Frolicking Friday in Seoul

This morning I was able to chat with my mom and Martin before heading out to meet my friends. I met up with Tim, his brother Ben, Kim, and Joakim in Myeongdong. We then moved to the War Memorial Museum (free!) and wandered around there until we got hungry. We went to Itaewon for lunch and found a nice French restaurant. After walking around Itaewon for a little, we went back to Myeongdong and did a little browsing. Tim and his brother had to meet up with their family friends so they left. Kim, Joakim and I continued shopping and had dinner at an Italian place. We split a salad, pizza, and pasta; it was pretty good. Tim joined us and we went to a little coffee place. At first they told us everyone had to order (I didn't want anything) and so then we said forget it and were going to leave, but then they let us stay because they didn't want us to leave. Then it took them a reeeally long time for our very simple order, but in the end they gave us a free piece of cake which was nice. I was feeling tired and I have about a 35-40 minute travel back to my guesthouse, so I said bye to Joakim (he's leaving for Sweden early in the morning). It's pretty late so I'm calling it a night!

Browsing in the War Memorial Museum

Fried Mozzarella Ravioli's at the French Restaurant

Tim, Kim and Joakim (hehe, they rhyme) walking around Myeongdong

Back in Seoul...Missing Gimhae

Well, my trip has come full circle...I now find myself back in Seoul and even in the same room at the SWS Guesthouse as when I started almost exactly 4 months ago. All I can say is that the time really flew by and I can hardly believe I'm back where I started. I am really missing my bunk bed and Jenny at Inje right now, believe it or not. I have had such an amazing journey and will be forever thankful for those who touched my life and made my time at Inje so amazing. I know that I have many friends to welcome me whenever I return to Korea.


This morning I was kind of lazy and didn't really work on packing right away. Jenny and I met with my students to go to lunch. We actually went to the same restaurant my taekwondo instructor took us to the week before (wow, it really was just a week ago that happened...my how time flies). After lunch we got smoothies and went back to campus. I worked on packing and squeezing 4 months of my life into a suitcase, duffel and backpack: let me tell you...it was not easy!!!! Bumsik came up to help me carry my very, very heavy suitcase down the 3 flights of stairs and then more the stairs down from English Town. I had other friends and a few students come join to say goodbye...the taxi came a little early so all too soon it was off to the bus station. It was so sad to see all these people I have come to love waving goodbye to me. (The taxi driver must have thought I was crazy because he kept looking at me out of the corner of his eye and kind of laughing and shaking his head at me...) When we got to the bus station, the driver kindly took my suitcase into the station. I found my bus and settled in for the ride. 


The journey from the Express Bus Terminal to the guesthouse was quite the trip. Exhausting. I had to move from the bus terminal down to the subway (lifting my suitcase over a few steps to get to the escalator). The subway station there is huge so I had to walk quite some distance to finally get to the tracks. I had one stop and then needed to transfer lines. That was kind of a problem because there was no elevator from line to line. I had to carry my suitcase up about 10 steps...I finally made it to my station back in Gangnam; I remembered where the elevator was so I took that up to the street. The guesthouse is probably about 1/2 a mile or so from the subway station and uphill (I'm not exaggerating!!). As I was struggling with my bags a kind young man came up to me speaking to me in Korean "Where are you going?" He offered to help me and ended up rolling my suitcase all the way to the guesthouse. It was sooo nice and I was so relieved; it definitely would have taken me three or four times as long to make it to the guesthouse otherwise! When I got into the lobby, the cute old desk man smiled huge and gave me a big hug. He helped me upstairs and started the air conditioner right away. I wanted to find some things, so I started going through my suitcase...only to find that my shampoo bottle cap had come off and all the rest of my shampoo had leaked out! It made quite a mess because the liquid made one of my pairs of shoes bleed a little bit. That was a nice mess to clean up. I caught up with Emily and Jenny on chat and I made plans to meet up with some friends from my program tomorrow! There are a bunch of us hanging around Seoul for the next week, so I am glad to know I won't be too lonely here. Jenny will be joining me at the guesthouse on Tuesday! :) I am making myself get to bed early, so goodnight!!

