Jet-lag Induced Post-Korea Thoughts

It is 8:00 in the morning, Tuesday, and I have been awake since 6:30. I thought jet-lag would be an excuse to sleep more, but my body is still acting like it is in Korea. I apologize one more time for my random blogs, I never seem to write these at normal times of the day so I do a bit of fatigue or excitement induced rambling, this final day won't be any different (although if you've made it this far reading, you know me already, I hope you've enjoyed).

I have finally eaten some American food successfully. I'm not sure this is a good thing because American food is very unhealthy and I'm eating at odd times. The first two days I couldn't eat anything, and was only craving spicy food. My first real food was a Primanti Brothers sandwich at midnight on Sunday. If you've seen a Primanti Brothers sandwich you will know how big of an accomplishment this was. I still think it would have been a little better with some Kimchi.

^^I don't know who this person is, but he had a Pittsburgh Pirates hat on so I had to ask him for a picture. I'm not even sure he knew where the hat was from.

Things I Miss:

-Korean Food (mmm: Samgyupsal/Korean BBQ)
-Saera, Amy, Shelby and Colin - the Waynesburg in Seoul crew

-ALL of my Korean friends
-Public transportation (although I love driving now that I'm home)
-meeting random people
-the challenge of watching a Korean movie without subtitles
-fast service (yesterday I waited 45minutes for a sandwich in a restaurant! The service was more personal, but Seoul made me a little impatient.)
and -ALOT more I'll probably be talking about when you see me.

On my way home, while sitting in the Chicago airport waiting for my next flight, I started to miss Korea. Ironically, 30 Korean high school students, waiting for a flight, came and sat near me. I talked to a 15 year old boy in Korean (and English) for an hour!

I think my best friend understood that I would need to adjust to home again, so she's been keeping me busy. We even went salsa dancing! I do love my friends. However, they don't easily tolerate my random use of Korean language in everyday life, or the Korean pop music I've come to adore despite its horrific representation of art and poor use of English.

Before I left almost every phone call or voicemail from any family member started with "I know you're not ready to come home, I'm sorry you can't stay longer, etc....but we really miss you." I was starting to think I talked about how much I like Korea so much that everyone became convinced I would never be happy at home. I hope they understand that although I could have stayed and I'm not a person that gets homesick, I do love my family and home...I'm happy where ever I am.

Things I'm Happy about at Home
-My parents!!
-My best friends
-My home
-Salsa dancing and my ahjussi/ahjumma friends
-Christmas - the music in the malls, the desserts, plans to go to grandmas' houses
-Upcoming father-daughter trip to Texas




My Korean class, me and a professor, and one last shot on the subway ^^



Korea meant more to me than you can imagine. I got here with the help and push of my professors at Waynesburg and support of my family. I thrived with the great program at Ewha, and the endless opportunities to experience things. I made connections with many different people on many different levels that I can never forget. I learned alot about myself, and even changed a bit. Korea's seemingly perfect mix of old and new, traditional and modern, made this a great place to study abroad. I hope more people will follow Colin and myself and take on South Korea, and make their own stories (one already is on her way...good luck Bethany!). I lived in Seoul for four months, I played tourist at times but more importantly I lived in a new place as a student, I had my place there and group of friends that became like family. If and when I return it will not be the same, and I wouldn't want that, I simply want to see the people and keep those relationships, just as I do with everywhere I've traveled to and from. Now, I'm ready to visit family, share my experiences, enjoy my vacation and return to school to make the best of my last two semesters. Bring on the next chapter.

Saranghae - with love,
Alisha

I love people; "I want Alisha to come to Korea Again"

My favorite thing about studying abroad is meeting people. I have a few pen pals that I have kept in touch with, and I have met three while I've been here. Saturday I met Yulim for the first time, and had a blast. First we went to the Garak Market, a huge produce and fish market, to walk around. We weren't sure what to do, and it was already 1:30 so alot of the market was closed, but i was curious so we went. She thought it was entertaining when people stopped us and asked her where I was from and what I was doing. Since I wore long pants I got fish water up my legs but i survived. After that, we went to Konkuk university station for lunch, and had 보쌈 -- really good pork and rice for 2 people (21,000won). The we went to a coffee shop and ordered an exotic coffee and a hot choco and talked. Okay, it's an underestimate to say we talked, because we had a 6 hour conversation - 3:30-9:30pm. The coffee shop atmosphere was too good, the owner might have said. We discussed everything from how it felt to ask our parents for money, prostitution, church volunteering, and prejudices people hold about their neighboring countries, to what is considered "good" food in different countries, dating customs, and foreign language accent differences.
I could really impress you if I said that this whole conversation was in Korean, but Yulim's English was pretty good. She wanted me to meet her favorite cousin because he was home from the US, so we waited for his teaching job to finish. We met him and his three friends, all of whom were Koreans that went to college together in Pennsylvania. I believe a few of them were in Korea because they had to do their military service (In Korea, every man is required to serve in the army for two years.) We had dinner with them and spoke in lots of Konglish (a mess of Korean and English). Her cousin and friends didn't have accents, or rather had American accents, and spoke quickly so Yulim got shy about her English. Although it was hard to believe because we had just finished speaking together in English for six hours. No one could believe that we met on the Internet and this was the first time we've met in person, everyone thought we were best friends. At the coffee shop there were papers we could write our hopes and holiday wishes on to hang for Christmas decoration, and Yulim wrote "I want Alisha to come to Korea Again." Such a sweet friend. I love making connections with people.

