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random musings. currently in seoul. follow @butnotof for theories and essays

[courteliza]

goodbye 21

It’s been a while! I apologize for not updating more frequently - there were times when I thought about posting something, but decided to wait until I had a bigger chunk of time since May was a bit crazy.

This post is a bit overdue since my birthday was nearly a month ago, but the time has passed so quickly that I feel like it wasn’t that long ago. 

The second to last weekend in May ended with a bang, the 25th was Ipselenti, Korea University’s big school festival. I wasn’t sure what to expect from this other than that I was going to exhausted when it was over, which was correct. 

I stood with my orientation group for an hour before being allowed into the outside arena at 12pm, and we left around 10:30pm. I was practically on my feet the whole time since we were doing segments of 1+ hour cheering alternated with artist performances, and surprisingly I wasn’t tired until around 9pm, despite not eating a single thing the entire time since we couldn’t leave the arena. 

There were so many performances, so but here were the highlights:

Melomance

Zion T. 

Blackpink

Highlight

Mamamoo

Psy

It was so funny that Psy was the closing act to the night, out of all the people I thought I would see in concert I never dreamed I would see Psy. I was dying of laughter when he came out. To be honest, I don’t really like Psy’s music since his lyrics aren’t exactly the most thought-provoking, but he is an excellent performer. It was a great finish to the festival, and there were fireworks at the end which were really fun.

(The man himself, everybody)

I couldn’t help but think this was really special since it was my birthday the next day, and if felt like such a satisfying and dreamlike ending to 21. I kinda felt like I was an extra from BTS’s Forever Young MV. Ha.

At the end of the festival, everyone was cheering, obviously full of Korea University spirit, but I just felt sort of surreal. I think it kind of hit me that I only had exactly a month left, and in that moment I felt so thankful and content. I kept thinking about how I would never have thought I would have ended up here in Korea at the same time last year, and how my life has changed since I got on the plane. But I think most of all, I just felt this urgency to appreciate this time to its fullest, as this period of healing for me comes to an end. I was thankful for the good friend I had at my side, and for the friendship we had, and I was glad I got to finish my 21st year singing to songs I knew and surrounded by a large crowd of positive people. When I got back to my room after finally eating something, I was so full of adrenaline that I couldn’t fall asleep, so I was awake until 3 am alternatively thinking over past events and praying for the future. Now I wish I had slept, because I woke up late to our Busan trip the next day, only having had 3 hours of sleep. Thankfully my friend knocked on my door, otherwise I probably would have missed the trip altogether, which would have been a pretty sad start to 22. 

I’ll write about the Busan trip in the next post! Hopefully I’ll get it done soon.

[courteliza]

on media criticism and redefining media norms

One of the goals I made coming here was to become a better visual communicator for a multicultural audience. However, I think instead of learning how to be a visual communicator, I learned more about visual communication in general, specifically related to film. Since the media classes I am taking here are film-centric, I have learned a lot about how film is perceived in Korea versus in the United States. One thing I noticed right off the bat was that the classes here tend to include film from around the world, not just Hollywood or anglocentric film, which is what my classes back home tended to do. I believe limiting yourself to just American cinema or movies that are dubbed in English is constraining yourself - there are so many great works of film and animation made outside of the United States that you would miss out on. 

I knew this already, as most of the things I watch aren’t American and are often in other languages. However, I didn’t realize how biased my media education was until I started hearing input from my fellow classmates. They are more exposed to different kinds of films, and many of them watch film from around the world on a regular basis. It was not like this with my fellow classmates at home - many of them hadn’t even seen the older American films we watched. I’m not saying this to bash on my class back at my home university, but for myself I didn’t learn in that sort of environment. Being here and being around people who also have the desire to broaden their cinematic horizons has taught me more in the last couple of months than what I learned in the three years at my home university. 

