Last weekend before the NSLI-Y children

So Friday at work I was very productive in the morning but in the afternoon my supervisor was like "should I give you more work?" and I jokingly said "don't worry about it" so she didn't and instead I read almost an entire book on my phone just chilling in the office, which was nice. For lunch we went to "Flapjack Pantry" which was an American style pancake/brunch/sandwich place. I got a chicken sandwich and it was beautiful and delicious and I was v happy with that decision. When I came home in the afternoon my roommates and I waited for our other roommate to get back from her part time job (until 10:00) and then we went out to dinner. We had dalkgalbi which is like chicken and vegetables and rice cake cooked in a giant pot in front of you. They got it "not spicy" for my sake but it was still a little spicy, but I managed. Since my roommates were starving at that point (I had a bowl of pasta at 8:00 because i knew it would be a while) they were being really impatient while waiting for everything to cook. Korean restaurants are torturous sometimes-- you go hungry and have to watch your food cook in front of you before you can eat. After that we went to Thursday party, a bar that I had already been to before but its popular among Koreans with foreign friends so all my Korean friends always want to go here. Our two other roommates met us there around 12, and we joked that it was going to be an awkward walk together to the var for them-- one is French and the other is Japanese, but the French guy doesn't speak Korean and the Japanese girl doesn't speak English so they have no way of communicating. We stayed at the bar until 4:00 am and, in typical Korean fashion, we went to karaoke afterwards until 5:00.

By the time we came home the sun was going up, and it was light in our house by the time I got into bed. Needless to say, we all slept until 2:30 and then basically just lounged around all day until around 6:00 where my roommate and I went to buy ingredients for Korean fried rice. We were basically professional cooks and made friend rice with egg, potato, pepper, carrot, and onion and steamed cabbage/stuff idk it was delicious.

Then we watched a weird Korean thriller/horror/mystery movie called "The Wailing" which we all really didn't understand, even the Korean roommate because it was all in dialect. Today, Sunday, I woke up and got ready to go to lunch with a friend whom I did NSLI-Y with two years ago! It was super nice to catch up together and eat delicious American food at a brunch/lunch place called "Made."

She is doing a marketing internship now and did the press release/review for this place a few weeks ago so they gave up free garlic bread and cheese risotto mozzarella stick type things. I had the "American breakfast"- bread, cheesy eggs, hashbrowns, bread, and bacon, and she had Baked Ziti! Coming home I went to the bank and was feeling generous so I bought three chocolate ice creams and gave them out to my roommates when I got home. Then we played Rummikub, which I have no idea how my Korean roommate learned/where he bought it, but it was fun. Then I made a grilled cheese, my roommates made ramen, and then my roommate cooked a giant omelet with the leftover vegetables from last night and my 7-day-past-sell-date eggs for us all to share. I bought milk yesterday and they were all making fun of me telling me to drink it quickly because I had let my eggs almost go bad and they were scared for my other perishables.
Also bonus picture of the absurd amount of water bottles we have in our house right now. So one of our Korean guy roommates bought 20 tubes of toothpaste online last week because he figured out that if you buy in bulk like that things are a lot cheaper but we made fun of him because I don't think he can use 20 tubes of toothpaste anytime soon??? But then this past week I was walking up our stairs and in front of our gate on the second floor there was all of these water bottles stacked up outside of the gate. Immediately I knew whose it was because no one else is that crazy-- we don't have an elevator so you still have to carry all of those up two flights of stairs! He's like one of those people from "Extreme Couponers" because he was bragging about how each bottle cost approximately 30 cents USD but I still don't think it's worth it.

Still behind a week (Third week here)