Yulim was the third pen pal I've met in person, one in Pusan that took me to one of the best meals I've had, and the other is Kwangsoo. Kwangsoo is now affectionately called a "best friend." We chat about everything and he helps me find things around Seoul...hopefully he'll come visit the US so I can be as kind. We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace the last time we met.




Besides Pen pals I've met some great people just randomly. One day Pauline and I met a student at Seoul National University, that invited us to tour his school. Seoul National is the largest university in Korea, so it was worth seeing. He brought two friends to meet us, one of which could speak great English, and they showed us the campus. It was getting dark but we saw a good bit of things including the library and a few places couples go to hide out, haha. You can say it was an insider's view. he treated us to dinner in one of the dining rooms, that resembled a 3-star restuarant more than a college dining hall. After a great Korean dinner, we went to a coffee shop and headed home to celebrate a friends' birthday.

Other activities I've done with people I've met off-campus have included going to Lotte World amusement park, lots of dinners and coffee shop visits, batting cages, trips to the movie theater, and even one ridiculous random trip to a street-side fortune teller.

OH also recently I went to the DMZ, the border of North and South Korea. I could talk about the tour with the USO, how odd it felt traveling with 40 Americans, the feeling of being in a war zone and how much I learned, but I don't think I can do it justice in this setting. Here's a photo from Panmujeom, the UN building used for negotiations, that straddles the boarder...yes I crossed into North Korea for a few minutes. ^^

"I Want Nobody Nobody But You" ...oh pop, culture.

Since my last post I've been staying around Seoul and keeping up with the normal random activities. The only complaint I have is that my camera has been going crazy on me by not working half of the time, so my tourist look isn't quite complete. One day I went to the 63Building to see the sunset over the city, and thankfully got some great photos.

^^63 Building



^^Snapshot of the Subway when you get on at the wrong time...chaos.

(^^ Random Band that played covers of Elvis and other random bands.)

