Only two weeks left in Seoul?!

I only have about two weeks left in Seoul now. It's quite hard to believe in retrospect. It's sort of like a friend that you're really close to that you've known for a bit. Part of me feels like I've been here forever, and the other part of feels like I've just got here. I've flip-flopped this last month from being in love from Seoul to impatiently waiting for my trip to Hong Kong and Turkey to finally come. By no means have I been missing America, but rather excited for new frontiers--it's not to say that I don't miss a few things and a few people from back in America though.

A few things I do really miss:

-quesadilla with chicken and guacamole-we don't really have any of those things here

-Mexican food

-dimsum

-"real Chinese food" (you would think Korea would have that more than America, but America has more Chinese than Korea)

-my rain boots

-being able to wear shorts and running shoes and not get stared at

-a refrigerator (the dorms don't have that)

-fruit (the grocery store is far, they are expensive, and I have no fridge!)

-Mom, dad, Katie, and some other relatives and friends

-my large wardrobe

-not having to take a really slow elevator

-cooking and having a kitchen

-having the right away as a pedestrian

-running while breathing fresh air

-dad's smoothies

-tomatos and cottage cheese

-cottage cheese

-elk burgers

-picking blackberries

-steamed squash

-big tubs of yogurt

-Arab food (besides turkish)

-Indian food (so expensive here)

Some things I have really enjoyed:

-scented toilet paper (ours is lavender!)

-seeing JP, Mogi, and briefly Sean...and other old friends

-cheap food to go

-great public transit

-free kimchi

-Korean food at my fingertips

-filtered water dispensers everywhere

-Sangria juice boxes

-banana milk

-convenience stores

-kimbap

-"pang" the Korean bread

-green tea ice cream

-haggling

-being in a city that actually has a nightlife

-feeling safe (at least in terms of being assaulted) at any hour of night or day

-great fashion at cheap prices

-Dunkin Donuts!

-cute handbags without being designer for an affordable price

-being able to actually have a "view" from my window

-mountian climbing/hiking

-lots and lots of walking

-all the friends I made in Korea

-"Seoul milk" and Korean milk in general

-being able to dress up and not having people stare at me

-pumpkin salad pudding stuff

-Mr Pizza's sweet potato stuffed crust pizza

-kiwi juice

-yogurt to go

Some of my favorite memories:

-the temple in Pusan

-seeing JP, Sean, Mogi

-eating and drinking with my economics class (the most Korean I've spoken)

-touring Korea U with JP and Christine

-clubbing with Angie, Julie, and Leslie

-wandering around late at night

-the afternoon I spent by myself in Insadon

-visiting the bird tea house again

-my random hike in the hills of Yonsei on the day we actually had blue sky

-eating chicken galbi

-visiting Jason Yu's school and seeing all the Korean kids

All and all, it's been a really good trip. It was not at all what I expected, and that was a little disappointing earlier, but it's all really been quite good. Like mom says, "When you go somewhere with expectations you're bound to be disappointed, but when you go with your heart and head completely open to whatever you encounter you have a great time." I guess I thought I would see my friends more, be speaking a ton of Korean, making lots of new Korean friends, and be studying less. Truth be told so many people I know are really busy with their own lives, school here is really quite rigorous (especially if you take three classes including Korean, which amounts to 28 hours a week!), and I use less Korean than I did back in Davis. I hang out with Americans more than Koreans, and that's partly my fault, but it isn't all bad. I met some great people from the US, Canada and Europe, and I made more female friends than I've ever had before. It's been interesting, and I think I learned more about Americans, Canadians, Californians, America, and myself than I ever have before. ..oh and I got an awesome roommate who is actually good friends with my old roommate in Davis! SMALL WORLD! :)

Let's get me through my finals and final projects and papers, and I'll see about writing some more! :-P

More of Kyeongju

In addition to the temple, there was also some obscure historical place we went to that had some sort of replica tomb and an observatory, but the only thing particularly interesting was the fact there were large green hills there. These places were called Bulguksa Temple, Seokgulam, and Chun-ma-chong. I had some famous "bread" from Kyeongju, that was essentially pancakes with red bean paste inside. It was good though. The stone thing is some kind of ancient observatory. Under one of the giant hills is a tomb replica.

Kyeongju

I went to Kyeongju with UC EAP. It was interesting. It wasn't very exciting, but I had some good food.

We had a large traditional style lunch and went to a temple. They had a very small and strange toilet....almost children's size. I liked the temple, but the other place we went to wasn't so great. It started raining on us at the temple. There were many small rocks at the temple stacked up, and a very very small toilet there!