights were still nice to look at though.

Classes started back up the following day and we continued our orchid studies in traditional painting. I like painting with acrylic and watercolor so I thought I’d like this too. It’s actually very difficult and frustrating to use ink because of the water to ink ratio on the brush. The brush holds a lot of water and the paper we use is very thin so even the tiniest amount of water causes the ink to spread out everywhere.

We actually had a field trip for my visual journal class at the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art. There were a lot of gamified exhibitions for whatever reason and even consoles to play games on like Pacman, Minecraft, and original games.

There was even a station where you could take pictures of yourself like a photobooth. Grace didn’t want to be featured so here’s me.

Because it was a roasting 97 degrees, Grace and I scrambled to get bingsu and then food later.

The next day I learned how to make a traditional Korean stamp. It was very interesting because I’ve done printmaking with stamps before but I’ve used linoleum, a soft rubber, and not a slab of stone. We had to make a stamp of our names in Korean so I learned how to write mine. We also had to use a knife to carve. It was actually really fun until I realized at the end that I didn’t flip it properly so my stamp was backwards, in turn making my name read backwards.

Elaine in Korean spelled out in letters is "illein"

It was raining that day so we weren’t able to go out all that much. I had the idea of going to the movie theater, but we decided against it after arriving and seeing the movie choices. For dinner we decided to get pasta since the pasta place we wanted to go to the day before was closed. It’s been a little bit of a struggle eating out with an introverted vegetarian but we’re getting through it one day at a time.

Here’s my second stamp with a small sheep in honor of the year I was born in. My teacher said a lot of traditional stamps are either your name or your zodiac animal.

In the middle of this week we visited Hongdae again and visited shops we didn’t even see the first time. This included a BT21 store. To give a little background information. I assume we all know the famous kpop boy group BTS. Several years ago, each of the members drew their own character that sort of represented them. These characters later were launched into actual merch. This was a collaboration between BTS and Line Friends, a group of characters based on stickers from diverse applications of the South Korean internet search giant Naver Corporation and the Japanese messaging app Line. My transportation card is Line Friends branded. Anyways, a BT21 store is basically a BTS merch store.

We both felt obligated to visit and maybe buy something because we both had a heavy BTS/kpop phase in high school. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but it’s fun to have someone to talk about that stuff to. This past week I’ve been listening to a lot of songs that came out when I listened to kpop religiously and it’s kind of nostalgic. 

We grabbed some Shake Shack after.

We also discovered this artist who created this dumb, booger-looking dinosaur character and accompanying dino friends. For some reason we both think it’s funny and cute so we stalled around for a while. I didn’t end up getting anything then even though I loved a lot of the designs.

We mainly wanted to go to Hongdae again to see how it looked with the night lights and we were not disappointed. It was so colorful. 

For the last day of class this week, I learned how to paint chrysanthemum flowers. Surprisingly, they were a lot less of a headache than the orchids. Our teacher said throughout this class we would be learning how to paint something called the “Four Gentlemen”. There are basically four plants that have become the basis of traditional ink brush paintings for whatever reason. We’ve so far completed two of them: the orchid and chrysanthemum. 

My take on chrysanthemums

And for visual journal, we went on another field trip to the Piknic art gallery which was basically a huge exhibition for this photographer named François Halard that captured pictures of interiors and architecture. Each of his pictures had a story behind them. He took pics of people’s house interiors like Lenny Kravitz and Rick Owens. In my opinion it was a lot more interesting than the contemporary art museum.

For food that day, we had to go back to Insa-dong. My main reason for this was because the shops seemed to sell seemingly more traditional and less trendy items which is something my parents would appreciate. I didn’t end up getting anything though because I wasn’t sure how authentic things were after seeing the same items sold at multiple stores.

We couldn’t leave before getting more bingsu – tangerine flavor for me this time.

A couple hours later, Grace, Bianca, and I went to this hotpot place right outside campus. To me, we got hotpot, but to Bianca we got malatang. I don’t think I’ve ever heard my parents refer to it as that, but I guess that’s technically the right term. Bianca is an international student from Beijing and insisted we at least learn the right word for it. 

We got to grab a bowl and choose whatever was going in it which was really nice. They also made it for us and made it look all pretty.

Now I get to talk about the relatively more interesting part of my week. On Friday I went on a field trip to Nami Island, an island not in the ocean but in the middle of South Korea. It was about a 1.5-2 hour drive. The coolest thing about this trip was that we got to take a 90 second zipline from Seoul City to the actual island. 

