Unfortunately for me, this post basically wraps up my experience in South Korea. It has been a good 3 and a half months, the fastest 3 and a half months that have passed in my life. I'll never forget this experience... or at least I hope I will never. It has opened my eyes to the rest of the world. My knowledge is no longer limited to that of... well.. Arizona. There is so much out there, that only staying in the United States will definitely hinder anyone from actually understanding the true differences between our culture to the rest of the world... And now, it's once again time to go through some photos that sum up my last month...
November 17
My PEACE Buddy, Jihyun brought Nathan and I to a Korean restaurant with "modern" Korean food... Below is what I consider the "modern" bibimbap dish. I don't really remember what it was... But is was the typical rice with veggies and had some meat and the fried egg on top. Pretty fried egg, isn't it?
They had a really thin potato pizza dish here, too, that Nathan got. The cheese drizzled on top just made it so much better.
November 18... School food and Thai Food at Itaewon
Below is the tomato omirice and some kind of sushi at one of the newer cafeteria places at my school. The tomato omirice cost about... $4.25US and the sushi cost about $3US. Talk about a deal, right? It was so delicious.
For dinner, Nathan and I ventured to Itaewon and found a pretty little Thai restaurant... Since we WERE in Itaewon, a place for
foreigners, every restaurant was pretty expensive... So despite seeing the prices, we still went in to give it a go... Surely the food will be good right?
This was the spring roll dish they had... Not worth.. the.. $4-$5US dollars or so. Inside was basically stuffed with shredded cabbage and carrots. That's it. Not worth it.
We basically paid for the ambiance. It's pretty, right? But I'd rather have really yummy food than dine at an appealing looking place.
This was like $12 dollars or so. Yep, half the plate was just bean sprouts.. and the other have is egg... which wraps just a tid bit of noodles, if I remember correctly. Noooot worth it. It was somewhat tasty, but definitely not filling. Whenever Nathan and I eat something not filling, we usually get some coldstone afterwards. I'm pretty sure that's what we did after eating here. Ahhh... coldstone.
November 19
This day, I had some more traditional Korean food with Nate, his aunt, and his mother. They ordered some haemul pajeon (Seafood and onion ) pandcake for me since they know that is like my favorite thing... They also ordered the sliced pork stuff with kimchi, which came with a bunch of side dishes, jiggae, and that purple rice. That always looked peculiar to me, but hey, it still tastes like rice.
For dinner, I went with some Germans (Mattias, Hendrik, Sebastian) Nate, and Gym to an Austrian restaurant, again in Itaewon. Hendrik really wanted to try the Austrian restaurant that he heard about from this guy at the bar one day. I learned that Austrian food is similar to Germany food and since the Germans have been complaining about Korean food and its lack of meat all semester, I wanted to try some legit German-type food. I also got to try some legit German beer... Since we were in Itaewon, this dinner cost super expensive (once again). All together, i paid like $21US for the beer and meal... Honestly, it wasn't that great... since the sausages I had on my birthday at the restaurant Nate brought me to was 100% better and a lot more worth it for the money. But... the dinner made Hendrik happy, so I was happy regardless. I really dislike Itaewon... It really doesn't make much sense why foreigners would come here... I mean, you're traveling to Korea to experience Korea, right? So why would you go to a place infested with sellers trying to rip you off, as well as restaurants, and try food that you can get back at your home country??? I heard there's also a popular place referred to 'hooker hill'... I don't remember seeing any hookers, but I've heard stories of prostitutes being really forceful and trying to get their targets. I found myself in Itaewon about 4 times throughout my time here, which was 4 too many times...
12-1 Many side dish restaurant in Sincheon. All the side dishes are unlimited... so, for about $4.90 a person, good deal. The food wasn't the greatest, but it was still enjoyable. It came with rice and the jiggae, too.