One thing that is evident here is the impact of commercialism and pop culture, and I surprisingly have grown to love it. Even while taking a walk to the subway station from the main gate of Ewha you’ll be bombarded with sales pitches and catchy tunes. Well this is a popular women's university, so of course the shopping outside the main gate is called “Fashion Street” in all of the tour guide books. It is truly a street shopping paradise, or at least a convenient place to buy a new pair of shoes to celebrate the end of midterms. But it’s the same everywhere here, sales people with microphones trying to get people to come into their stores, people trying to pass out advertisements, and at every street cart selling accessories you’ll see pictures of your favorite celebrities wearing scarves. Earlier in the semester the picture of Paris Hilton and her purse-sized puppy inspired quite a few purchases. My first week here I felt like I had to get a pair of high heals and a fashionable boyfriend on my arm. However, I like that everyone usually dresses professionally, a change from the typical sweat shirts and t-shirts wardrobe of most American university campuses.
Korean popular (K-pop, rock, traditional) music also has its interesting place. There are some great bands, and some crazy fans here. Like I said, I went to a concert last week, luckily a free benefit concert with about 15 bands. I haven’t seen one band that doesn’t have a dance routine to every one of their hit songs. And since being a fan is not taken lightly, most people learn the dances. One band, The Wonder Girls, is probably one of the most popular now, their current hit being “Nobody.” Look it up on YouTube if you’re interested, it’s all in Korean except the addictive chorus. Speaking of which, why did I start writing this? It’s replaying in my head again. Ahhh. One night I was sitting with some friends and the song came on in the restaurant. Looking around I spotted a few grown men saying how they loved Wonder Girls and one mimicking the dance moves under the table. People are hilarious. Before I came to Korea, I memorized one Korean song, so I could impress my friends in Karaoke, but I regret not learning a dance as well. Well sad to say the Wonder Girls weren’t that great in concert, and they only sang “Nobody," but I still like their music. There’s no way I could escape it anyway.
Speaking of commercialism, some genius invented a wonderful unofficial holiday for a pretty sweet candy: Pepero Day. Pepero (빼빼로) is like Japan’s Pocky, a long cookie covered in chocolate. On November 11th, you may be honoring Veterans Day, but thanks to the Lotte candy company we’ll be trading Pepero with friends, teachers and anyone we may “like” here in Korea. It’s on November 11th because 4 Pepero looks like 11/11. Every convenience store I’ve passed yesterday going to and from church (I travel an hour away from campus, that’s a lot of convenience stores) had Pepero in the windows of all sizes and flavors. I think it’s more for couples once you get out of high school, a Valentine’s or Sweetest day kind of thing, but I still hope I get some Pepero!
This weekend was the Peace Buddy party for international students, with a costume theme and Mr. Ewha contest. Colin definitely represented here, putting on a great talent performance, unfortunately, yet entertainingly enough, someone in cross dress, dancing to “Nobody” won the title.
I was fortunate to make a friend outside campus that invited me to a birthday party, so I went after the I-Party. The typical birthday (well this one at least) turns out to be hanging out at a restaurant with friends. This one was particularly interesting because I was the only foreigner, and only girl. Everyone was really cool, tried to speak in English a little, and asked me questions about home and such. It was a blast, it kind of reminded me of hanging out with friends back home, and even though I didn’t expect to be the only girl, it was definitely an experience I’m happy I was able to have. Now I’m excited for my birthday next month! The rest of the weekend was pretty relaxing: movies, window shopping, girl talk…just ended my Sunday with a load of laundry and a game of Uno with some girls. I'm really comfortable here, but I'm still doing new things, so I'm really sad there's only a month left.

우리 부산에서 만날까요?

This past week (Fri-Wed) was my break from midterms so I grabbed my usual traveling buddies and went to Gyeongju and south to Busan. Gyeongju is the ancient capital of the Silla period, so it was great for sightseeing, especially since we just finished studying Silla literature in my online class. Pauline and I were in Gyeongju for 2 nights, but there was nothing to do for fun at night. We ran into a group of Germans who asked us what there was to do, and somehow we all ended up going to a Norebang together. Here's to making random friends. Sunday we took a bus to Busan, the 2nd largest city in S.Korea, where Jenni met us. The weekend was full of beach visits, shopping, a temple visit, and a stroll in the country's largest fish market (poor Jenni is vegetarian and strolled down a street where they were chopping off heads). I met a penpal that I made online that lives in Busan, and she took me out for what has been the best meal I've had in Korea (except the one Saera's mom cooked for us during the last holiday). One highlight was the empty Norebang we strolled into. We were the only customers, so the lady that ran the place was really nice to us, and kept giving us more time to sing than we paid for. Nothing tops the fact that she joined us for one last song: "Mama Mia."






I'm sitting in my dorm sipping my 26th cup of tea in the past 20 hours. It's the only thing that seems to ward off the head cold that is trying to chase me. Someone in our hostel insisted on leaving the window open, so I think that's why I'm getting sick. Although, it could be a combination of that and laying on the beach on a cold day. It was worth it though, and I found some medicine and Orange Juice, so I'll be good.

It was a short week, and I only have one class tomorrow! I have plans to meet a Japanese girl for a little post-midterm relaxation, and a Kimchi festival. It will be nice to stay in Seoul. Maybe I'll go salsa dancing - it's been at least 4 weeks since I've been. Of course you know I found some great places to dance, it's what I do.

I love it here, and sometimes I feel like a Korean, even though there's no escaping the fact that I don't look like I belong. I'm using my Korean more and I'm more confident, I'm even picking up some habits. I've been facing the question: as an International Relations student, is it necessary to give up my identity to understand anothers'? I think not. It's difficult but necessary to find grounds to share my culture, while still immersing myself in another. Asian countries have conflicts because of the past, and their memories and self-identities. Each country in North East Asia tends to have their own views of the others. If you ask any Korean why it is important for Korea to keep possession of Dokdo Island, you might get into a heated one-sided conversation against the possibility of Japanese imperialism flaring up again. Even with these ideological blockades, there still exists great economic interdependence and political connectedness. However, when it comes to getting business done, there is a lot of sharing and cooperation and success in Asia, and still a preservation of each distinct (with similarities) culture. It's not balanced, but there's an order that can't be denied. Korea has a blend of old and new that is envied by many countries. My roommate says that Chinese struggle to keep their identity and culture preserved while still becoming more global, but realizes Korea has done a good job at doing just that. I'm also learning that the purpose of traveling, or just living life, is not to lose or find myself. Traveling opens opportunities to be who I am, mature where I'm planted, and understand people better through their perspectives.