I’ve been on a zipline before but never for that long at once. It was super cool, especially because we went with a partner going at the same time. 

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 2 Part 2

We were each allowed a free drink as long as it didn’t exceed 5000 won, but instead of that, our group decided to split bingsoo which is essentially Korean shaved ice. My table got mango bingsoo and it was very very good.

Mango bingsoo with ice cream on top

The last stop of the day was our choice which ended up being the Blue House. If you’re wondering what the Blue House is, it’s literally Korea’s White House but colored blue. The Korean name is “Cheong Wa Dae” which translates to “blue tile-roofed house”. It’s a very original idea. The color of the building is pretty, but everyone kind of rolled their eyes when they found out what it was for. 

Much like the White House, the Blue House was the home and office for 12 Korean presidents from August of 1948 to May of 2022. So apparently the president stopped living there and is somewhere else now. It’s become a full tourist attraction which is probably why we were allowed in many rooms. 

We got to see the Sejong Room where the Cabinet meetings to deliberate on important government policies were held. We saw the Inwang Room, named after a mountain to the west of the house. Unlike the other rooms, it’s decorated in more of a Western style. It was used as a small banquet hall for meetings, luncheons, dinners, and joint conferences for when foreign heads of state visited. We also saw the Chungmu Room which was used for meetings and to make appointments with large groups.

Portraits with previous presidents on the wall

A lot of us were tired as it was nearing 6 pm. We headed back to the dorms in groups, but it wasn’t the end of my day. During the tour, I made a new friend named Koryn and recruited her to join Grace and I’s daily adventures. She too has been avoiding restaurants by herself. She’s from Hawaii and it’s her first time to another country so I just invited her to join us.

The three of us walked and walked and walked until we hit the area near Yonsei University in search of approachable food with vegetarian options for Grace. We noticed that the further we walked in this area the more pubs, bars, and people came. There was music booming all around and a lot of people in their own groups just smoking. 

We stumbled across the chicken cutlet and curry place. It had a kiosk so we thought we could just do take out, but they said to order first and wait until there’s space to sit. The layout of the interior was interesting as there weren’t tables. It was just one long wooden counter everyone sat at and each seat was separated by plexiglass dividers. The food was served on trays to each of us individually. I guess it’s a good place to go if you’re alone. This was a huge accomplishment for us as we actually sat down and had food in the restaurant by ourselves. The food was really good too so we were all happy.

Chicken, rice, curry, sides, and spicy miso soup

And of course we had to end the night with a Nice2CU convenience store trip. I wanted the blue drink Grace got the first time and has been raving about it since and it tasted just like a blue Otterpop. 

The next day was Saturday, and our first weekend in Seoul. Our new group consisted of Bianca, Koryn, Grace, and I. We headed off to a full day in Hongdae which had a lot of cute shops, clothing stores, and food stands. 

The streets of Hongdae were full of color, patterns, and people. I really enjoyed looking around.

We didn’t get too far before fatigue from the heat got to us. Grace and I got some food at an egg sandwich place while the others cooled down.

We resumed our stroll along the streets and saw some really interesting buildings.

Grace is into shopping so we made a couple stops for her to check out. We even went to a local mall and found some really cute stores. There are a lot of stores with characters I have never seen before but seem to be really popular here.

Once we pretty much exhausted our shopping limit, we made the executive decision to go to a dog cafe. I’ve never been to any animal cafe so I was really looking forward to seeing what it was about. I know some cafes actually serve you food in a little shop, but the place we were going to was on the third floor so we didn’t know what to really expect. Turns out you just had to pay the admission fee which let you stay for a set amount of time and then you could purchase drinks as well. 

There were dogs of all sizes and breeds. Some were sillier and more sociable than others. All the dogs start barking every time someone comes up the stairs and it’s really funny. One of the dogs was a little strange and overly excited to the point of aggression as he bit Grace in the leg when we arrived. The workers were not pleased with him at all and kept apologizing/checking in. He was eventually sent to the sleep room where other dogs came from. There were actually way more dogs than I expected too. My favorites were these brother and sister Golden Retrievers who could actually retrieve unlike my dog. One brought the customer their drinks in a basket and the other took their money.

I normally don’t like small dogs, but these ones were cute. The workers would come pick them up and place them in our laps. Sometimes they would even voluntarily climb onto us. They were very friendly and fun to pet.