PS There is a full moon outside my window...thinking of you Mom! See you soon! 

Lunch with my students and some other people from their lab

Getting smoothies!

Shika Shika carrying my heavy suitcase down the stairs!!

Bus to Seoul!

Full moon over Gangnam

My lovely bruised knee from my suitcase

Last full day in Gimhae!

Tuesday:
Emily, Yangyang and I went hiking to Sina San (Sina Mountain; I went there with my host family). We didn't get all the way to the top, but stopped at the Buddhist temple. We came back and went to lunch for Kim's last meal here. Tim and his brother Ben also returned to Gimhae to leave for Seoul. After they left, Jihye helped me get a bus ticket to Seoul. I went to play soccer with my students for almost 2 hours! :) It was a lot of fun. We didn't really have a class today, but their professor bought a bunch of kimbap for me and Emily. It was a successful kimbap party! Then it was on to more food...we had Em's going away dinner. We went to the same BBQ place where Emily burned her fingers last week. After dinner we went to get ice cream at Baskin Robbins. After a long chat with Prof Cho, we headed back to campus where we ran into Jenny and Narae. They were going to get coffee, so we went back into town to join them. When we returned, I went around with Em to try and find people to give her notes to and say goodbyes. She ended up spending the night in our room so she wasn't by herself.

Our tree after 2 1/2 months of growing!

Soccer with my students and some of their classmates!

Kimbap party with some of my students!!

About half of my students

Hanging outside before dinner

And then there were 3...

Baskin Robbins!

Today: I woke up and snuck down to Tous Les Jours to buy Em her favorite bread as a going away gift. I helped her zip up her suitcases and then had two guy friends help lug them down the stairs. Em had a big group of Koreans to say goodbye to and then the cab came to take us to the airport; Em invited me and Sean to go with her. At the airport Prof Cho met us and got coffee for them. We sat and talked a little and then my twin had to catch her plane. It was sad, but I don't feel too bad cause I know I will be seeing her several times over the summer. Pro Cho drove us back to campus. I went to lunch with Yangyang at the bibimbap/kalguksu restaurant for my last lunch in Gimhae. I had to go there because it is unique to Gimhae and soo delicious! Yangyang was so sweet and bought me lunch cause it's my last one here. After lunch I came back to pack/organize a little and relax. Around 3:30 I went to go see my students. Originally they told me they were going to show me some of their radiation equipment, but I ended up helping them proofread papers. Jenny and I were going to get my hair done around 5, but her exam went long so we didn't have time before our dinner plans. We met up with Yangyang, Prof Cho and the Malaysian students (exchange program to do research in the biomedical lab; living in ET). After dinner Jenny and I went for my perm! I was so nervous! They trimmed, thinned and layered my hair before setting it. It looks pretty great-I will post pics later! Jenny and I went to the Doghouse to get Bulgogi bread to bring back to the dorms. We enjoyed our bread and then skyped with Maren in Malaysia! Jenny and I met ByungUk to say goodbye (he has an exam during the time I will leave) and eat my favorite snacks.

Em, Sean and me

Prof Cho, Em and me

Yangyang and me at lunch!

Hair in curlers!!

Almost done!!!

Jenny and Amy's lonely party! Bulgogi bread!!

ByungUk and me saying goodbye!

Depressing Monday

Wow, what a killer day. We had to say goodbye to FOUR participants...