12-2 Mashed potatoes and Indian food
After Thanksgiving, I craved some really good mashed potatoes. Lucky for me, I had Armstrong the amazing chef as a friend, who whipped me up some mashed potatoes when I reminded him. I was super excited and it was so delicious! Thank you, Nate, too, for going out of your way to find me some butter. ^^ <3
Soooo.... after eating that big bowl of mashed potatoes (with some help from Armstrong and Gym), I went once again to the delicious Indian restaurant, which I already missed... I can never remember the restaurant's name... It's like Manakonoma, or something like that. Anyway, it's beyond good (even though the curry kind of looks like barf.) Don't let the appearance deceive you.
12-3
This is one of the ceramics pieces that I finished... I can't believe most of the bunnies lost their ears and one of the bunnies lost his/her partner. So sad, right? Another bunny ceramic piece that I made also lost one of its ears. Poor bunny.
12-3 FC Seoul vs Suwon Finals
Yay, first time at a soccer stadium at night time. It was so cool watching the crowd, especially the crowd for Suwon. They were so active and singing/moving/cheering throughout the whole game. It kinda sucked that our crowd for FC Seoul was not as active... the game ended in a tie. Unfortuneately, the final game that took place in Suwon... Suwon won. Blah.
Me, Emiko, and Anja!
I wish I took a picture of the screen that showed what all these flags made a picture of. It was really cool....
The flares, I thought, would be illegal... That looks dangerous... ><
Nathan, Hendrik, Emiko, Anja, and Armstrong. Gym, Mattias, and Daniel (not pictured) also went.
12-7
Yay! It snowed at Ewha! I was so psyched!!!
Xiao and meeee!
So what do you do when it snows?! Get some Chois Taco. Decent Mexican food for what it is.
Snow in Sincheon.
^^
Okay, so the snow wasn't that deep...
12-10 Mr. Pizza Finale
After collecting Mr. Pizza coupons from the togo boxes... we (Nathan, Daniel, Felix, and me) finally indulged ourselves to some FREEEE (worth about $55US) pizza! The larger stack of coupons was from the Ewha location of Mr. Pizza that we ripped off togo pizza boxes that we found in our dormitory. The French and some Germans got hooked on Mr. Pizza after seeing the four of us eat the pizza like once every 2-3 weeks. The smaller stack is from the Sincheon location, where we got our own collection.
Caesar chicken specialty pizza. Just look at it!!!
and our typically Mr. Potato pizza!
12-11 Festival bar and Mike's cabin
What better way to spend the night than drinking with your buddies right before your last exam? (Don't worry... I actually got a perfect score on my Personality Psychology final that I had that next day..wooooo~) A lot of people were leaving within the next week or week and a half- some even the very next day... So, I tried to maximize the time I had with those I won't be seeing ever again... or in many years to come... Sooooo.... After heading out to Festival for some dinner (chicken nuggets, french fries, nd nachos) and some beer... we made our way to infamous Mike's Cabin, the foreign bar that everyone seems to go to, but wonder why, since it's just like a regular... wooden bar...
I don't know whose dog this is... but it's here every time I got to Festival... Poor doggie.
I miss Mattias. :(
I miss Emiko and Daniel 씨.
yeahhh! pointing!
12-12 Ewha completion ceremony!! Our farewell parties... Last gatherings... :<
Me going on stage to get my certificate! yeah!
Me, Kate, Gym, Fanni, Armstrong
Me and Gym being the cool people that we are.
Daniel and me basically summing up our relationship
Me and Xia Bing (Sabrina~ I miss youuuuuu, tooooo)
Emiko and me and the Christmas tree inside the front of our dorm.
It's amazing how throughout the semester it was really difficult gathering alot of people to do noreabang.. but the one time we didn't want THATT many people.. Only like (8), we got so much more... It was kinda scary with Mattias and Hendrik being drunk and angry because one of the workers came in and saw that they had brought in drinks, so they took them away. The room at the Luxury noraebang was also supposed to be amazing... but this place was like all dark, hot, and smelled.... Bleh.