I realized that the things that I got made fun of for back home are completely normal here. It hit me at once a month into classes here that I felt much more comfortable exploring my different interests and learning about “weird” things. (“Oh, you’ve seen this old French film too?”)

I thought a lot about this especially with BTS’s recent comeback (which was incredible BTW) and new album. It reminded me of when I was in my first year of college and used to listen to this group’s songs all the time and people thought it was really strange that I could enjoy music that I couldn’t immediately understand the lyrics to. Now, the band is so popular they have been on the BBMA’s twice and play on radio stations back home. It proves how stupid and silly it is to call things not normal or weird, these things are constantly going through phases, and what is weird and not normal at this moment could be the new trend in a year. 

People at the time didn’t understand how excited I was that music can transcend lyrical and language boundaries. Excellent music can portray emotion without words. (But that’s a whole other blog post)

Media norms come and go really quickly, therefore I think it is a vain effort to try and establish what we consider to be normal in music and film. These things are changing dynamically so quickly that you could almost say that what is normal media changes everyday. We have evidence to this - things on the internet can trend within seconds. We can go from zero knowledge on a topic to complete understanding and a desire to actively support in a matter of minutes. 

This leads into a conversation about appropriation of film and music within culture, but that is also a discussion for another day. I suppose my main point of this post is that I realized I let myself be criticized for having interest in non-english/anglo things without realizing it, and that education is shockingly more biased than I thought. Perhaps media education is one of the most biased fields of all. 

[courteliza]

off to buyeo

Our next ISA program was to Buyeo (부여), a city south of Seoul. We were going here to go to the Baekje Cultural Land, a traditional site of an old palace as well as a popular filming site for historical dramas like Scarlet Heart: Ryeo. We got off to a rocky start because our tour bus came an hour late due to a flat tire, and by the time we got to Buyeo we were supposed to have been there for 2 hours. The traffic in and out of Seoul is always terrible. I thought traveling around D.C. was bad, but this was some next level traffic. 

To be honest I didn’t really care about how long we were in the bus because I enjoy listening to music and looking out the window. Also rest stops in Korea have everything you could possibly want, including a whole room of mirrors, so I wasn’t bored. 

When we got there finally, we went to the museum in the area first and were told we only had ten minutes because of our late schedule, so I am sorry to say I can’t really explain what it was I was looking at. However, they had some pretty awesome clay figurine displays of Silla dynasty villages. 

Afterwards we went to the palace and village area, which is kept up in order to look like it did hundreds of years ago. The palace gates were stunning. 

(This gate is actually used in a pretty dramatic scene in Scarlet Heart: Ryeo)

(inside the village area, where they also hold traditional weddings. The flowers were beautiful)

We had to get back on the bus afterwards to a hiking area where we took a ferry to (insensibly) a different area on the same side of the mountain we were on. 

(I felt like I was at some sort of vacation resort)

I then learned that the hiking were supposed to do wasn’t really hiking at all since pretty much everything was cement paths. On the way up the mountain there was a well where legend has it if you drink the water you become three years younger. Some of the people in my group drank a lot and then told everyone they were in elementary school. 

(the view at the top of the mountain was so nice)

After we hiked down the mountain, we got back on the bus and went to a man made lake area. Apparently it is famous because it is the first man made lake in Korea.

(It was really pretty! There were tons of couples taking pictures with selfie sticks and tripods. We also got asked a couple of times to take photos for others haha.)

We didn’t get back to Seoul until 10pm, which stressed me out because we still had to take 35 minutes on the metro back to where the university is. The driver also didn’t stop at a rest stop this time, so it was a really long 3.5 hour trip back to the main city. But it was such a fulfilling day and I was glad that I got to spend most of it outside.

(some of the ISA gang)

[courteliza]

yanghwajin

It’s been a while since I’ve updated! I got busy with classwork and some trips I went on, but I will do my best to push out a few posts in the next week. 