After our time was up, we went to Homi Art Shop which was quite the art store. It has more art supplies than Michael’s but less craft supplies. 

I was told by a fellow STAMPS student that near the art shop were these marshmallow ice creams that were blowtorched in front of you. I’ve seen them on social media before so I already knew I had to find it. I’ve never seen anything like this in America before. It was basically a literal block of ice cream encased in a layer of marshmallow and then blowtorched. Their advertising said frozen s'more. It was pretty cool.

To end the day and the week, we headed to a restaurant for dinner. I don’t know how to describe it because it wasn’t kbbq, but it had that concept of sharing between several people. It was prepared on a grill thing but the waiters did it for us. Also, Bianca ordered 4 bottles of soju which was not what I expected. If you know me at all, I don’t drink alcohol for any other reason than I think it tastes super gross. Everyone I know says they don’t drink it for the taste, but I just can’t get past the hand sanitizer taste. I had higher hopes for soju since I’ve seen lots of Tiktoks where people make concoctions that mask the taste. Unfortunately, they didn’t have any flavored ones so we were stuck with the rubbing alcohol tasting ones. It was so gross I couldn’t have more than one shot glass full. But it cost me a couple bucks so we just took the remaining home with us. And now it’s just sitting in my fridge. 

Anyways, we had to make one last stop for tanghulu, or candied fruit. The line for it was extremely long and basically cut through the street. The fruit itself was freezing but good nonetheless. Overall, a great first week.

Settling into a new school and country has been very eventful. As I approach the end of the second week, I can say it hasn’t been too crazy so far. But the next few days are filled with adventures so I have high hopes. I’ll make sure to continue taking pics for this thing.

Bye bye

-Elaine

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 2 Part 1

Week One

Okay…a LOT has happened this past week so this might be long. Tuesday was the first day of classes for everyone. Everyone has to take at least two classes and I’m taking Korean Traditional Painting and something called Visual Journal which I found out is an illustration drawing/creative class. I knew Alyssa and my friend Bianca (from STAMPS) were going to be in my painting class, but I knew no one else. Bianca had two friends with her (Zoe and Grace) and I kind of tagged along with them for lunch. Luckily Grace is in my Visual Journal class so we’ve stuck together since then and I can officially say I have a new friend.

Naengmyeon which are cold buckwheat noodles (that’s why there’s ice)

Anyways the takeaway from this week’s painting class is that my teacher is unorganized because the school is unorganized. There are probably about thirty or so students in my class, and my teacher was very surprised because she usually teaches classes with a max of twenty students. She was unprepared as apparently the school didn’t let her know of the class size. 

We found out that Ewha is like UM and doesn’t help out with art school materials. While my teacher could’ve sent an email or message to us before the program, she waited till the first day to tell us we had to buy over 100,000 won (over $90) worth of materials. I don’t know if she saw the unimpressed looks of everyone, but she insisted we could take out/add whatever we wanted. The art shop we went to was in a different area and she assumed we all knew how to get there, but after some communication she said we would go the next day as a class. The art shop was very small and the materials did look pretty good. Unfortunately the man pre-packaged all of our stuff so we basically were forced to take what he put together. 

Traditional brushes from art shop in Insa-dong

My friends and I were one of the first people to pay so the teacher told us we could stand outside and walk around while the others got situated. We were only gone just long enough for three people to get drinks, but when we returned to the shop, no one was there. So of course we were all freaking out, thinking they took the bus back without us, but we found out they went to an art gallery nearby. We spent some time there and after a while, the second group arrived. Basically a section of our class didn’t have money loaded on their T Money cards (cards used for public transportation and convenience stores) so one of the Korean speaking students took them to figure that out first. 

Extra pics

Class is supposed to end at 11:30 so that we’d have an hour for lunch, but we were still there as the ending time approached. I don’t think our teacher was aware that we wanted to go back, but she eventually “dismissed” us and the first group including Grace and I left. Some upper class STAMPS kids were trying to be the leaders but led us the wrong way and then blamed the map, but we eventually managed to make it back to campus at 11:50. We weren’t very happy, but at least we made it in time. I later heard from Bianca that she and Zoe went to use the bathroom when everyone was there, but when they came out the first group was gone. They chose to take the subway thinking it’d be faster but apparently arrived at 1:15. 

