korea

so as a warning, this will be extremely long. it will entail my 9 days that I spent in korea. parts of it wont be in sentence form but more of like a list because I have a ton to talk about. here goes.

day 1:
12 hours in a plane. run and meet emmy. die. of happiness of course. buy flavored milk (strawberry) and bus card. realize we have like 5 hours before mom comes. take a ton of photos:

 

 

emmys selfie

 

my selfie

 

grumpy faces

 

she so cute

 

sisters para siempre

buy ice cream in shape of fish with red bean paste inside. delicious. wait more. talk. mom comes. die again.

 

note the hair did by emmy when we were super bored

get on bus to go to ansan where emmy lives. get on subway. get off and meet emmys best friend coraline (from france).

 

coraline is in the green coat

go to Hivice hotel that was surprisingly cheap but really nice but that also didn't even ask for mums name when we signed in. walk around a bit and go to a restaurant. we ate spicy japchae (consists of glass noodles and vegetables), and mandu (kinda like an empanada). learned of emmys amazing Korean. went back to hotel and went to sleep.

day 2:
we got breakfast tickets from the hotel (which were needed to get in) so we went down to eat breakfast, which was only open from 7-830. it was a whole buffet thing and the pineapple was great. we had kinda planned some things to do so we went near emmys old house and went on a hike type of thing

then we met emmys host mum and sister and ate 'shabuh shabuh'. or something like that. it was basically a big bowl of broth and we added meat and mushrooms and all sorts of vegetables. I really liked it, although some of the plants were not quite to my taste. after that we ate like this rice soup. during the whole meal we were totally impressed with emmys korean. its so cool to listen to her talk and understand. so after that we went to her house and watched some tv. then took the bus home and took a nap. then we met up with coraline again  and went to a movie: 300. it was pretty lame. so afterwards we got some cupcakes. which were pretty good. then we needed to go shopping, so we walked to a homeplus. which is like a corte ingles; it has food, and clothes, and everything you will ever need, except cheaper. so we bought snacks: yogurt, chocolate covered pomegranates, choco pies, yogurt, and chips. after all that we were super tired and went to the hotel and fell asleep.

day 3:
we woke up, ate breakfast, and went back to sleep. emmy and I watched the movie 'hitch-hikers guide to the galaxy'. pretty good movie. then we took the bus to a park and walked around a bit.

 

on the way

 

this photo inspired by my nephew

    after that we got Chinese food (a lot like Korean food really), and later, some ice cream.

then we took the subway to anyang to do some shopping. we went to the underground, which is just a ton ton ton of little shops underground. mostly clothes. so we walked around for a while and got some stuff. after that we met up with another exchange student named anna whos actually from Platteville like us. so that's pretty cool. we went to a cat café (drink expensive drinks and have cats all around), which was fun.

 

 

literally me the whole time

 

we got cat food on our hands to feed the kitties

then we went to a meat restaurant thingy where its like a buffet of meat but you have to cook it yourself. and it was seriously delicious.  we could cook as much as we wanted and it was amazing. we made little lettuce and meat sandwiches and I loved it. then we went home to sleeeeep.

 

so that's emmy and anna. and you can see the plate of meat on the right and we're cooking it with some pineapple

 

here you can also see the side stuff to eat with the meat

 

this is a lichi. or leechee. I don't know how to spell it. I've had leechee candies and I really like them. I thought it was good. odd texture though

 

day 4:
this day we had planned to go to the zoo. so we ate and got on the subway and went to the zoo. but as it turns out the zoo was closed due to an outbreak of bird flu. so that sucked. instead we went to the  myeongdong market/underground. which was a lot like the anyang one. after that we wandered around a but through seoul.

 

fountain with some big building behind it

 

regular shopping street

 

we went near a bank an it had a ton of different countries and the money they use. I looked at all of them individually and its really interesting. what people they have on the bill, if they have any. what amount they use. the name of the money (dollar, yuan, rupee, etc). super cool

 

this is the money museum

we walked a ton. then walked some more and went to the namdaemoon market. then finally went home.

 

part of namdaemoon

day 5:
so before, we had had breakfast tickets, but we had used them. the first day we got 3, and used them that day, then later went down and asked for more, and got 6. so then this day we didn't have any. so we asked and apparently you have to pay for them, but we had gotten more for some reason. it was weird. so we didn't eat the breakfast buffet. we ate in the room and later went shopping for shoes. afterwards we headed back to the hotel and ate lunch, consisting of choco pies and pears. then after that amazing meal we went to emmys school. her homeroom teacher (a cute little short guy) showed us around and took us to different classrooms. we were quite popular, and I waved at everyone. it was awesome. we went to an English class and sang the cup song. that was weird. but fun. we got pictures with emmys class and I saw a ton of cute Korean guys. then we met the president of the school and it was super formal and the English teacher translated for us. he gave emmy and mum hand towels with the school name in it (emmy later gave hers to me). so it was really cool to meet him and he was a cute little old man, but they just have so much respect for elders its so interesting. the teachers bowed really low and the English teacher was super nervous translating and you could really tell that the prez is an important guy. so after that we left and got ice cream, of course. this whole time emmy was looking for this kind called papico. which is like the chocolate fudge bars from America. delicious. and we finally found it at a little store outside the school. we also tried to find a chicken place but all the ones we saw were closed so instead we went to loteria. basically the mcdonalds of korea. after that we went home and emmy and I watched a movie and fell asleep.