Two weeks I went to Yanghwajin, the foreign missionary cemetery with my missions mentor. This was a really interesting experience because I didn’t know much about the history of Christianity in Korea, and had never been to cemetery in Korea. I learned Yanghwajin was originally set aside as a piece of land for foreigners to be buried in because in the past foreigners were not allowed to be buried within the city limits. I’m not going to go into all the history of the place here because I would probably get some facts wrong, but it is easy to look up. 

Yonsei University and Ewha Women’s University were both founded by Christian missionaries in Korea. I didn’t know about this until the tour guide told us, and I found it pretty surprising. He also explained that part of the reason for the spread of Hangul, the written Korean language was due largely to the translation of the Bible into Korean. Once the Bible was translated, the language itself spread as well as people wanted to read. We had some time to read the stories of the missionaries journeys, and I was really astounded at the love for Korea and the persistence of these people despite the constant persecution. Korea is second only to the United States in sending Christian missionaries abroad, which is surprising considering the population size. It made me think a lot about our perceptions as Americans about missions abroad.

On an unrelated note, it was beautiful day when we went to the cemetery, and I loved being outside - these days the weather is pretty much perfect as the dust hasn’t been too bad for the past two weeks.

[courteliza]

incheon + concert

This past Saturday, my friend and I went to a music festival in Incheon that was held by Red Cross to raise funds. Because it was a benefit concert, it was very cheap (and outside), and there were alot of artists performing. We booked our tickets about two weeks beforehand from Trazy.com (which I highly recommend) which included a tour package.

It was my first time during a package tour ever (let alone in Korea) but it was a really great experience! We met the tour guide and photographer at a metro station where we boarded a private bus (included with the ticket price) which took us eventually to Incheon. On the way, we stopped at Shingi market for lunch, which is basically a street market similar to Kwangjang. From what I understood, this market is one of the only places where you can pay with the ancient Shingi coins from the Joseon dynasty. Each coin values at 500won (basically 50 cents). The tour guide gave us each 5,000 won worth of these coins, which was super cool because I got to get food for lunch and have a couple coins left over to save as souvenirs. 

(a picture of the Shingi market taken while walking) 

After lunch we went closer to the port, (Incheon is a port city, and also the city I flew into when I first came to Korea.) Chinatown is in this area, as well as a few Japanese buildings from the colonialism period, so we spent a good hour and a half walking around taking lots of pictures. It was kind of a surreal experience because the weather was extremely overcast and it felt like evening even though it was only about 14:00 in the afternoon. There were still so many cherry blossoms! It was really beautiful. At some point I got an overpriced bubble tea in Chinatown before we left because I felt guilty for using the bathroom in the cafe without paying for anything.

(overcast Incheon)

(cherry blossom)

(I felt like modeling the KU varsity jacket all of a sudden)

After this we headed to the concert venue, but ended up standing around for about two solid hours (or more, I don’t remember) because the people in charge of the chairs for the concert seating messed them up somehow and it took them forever to fix it. Most of this time I spent waiting in line for the bathroom, because it turned out there was only one stall working. They didn’t start letting us use the men’s until the concert had practically begun. The only thing humorous about this situation was when the guys would pass us on their way to and from their bathroom. I felt like they were secretly laughing at us - but the tables were turned when the security guard made them wait once the concert started. Thankfully I made it back in time for the first act, so I had forgiven the wait time. 

(the chairs looked perfect to me...)

Voisper was the first guy group to go (after CLC), who I had not heard of until I saw the concert lineup, but they turned out to be one of my favorite acts. They sing alot of ballads with incredible harmony, and that night I think they sang an original song and one by Ed Sheeran. Afterwards were Apink, CLC, Astro, iKON, and JBJ. Most of the people attending the concert were there for iKON, although JBJ and Astro came at a close second, especially since JBJ is disbanding soon. *tears*

(Voisper - singing an Ed Sheeran song, probably)

Overall for an outdoor concert I was pretty impressed and was thankful for the chairs because I hate mosh pits. I survived The 1975 in concert with general admission, but I’m not sure I could have survived a free for all outdoor concert with kpop fans. I think the reason that there were chairs was because the event was being broadcast on television. 