Nate's classmates had a better noraebang room, all lit and prettyyyy! They were also more energetic... and... so.. yeah... It was fun seeing them. ^^ Nathan and I sand Mr. Brightside together. tee hee^^
At HoBar... the last large gathering... :( There were a lot of tears this night... I miss my roomie, Denise, and Staceyyyy.
... Emiko, Stacey, and Lesliiiieeee, and me....
12-13
Baskin Robins advertisement: two walking snowman. Supa cool!
Green ho dduk. ho ho good.
One last look at the community bathrooms at the dorm. It was my last night staying at the dorms... Well, or so I thought. I kinda secretly just slept in my old room on my very last night ins Seoul since the password to my room didn't change and no one had taken my spot yet.
12-14 Journey to Busan day 1
We stayed at Nate's aunts place one of the nights, right before Nathan, Daniel, Felix, and I ventured to southern South Koreaaaaa... BUSAN!
The breakfast Nate's aunt prepared for us before we left... It was so hard to sleep over there especially with two dogs that barked if you moved... and people that kept on moving around... Regardless, I was thankful she let us stay there... And she gave me a hug goodbye ^^
On the KTX on the way to Busan. Yep! We played on the Nintendo DS! hehe. We mostly played Bomberman, but we also played Mario Kart, and Mario Party... Felix gets really loud when playing... ><
At our guesthouse. It was pretty cool... Kinda ghetto at the same time... The hot water came from a different shower head and you had to ask the person who lives there to turn on the hot water... or else you have to shower in freezing water. The bunk beds weren't too bad, for me at least.. Felix and Daniel couldn't extend out the whole bodies.. ><.. but the beds were heated.. which was super comfy!!! The guesthouse person was kinda weird tho... He talked a lot.. and the night we came back, he offered us crispy, spicy chicken and was sharing his old travel photos. Interesting fella... He also started speaking to Nate in Koream and started telling him how it looks like he's lonely but he's really not... Yeah.... But he was a nice guy.... I think...
Night at Busan...
The MOST AMAZING BEST BEST BEST Korean BBQ I have had in S. Korea. BEST BEST BEST. We came here both of the nights we were here. We had to. It was that good. Hendrik would have liked it... :< onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtB2HFZ7J-FLkDcIeBxe9OlTiNVEzmpZnxQFhc7vYBpD4cWak_ltEQ-4yoxU0WXDfi7skq0BZrP1z4IeQTwRKf8t4I-YDDGFsndPxd7Q0qkJXEdJV7U-hx1Ts4xB85NVtXPy_/s1600-h/IMG_4972.JPG">
Us in the subway... everyone and everything just seems smaller in Busan... I also see mostly old people in Busan... or young kids. Weird.
Pretty right? That bridge is pretty much useless. But it's pretty... It's not a very long detour to just go around and follow the road that goes along near the coast of the beach.
I was confused by this. But laughed.
Cooool, a Simpsons store!
12-15 Busan day 2
The first thing we did was head to the fish market... Lotsa fish.. Lotsa sea smells... Lotsa... dead slimy things... Lotsa water on the floor... and Lotsa people trying to sell you the dead slimy things. We were going to get some fresh fish... but realized that we didn't feel like eating any raw fish... and didn't even know how to order it... Yeah...It looked really gross wherever we went too...We ended up walking around somewhere else for another 30 minutes before we found some semi-expensive... and semi-decent traditional Korean food.
At another beach.. Haeyundai.. Or however you spell it.. It was cold...
The below picture was just cute.
Pusan's soju!
Below: Pet, cans, and bottles???!!!!
... well, in Korean at least it says plastic, bottles, can. Funny how it's also in a different order.
12-16 Bye Bye Pusan, Hello again Daejeon!
Nate's cousin brought us to the museum in Daejeon.. which was cool... had a nice video inside... Just every museum seems to start lookin' the same after the second one.... There's a lot about the Korean's three kingdoms... and a lot about the ceramics... and such... it's still cool though...
