Our Year Abroad !

It has been a while since we've updated this blog and a lot has happened since then. Let's just say our experience in Korea definitely influenced our future goals and now we're on a mission to get back! We're making this post because we finally summed up our year abroad in about 4 minutes. Our follow on project for the Gilman scholarship was running this blog for the duration of our stay in Korea  and showing students the ups and downs of living in a foreign country as well as being informative to potential study abroad students and finally creating a video of our whole journey. We would have loved to have added more footage, but we tried to include as much as possible and we really liked the result. This video not only features our experience, but the experiences of some of our peers as well. Making the decision to study abroad can open a world of possibilities and we hope that our blog and this video encourage other students to make that important decision to change their lives just like we did. We hope you enjoy it! ^-^

Volunteering Opportunities in Korea

A great thing about our exchange program was that they had internships and volunteering opportunities for students. One of the opportunities that we've mentioned in a previous post was volunteering to teach English at a middle school. Initially we had planned to only teach for a semester, but we loved it so much that we decided to do it for the year. Although it was intimidating at first, but by the end of the year we became a lot more confident and we learned a lot from our students. This was definitely one of our most favorite times in Korea. We taught English to a 3rd year class and most of them were already fluent in English so our goal was to challenge them and encourage them to improve their speaking skills. Since it was our first year teaching we did a lot of trial and error and we spent a lot of time preparing lesson plans. Rather than making them learn from a book we challenged them with a variety of activities that kept them engaged such as spelling bees, critical thinking games, speaking games and so on. Overall it was one of the most rewarding experiences and we really recommend other students studying abroad to volunteer and take advantage of opportunities offered to them. This opportunity made us want to possibly pursue a teaching career in the future and having obtained a year experience under our belt will really benefit us in the future.

Some of our students playing a Jenga english game that consisted of  various challenges on the blocks! 

Pizza party on the last day of class ! 

Seasons in Korea

Since I spoke about the Holiday season in Seoul Kai and I thought we should make a post on the different seasons in Seoul and write a little something about them and what each season has to offer. Having the opportunity to live in Seoul for almost a year gave us the opportunity to experience all the four seasons which was really interesting because we come from a place where it is always hot !
                                                     

                                                       SPRING IN KOREA
 The one thing we really loved about the Spring in Korea was the beautiful scenery. We had previously made a post on the Cherry blossoms in Korea, but we also want to share how beautiful our campus looks when everything is in bloom. Also we didn't really mention the Cherry blossom festival we went to so we'd like to share that as well and Spring festival season at universities which we also mentioned in a different post!

SUMMER IN KOREA 

Summer in Korea is definitely the worst but even though the heat is almost unbearable, at least it was for us, but we really liked going out on summer nights when it cooled down a little. There's always something to do especially in places such as Hongdae. This is an area where many people mostly college students spend a lot of their time. There are places to drink, sing, eat and of course to shop, but our most favorite part about taking trips to Hongdae in the summer were the street performances. You could find all kinds of genres being played from indie to hip hop. Hongdae is a very well known area for hip hop. We didn't take many pictures that could accurately represent the summer like we did for the other seasons, but we thought we'd highlight and focus on what we liked doing the most and it was spending our summer weekend nights in Hongdae.  Also Seoul is a 24/7 kind of place so after a night out with friends in Hongdae's most popular bars and clubs there were always a million places to eat all kinds of food.  

Both street performance pictures were taken by our friend Jacob. For some reason all we had were videos of these performances. 

Eating pizza in a popular hang out area of Hongdae. By this time Pizza Hut was only doing take out so we bought our pizza and ate it outside at a near by park were many people come to hang out with friends and drink and eat and all the good stuff. 

     
                                       
                                                             FALL SEASON IN KOREA
Like the spring all though things are dying instead of blooming the fall time in Korea is also very beautiful. It starts to get a bit chilly and we start taking our jackets out, but for university students the fall means taking out their school's university letterman jackets and representing their school anywhere they go and like them we followed the trend! It's something that is definitely not done in the United States so for us it was something very different and we really liked it. This jacket tradition also applies for the winter!

These pictures starting from the top are all of our campus and the surrounding areas! 

It's quiet popular for students to buy jackets in groups. You can customize your jacket and choose the colors. You can even write your initials or anything you want on it, you also get to pick out a number. In this picture we're with one of our university friend who happened to have the same jacket as us! 

This is our friend Chris modeling the school jacket for us and also trying out different jackets at the shop. 

We actually ended up buy in more than one jacket. We bought black ones the first semester and the next semester we were so tempted that we bought a new one this time we chose maroon and black! 

