BAKER KING KIM TAK GOO IS REAL
Or however you spell that. Too lazy to look it up, haven't watched it, but recognized the dude's face on an apple bun thing at the convenience store. Had to get it, of course, because I'm still tickled at all the idols and drama characters advertising things. There was rice cake inside the bun with a little bit of apple stuff. Carbs on carbs on carbs. I wonder if most Asians are so skinny because they don't eat any of their food.
Meanwhile, I am eating ALLLLLL of their food. And it's goooooood. Had the best sabgyeopsal I've ever tasted last night at a BBQ place where you get to sit on the floor. Also tried white rice wine (makkeolli? idk), which was surprisingly tasty and light. Very refreshing. Also, the Baskin Robbins here has rainbow sherbet that looks much the same as the stuff we have in the states (which is awesome because I love me some rainbow sherbet), but their 30 other flavors are completely different. And delicious.
DONGDAEMUN HAS TOO MUCH STUFF. As soon as you walk out of the metro station, there's just CLOTHING and SHOES and FOOD STALLS and CHEAP. This is the place to go for bargaining. And there was a pretty river that you could walk along that had spots to go down to the water and stepping stone crossings and little fountains to sit at (and in).
Classes are... classes. The movie class is interesting, but I've forgotten how to critique movies. Korean class feels so looooooong. We've learned the characters, and I wouldn't mind that she's focused so much on us reading them on the spot when she shows us a new word if she let us say whole words at a time more often. At the end of class today, we read four sentences in a row syllable by syllable, exaggerating the sounds (which is what we've been doing this whole time we've been learning characters). And I get it, some of the sounds in Korean are hard to make and we need to practice, but maybe we could progress to actually speaking sentences if she'd let us talk like normal people rather than speaking in syllables. Mostly I'm just irritated because I learn better by ear than by sight (I've got the sounds down and would like it very much if she let us start using them) and feel like an idiot when she puts a random hangeul word up and wants us to read it RIGHTNOW. Because I don't have the symbols ready for immediate use in my memory yet and thus take way longer than everyone else seems to to read things. And then when I tell her this, she gives me this sort of 'poor you' look and tells me that it's okay, but it's like SERIOUSLY, WOMAN, LET US TALK AND I WILL BLOW YOU THE FUCK AWAY WITH MY PRONUNCIATION. Besides the fact that hangeul has tons of random pronunciation rules, I have only ever really looked at Korean when it was romanized, so I think it's pretty awesome that I can read things in hangeul already at all. She was talking today about how the weird pronunciations are natural in speech, and in my head I was just like YES YES YES, INTUITIVE LEAPS AND ALL THAT, CAN WE START SAYING THINGS NOW KTHXBAI because STOP OVER-TEACHING THINGS THAT YOU PRONOUNCE AS NATURAL. AGH.
Also, when I asked her about a letter that sounds different when it's being used as a particle (which it was, in the sentences we were reading, no less), just to try and, you know, understand the language I'm trying to learn here, she just marked which ones were read differently and said she couldn't teach us that now. And here I thought teachers were supposed to teach things. Maybe that wasn't part of her lesson plan today, but then maybe she shouldn't have used those sentences today that would bring up all these logistical language questions.
ANYWAY, besides this school pissing me off here and there, Korea is awesome. Everything I eat is delicious and everywhere I go has interesting things to see and do. So everyone should come to Korea, but not everyone should do summer school at Ewha.
Though speaking of Ewha, LEDApple released a drama version of their latest song's MV, which I watched for the hell of it. And not only do I love this group more now (they play instruments, have good voices, AND they dance :D), but the location the guy is at in the beginning is totally the building I have my Korean cinema class in. THEY FILMED PART OF THIS MV AT THIS COLLEGE. My hunger to see idols just grows and grows, lemme tell you...
Meanwhile, I am eating ALLLLLL of their food. And it's goooooood. Had the best sabgyeopsal I've ever tasted last night at a BBQ place where you get to sit on the floor. Also tried white rice wine (makkeolli? idk), which was surprisingly tasty and light. Very refreshing. Also, the Baskin Robbins here has rainbow sherbet that looks much the same as the stuff we have in the states (which is awesome because I love me some rainbow sherbet), but their 30 other flavors are completely different. And delicious.
DONGDAEMUN HAS TOO MUCH STUFF. As soon as you walk out of the metro station, there's just CLOTHING and SHOES and FOOD STALLS and CHEAP. This is the place to go for bargaining. And there was a pretty river that you could walk along that had spots to go down to the water and stepping stone crossings and little fountains to sit at (and in).
Classes are... classes. The movie class is interesting, but I've forgotten how to critique movies. Korean class feels so looooooong. We've learned the characters, and I wouldn't mind that she's focused so much on us reading them on the spot when she shows us a new word if she let us say whole words at a time more often. At the end of class today, we read four sentences in a row syllable by syllable, exaggerating the sounds (which is what we've been doing this whole time we've been learning characters). And I get it, some of the sounds in Korean are hard to make and we need to practice, but maybe we could progress to actually speaking sentences if she'd let us talk like normal people rather than speaking in syllables. Mostly I'm just irritated because I learn better by ear than by sight (I've got the sounds down and would like it very much if she let us start using them) and feel like an idiot when she puts a random hangeul word up and wants us to read it RIGHTNOW. Because I don't have the symbols ready for immediate use in my memory yet and thus take way longer than everyone else seems to to read things. And then when I tell her this, she gives me this sort of 'poor you' look and tells me that it's okay, but it's like SERIOUSLY, WOMAN, LET US TALK AND I WILL BLOW YOU THE FUCK AWAY WITH MY PRONUNCIATION. Besides the fact that hangeul has tons of random pronunciation rules, I have only ever really looked at Korean when it was romanized, so I think it's pretty awesome that I can read things in hangeul already at all. She was talking today about how the weird pronunciations are natural in speech, and in my head I was just like YES YES YES, INTUITIVE LEAPS AND ALL THAT, CAN WE START SAYING THINGS NOW KTHXBAI because STOP OVER-TEACHING THINGS THAT YOU PRONOUNCE AS NATURAL. AGH.
Also, when I asked her about a letter that sounds different when it's being used as a particle (which it was, in the sentences we were reading, no less), just to try and, you know, understand the language I'm trying to learn here, she just marked which ones were read differently and said she couldn't teach us that now. And here I thought teachers were supposed to teach things. Maybe that wasn't part of her lesson plan today, but then maybe she shouldn't have used those sentences today that would bring up all these logistical language questions.
ANYWAY, besides this school pissing me off here and there, Korea is awesome. Everything I eat is delicious and everywhere I go has interesting things to see and do. So everyone should come to Korea, but not everyone should do summer school at Ewha.
Though speaking of Ewha, LEDApple released a drama version of their latest song's MV, which I watched for the hell of it. And not only do I love this group more now (they play instruments, have good voices, AND they dance :D), but the location the guy is at in the beginning is totally the building I have my Korean cinema class in. THEY FILMED PART OF THIS MV AT THIS COLLEGE. My hunger to see idols just grows and grows, lemme tell you...