I apologize if any of the above is confusing or has errors, this cold has me a little foggy-headed. (Praying against that though.) Also I had a few good distractions, chats with my future roommate that's in Russia, and Amy, my past floor-mate that's now here at Ewha (she chose my blog title, it means "Shall we meet in Busan?") ㅋㅋ

I'm going to go continue studying my shopping vocabulary for my Korean test tomorrow. I should also learn how I did on the midterm soon ^^ Hope all is well at home, I think of you all often.

Weekend East

This past weekend my travels to the east coast were anything but smooth, but I had an amazing time. Three exchange students and I traveled to Seoraksan National Park,in the northeast of the country. Transportation was the biggest hurdle. No matter where we were going we always happened to miss the bus by five minutes.

Osaek, is known for its hot springs, and our motel had one. Actually it's a glorified public bath with the natural water from the springs pumped into it. It was definitely a new experience bathing with a bunch of other ladies. Talk about getting out of my comfort zone! After we checked into our 40,000 Won motel, which had mats to sleep on, a heated floor and a bathroom with old tile with a semi-functional western-style toilet, we left to go to the beach! A pen-pal of mine told me that the East Sea has the best beach, so I was really excited to go, even if it's the middle of Autumn. We figured out we had to take bus #9 we got to the stop about 5 minutes late. Luckily a persistent taxi driver offered us a ride to Naksan for 10,000won, so since it's usually about 20,000 we took the ride. The beach was beautiful, and even though it was cold three of us decided to just give in and swim. We definitely played the foreigner card on this move. It wasn't long before we realized the jacket-clad Koreans on the beach had their eyes on us for being so crazy. As I walked to the bathrooms to change a large group of older people stopped me for a short conversation on how the water was. They were fun. I love people. We sat on the beach in our sweatshirts and jeans for a while taking pictures and joking around. I think I left all of my cares there.

Saturday a few park rangers at Osaek came to us to give us some information, and take our photos for some reason. They convinced us to visit a temple and waterfalls in Osaek before traveling to the main part of the part in the north. The hiking was very easy, maybe too easy. The leaves were beautiful colors and the mountains were amazing. In the more popular part of the park the leaves were mostly green still, so I'm really thankful we went there first. I'm not very good at describing so I'll just include a few more pictures.

The weekend was great, even though a few times our girl-fight instinct almost came through. Two of the girls are vegetarians so the whole weekend was a fight to find a pizza hut...which we successfully did! It's definitely not your familiar pan-pizza here, there's actually no real difference between pizza places for those of you interested, except the crazy toppings like potatoes and shrimp. I'm hungry now.

I just returned from my first Midterm Exam! PHEW. it's over. Yesterday reminded me of Waynesburg and normal college days. I wore sweat pants all day for the first time, and relaxed around the dorm studying and visiting people. Haddie, my roommate from freshman year, mailed me stuff to make s'mores (necessary because no one here heard of them) so we had a mini party in the kitchenette on the 2nd floor. I showed them how to make s'mores in the microwave, then we got adventurous and used the toaster oven. It soon turned into Asian marshmallows when instead of a stick, someone picked their marshmallow up with a chopstick.
I stayed up late and then studied 3 more hours today...minus a few times I checked facebook and uploaded pictures. The test turned out to be three short answers and an essay on studying comparative politics. I just hope I did alright. Next exam is for Korean language. dun.dun.dun. OH! Just remembered, I have a dinner appointment with my tutor! Food and study help is always good.

Thanks for reading, annyeong!