(what the stage actually looked like to me (during iKON’s performance))

I was really happy I got to see iKON, JBJ and Astro, and was especially excited about finding a new group (which I am going to go see for really cheap in Hongdae come May). Something I though was weird about this concert is that everyone sat. At an outdoor concert. With alot of famous idols. I’ve never been so confused and thankful in my life. If we stood I don’t think I would have seen anything at all. 

(iKON! - my pictures were pretty sub-par since I was so far away. This picture is funny to me because Bobby (far left) looks so disinterested while everyone else is doing something)

It ended sometime after 10, which concerned me a tad because were weren’t even in Seoul and I still had to get back to Anam (the metro closes at midnight, I believe). It was fine though, because the concert venue was closer to Seoul than the other places we had gone to. I think we got back to the dorms around 23:40ish - so it was a bit close but nothing to worry about. 

As I write this I am slowly realizing that I may have overstayed my welcome at this cafe (I got here at 11:30am...its now 15:00) I’m trying to see how long it is before the three barista guys at the counter who are staring at me actually muster enough courage to come over and address me. In my defense, there are still open seats so I’m not taking up space. (TBH they are probably wondering when I ordered because they all started their shifts an hour after I got here) I could always feign ignorance, but most likely they know enough English to tell me to get the heck out.

*Update: It is now 15:38 and they are no longer staring at me. Perhaps they have excepted my existence. I’ll publish this post and take my leave. (I have Korean class at 17:00 anyway.)

(here’s Voisper being weird to wrap up as usual)

[courteliza]

solo adv. #2: 이태원 (itaewon)

For some odd reason, I find extreme satisfaction in going on solo trips. I didn’t realize that I enjoyed it so much and some times I find myself coming up with excuses not to go on them because I feel like I’m a sort of loser for traveling on my own, and I should go with friends, I should have people taking pictures of me, yada yada. I soon realized that if I wait until my friends are free to go to places I won’t get to see everything I want to see, and despite my love for museums and art, other people do not in fact enjoy these things even half as much as I do, and the last time I brought someone with me on a museum trip we ended up shopping in some place I had already been to.

I wasn’t able to go somewhere last week because I had my Alien Registration Card appointment (apparently having a student visa isn’t enough to prove you are legal) which took up the majority of one of my days when I normally have alot of free time. So this Thursday I decided to go to the Leeum Samsung Museum of Art, which turned out to be my favorite museum in Seoul so far. Most of the museums in Seoul are free, but the Leeum costs 10,000 KW for a ticket. Thankfully, the student discount brings the ticket down to 5,000 - I ended up spending around 2.5 hours in the museum so I think it was a pretty sweet deal.

(a picture of my ticket because I couldn’t take photos in the museum)

On my way to the museum I found this random staircase along the main road which takes you up pretty high (I underestimated the amount of stairs and was pretty tired by the time I reached the top) and the view was amazing. There were a few people walking their dogs around there so I think there was some sort of dog park at the top. 

(view on the way up the stairs)

The Leeum is split into two museums, one featuring traditional art and the other modern art. Each museum has three floors, so there was alot to look at there. This museum had the best staff ever, they were so friendly even when I walked into the wrong entrances. Museum 1 is alot of artifacts including vases and containers from both the Goryeo and Joseon dynasties. I noticed that most of the people walking around were elderly ladies and I was probably the only college student in the whole museum interested in Joseon vases. Museum 2 was a mix of things, one of the floors had some pieces inspired by traditional art, and another floor had a Josef Albers work as well as a Mark Rothko one, both of which I was super excited to discover since I had studied their works in classes and find the color studies they did really fascinating. The security guard probably though I was crazy since I stared at the Albers work for about ten whole minutes. (It’s literally a couple of colored squares.) I was just really excited to actually see a work by Albers in real life, and of all places in Seoul.

