Friday night, I burned about $25.00. Doesn't sound like much, right?
WRONG.
That's alot considering in TX I've spent about $0.00 when going out clubbing.
Right before the club, we stopped by a bar to get a drink with a bunch of people I didn't know. Everyone was drinking $7.00 Heinekens while I drank a wine cooler (Beer, to me is yecht). Well the people I came with didn't realized how expensive imported beer is and didn't want to pay for it, so we snuck out of the bar and left the tab for that group of people already there. It's not how I usually get free drinks, but that'll do.
So the reason for me going out: Club Night. It happens on the last Friday of every month. Basically, you pay $15.00 to get one free drink and a wrist band that gets you into a bunch of clubs. On any other night you would have to pay $15-20 for each club you went into. We only stayed until around 2:30 am but it was FUN. The music was okay though, alot of old school rapand R&B.
Friday March 28, 2008 Mission: Must attain one Ipod Nano USB cord by night fall
After about a 30 minute ride on the subway, I've made it to my destination. Yongsan, or as the foreigners like to call it, Electronic city. All the computers, cameras, and mp3's are exceptionally shiny today, as if calling my name. No, I must not allow anything to divert me from my mission.
5 minutes of walking and I have given in. I stay i the video game section rocking out to Guitar Hero for 30 minutes. By then, the sellers realize I have no interest in buying their products. They take the remote controller away from me. I leave.
Again I continue my search for the missing Ipod cord. Ahh!! My eyes!! Oh, it's just those neon colored cameras all neatly stacked on the thousands of shelves surrounding me. I play with those for another ten minutes before the people's stares cause me to leave. My feet start to hurt after 3 hours of walking. I'm hungry. I start to head back but then I see it. The big white apple. Yes! I ask the man if he sells what I'm looking for. He pulls one down and tells me it costs $20.00. I give him the stink eye. He lowers the price to $15.00. Perfect. Mission completed.
Yes, So I actually wrote this blog on paper (lame) and am currently ditching class to type it up for you guys (the class I left is super gay anyways).
Reason why: The power cord to my computer has died. It seems that tripping on the cord too many times can prevent it from connecting to my computer. whoopsy!!! The a/c adapter was just purchased today, which means it should take a week for it to get delivered in the states, and then another week for it to get to Korea, so until then I won't be blogging as much. Sucks for you guys, because now I wont' get to show all the pics I'm going to take while in Japan (Is anyone jealous yet??) muahahhahaha.
So the M.T. was pretty awesome. (It stands for membership training, although I was told that all it really is a reason for everyone to get together, drink and play games.) I only have two pics because I stole them from facebook, but I'll show you the ones I took when my computer is resurrected.
If youre going to comment on how red (or brown, however you wanna see it) I am, no need, I already know.
I met some really cool people there, I don't really remember who they are anymore, but none the less they were nice. The Korean girls in my group were especially nice, and surprisingly they were all freshman. Very mature for their ages, I would say. Which reminds of another "young" friend I have back in the states who's just turned 18. Happy Birthday!!!!!
After meeting each new person, I go the usual, "So, what are you?" I responded with the usual "Korean and black". In the states that would either be the end of it or they would go on to say that I don't look like either, but over here I got,
"Do you know who else is Korean and black?"
me: sighing in my head "No, who?"
The others: "Amerie and Hines Ward."
The other response I got was," Where is you're family from in Africa?" WTF?!?!?!?! I said, "America" then they said,"No, where in Africa?" So then I just said my fam was from Tanzania (only because my aunt and sister was named after it). How bizarre.
TGIF!!!! It's Friday, 9:00 p.m., and I'm in my room blogging. Doesn't sound like the start of a good weekend to me. Everyone's still out doing their club things so maybe we'll go to the bar (gay bar, gay bar... look it up, it's an awesome song) later tonight.
On a normal weekend, I would most likely be with my family (I decided that unless I'm doing something with my school on weekends I'm dedicating my weekends to spending time with them seeing how I'm not gonna see my friends here again once we all leave), but tomorrow I'm going to a dance clinic, to where, hopefully I'll be able to audition and *cross my fingers* make the team. It's not a great team or anything, but the guys are pretty awesome dancers. After that I'm going to Gapyeon (someplace on the outskirts of Seoul) for an overnight hangout thing for the international students.
I'm actually really excited to go. I almost never see the I-house people anymore (International House, where all the other exchange students live). CasaVille is a great place to live, living condition wise, but it's just the CIEE people and a few other program people. Being 20 minutes away from school makes it really hard to see the people there, but whatever, atleast I live better than them and don't have to wake up to construction. :)
So, about a week ago I found out there are other girls from different programs here. Last weekend I tagged along with them and went to a bar. What bar, you say? The Ho Bar. It was okay. We just had a drink before we all went to Lotteria to quench our munchies. I had a cosmopolitan. It was ehhhhhh... okay. Pretty though.