I swear I've been trying to keep this blog updated but I've gotten so busy recently- which is a good thing! I've been meeting with friends, been busy at work before the NSLI-Y kids arrive, and have gotten a lot closer with my roommates. On Monday of last week I worked as usual, organizing things for the NSLI-Y orientation and even writing a speech from Better World for the NSLI-Y kids. On Tuesday I met up with my language exchange partner and went to an outside cafe in Hapjeong, which is cool like Hongdae but without all of the people. The weather was so nice and we stayed there for almost three hours! There were even hammocks outside, it was a really cute cafe!
Wednesday some coworkers and I went out for noodles during lunch and I met two new people in the office. One of the people was a Yonsei alum, and since Yonsei is where I am taking my language class he was really interested in how it was and what I thought of the campus. He then went on to brag about how his first semester at Yonsei he never went to class if it was rainy/cold/hot/foggy/etc. so basically he never went. He got a .58 GPA that semester and broke the schools record for lowest GPA (and he's convinced that he still has that record- he's hoping that they mention him in the Yonsei 150th anniversary LOL). Yonsei is like the Harvard/Yale of Korea so a lot of alums are high ranking CEO's and he said they were all so impressed/amused by his low GPA that he kept getting calls from them asking if they could take him out to dinner and stuff. He was absolutely hilarious and I'm still impressed that he was able to get a .58 GPA.
Thursday I met up with my language partner again and we walked around Hongdae and then went to a cafe. He lived in Japan for 5 years so I brought him to the Ghibli store and then we wanted to get something to eat but we just wandered around for 30 minutes indecisive, and then the two places we decided on were both closed for break so we ended up just going to a cafe. It was a sheep cafe (!!!!) and we ate delicious green tea waffles with ice cream and then pet the sheep, which were kept on a deck outside. The owner apparently owns a farm or something and rotates out the sheep every now and then, and while we were there one sheep was really friendly!

I'm behind a weekend

Okay so I haven't written anything in like a week so I'm sorry if this post is a little short/incomplete because I'm not sure if I remember everything from a whole week ago. But last Saturday I did basically nothing until about 4pm, where my roommate and I decided to do a little shopping in Hongdae. I bought a t-shirt and a necklace, and then there were way too many people on the main shopping street so we decided to get bingsoo instead. We had mango and grapefruit bingsoo and even though I'm not a huge fan of grapefruit since it's kinda of bitter, smothered in ice cream and sweetened condensed milk it was fine (who knew). We didn't even take a picture of it because we just dove in. Then she wanted to get contact solution from a pharmacy but for some reason we were blind and walked for like a half hour, passing three pharmacies but somehow not seeing them. We ended up at the Studio Ghibli store which was absolutely adorable and beautiful and nostaliga-inducing. She forced me to take a picture inside the cat bus so here is me awkwardly inside.

On our way back we found a pharmacy (three) and then we went home and met our other roommate at the super market because we wanted to cook together. We ended up cooking Korean/Japanese style curry which was delicious, but my Japanese roommate said it had a "camping" taste aka we don't have a lot of spices or cooking supplies so we just improvised on everything, therefore giving it that particular taste of when you cook something when camping. We were fairly proud of it though, so I think it went fine. We had a little left over but no more rice so when one of our other roommates came back he put it over pasta (lol).
Sunday I met up with one of my penpals I had seen last time and it was so much fun! Her, her boyfriend, and a friend of hers who is going to a university in Seoul all met me in Insadong and we tried on hanboks and went to a palace. You get into the palace for free if you wear hanbok so we didn't feel bad about just going in, taking some pictures, and leaving.

After that we had patbingsu and then decided that we wanted to have ChiMek by the Han River.

ChiMek combines the word "Chicken" with the Korean word for "Beer" and its an extremely famous meal eaten outside (usually by the Han River). Korean chicken is delicious so I didn't object, but I'm not a huge fan of beer so I had this weird girly beer that is marketed specifically towards girls- its in a pink bottle, is carbonated, and is peach flavored. ChiMek is so popular that the chicken delivery companies even sell specific packages for people eating it at the river- two boxes of chicken will get you free soda and a free mat to lay on the grass.

I had work the next day so we all left around 9 and I got home and promptly fell asleep. On my way to Insadong that day I fell asleep on the subway and missed my stop so I had to backtrack so basically I was exhausted.

Monday through Thursday

Monday I went to work (and had omelet rice for the first time, to the delight of my Japanese roommate. Omelet rice is basically an omelet on top of rice, with ketchup and mayo and another sauce that is actually Japanese I'm pretty sure). Monday night my Taiwanese roommate had her first day of work so she came home at 8 o'clock and hadn't had dinner yet. Therefore, we had to order food out of course. We ordered Jokbal, which, know that I look it up, I'm realizing means pork feet. I know both of the words separately but I never put it together... And that's why there was this giant bone at the bottom of the plate...and why it was so fatty...but it was actually delicious so oh well. When you order it it comes as a veritable feast, with various sauces, peppers, lettuce leaves and sesame leaves, and noodles as well. How people usually eat is is by wrapping the meat in a lettuce or sesame leaf and putting all of the toppings inside, which is called ssam. It was delicious and I highly recommend.
Tuesday I literally did nothing- I slept all day and didn't leave the house but it was nice to do nothing for a change so oh well.
Wednesday I had work all day but I met a few new people in the office, including a lady who used to live in France so she speaks French! She was really excited to find someone to practice French with but literally my mind was so confused I could barely manage a few sentences before switching back to Korean or English. That day someone also brought coffee, cakes, waffles, and patbingsu from a nearby cafe which was amazing, and of course I ate a ton of bingsu.