I walked out of the main road when I was done at Leeum to try and find this cafe I had heard about but I have no idea where it is, maybe it closed or something. I came to the realization that the area I was in is pretty high class - everyone around me was dressed up (so many couples for some reason today) and here I am wearing my KU varsity jacket. At least I look like I’m smart (ha no.). I ended up just going to a coffee chain where I’m writing this post now. 

I have Korean class at 5pm so I have to head back soon - the class is so fast paced since it is M-Th that if I miss a class I will fall behind (It’s almost midterms, too!)

Thanks for reading, as always ^^

(an iKON gif because I’M SEEING THEM THIS WEEKEND - cheap/free tickets are my aesthetic)

[courteliza]

a post you could probably skip

A friend and I decided to do some exploring in Gangnam last weekend since we wanted to try and find SM Entertainment and hopefully BigHit (BTS’s entertainment company). For those of you who don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, they are basically the agencies for Korean pop stars, of which BTS is my favorite.

We found SM’s visual identity exhibit first, which I thought was really interesting as a designer. The whole exhibit was basically layouts of the different logo versions, colors, and design of their new visual identity, showing the creative process museum exhibit style. 

(I’d like to say I read all of the text in this exhibit, but I didn’t really care enough)

We had to get stamped at the entry, which didn’t make any sense to me at first but I realized that they were giving out free business cards for various artists and some people were trying to collect several so they would go in multiple times. There was this girl at the entrance trying to convince us to give her our business cards (she had like 100+ already). I get she thought we weren’t real fans since were foreigners. (I got Shinee, so I wasn’t about to give mine up) Unfortunately I completely forgot to take pictures at the actual SM Entertainment building, but we went there sometime afterwards, it was extremely pink and there was an overpriced cafe and a decent merch store. 

We found JYP sometime later, which honestly looked pretty underwhelming in my opinion. There was a Dunkin Donuts nearby, which was full of high school girls (turns out someone important arrived there after we left, and they were waiting for him all day).

(you’d think they would fork out more money for their money makers...)

We walked around for about an hour looking for BigHit. I’m not really sure why I didn’t do more research on this, so I would have realized that it’s not really meant to be found and is a pretty boring building. I assumed it was something like SM entertainment with a store and stuff but there was literally nothing. So apparently the biggest shots in kpop get the most low key building - in any case I was pretty annoyed after realizing the truth. I suppose for now the bear on k-star road will suffice.

(I was slightly embarrassed to take this photo, but anything for my favs)

Since I’m already talking about all of this kpop stuff anyway, last week had me and my friend overanalyzing fan theories when BTS’s new theme video for Love Yourself: Wonder came out last week. We definitely spent 100% more time than necessary talking about it. Something about being in Korea when these things get released makes it much more exciting. Here’s to hoping the new album comes out while I’m here! 

(seriously, the color aesthetic in the new video was too good)

[courteliza]

i go to north korea

I have to give a shoutout to my study abroad program, ISA (International Studies Abroad) because without this program I wouldn’t have had the funds to do certain activities. I was especially thankful for the planned trip to the DMZ (demilitarized zone) that I went on last Saturday, since it would have been a lot of money and planning on my part to do on my own.

It is hard to decide where to start with explaining this trip and my thoughts while on it. I can say that I first just felt like my senses were heightening on the way there. Listening to our guide on the bus explaining parts of the history between the north and south of the peninsula and seeing the landscape change around me through the window as I left Seoul was a very sobering and educational experience.