This was awesome!!!! For you Korean food noobs, all this is is fried rice cakes with some kind of chili-ketchup sauce on it. Absolute delish. And it was only 50 cents.
I'm a total magazine whore in "America" (Koreans don't understand when I say "The States"), so I had to buy a fash mag here. It cost $4.50 and came with a free make-up book. The magazine was awesome. It's basically an American magazine translated into Korean. The majority of stories are about Americans.
I was starving after my swim class but didn't want to eat too much so I could eat dinner, so I got this waffle. Inside it (it's folded in half), this woman swiped some syrup and then put some whipped cream stuff on it. It was good, but afterward, I started to get a stomach ache. I got a little scared that I might have gotten food poison (I bought it in the same cafeteria my friends got sick from) but then some people told me that it was because I ate bread on an empty stomach. Supposedly that's not good for you. Who would've thunk?
If you like grape fruit then this drink is for you. I didn't like it because I hate grape fruit. Yecht.
So I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that bows are in season. I was wondering why there were bow everything in all the shopping ares I've been in. I didn't go into the store. I was afraid the people would see that I couldn't afford anything.
Meet one of many 'crippled' men who push this little music box that plays horrid korean music. I still haven't put any money in the box just because you can't be too sure if they're tricking you. He's been here everyday since I've been here. Just today, I seen him trying to eat his hotdog.
Just about the most awesomest thing i've seen since I've been here. It was super funny and there was a hott guy (although the actors do change with each performance). Take a looksy.
(p.s. I didn't actually record it. I stole it from Youtube.--I realized that i'd rather enjoy the show than waste time taking illegal pictures and videos)
It's been 3 weeks already. It's been both going too fast and yet not fast enough for me ( I have a concert waiting for me back home :) ) I'm really worried that I'm not going to get out of Korea what I came here for, which is to be able to speak Korean; well, atleast well enough to communicate well with my family. But things don't seem to be going my way. I thought that in coming here I would be forced to speak Korean everyday, but the only thing I seem to say constantly is either "How much is this?" and "Where is this place?". Other than that, I'm always spoken to in English.
On top of that, aside from maybe 3 people, everyone has either no knowledge of Korean or barely any. But my roomie and I have been trying to speak to each other in Korean whenever we can, but I try to say some pretty simple stuff to my other friends like "Where do you wanna go?" I have to translate it back into English because they have no idea what I'm saying. It's not there fault because I know they're trying to learn, especially my friend Vianey.
She came here with NO knowledge whatsoever of Korea but is learning alot. Just the other day out of the blue she said "배고파. 밥 사조" (I'm hungry. Buy me food.) ~~~spelling might be a tad off~~~ It was pretty funny since I wasn't expecting it, but her pronunciation is pretty spot on. Anyways... So I signed up for this program that matches you up with a Korean buddy to help you speak Korean. Mine seemed fine until I asked him why he signed up for this. His answer? He wanted to improve his English. Kill me now. Now it's going to be more like me tutoring someone for free. great.
Oh, and my family doesn't make it any easier for me. When I was talking to one of my older cousins, she asked me how many people are in my program and instead of saying 15 people, I said 15 things. (15개 15명) Well my little cousins thought it was funny and started laughing at me. It's a little depressing to think that I have a high chance of leaving Korea with the same speaking ability. Who knows, maybe it'll change.
So Thursday was my first actual swim class day. Earlier that day I was debating whether or not I should wear my swimsuit there to save on time but then I thought, "nahhhhh, I'll just change in the changing stalls." Well stupid me. I should've known that the 'changing stall' would actually turn out to be a big open room. As soon as I get in there I'm looking around and seeing everyone nonchalantly taking off their bras and panties to get into their swimsuits.
"What the hell am I going to do?" I say. "Just change in here, I did" says my chingoo (friend). "Heck no! Do you know who I am? I'm Lonny." "What does that mean?" "Well noob, it means I defy all rules."
So I go change into the ONLY tiny bathroom stall. So fastforward and I'm talking to my friend before class starts. I'm telling her how my pits are a little stubby (TMI???) but then I look over her shoulder and see this Chinese girls pits. I could've braided her hair (if I was that disgusting). ughhhhhhhh!!!!!! This is one Western culture thing I think ALL of Asia and Europe should copy. Anywayssss.... so the class was really fun. Our teacher wanted to test our swimming ability by having us freestyle 2 laps down the pool. I was just about to piss my pants I was soo nervous. I had not swam in like 8 years and she was asking me to go down the pool the long way. Well I did it, and it wasn't too bad. The teacher said I was a pretty good swimmer, but ehhhh. After that we practiced kicking with those floaty board things. forgot their name.