Gallery

My visual journal teacher is chill and speaks good English. She’s a children's book illustrator and said she used to work in San Francisco which was cool. 95% of the class is from STAMPS so it was kind of weird when we were all introducing ourselves. I like the class though.

Bottom floor of visual journal class building

Unlike UM though, Ewha has an underwhelming amount of tables/chairs to sit in. It’s become a challenge to find a spot during lunch as students literally sit on every step of the stairs just for a seat. 

Here we are sitting on the ground like bums two lunch days in a row

Since Tuesday, I’ve hung out with Grace a lot and she’s just like me. We’re both nervous to use public transportation by ourselves and go into restaurants without English translations or kiosks. So we’ve gotten along pretty well and have gotten food with each other every day since.

We also both like going to the convenience store on campus even if it’s to just get a drink or ice cream. I’m pretty sure the guy that works there knows us by now.

Part of the ice cream collection (I tried my first Melona bar!)

Oh yeah and before I forget, I have a messed up fun fact. So the Ewha campus is a series of uphill and downhill walking which is extremely tiring in the hot temps. Even just the thought of the walk up the hill to the art buildings and then the 6 floors we have to walk up because of the nonexistent elevator makes me sigh. Anyways during our welcome tour, they told us that the reason why it’s such a journey all around is because Ewha is an all girls school. Back in the day when the school was made (over a hundred years ago), women pursuing an education were so looked down upon that they purposely didn’t flatten the land to try to make it harder for them to go to school. The school next to us, Yonsei University, was just like any other school which is why their land is completely flat.

Another fun fact totally unrelated to anything other than Korea is that there are absolutely no public trash cans on the street. I’m really sure why, but it’s kind of annoying because we have to hold onto our trash a lot of the time.

Moving on, I signed up for several Friday field trips. This past week was a Seoul city tour. We took a double decker tour bus around and stopped at a few notable sites. 

The first stop was the Namsan Tower, also known as the Seoul Tower. Unfortunately it was a rainy cloudy day so we couldn’t see much of the land below. 

It cost extra to get to the top of the tower, but it just wasn’t worth it with the weather. We did go into the tower plaza for a little bit though.

There were mostly refreshments for tourists. At the top there was a wide space with stores and traditional looking buildings.

Korea has a lot of life-size models of characters just standing around shops and stuff. Restaurants and cafes often have animal mascots and sometimes they just throw a statue outside to attract more people. I’ve noticed it around shopping areas too.

Penninah and I posing with Haechi, a Seoul mascot. Apparently he is some kind of mythical lion creature

The next stop was to Changgyeonggung Palace. I don’t know much about the history, but it was built back in the mid 15th century by the 4th ruler of the Joseon dynasty for his retiring father. It often served as residential quarters for queens and concubines. It was a pretty wide space with many buildings and pathways. 

Front gate

By the end of this stop everyone was hot, sweaty, tired, thirsty, and most definitely hungry. We went back to where I had gotten my painting materials from for lunch and a break. Insa-dong has had quite a few people walking around both times I’ve gone there. The street shops were cool too and less focused on trendy items.

We all sort of went our own ways for lunch but Penninah and I joined a big group of people for food which made the process much easier.

Spicy beef jjigae (jjigae is a Korean stew and there are many variations)

Go to part 2 because I ran out of photo space for this post

[elaine-abroad]

Volume 1: The Arrival

The Flight

If you’re reading this, you probably already know me and my situation. I’m Elaine and I’m studying abroad in Seoul, South Korea for the next four weeks. It’s strange to think that a whole study abroad trip can even fit into one month, but regardless I’m excited to see what Seoul has for me.

This past week before takeoff felt too short as I continuously told my mom that I wanted more time to mentally prepare for the journey. I also procrastinated on packing a little bit in favor of one last hoorah with my closest friends. I know that I’m acting like I’ll be gone a long time, but a month in a country I’ve never been to IS a long time to me.

I was full of nerves the morning of – I woke up earlier than I had to and didn’t speak on the car ride to the airport. I’ve been on plane trips many times before, but I always get anxious and have to run through the steps. This time was a little more stressful because it was my first time flying internationally alone. I made it on with plenty of time to spare so that was good. There was one thing that dampened my spirits a bit throughout the day though. There was a girl from my school’s program that was supposed to land at the same time as me. We were going to explore the airport and split a hotel room together. It was just my luck when she told me she missed her flight, booked another flight that was due to land the next morning, missed the second flight to Incheon after a connecting flight was delayed or something, and was due to land around 5 pm the next day. It made me nervous thinking about finding things on my own, but I had to move on.