Jenny and I went to spend a few last minutes with Maren before she left. It was hard to say bye, but we have made tentative plans to meet in August. I kind of packed a little. Emily, Yangyang, Kim and I went to the bibimbap/noodle soup place for lunch. After lunch, it was time to say bye to Ki...and shortly after Ki, Megan and Colin left. We were all kind of in shock...Jihye took Kim, Yangyang, Emily and me out for ice cream to cheer us up. I packed a little more and then we met up to go to dinner. It was a small group...Jenny, Emily, Yangyang, Kim, Hee Eun, Prof Cho and me. We went to a place for BBQ ribs; it was pretty good-not a lot of meat for a lot of work. After dinner us girls went to a Twosome Place for coffee and to chat.

Cooking our ribs

Time Flies...and now it's the end

Again, I find myself apologizing to my readers...we had such an incredibly busy week!

Tuesday!! (Wow, really sorry!)
It was a terrible Tuesday, but in a different sense. I wore my new shoes to class and kind of ruined the heel. We made ho dduk (a fried pancake filled with sugar-you may recall from the beginning of my time at Inje...) in class. I burned my hand with the hot sugar while I was eating. We went to Taekwondo and we had to participate in groups with native Koreans doing their 'dance routine' final. It was terrible because we didn't learn the dances so we all looked like fools. After class, our Taekwondo instructor took us to lunch. We had a kind of chicken stew. It was pretty good. We had a shortened language class (because of the lunch). After class, some of our group went to go hike Sina Mountain (the mountain I hiked with my host family most recently). I wanted to go, but I had to teach. After teaching, Jenny and I ran into Tim's brother, Ben. He arrived to Gimhae on Monday and Korea on Saturday. He was still jet lagging so he didn't go hiking. We took him to BioTech for dinner, but later we went to eat at a BBQ place with the hikers. It was really delicious. Emily burned her fingers on a glass; the cup was sitting close to the cooking apparatus and when she picked up the glass it was super hot! Milan also burned his lips from cooking with his chopsticks and then eating with them. It was such a disaster!

Chicken stew lunch

Last language class!

Wednesday: We had our final Kindergarten class! We played games with them outside and said goodbye. In our conversation class we had yet another guest! He's an adoptee from Maryland. We had lunch in the teachers cafeteria. Then we went to movie class. We watched a movie called "The Classic". Jenny, Emily and I had just watched it last week, but I missed a lot because I was lesson planning and the subtitles were difficult to read. Unfortunately the disc was scratched and skipped a lot. After I taught, I met up with Tim, Ben, Ki, Em, Maren, and Jenny for dinner. We went to HomePlus to hang out and then headed over to The Dog House. We had some nice conversation, reflecting on our experiences and talking about first impressions. After the Dog House, we went to the Spicy Kimbap place.

Dinner!

Tim and Ki left a note a few days ago saying this was the best place to get kimbap and the note was still hanging up!

Thursday: Happy Graduation Day!! We didn't have any classes!  Emily and I went for a run around campus, but it was very hot. Our ceremony started at 5 and we had quite a few of our friends from ET come. We had to give a short speech and also received our certificates. Jihye had a video of pictures with a special note on each picture for us. She also played the video I made. After the ceremony, we went to a BBQ place for dinner. After dinner, the group went to the Makgoli place. Emily, Jenny, Maren and I came back to ET for a short break. Jenny had bought us each a small little cake from Paris Baguette with fruit on it so we wanted to enjoy our cakes. We went back out to meet the group and shortly after we moved to The Dog House.

Roomies and Maren

Most of our group at graduation plus Host Families

Mihye, Em, and Songhee at dinner

Jung Yoon and me at dinner!

Maren, Em and me with the cute cakes from Jenny!

Friends at The Dog House

Chul Woo, Em, me and Ji

Friday: We had lunch with Professor Cho (language and culture teacher). He treated us to a soup that was made from dried vegetables and then a special beef patty. Most of us walked back down to campus (it was just up the hill). We had a funny walk back; Ben was imitating people's walks and it was entertaining. Back on campus I just kind of hung out here. We had a group of about 11 go out to dinner for Tim's last meal here. We had a kind of meat-on-bone plus noodles and vegetable stew. It was spicy, but tasty. Again Maren, Emily and I returned to campus for a little before joining the others. We met them at the Makgoli bar for Tim's last time. Megan, Maren, and I got hungry so we went to get some smoothies from Issac Toast. When we returned to the Makgoli place Em and returned from getting ice cream, but we decided to go back out and get a pizza toast from Issac's...it was so good!! We left the Makgoli place and went to The Dog House for the last time as well.