The nerve wrecking part didn't happen until about 10 minutes after class when everyone was taking their shower. So I decide there's no way anyone's gonna get me to take off my suit in front of 13 other girls so I go straight to the changing room. Every where I looked, there was the female anatomy. Very uncomfortable for anyone who's not used to seeing this on a daily basis. What happens when you wear heels all day everyday like the girls here in Korea.
So basically at exactly 5:49 p.m. the best thing ever happened to me. Drums please.... I finally.got.my.internship!!!! YAY!!!! And not only did I get an internship but I got one that's interesting; a music magazine. Effin awesome, right? I know all you jealous heffers must be curious as to how I got this fantabulous opportunity. It was one of those "being in the right place at the right time." I was in my Topics on Korean Language and Culture (<----- yawn fest of a class.) And when I introduced myself I said that I was a magazine journalism major. Well after class this guy came up to me and asked if I would be interested in writing for a magazine in the sinchon area. Course I said yes, so he told me to call the publisher of the magazine which brings me to today. I called Julian (that's his name) and after I told him about the music I liked he said,"Write me up four profiles of any band you like." nice huh? Once I get published I get my own all access card which means, Lonny won't have to pay a damn 10-15 dollar cover fee. YES!!! Yeppers. I'm great and you know it!!
to the max... I could NOT imagine going to school here permanently. Had I got my schooling here, I probably would've dropped out by now.
Aside from one teacher (my Kundo teacher), the teachers here are all exceptionally boring. Oh, and don't forget the monotone voice. Perfect match right? To make it worse, the students here are either too shy to talk or don't understand enough English to speak (All my classes are technically for English speaking students, but Koreans are also allowed to take them).
I seem to be one of the 3 students speaking in my class (Intro to Art History) which is pretty bad considering it's a discussion class. Now, I would totally understand if this was a 100 plus student class, but there are only 15 of us. count it. One. Five. Just so you can get an idea, here's an example:
Teacher: Describe this picture. Student: It's a man sitting on a chair. Teacher: Okay, well, does anyone else have something to say? ~~~~Crickets~~~~
Come on now, we're in college. The least you could do is throw in an opinion or something. From what I can see, these people seriously believe in the whole lecture format.
So I just came back from spending a three day weekend with my fam in Anyang, more specifally, in Gunpo. It turned out to be really fun, although in the beginning being with my fam made me, for the first time, want to go back home. Let's elaborate. One- my kiddy cousins refused to talk to me, nor did they want to sit by me on the car ride back home; Two- it was uber uncomfortable with the awkward silences (considering my speaking ability is limited); and the most important reason, my favorite cousin is no longer the 'cool' cousin I remembered her as the last time I was here. Instead, she is a mom, just like all the other ajjuma's here (note** ajjuma is basically an old geezer. married, kids, in her thirties, so on and so forth). But I'm better now; I guess this was my first negative culture shock.
So we decided to go to a Korean folk village (민속천). As soon as we got there I realized that I had been there the week before with my CIEE program (totally my fault since I didn't even know the name of the place the first time I went). Even so, this time, visiting the village was fun.
Above: my youngest cousin making a wish on those paper things.
My grandma doing what the man on the right professionally does. She's like super grandma. (She's such a good sport. She acted like she didn't see me take this pic of her when it was obvious that I was,lol.)
One of the earlier birthing kits. I think I would've been happy barren.
I forgot to tell you!!! I have a phone now! Yayyyyyyy!!! Take a looksy. Anycall (Samsung's asian brand) slider equipped with a camera. It's basically the most awesomest phone ever; seriously. Not only can I change the default language to English, but I can text in Korean and English interchangeably (which might I add is wayyy fun to do). But I didn't tell you the best part.... it was only 2만원 or $20.00. I know, but there is one drawback; for every 15 seconds I call someone (all incoming calls and texts are free-- oh, how I miss the old AT&T days) I, or should I say my uncle, gets charged 50 cents. Not great. But that's what you get when you get when youre a foreigner.
Even though my family kept on pushing for one of my cousins to come with me on my way back to school on the subway, I insisted on going by myself. It turned out pretty well considering I didn't miss any stops but I had to get help from a couple of ajjumas just to be on the safe side. Well, by my last stop I was feeling quite confident in my subway riding abilities... well... until I seen this -----> (I had to take the pic for you guys to see, but I wonder if the other people on the subway thought I was some kind a perve. That wouldn't be cool.) Now I have no idea what he was doing but it couldn't have been anything good considering he was bunched up in a corner with his hands down there (ewwwwww!!!!).