12-16
Daejeon soju!
Dinner with Nate's cousins... Some more Korean bbq... more more interesting korean bbq... Pig intestines and throat meat... yeah... !!!
Afterwards... a nice huge family size tub of baskin robbins... yum!
last full day.. 12-17 Insadong and Myeongdong!
I basically spent my last day doing some last minute souvenier shopping... We had some denjeon(?) jiggae in Insadong, which is like the trad. cultural center in Seoul. It's just yummy jiggae and rice.... YUMMY yummy jiggae.. and rice... and some side dishes.. I hope I can somehow learn how to make this dish someday.
For dinner, we ate ate Omato Tomato.
I had creamy omlette rice and prawns for my lllllassstttt diinnnnerrrr in Seoul.... sigh... So sad..... I wish I can still have really good Korean food... At least I like Takamatsu...
That night, we also got to celebrate Felix's 25th birthday... yay! Nathan and I got him a Seoul startbucks cup... and our coldstone coupon... all he needs is to buy one more ice cream and he gets a free icecream... It was a good gift because early on, Felix complained to us how he would never go back to coldstone because he worked so hard to fill up one of the cards, and then for his free ice cream, they messed up ... and then he got something neww... and didn't like it... so... he just felt distraught about it.. hopefully the coldstone coupon will revive his liking for cold stone... After eatingthe cheesecake (so good), we (Daniel, Felix and his g/f, Nate and I) went to Festival... ordered like 1,500cc of beer and my favorite strawberry mixed with soju slushie. Festival bar was probably my favorite bar... Felix's g.f. left near the end because she had exams the next day..so the original four of us (plus Armstrong) went to a club.... Daniel was a wallflower, and I joined him shortly since I didn't really feel like dancing... So the two of us just watched Nate, Daniel, and Armstrong dance together... I managed to somehow fall asleep against the wall on my stool... ahhhhahaha...
The next morning... I bought some Ewha souveniers, Hongmans's Deathnote character set, and found my finished ceramics, and had some tonkastsu with Nate for lunch before taking off to the airport bus stop... Between Nathan and me, we had four huge luggages, each about 40-45 pounds, a large backpack, and another carry-on bag that was super heavy, so we had to roll that also. Sujie, Daniel, and Armstrong helped Nathan and I take take our luggages and on the way we saw Thomas who followed along to the bus stop... The goodbyes were short since the bus arrived quickly... so no tears or feelings of sadness really. I felt so rushed leading to 3pm, when we needed to get on the bus... Super last minute shopping and packing was definitely stressful. haha.
Going through security check... Nate stupidly packed his letter openers in his backpack.. sigh.. so we were stopped and I had to bring his three letter openers (considered a weapons) and pleaded the check-in people to ship them off for me.... So they did, free of charge! It was only a 10 hour flight back to the states... but like an 8 hour wait at the San Fran airport... That was torturous. The next few days... I slept for like 12-14 hours straight... It had been a long time before I had two thick cuddly blankets and a soft bed with my stuffed animals to sleep with... SOOO nice... If it weren't for my mother waking me up, I'm almost sure I would have slept longer....
Adjusting back to the states was not too bad... since it felt like I wasn't in Korea for very long.. maybe a week or something... but... all my pictures prove other-wise... My most vivid memory was... well... the autumn leaves... It was so beautiful...
My greatest surprise when coming back was seeing Laina's new tattoo of us on her leg... It was a picture I drew in the letter right before I had to leave for Korea. Laina... you are so awesome... ^^ It means soooo much for me that you did that. SOO SOO much to me.
Laina, me, and her tat. ^^
Close up of her tattoo...
After she showed me the tattoo.. I spent one and a half hours doing her nails. lol. I've missed her so much...
It was also nice eating homecooked meals again... Yep... So nicee..... Back in the States!!!
12-16