Wednesday night my roommate and I went to a language exchange at the You Are Here cafe, a cafe owned by Talk to Me in Korean, an online Korean language learning resource. We met a ton of really nice people and the cafe is super cute. Its like an American style house, with two stories and a front yard and everything. It is only about a five minute walk from our apartment so it is super convenient too.
On Thursday I met up with a pen pal I met around four years ago on a language exchange website. She is Chinese but going to school in Korean so we spoke Korean together which was interesting. We went to a cute cafe in Insadong and met up with a few of her friends, whom were all really nice.
Then yesterday work was fun but I was exhausted. I had omelet rice for lunch again (at a different restaurant though) and everyone was in a good mood.
After work on Friday I went and did a language exchange organized by the apartment I'm staying in, where they match you up with a tenant in another house who wants to learn your native language. We actually met at the You Are Here cafe and two of the workers recognized me from Wednesday and remembered my name (mostly because Tatum is really uncommon/sounds a little strange when pronounced in Korean). It was really fun but I really want my language classes to start! I love studying alone but now that I'm in Korea with the chance to take an actual class, I want to study in a classroom!

The Weekend

After staying out extremely late (early?) on Friday/Saturday, my roommate who went out with me and I slept basically all day. I woke up for a short period of time, felt motivated to study, and then promptly went to sleep again. At around 5:00 ish we all got up and decided to go out to eat somewhere. We ended up going to another donkatsu place, and this time I got cheese donkatsu because I was in the mood for cheese (for once in my life). It was delicious, but way too heavy and I couldn't finish it all.

Then on Sunday we went to Chinatown and the Cartoon Village (?), two neighborhoods in Incheon, a city right outside of Seoul where the major airport is. Chinatown was really interesting, there were so many different foods. My roommate, who is from Taiwan, said it was more like Taiwan-town because there were so many Taiwanese restaurants and food stands there.

It was also extremely crowded, but I didn't see any foreign people or hear any languages other than Korean being spoken there which was strange. Living in Hongdae I've gotten used to seeing at least a few foreign people everyday but in reality there are very little foreigners living in Korea, Incheon included. Right next to Chinatown was the cartoon village, and it was interesting to say the least. Apparently it was a part of some sort of revitalization project to draw more visitors to Incheon, which is a pretty old city with a fairly elderly population. There were murals painted on all of the houses and themes cafes and restaurants everywhere. It was really adorable to look at it, and the little kids who were there with their families really seemed to be enjoying it as well.

After walking around there we had a smoothie at a Taiwanese coffee chain in Chinatown to cool off, and then we got back on the subway to go somewhere else since we still had a little time left.

Incheon is over an hour away from Hongdae by subway so we decided to stop off at the Han River and Yeouido Park on our way back. Yeouido is an island-type area in the Han River and its mostly covered in high rise office buildings, including the buildings of all of the major broadcasting companies in Korea, but it also has a beautiful park and (in my opinion) one of the coolest sections of the Han River. The park was nice, but it was super hot there. It has three different sections- a forest, a grassy field-esque area, and then a traditional Korean forest, containing trees and plants only native to Korea.

After that we walked a few minutes to the river, which was beautiful as always. Since it was the weekend there was so many people there (and unfortunately, a lot of trash) but when I went during the weekdays two summers ago it wasn't that bad.

We were extremely hungry after that so we hopped on the subway and went back to Hongdae where we met up with two of our other roommates and went to a restaurant on their recommendation.

It was probably the nicest restaurant I've ever been to in Seoul but luckily it wasn't too expensive. I got a soup of some sort, it was delicious but the English menu was just as confusing as the Korean one so I'm not quite sure what it was. After dinner we all watched "The Conjuring," and American horror film and for some reason I agreed to this. Overall, a pretty fun weekend!