day 6:
since we didn't need to go to breakfast really early anymore, we slept in. and for lunch went to this little kimbap restaurant (kimbap is kinda like sushi, but Korean. I don't think it has fish in it). after that we went to the modern art museum. we walked there and went in and wandered around a bit, but ended up not really going into the museum part. so we went to the gift shop and got some stuff and left.

 

on the walk there we saw quite a few little things

 

 

 

outside the museum. there were a ton of sculptures

 

the side of the museum

 

we planned on going to a park and afterward meet emmys old host mum, but the times were changed and we didn't have time to go the park, so emmys old host mum picked us up and we went to a really nice restaurant and ate a ton of good food.

 

this is like seaweed pancake. pretty good actually.

then we went to her house and met the 2 exchangers there now, juan (brazil) and jack (Taiwan). theyre super cool.

 

from left: juan, jack, me, emmy, emmy's old host mum

her former mum works at a movie theater and gave us tickets so we went and saw noah. it was alright. after that it was cold and we had to walk home, so it ended up being a kind of run. but it was fun.

day 7:
slept in again.  we had planned to go the palace. so we took the hour long subway to seoul and first went to the palace museum.

 

one of my favorite photos

 

history of korea

 

there are so many grammar mistakes I cant even tell you

then to the actual palace

 

super cool to see a really old palace and then over the wall is the city

 

through one gate

 

and another

 

and another

 

there were some show things goin on

 

super cool ceilings throughout the whole thing

 

the royal seat. you can kinda see the painting of the sun, moon, and five peaks. its pretty famous and there was stuff about it in the museum

 

the little guys on the roofs were amazing

 

the folk museum.

 

another favorite. actually taken with my phone.

after that we headed towards insadong. a long street with shops on both sides. and on the way there we found a bulgogi restaurant (bulgogi is thin beef in some sort of sauce with peppers and onions, etc) it was delicious as usual.

 

the side dishes for the bulgogi

so then we went down the street and got some souvenir type things. in the street we got Turkish ice cream (super thick but amzing) and fried dough. we walked for a ton and then went home. emmy and I watched another movie (now is good) and went to sleep.

 

the sign says insadong and some other stuff lol

 

day 8:
slept in again. we were going to go to namsan tower but emmy and mum didn't want to go into seoul again, so we didn't go. so we went to a pizza place and had bulgogi pizza. it was alright, not like American pizza. then we went home and mum and I walked around a bit while emmy stayed at the hotel. we saw these 2 young guys again, who were at loteria before, at a table next to us, and it was odd. but they were cute so its all good. then emmy and I watched the hobbit while mum slept. we went to emmys house to pick up some coats for mum to take home with her. packed. and for our last night, we decided to go to noraydong (Korean karaoke). we went with juan and coraline and it was the most fun thing. we went for an hour and a half and had a ton of fun and it was seriously just awesome. we got a 100 on hotel California. we were very proud. then we got ice cream and went home.

day 9:
say goobye to emmy. leave with mum to airport. say goodbye to mum. fly away.

 

so overall it was freaking amazing. here are some random photos that I have that don't really fit into the story.

 

it may be hard to see but it says 21th. so many mistakes

 

they were piano stairs. PIANO STAIRS. and they actually played the note. so that's awesome

 

mum and I ran across the road and emmy stayed behind and I thought it quite funny

 

movie theaters. really really comfortable.

 

hilarious shirt that I saw at forever21

 

more cool stairs. we also saw some that had how many calories you were burning going up.

 

some street performing by insadong

 

 

in the subway. usually not this empty, let me tell you. many times we were standing the whole ride

 

sooo many lights. lights and lights and lights

 

our window view

 

this is korea. where all the shops are there, and there are signs everywhere. here in spain its like there are stores on the bottom floor and apartments above. but in korea, its all stores and huge apartment complexes in different places

 

we bought a cake for all the missed birthdays

 

street signs and a cool city view in the back.

 

 

so thats that. it was a phenomenal trip. i loved the food and the people I met. but I dont know if its somewhere i would go back to. it seems like if you go once, you have enough. but it was awesome. really, truly, awesome.

 

M

 

 

also, my mum still has to send me some photos, so there will be another post with those. including the ones with emmy's class.