                                                       WINTER IN KOREA

Our favorite time of the year has always been winter, but in Korea we were able to experience it in a whole different way then what we were used to! From the first snow to the holiday season we really do love winter. Winters in Korea are extremely cold temperatures fall below zero and though we were not used to such temperatures we handled the winter better than we thought. One thing we didn't like very much though was how dangerously slippery sidewalks and streets could get and our campus as well. It was so difficult walking at times! Also when the first snow falls we learned from my friends that people go out and by themselves new clothes or something nice and couples go on a date to celebrate the first snowfall!

The first snow but you can't really see the snow here! We did take a picture from our dorm before heading out which shows all the snow that gathered.

Holiday Season in Seoul

This semester was definitely the busiest and most fun semester ever. Seoul during the holiday season is an awesome experience and everywhere you go everything is decorated. Offices, malls, department stores, hospitals, coffee shops and many other places. Although holidays like Christmas are not celebrated in the same way as in the U.S. it doesn't mean that there is no Christmas spirit. I've never loved the holiday season more! Christmas music everywhere and beautiful sights to see. In Korea Christmas is more of a couple holiday so usually people spend it with their significant other or their friends. It's very different from what my sister and I are used to. We spent the holiday season with our friends. We went to Lotte World and ice skated which also happened to be the first time we had ever been ice skating all of us. Lotte World also had a Christmas parade which we happened to catch ! Afterwards we went out to eat some Kimchi Jjigae and we also tried the most delicious kimchi ever. I'll leave you guys with a few pictures I took of everything Christmas and festive things!!

 Lotte World at night looks  beautiful.

Ice skating with my awesome friends! We were all beginners and terrified but after a while we got the hang of it and luckily none of us fell !! Kai was the only one who had experience ice skating. 

While the iced was being cleaned on the floor above the ice rink was the Christmas parade.

Not very good pictures but inside the subway station was a cupcake shop with really cute and delicious cupcakes!

On our way out of Lotte World outside the trees and bushes were covered in Christmas lights !

We ended our day with the best Kimchi Jjigae we've had in a long time! Our friends introduced us to this really great restaurant near Lotte World located in Seongnam. It's really popular for its Jjigae and its kimchi which they sell it was actually 3 year old kimchi and it's the best kimchi we've tried. I just can't recall the name but I'll post it soon.

Here We Go Again

We have been back in Korea for almost 3 weeks! We would of updated sooner but we had been having problems with our laptop until now and it has finally been fixed! A lot has happened in the 3 weeks we've been back, many things have also changed. For some reason we didn't expect for things to be so different, but they are and in a sense it feels like starting all over again! I think it has to do with all our friends being gone. Sure we have some friends in Korea, but all of our close friends from last semester have gone back to their home countries and so it's been hard for us to adjust to all the changes. On the bright side although many of our friends are gone  we've met many new people and made many new friends. This semester we're taking more classes, we also volunteered to teach again and have been busy with many school activities! A lot of things have happened in three weeks so we'll post the highlights!

 

We flew with Korean Air once again. It was much easier getting through the airport this time, but the flight still felt so long. I didn't get to sleep much and neither did my sister, so we arrived extremely jet lagged. The food was pretty good and the flight attendants always look so beautiful! We wanted to take a picture of them, but it was kind of hard!

Since we couldn't sleep much we spent a lot of time playing video games! Yes Korean Air has video games! There were so many to choose from! Our favorites were of course PacMan and Street Fighter! I couldn't get a better picture of the screen, but time went by a little faster while we were playing. 

Once we arrived to the airport our program adviser Jaehoon was waiting for us ! He got us a cab and off we went to the university. We arrived on a Wednesday afternoon and there was so much traffic it took us over 2 hours to reach the school! Above is a picture of our dorm, the traffic and the view from our dorms! Last semester we failed to post a picture of our dorm, but this is what it pretty much looks like! They're actually spacious with a lot of closet space and our very own private bathroom.

This was actually our first meal in Korea. Not quiet sure what it was called, but it was spicy sea food and really tasty too. This was also the first meal we had with our exchange group! Even though we've already been in Korea for a while we have the habit of taking pictures of everything we eat! Sort of like a food diary. 

The first week of September was our birthday and some of the guys from our exchange group bought us a birthday cake and celebrated our birthday with us! We celebrated our birthday for 2 days! We had cake, Korean BBQ and of course Soju. This has definitely been one of our favorite moments in Korea so far ! 

We have yet to take pictures of our new middle school students this semester! Although the first day we met we weren't told that we were suppose to teach ! It was a lot of fun though. A lot of our students from the past semester also signed up again and we were happy to see all of them. 

