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. 

Applying for a Student Visa

Since we're going back to Korea we have to reapply for student visas so we thought we'd take the opportunity to make a post about it. When we first had to apply for student visas we were so lost and we pretty much freaked out about it everyday. We were confused about the requirements because we found different requirements every time. Finally we called the consulate, but they weren't much help instead I spent half an hour on the phone just so they could tell me to look at the website! Luckily our study abroad program ISA really helped us with the process. So now we will do the same too!  The second time around should be a breeze!  One thing we should mention though is that if you plan to extend your stay and you will remain in Korea then you can easily extend your visa in Seoul. There's no need to go back home to extend your visa. 

 You should apply for your visa 90 to 30 days prior to your departure date.  The first thing we learned was that requirements vary from state to state. We live in Texas and the nearest consulate is in Houston. We don't live in Houston so we had to do it by mail. The visas for exchange students or study abroad students are D-2 and D-26. The visa we applied for was the D-26 and we'll be applying for this one again, but we'll post the Texas Houston consulate requirements for both. 

Houston Texas Consulate also serves: Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Mississippi 

These are the documents we needed 

(These first requirements are general requirements for every state.)

Visa Application 

Passport

One passport photo  (3.5㎝ x 4.5㎝) 

$45

Pre-paid and self-addressed envelope 

South Korea Houston Consulate Requirements: 

D2 VISA For students

• The Certificate of admission with original signature
• One Photocopy of Business registration from Korean university
• Official Sealed Transcript or Diploma  

D26 VISA For exchange students

• The Certificate of admission with original signature
• One Photocopy of Business registration from Korean university
• Official Sealed Transcript or Diploma
• One Photocopy of Agreement Letter

We got all the documents together and mailed it along with our passport and a self addressed envelope. The self addressed envelope needs to be express mail! 

This is what a D-2 visa looks like. 

The turn around time was about 5 business days.  You can find the visa application on your Korean consulate's website and sometimes you might need more documents than listed on their website which can be very irritating. To prevent any headaches I suggest you send them an email or call them to make sure. 

Below are links to the different Korean consulate websites and the states they serve. You'll be able to find the different requirements and visa application! 

Atlanta GA Consulate: Alabama, Florida, North Carolina, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Virgin Islands

South Korea Consulate Boston: New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont

South Korea Consulate Chicago: Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota, Wisconsin

South Korea Consulate Los Angeles: Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, South California

South Korea  Consulate New York: Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania

South Korea Consulate San Francisco: Colorado, Northern California, Utah, Wyoming

South Korea Consulate Seattle: Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington

Reverse Culture Shock

In a previous post we spoke about feeling homesick the first couple weeks we were in Seoul and how we coped with it. Four months later and the homesickness has returned, but this time it's reversed homesickness. We miss Seoul like crazy and most people don't understand why, especially our family. Adjusting to life back home has proven to be really difficult to us. Everything constantly reminds us of Seoul and all we ever want to do is talk about Korea. Lately we've felt really frustrated about our return home. Before embarking on our journey abroad our study abroad advisor gave us a chart that displayed the different stages of transition that students studying abroad will most likely go through as preparation. I couldn't find the exact chart but it's a chart similar to the one below which we found on IES abroad and it's terribly accurate. That chart freaked us out, it's pretty much a roller coaster of emotions and it has definitely felt that way.  We thought we'd take the opportunity to write about the most challenging things we've been experiencing so far. 

 

IES Abroad Stages of Transition Chart

                                                                     

    1. The first challenge has been readjusting our sleeping schedule. Most days we fall asleep at 7:00pm and wake up really early and then go back to sleep, but we're pretty sure jet lag is also to blame. Somedays we just sleep through the whole day and wake up in the evenings. We have to readjust this soon because there is so much to do now that we're back home! 

2. The second challenge would be boredom and alienation. Being back home is nice, but life has not been very exciting since we left Seoul. While we were in Seoul we spent most of the time on our feet exploring as much as possible. Our city is not fast paced like Seoul and there is also not a lot to do here.  We really miss walking everywhere and Seoul's amazing public transportation. We can't wait to go back to Seoul!  Also being home has changed our perspective on things. Take for example the size of things! Back in Seoul beverages and food portions are generally smaller than in North America and so after 4 months in Seoul we grew accustomed to eating less this even resulted in weight loss. We also grew accustomed to sharing our food and drinks which is something we continue to do and many people find this weird or even worse they somehow think we're just being ridiculous because nobody really shares a drink or food.  We technically just buy a meal and split it because now we feel like it's too much food for one person. We can't help it! We understand though because when we initially arrived in Seoul we felt the same way about cultural differences. We've acquired a few habits from Korea and we constantly feel judge by those around us which brings us to our following challenge. People just don't understand. 

3. Everyone has told us we have changed, some say in a good way and others (mostly just our family) think we've  changed in a bad way. We don't think we've changed in a bad way it's just that we're not the same people we were before we left. We acquired some new habits, our clothing style changed, our way of thinking changed too and our family is having a hard time adjusting to these new changes. We grew accustomed to being on our own all the time. We come from a large family so it's been difficult adjusting to this once again. Studying abroad really did change us, we are a lot more independent now then we were back then, and we also became really outgoing. We feel as if we really came out of our shells because we learned to be to take chances and we also overcame many challenges. We had some bad experiences and some really great experiences too and all these have really molded us to who we are now. Though we wished we were in Seoul for the Summer, being back home has helped us reflect on our experiences these past 4 months. 

4. Finally the most most annoying one for us has been people's reaction to our stories. Our family constantly lets us know that we talk too much about Korea and they're not interested in listening. We have the tendency to compare everything to Korea and all we hear is "You're not in Korea anymore." Even when they do listen to us most of the time they don't understand. We can't really explain just how wonderful and amazing our time abroad was and it's frustrating! Most of the time they think we're just boasting. So basically right now we're just really frustrated with the fact that we're no longer in Korea and it's been difficult to adjust back to our usual routine.

 We have been coping with these challenges by keeping in contact with all our friends back in Korea even though sometimes they just make us even more homesick. We also have our favorite Korean music playing 24/7, but this is just a habit we had in Korea too. We just need to listen to music all the time. It's been kind of difficult to do this back home though, we like to play it as loud as we can and this doesn't work back home. I think the best thing we did though was send ourselves our favorite korean foods and snacks before leaving! We received the package this morning!  

The most difficult thing has been getting our parents and siblings to understand that even though we're back home we're still on that study abroad roller coaster and we'll be on it for quite some time especially since we're going back! We know we're not the only ones that have been feeling this way. Many of our  friends have been feeling the same way so it's comforting to know that we're not the only ones dealing with all these crazy emotions!