Lunch with Prof Cho

Beef Stew for dinner

Pizza Toast from Issacs!

Tim's goodbye speech to Em, Kim and me

 Saturday: I had a nice early wake up call at 8AM from Ji telling me we had 8 people playing soccer at 9. Thanks Ji. We all met up and managed to wrangle a few other guys as well. Ji had some friends from his major that met us at the fields as well. It was so sad, our last soccer day! The guys grabbed the keys from the Student Union to unlock the small field. One of the guys tossed the keys to someone standing next to the lock...but he missed and the keys...well, they went flying into the LOCKED field. Luckily, there fencing wasn't tight to the gate so someone slipped through and grabbed the keys. It was kind of funny. We played for a little over 2 1/2 hours and it was so hot! We had a pretty big group; we ended up breaking into 3 teams of 6. When we finished, Jenny and I went to the teachers cafeteria for lunch (my last Saturday lunch there!). Later I went into town with Emily. In the evening, we met up to go to dinner-it was so sad we only had a group of 5!! As we were leaving, we ran into Professor Jongman. He wanted to go to dinner with us, so we went to get his daughter Sally and went to Buffalo, a chicken restaurant; it was quite full-circle because it was the restaurant we had our first meal as a group at Inje AND we sat at the same tables. Prof Cho treated us to dinner which was so sweet. Ki said he would treat us to ice cream, so we went to Baskin Robbins and got a huge tub of 5 different flavors to share. Maren, Jenny and I went to get coffee and Prof Cho again treated us. When we returned, Emily was back from her evening in Pusan with MiHye, her host sister. Jenny had to study but Maren and I helped her pack a little.

What are the odds the keys would land there?!

Love this pic!

I will miss these days!

Buffalo Chicken

Buffalo Chicken

Ki with our giant tub of ice cream!

 TODAY!: Maren, Jenny, and I went to the kimbap place for lunch. After lunch Jenny and Emily wanted to get some coffee, so we went to a Twosome Place. While we were waiting for their drink order, I hear "Amy! Amy!". It was one of my students; a lot of them were there having coffee with a professor of theirs. He wanted me to go meet his professor, so we went to say hello. We finished waiting for Em and Jenny's drink when another student came back and said their professor wanted to buy me a cake to thank me for teaching and working with my group. I felt kind of bad; I've never met this professor before! But she insisted and said it was the Korean culture. Instead, Jenny, Em and I picked 3 slices to try. We went to go say thank you and were invited to sit and chat with them for awhile. In the afternoon, I caught up on random tasks like journaling and packing. In the evening, we went to our most frequented BBQ place for "the last supper". After dinner, Prof Cho took us to a Twosome Place for cheesecake and coffee. 

The cakes Emily, Jenny and I got from my students' professor

Hazelnut Caramel Mocha!

Jung Yoon and me!

Monday Off

I had a nice relaxing day... Jenny, Emily and I went to one of our favorite restaurants for lunch. We ordered bibimbap and son kalguksu (hand cut noodle soup). You get those two bowls of food for 4,000W! After lunch Em and I went hiking on the mountain behind BioTech. While we were hiking we spotted Maren hanging out at one of the breaking areas. We talked with her awhile and then decided to try to find the temple on the top of the mountain! ...success! It was maybe another 5-10 minutes of walking. Then in the evening, I tried getting the movie project I made for the group onto CD's without much luck. Maren and I caught up-I hadn't really seen her since Saturday afternoon. I can't believe we are about to start our last week! I'm calling it an early night!

Jenny and me at the restaurant

Em and me by the temple