little get-aways make my days

I’m here to study, but more-so I came to Korea to experience as much as possible. These past two weeks I have been better at skipping my afternoon naps to find something around Seoul to do. Mondays and Wednesdays I am finished with my classes after my Korean language class. Last week a few girls and I went for a bike ride along the Han River after lunch. We rented a bike that looked like it came straight from the Wrigley’s Doublemint Gum commercial, you know the one with the twins, for 3,000 Won for an hour. Like almost everywhere we go, we got attention for being foreigners and many people said “Hello!” There were also many hard-core bikers and people exercising on the outdoor gym equipment. I think I could do that every week because of the busy but laid-back atmosphere. Yesterday was Wednesday so I went with Pauline and Jenni (from Finland) to Topgol Park. It had a large Pagoda to see and a few old Korean style pavilions. There were a lot of old men relaxing in their suits with their newspapers, and a few more serious people near the Pagoda. We decided to sit on a small wall and somehow ended up sharing what was on our Ipods. First we busted out the Disney songs, and let me go on the record saying that Jenni singing “Hakuna Matata” in Finnish is hilarious! However, catching us seat-dancing to a Spice Girls song had to be the highlight of the day for a couple ahjussis (old men) that passed by. Today I met my language tutor, SeonYeong, and a group of other tutors and international students to make Kimbap. As I said before kimbap looks like a sushi roll, but it can be filled with anything but raw fish. SeonYeong and I sat at a table with two of her classmates and between us we made 12 rolls of kimbap! It was delicious, although the café Ewha Sarang on campus has the best and cheapest kimbap around and I don’t have to work for it. I met a few girls for some shopping and a movie, we watched “The Women,” with Korean subtitles of course. The theater was really nice and the screen was huge, but I found it a little weird that they gave us assigned seats with our tickets. When I returned I had a message from Saera, an Ewha student that was my roommate when she exchanged to Waynesburg, with dinner plans for tomorrow. Before that, I have Understanding Images class from 3-6:00. We analyze films with economic, cultural and historical perspectives; it’s really interesting and I like it a lot but I’m kind of regretting taking a class so late on a Friday. Right now the plan for the weekend is to go to the beach on the East Sea, so we get to do some sight-seeing and still slow down enough to study. Plans change easily though, so I’ll let you know about that later.

study overload already - week 6

Tonight I was pretty productive considering recent bouts of distraction. I took another nap today before my International Relations between North East Asia countries class. One thing that hasn't changed since my freshman year is my affinity for naps.

My IR (international relations) class is pretty interesting. It's right around lunch time however and my professor always brings up food, and how he just crave a simple American cheeseburger or plain cheese pizza. (He taught in the US for a couple years.) It's true, pizza here has potatoes, seafood, and much more on it, and burgers are bulgogi burgers usually (with a sweet marinade). Although I'm a fan of a good bulgogi burger, I think McDonalds should move it worldwide. So I was hungry...but i just ate a convenience store sandwich and chips. I'm trying to save some money.

I was going to eat dinner in my room but my roommate ("Ella" from Beijing for future reference) was going out so I joined her. We went to one of my favorite 24 hour places. We had kimbap (looks like a sushi roll, but it's filled with lots of things like sausage, egg, veggies --not raw fish! We also had fish cake soup and teokbokkgi, or spicy rice cakes, all for 7,500won. Lots of good food, cheap. Around 11 Colin (for those who don't know Colin goes to Waynesburg too and is also exchanging to Ewha -- read his blog!) instant messaged me & we went out to get him some street food. It was a welcome break from the 12 Korean language workbook pages I had to do.

So, how about a throwback story?
The dancing I told you about at the Mask Dance Festival in my last blog wasn't the only time I've done something like that. During orientation week the Peace Buddies* organized a party for the international students. We went to a place called Osama (weird I know) and people were dancing. Well I decided to make some friends by teaching them an old-school move some friends and I made up. Just to give you an idea it involves pretending to throw and run with a football, and I'm dramatic. It worked well for breaking the ice and meeting people. Before the party was over I got invited to my first Norebang (Karaoke, literally "sing-room") with a few Japanese girls. It was a fun night. The next day I met my Peace Buddy, YeongMi to go to the Seoul Food Festival and she showed me a video she secretly took of me dancing ***i know now how ridiculous i look*** Somehow that didn't stop me.

(*Peace Buddies are Ewha students that volunteer to help international students. They organize events and every day we have the option of meeting for Buddy Lunch where we all eat off campus together. YeongMi is my buddy, and she's amazing.)

Another from the first week:
I went on a trip hiking to the Mt. Samgak festival. It was a race, but it was my first time hiking a mountain so I stayed with the rest of the group and was lazy. It's a big festival for the neighboring town and the Mayor was there for introductions and photo opportunities, but he also climbed with us. He kept coming around us and talking with us, with his photographer in tow. He sign-languaged asked me about my nose ring, with a look of shock. It was funny. I don't care if he used me just for photo ops he was a sweet man. The festival sent a representative from the town to pick us up from school and hike with our group that day. I got to talk to her quite a bit and was kind of sad to say goodbye. When we said goodbye I said Gomapsmnida (thank you) and she said "ah!" and hugged me like I made her really happy. I'm still not sure, but maybe it's because gomapsmnida is more personal than Kamsahamnida (also thank you). Anyway I started out my trip meeting lots of people and I'm still meeting more ^^ I love people.