so much text in this one. blah blah....
ok to start with, enjoy this bad pic from my (dying) phone of my new, gigantic backpack!
nothing happened to my old one, i just needed a bigger one to put all my school stuff into. i didn't even try to bargain once the shop clerk showed it to me because i knew i had to have it
for some reason i was really looking for something that was either faux-leather or olive green? mostly the olive green. especially after the bag i saw in myeongdong with bulgocrazyi ended up being sold/gone
i just got over (am still getting over?) a flu that appeared last weekend
i ended up sleeping all day tuesday
but that was the only day i had to stay home.
so the test i had to take for korean class ended up being for a reason!
there was a brand-new-to-korean-beginner class (1-A or something) and then there was the 'regular' beginner class (korean 1-1) that i got into just because i could already read hangul (really slowly and badly, though)
i feel like i'm the farthest behind in the class itself, it seems most everyone has had a semester/quarter/summer of korean class before
it's not awful, because the teachers are only working at a pace that is a tiny bit above me, though they are pretty much always speaking korean
like, 95% korean, 5% english for whenever we look confused (which is GREAT for meeee, one of like 3 native english speakers in the 12 person class)
other than the korean class (3hrs every day of the week from 8:10 until 10:50
), i'm taking two more~
politics in korea & east asia
and
culture & religion in modern korea
both classes seem interesting to me so far. i haven't ever taken a strictly politics class before, so i'm really happy with that one~
the day before orientation (uh, a week and a half ago) i met with youngeun (my PEACE buddy) and some of the other exchange students she is 'in charge' of~ (top left pic, she's so cute
). we ate dinner, then went to the same place i went with insun & jooyoung for a giant patbingsuuuu~
the two on the top right are from germany, the two on the bottom right are from the philippines.v
there are SO many german exchange students here!
like, everyone is surprised at the amount. they're probably the biggest group from the western countries.
after that i met up with anna (top right) and her roommate (Ai)/roommate's friends (Yuka & Constance)!
she had found me on twitter halfway through the summer by searching for other ewha study abroad students. i'm SO glad she found me on twitter like she did, we get along really well~
we ate...more patbingsu
i swear, with this stuff i never get 'full' off of it, so i can just keep eating and eating
dangerous...
the next day we had orientation and a welcoming party in the evening at a near-by bar in sincheon
this is us paying for the entry fee (that came with either endless beer for a certain amount of time or two cocktails). tessa (bottom left with anna) is in my korean class with me
michelle (left in the bottom right) is tessa's roommate, both are from singapore. & jin (right) is "from" canada (born in china, moved around, now lives in canada). jin, anna & i hang out a lot
anna is the only one of the three of us who lives on campus & i'm SO glad she does! i've me more people through her & find out about stuff other 'on-campus' exchange students are doing.
there are ~300ish exchange students & i've met tons of people
i think the sidney from just a couple years ago would be really surprised at the sidney now. i'm way more outgoing and it's just so easy for me to talk to all these new people...i used to be so socially awkward to the point where i didn't know how to REALLY hold a conversation with new people
as we were walking to a bar my group of friends & i started crossing the street before a car drove down. we stopped to wait for the car, but suddenly fangirly screams started all around us and we were pushed closer towards the car
i couldn’t tell who it was & the car drove away before i could get a good look at who was on the inside. as we kept walking towards the bar, all the sudden this group of guards & camera crew start parting the crowd on the sidewalk and, low & behold, it’s the same people from the car!
the guy in the front seat (the one causing all the screaming) was joo jinmo (from 200lb beauty)! i didn't know exactly who he was at the time, but i took pics anyway b/c i knew he was an actor
later on that week i saw yu jaeseok, haha and park myeongsu on a bus filming something else
i most definitely recognized them at first glance, but didn’t have my camera out, so i just waved and may have jumped up (and down a bit when they looked outside…) keunseok guesses they were filming something for the tv show, infinite challenge.
anyway, back to the party~ a LOT of people went, so major kudos to the bar tenders for putting up with us
when i went to go get my 2nd cocktail it was so crowded (with tall people) that sang (guy in the red shirt, top right) had to get it for me
at one point (after my cocktails and a shot, i am a light weight now
) i was dancing along with bopeep (baaaadly) and got pushed up on one of the tables with a korean girl who obviously knew the kpop dances far better than me
hahahaha i still had fun. there's proof of this on facebook in tagged pics of me
last friday i met up with youngeun again, this time with other PEACE buddies and exchange students! hm, i think everyone who wasn't korean was german (besides me, i mean). SEE a lot of germans! but since everyone here speaks english to some degree, it's all good
~~~ *english speaker privilege
where we went was SO CUTE
ghibli themed! normal prices on the food, but such cute decor~~
after we went out for makgeolli at this really pretty bar
we sat in this little sectioned-off booth and played drinking games/talked
the only bad thing was jaemin (a friend of one of the korean girls) got his shoes (accidentally?) stolen
you had to take your shoes off to sit in the booth, and someone must've been intoxicated enough to take his shoes by mistake
saturday night we went to
ff club
, a rock club, to see a band play that melissa (left in the top left) knew. one of the other bands handed out balloons & birthday stuff because it was one of the member's birthdays!
hahaha
it was free cocktails from 10-11pm, which was both good and baaaad for some people. poor anna drank way too much too fast and had to go home early
but she was the most adorable drunk up until then
she just smiled and hugged her balloon.
doohwan, bottom right, is the guy/part of the band melissa knows. i thought it was all fun! i'm used to going to rock shows from high school, so it feels a lot more 'normal' than when i go to a regular club.
finish up with some nail polish and the new camera strap i got.
i had wanted to try a neutral colour polish and found this yummy brown colour at holika
and that pink colour isn't sparkly or anything and is pretty much my new favorite pink polish ever
brown + pink is also one of my favorite colour combos, so of course i had to do my nails using both
and my old camera strap broke (BOOO) so i got a new one at kosney. i love the little random camera charm on it!