The plane’s “amenities” if you will were nothing like I’ve seen before. They had given us each a cheap pillow and blanket as they do on any international flight, but we also received cheap headphones, a full-sized water bottle (not those mini baby ones other planes have – a full one), and foldable hotel slippers to wear. Each chair had a screen to watch movies on and there was even a remote control for the screen. One push of a button and the whole thing came out. They had an area to plug in a charger and they even had a little knob to hang clothes on. It was crazy.

Interesting chair set up + views from the window shortly after take-off

The part I was most excited for was the meals. I’ve seen and heard from social media that planes to Korea had ACTUAL food that also looked good. My past experiences with United Airlines’ food weren’t even up for comparison. My mom would gobble that stuff up every time (I don’t know how), but my brother and I would rather starve than touch it. Anyways, let me just tell you I was not disappointed. When it was time for the first meal, I was elated that bibimbap was even an option. Of course, I had to get that over some ordinary teriyaki chicken. I was pleasantly surprised with the presentation of it all too. I was expecting some hastily thrown together bowl with nothing else, but I also haven’t had plane food in a good couple of years, so I forgot the meals usually came with sides. It even came with Korean Airline branded gochujang tubes and sesame oil packets which was insane. I ate it all.

Meal 1: bibimbap, miso soup, “spicy” pickles, oranges, Sprite

The next meal came in the middle of “sleep time” where all the lights were off for a few hours.

For the first two meals I kept thinking to myself, “How do they know exactly when I’m hungry?” Because both times I’ve been hungry, and they've almost answered my call. However, as the third time came around, I felt a lot fuller than I wanted to be. I still tried to eat it, albeit a little forcefully, but I knew I would have regretted it later if I didn’t. Plus, I wanted to get through the main dish to eat the carrot cake. Unfortunately, by the time I reached the cake, I was no longer in the mood with my tummy full and all. It was a sad moment because if you know me, you know that I have a sweet tooth.

Meal 3: beef with rice + veg, bread roll, caprese salad, carrot cake. Meal 2 not pictured but consisted of a ham and cheese hot pocket and a mini ham, cheese, lettuce sandwich

As for the plane ride itself, it was not that bad and was more tolerable than my usual five-hour flights to Michigan. Maybe it was because we got food and I slept better with the window seat (I usually sit in the aisle). I did kind of feel bad for the people who sat next to me as I unfortunately had to get up three times. My Korean friend told me not to sleep on the flight because of the time difference when I land or whatever, but I didn’t know what else to do on a 12 hour flight.

Views from window shortly before landing

The airport was a lot more straightforward than I imagined. I was worried I would get lost, but now I realize English signs and directions are a must since it’s literally an airport with tons of foreigners. At this point, everything kind of caught up to me and I just wanted to crash at my hotel. Everything was fine and dandy except there was no toilet in my actual room which meant I had to share with everyone else and my shower wouldn’t work. Maybe it did work and I just didn’t know how to use it because it took me a while to orient myself in the shared bathroom where there was no light switch and I had to press buttons to open the door. I ended up hitting the hay around 9 pm and woke every few hours until I left shortly before 8 am.

Views from above baggage claim and an inside look at my room at the Darakhyu capsule hotel in Incheon airport.

I booked a bus ride for the morning and luckily another girl from STAMPS was able to join me after taking a shuttle from her hotel. She brought two of her friends who were also going to be participating in a program at Yonsei University, the school right across the street from us. The guy who took our tickets was kind of scary as he yelled at us in Korean, asking where we were going. One thing I noticed since the plane ride was that the people here just assume I can speak Korean. It’s probably because I’m clearly Asian, but the flight attendants, customs people, hotel front desk, and café cashiers so far have approached me with Korean. It was kind of funny because the flight attendants would speak perfect English to the obvious white people and then ask me stuff in Korean. Anyways, the bus layout was pretty cool and different – super spacious. M Bus could never.

Bus interior. Fun fact: these two girls got off the same stop as us and were also attending Ewha for the summer

It was quite the journey to get settled (imagine carrying 2 backpacks and 3 suitcases up/down hill-y streets and stairs while battling the raging hot sun). We managed though. My room was nice too and I had it all to myself. I raised my brow at the showerhead, sink, and toilet all being in the same room, but it actually wasn’t too hard after taking one. Each room has a mini fridge and AC which definitely beats life at Bursley (dorm at UM that has no AC and all sorts of problems) last summer.

