Back at Korea University!

I am back in Jochiwon and ready to start classes on Monday. I am taking more North Koreanology classes and a few public policy classes that I hope will count towards my International Relations degree. I am sure this semester will be just as fun as last semester!

Study Abroad Fall 2013!

For those who do not know already, I have extended my semester long study abroad to a full year study abroad in Korea at Korea University. I would have come back to America on August 6th if I was only staying for a semester and the summer, but now I will not be coming back to America until December 29th! I miss you all and hope to see you all then!

Yum!

I just wanted to post some yummy looking treats! 

A stick of butter!! Just kidding! It is a stick of cheesecake! It was delicious!!

This one is a mixed berry tart from a local coffee shop in Hongdae which is a district of Seoul! It was very nice to have fruit! I do not think I have ever craved fruit as much as I do now! So yummy!! 

Fun in Busan!!

I went to Busan on the weekend of Gil's birthday with a bunch of our friends after celebrating his birthday on May 16th. It was a a great weekend, filled with many activities and many different foods that Busan is most famous for. They were for the most part noodle dishes. Two of them were cold noodle dishes and the other was a warm noodle dish. We also went to a fish market and ate raw flounder fish and some eel! It was a really cool place because they had all of the fish down on the first level to pick what you want to eat because all of the fish were in their tanks to look at and then the next floor above was a restaurant where they cook the fish for you! I did not get a picture, but I will next time I go because I definitely want to go to Busan again before I leave to come back to America! It is a nice city!

Here is a picture of the group of friends I went to Busan with outside of Busan Station! 

Here is another picture of everybody!!! Such a great group of friends!

A picture of me hugging Gil in front of Busan Station!

Busan is famous for its beach which is the main reason we went to Busan! The beach is called Haeundae beach and is a very popular destination spot for people in Korea as well as tourists so it is always full of people and close to the city as you can see from all of the buildings in the background. Also, I apologize for the lack of consistency with formatting in this post. My blog does not want to cooperate today I guess.

At a coffee shop in Busan drinking a mocha ice blend! 

Taking pictures in a sky park on top of a huge mall to look all around Busan from up above!! 

At the end of the weekend before heading back to School, in front of the fountains in front of Busan station which was having a light show to music! It was quite nice!!

CNBLUE CONCERT~~!!! :)

On May 25th, I went to the CNBlue concert at the Jamsil Indoor Stadium in Seoul. It was a lot of fun and I got to go with some pretty awesome people! I went with Gil, Charles, and Tara! Their opening song for the concert was amazing and we had standing floor tickets so we were pretty close to the stage! They even did an encore which was also very nice!! They are very talented musicians and it was an amazing opportunity to be able to go to their concert and see them live! I wish you could have been there with me, Lauren! I know you love them!! It was a fun day in Seoul and then afterwards I went to Suwon to hang out with Gil and his best friend! I love CNBlue but maybe next time I will be able to see my most favorite group, B.A.P (Best Absolute Perfect) perform live!!

Yeah! They are awesome!! :)

Breaking News: DMZ excitement!!

I get to go to the DMZ this Friday for my last culture class trip of this semester! I am so excited since it was the number one thing on my Korean bucket list!! I will leave another blog post after Friday so I can talk about my experience in more detail later! Thank you for keeping an interest in my travels around Korea and reading my blog!! :)

Open House at Korea University!

May 20th-22nd was Open House at Korea University. It was kind of like a mini festival on campus. Let me explain the fact that the dorm life here at Korea University is very different than dorm life at Central Michigan University. Here in Korea the dorms are not co-ed, they are split so there is a boy side and then a girl side and the opposite sex is not allowed on the other sides. Also, if you live off campus you are not allowed in the dorms, because we are not allowed to have visitors. In addition to these differences, we have a curfew at midnight which is really annoying. Therefore, it is safe to say that living on Korea University's campus is way more restrictive than living on the campus of Central Michigan University and definitely hard to adjust to. I am actually still trying to adjust to it and I have been here for just over 3 months.

Therefore, this relates to the Open House and all of the festivities connected to it, because on the first day it really was like an open house. Everyone who lives in the dorms could go anywhere they wanted to in any of the dorms to see the differences between all of the dorms and it even gave people the opportunity to play tricks on other people. Semi-Classic was not successful, thanks to a nice warning I received from a good friend of mine that heard about the schemes of the Semi-Classic members. However, I had class the entire time so I was not able to participate in playing tricks on anyone.

Later that night they brought in a DJ and it was like a club on campus for everyone to just dance and have a good time. This event helped extend our curfew until 1am. It was fun but tiring.

On the next two days there were more booths to look at and games to play to win fun prizes. During the night there was a concert with some Korea University bands and then a professional group called Dynamic Duo. They were pretty good and we were even given money from the ITS office for food and drinks so we had a party for free. Then there were the awesome Korea University cheerleaders that led us in Korean cheers. And Korean cheer leading is also different from American cheer leading in terms of Korean cheer leading is not just chanting, it is more like them leading the school in cheer songs about how awesome Korea University is in comparison to Yonsei University. One of my really good Korean friends is actually a Korea University Cheer Captain!! Here are some pictures to follow up this long blog post.

B.J. my cheer leading captain friend!!

Another picture of Captain B.J.

Rehearsal for the Cheer leading of Korea University!

Dynamic Duo! 

While Dynamic Duo was performing! 

All of the members of ITS that participated in Open House!