It's spring!!!! ~봄~!! About time too, because I don't have too many winter clothes and I'm tired of wearing my Ugg boots (although I have to say that they really were the only shoes that kept my feet warm in 25 degree weather).
I've also finalized my class schedule. Check it out. So basically, I don't have class on Monday's and Friday's (excluding Korean class). This schedule is way better than any of my classes at UT AND I'm taking a full load, 15 hours. So far I've been to all my courses except for Kundo (I think Yonsei misspelled it; I think it's supposed to be Kendo) and the dance class. I didn't really want to take that class at first but then I read that we get to learn how to swing dance, so that should be fun. Before I got this class I registered for a body building class. Well, I found the room, but the door was taped shut, sooo.... I didn't go to class.
Today, in my Intro to Art History class, my teacher told us we won't have to buy books since importing them would take too long (and a lot of $moolah$ I don't wanna give). Awesome. So for this semester I have spent a total of $72.00 on all my school books, as opposed to the $200.00-$300.00 I usually spend at my home campus.
Have you guys ever heard of cross walks going diagonally across the street? I haven't nor had I ever seen one til I moved off campus.
*note* I hope you guys are appreciating these pics, b/c after every single one I take, I get a lot of weird stares from Koreans
Not only that but drivers in Korea are CRAZY!!!!! They seriously don't believe in the pedestrian going first.Going across crosswalks here is like trying to get through a battle zone with getting shot. People here actually have to dodge cars... or get hit. My program director was telling me the one time she hit someone...So she was about to make a right turn at a light. The crosswalk sign was at red and no one was stupidly trying to cross it, so she started to turn when all of a sudden a dude in a white coat comes running across the street, and then she hits him. Well there was a police car a few cars behind her and a lot of people watching the whole thing; but did anyone get out of their cars or walk to the hit guy? nope. they all just watched. even the police man; he stayed in his car. Well, the guy who got hit, got up, dusted off his coat, and then ran off. So my program director got off the hook.
This was when the light was red... see what I mean? A freaking bus was in the crosswalk.
I think you guys already know that Korean guys tend to care more about their appearance than American guys. So I took a pic of two guys with a 'Man bag'.
While me and a few girls were in the school book store, my roommate found this book.It basically had all the questions a 5th grader in a sex ed class would ask. For example, if a girl put's in a tampon for the first time does that mean she's not a virgin? Can you break a penis? Is semen nutritious or fatty? And all the questions were answered. Silly, silly, Koreans.
Lastly, do not, I repeat, DO NOT ever eat at an "American restaurant" without expecting to pay atleast double of what you would normally pay in the U.S. I decided to go to Pizza Hut because I was getting tired of Korean food. Instead of stepping into the typical slightly dirty fast food restaurant I'm so used to in the western hemisphere I stepped into a 3 story restaurant equipped with an elevator, watresses with headphones, cooks in those cute chef outfits, and risotto and pasta on the menu. It looked more like an upgraded Bostons. My table's bill was as follows: One large pepperoni pizza - $17.00/One medium cheese pizza - $15.00/ One diet Pepsi drink (she actually asked for a Pepsi. Maybe the waitress was trying to say something...) - $2.50. It wasn't tooooo bad. But I wouldn't make it a regular thing to do.
P.S. I went to see a dance show performed by dance groups from Yonsei. Can Koreans dance?
One of the many replicas in Korean museums. Palace during the Chosun Dynasty (I think).
You're looking at a North Korean soldier. I know, weird.
Farmers' crop performance. They did alot of these turns in the air. Couldn't capture them on picture well. And they twirled long string from their hats. Was pretty cool.
Went to a couple of Buddhist temples. The people wouldn't let anyone take pictures inside the temples, so I took one of these tower things. Once you build one you make a wish, but make sure you don't tell anyone. ----- This reminds me of a story our tour guide told us ----- There once were two sisters. One night, the younger sister dreamt that she climbed to the top of a mountain and peed; but the pee devoured the whole town surrounding the mountain. Now, in Korea back then, if one were to have a bad dream they would tell everyone they knew, but if they had a good dream they would tell no one; and get this- people bought dreams. (blasphemy?!?!!?) The younger sister didn't know if this was a good dream or not and so she told her older sister. Once realizing the meaning, the older sister bought the younger one's dream for a beeauuutiful hanbok. Fast forward (because I forget the details) and the older sister became queen.
Left: At the end of each folk village tour, everyone had the opportunity to write out their wish on a piece of paper and tie it to a string. Once the townspeople burn them, then your wish is supposed to come true. My wish was for Tanzy.