Our Adventure in Busan

One of the reasons why we chose ISA as our program to study abroad was because they included various excursions to different parts of Korea. One of the excursions  we happened to go on was Busan. This excursion included trips to Haeundae Beach, Dongbaeksong Island, Haedong Yonggungsa Temple, Jagalchi market, and Taejongdae Resort Park.

We took off early in the morning to grab breakfast before heading to Seoul train station, but we ended up grabbing breakfast at the station since they had various restaurants there.  

The picture above on the left is inside Seoul Train Station and the next one to the right is  the bus we took to Haeundae Beach once we had arrived to Busan. The trip from Seoul to Busan on the KTX train took about 3 hours. Right outside the station in Busan were fountains that would go off every now and then. There were many children playing in the water and just crossing the street was Chinatown! 

We were given about an hour to grab lunch before we left for Haeundae Beach and since we were exploring Chinatown  we happened to stop by a restaurant to look at there menu outside, but the ajumma dragged us in and we ended up having really delicious meals.

We spent about an hour bathing in the sun and enjoying the weather at Haeundae beach. Our program advisor had warned it would be extremely hot, but the weather was actually extremely nice! It was not hot at all it was actually really cool which was great because it was nice to get away for the weekend from the hot, humid weather in Seoul. 

A picture with our friend at Haeundae Beach who happens to live in Busan.  We ended up leaving our group to spend the day in Busan with him instead and we spent the whole day wandering around. We even went to a Noraebang and wandered around other parts of the beach. There is an aquarium located near and they had  huge turtles outside for the public to see. There were even performances around the beach. At the end of the night we had delicious Dal Kalbi which also happened to be the spiciest dal kalbi we have ever tried.

We actually backed packed all day because we weren't allowed to check into the hotel until 10 pm. We were so exhausted from walking all day and carrying all our stuff,  it was nice to reach our hotel. We had planned to explore Busan at night too, but our hotel was located far from the nightlife in Busan which was a bummer for a lot of us. It was fine though because we fell asleep as soon as we reached our beds. 

On our second day in Busan we woke up really early because we were going to Taejongdae Resort Park. We had to again carry all our stuff because we were leaving that night. We rode the bus for about 45 minutes to Taejongdae Park Resort. That bus ride was the craziest bus ride we've ever been on. We were standing because it was packed so we were thrown around the entire time we had to hold on really tight so we wouldn't fall. Once we reached Taejongdae we walked about 15 minutes to reach a van that would take us to the island. We crammed about 10 of us in a van! Once we reached the boats we were given shrimp chips to feed the birds, but we ate them instead, we love shrimp chips! Around were many restaurants and tents set up with fresh seafood ! 

This is the area around Taejongdae. It was really beautiful! 

We ended up skipping the trip to the island because we were terrified of getting on that small boat so instead along with our friend we decided to leave and once again explore on our own.  At first we didn't know how to get back because we had gotten there riding a van which was about a ten minute ride, but we ended up following some other people who were trying to find the way back by foot as well. We walked all the way back to the entrance which was about 20 minutes and then we walked to the nearest bus stop. We pondered on wether we should just take a taxi or take the bus! We decided it be a lot more fun to ride the bus on our own.  This time the bus ride wasn't so bad and we got off as soon as we found the nearest subway station which happened to be 30 minutes from Taejongdae! We surprisingly ended up in Nampodong where we found Aqua mall. This Aqua mall was about 7 floors! They had a food court at the bottom and then 2 floors of Uniqlo! Also they had this store where they were playing our favorite Korean hip hop artists Illionaire artists Dok2, The Quiett and Beenzino! We spent quite some time at that shop.  They also had a water fountain running from the bottom to the top of the ceiling where they had a light show and the water moved to the sound of classical music! It was actually really awesome!  We then ended up at this bookstore and we ran to the CD section where we ended up finding all the albums we couldn't find in Seoul!! 

After that we walked to the subway station to meet with our group so we could head to Busan station and leave to Seoul. The subway station in Busan was so different from that of Seoul! We were definitely surprised to see the train this empty! This rarely ever happens in Seoul! Outside the trains they had a vending machine filled with books!! Also rather than use our metro card we bought a ticket instead which is something that I haven't seen in Seoul subway stations. The trip was extremely tiring, but it was a lot of fun meeting up with our friend and exploring on our own. We're not fans of traveling with large groups so it was a nice get away for us. We got back to Seoul around 10 pm and although we were exhausted we managed to go out for a meal. We hadn't really eaten all day. It was nice to be back in Seoul.