Extra pillow, pillowcase, sheet, and blanket not pictured. Each room has a balcony

The girl I arrived with, Alyssa, has a roommate (I didn’t hear her name that clearly, but it sounded like ‘Zeda’ so I’m just going to refer to her as that until it’s further clarified), and the roommate’s friend Deborah from their school in Massachusetts when out for lunch and a walk through the nearby streets. I was not expecting Zeda to whip out full on Korean when we struggled to order. Apparently, she took 4 semesters of Korean, and she could speak and read it decently. Deborah also knew quite a few words and could read it as well. Anyways the food was really good and pretty cheap – as well as a lot of things here. I literally bought 12 rolls of toilet paper for 5000 won which converts to less than 4 USD. So good news: I can buy gifts for people without too much caution because everything is so much cheaper here.

Soup dumplings, jajangmyeon, and these spicy seafood noodles

Long story short: the food was good, and we were all happy. We did some more walking and went shopping for dorm essentials at Daiso. Since arriving, I have seen an insane number of Daiso stores in Seoul which is kind of mind-boggling. There’s even one in the subway station near the school I’m staying at.

Despite the temperature being a whopping 93 degrees, we decided to take a little tour around the school. I quite like the simplicity of the campus – the buildings all look pretty much the same and it feels like a little town. The buildings remind me of the Ross (business school) buildings at UM. They’re all a light gray with stones/bricks, and the lush, green vegetation really makes the scene pop. It’s so fresh looking unlike in California where we have droughts and “brown is the new green”.

Views from the frontish part of the school

We didn’t make it far because of how physically taxing the walk was. Between the heat, humidity, and the fact that the school is built on hills of uneven roads, we were beat. We ended the journey with the very first building built at Ewha.

First building ever built at Ewha

To cool off, we visited our first café. I’ve decided to start a collection of those cup sleeves because they’re cute here.

Peach iced tea!

We all went back to our rooms to reset, but a few hours later, Alyssa and I were ready to roam the streets again. We ate at a fast-food place called Lotteria. Think of any place that sells typical burgers and fries, but times twenty. The food took a little longer than expected to come out, but we were joking how that’s how you knew they actually cook their food. Anyways, we were so surprised with the menu because of all the different options that American fast-food places never offered.

I got this mozzarella bacon burger which was absolutely insane because they literally fried like a puck of mozzarella and shoved it inside. Definitely not healthy, but really good.

The mozzarella puck is bigger than the patty. Also, the ice cream was super good too

To end the first night, we went into several cute shops with all sorts of accessories and items. I didn’t get anything, but I’ll definitely be back before the end of the program

ARTBOX interior

The First Day…Kind Of

The next morning, Alyssa, Zeda, and I went for a brisk walk to find breakfast of some sort before the Welcoming Ceremony. They were going to provide lunch, so we didn’t end up getting anything.

Quick street view

At the main gate, there’s this building structure called the ECC. In comparison to UM, think Pierpont/The Union. There are two sides made up of multiple floors. Within the building, there are food stores, a convenience store, a bank, coffee shops/cafes, a gift shop (Ewha’s version of MDen), classrooms, the office for international students, and areas for study. The path is dug out so that the greenery lays on ground level. It’s kind of hard to explain and imagine because you can access different parts of the building because it’s all built on uneven land.

Front and back of ECC

There were a lot of students at the welcoming ceremony – so many that they didn’t have enough chairs for them at first. We were given folders of information and even got a free pen and T-shirt (for field trip wear).

Welcoming Ceremony

The free lunch given was a free coupon for the cafeteria. I was pleasantly surprised with how good the food was and helped myself.

Purple rice, green onion hot spicy meat stew, cubed radish kimchi, meatballs with onions, cucumbers, apple + pineapple fruit salad, yogurt drink, seaweed, and a lemon tea drink

I ended up making my first purchase at the school’s convenience store for dinner where I got some munchies.

Kimbap and banana milk

There were a lot of options, and I was eyeing the bagged drink section. I have seen too many TikToks showing people in Korean convenience stores grabbing a pre-filled cup of ice and then a drink of their choice, and basically creating their own concoction.

Drinks galore

This is the end of the first volume. Stay tuned for my first full week in Seoul.

Spoiler: there were a lot of ups and downs.

-Elaine