The first thing I noticed is that when you get somewhat close to leaving the city limits of Seoul, you start to see barbed wire fences on the side of the road, getting higher and higher as you leave the city area. I think this is when it started to hit me that Korea is still technically at war. Being in the middle of Seoul, no one talks about the conflict between the Koreas, and you forget that you are only about twenty five miles from the DPRK (Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) border. As we drove along Freedom Road, the highway connecting North and South Korea built to make reunification easier, the tour guide pointed out large cement ads that looked like small bridges hanging over the highway. While simply looking like a support of some sort, he explained that they are actually intended to be blown up in case of invasion from the north. Since Freedom Road is the only highway connecting the peninsula as a whole, blocking this road would slow down incoming intruders. I would have never looked at those boulders and realized their true purpose.

Once we reached the beginning of the DMZ, we had our passports checked and then drove to the next security checkpoint nearer to the JSA, where they were checked again by a ROK soldier who looked to be about my age. We were told we couldn’t take any pictures until instructed, and we proceeded through to the JSA (Joint Security Area). As we drove there, we could see the North Korean flagpole at the border, recently rebuilt just to be higher than the South Korean one, the guide laughingly pointed out.

When we arrived at the JSA, we were told to follow our ROK soldier guide in two lines through to the border, where the Military Armistice Commission Building T2 is. This is the building where talks are held between delegates. This area is the only one open to visitors and is under very strict rule. This is the only area where visitors can actually step into North Korea’s side while inside the T2 building. We stopped for pictures, which could only be taken from specified directions, and then went inside the building.

(view from the South Korean side across the border. The building on the left is the T2 building that we went inside of. The building in the background is in North Korea. The line seen that looks to be connecting the buildings in the center is the border line.)

(inside the T2 building. I am standing in North Korea. The soldier at the head of the table is a ROK soldier.)

I didn’t fully realize in the moment that I was actually in North Korea when I was inside the building and had crossed the side of the table while listening to the ROK soldier talk. I was too busy trying to take in everything around me that I didn’t fully comprehend what was going on. There were several soldiers stationed around the room, and the ROK soldier said we could take pictures with them, but I didn’t because I found the experience somewhat sobering and felt as though taking pictures with them was a bit dehumanizing. To be honest I was pretty annoyed with the rest of my ISA student group, because they were just laughing and making fun of the officers and I didn’t really see anything funny about the situation at all.

We were in the building for about ten minutes and then went back out and got back on the bus, which was parked outside the South Korean building that we had to go through to get to the border line. Our bus took us to the souvenir shop, which seemed so wrong to me that I immediately went back outside. (There’s nothing like commercialized war, everyone *heavy sarcasm*)

We made our way to Paju afterwards, which I had to do some research on since it wasn’t really explained to us. Paju houses a lot of U.S and South Korean army bases for protection here. North Korean land can also be seen from here, including the Kaesong City (used to be the ancient capital of Goryeo called Songdo at the time). Unfortunately, our tour guide only allowed us about ten minutes in the Imjingak area, so we weren’t able to go up to the lookout point. I’d like to say that I could just come back another time, but in all likelihood that probably won’t happen. Before making the bus ride back to Seoul, we ate lunch at a restaurant in Paju, which had rice cultivated in the DMZ area, a special residency village that doesn’t pay South Korean taxes because it is technically separated from the country.

(part of the Bridge of No Return, historically the bridge of an exchange of prisoners between North and South Korea)

(food in Paju)

Once on the bus, the tour guide announced it was then nap time, so the bus was quiet the whole way back. I was too awake and still processing what I saw, so I just stared out the window the whole time (like I did on the plane, haha). I was very appreciative of the fact that I was able to have this experience, and like I said earlier, was really thankful that ISA planned the trip. I felt like seeing something like this is an experience I will keep looking back at later, because if anything changes during my lifetime, I may not have the chance to ever do that again, and it may not be the same. I think it would be appropriate to say that I saw a snapshot of history, and I felt as though it was really special.

Thank you for reading ^^

[courteliza]

a chapter in the life

About two weeks after I got to Seoul, I started attending a church called New Philly in Hongdae. Right off the bat, it was a new experience because I never gone to church in a major city, and taking the metro to church was something I hadn’t really thought about doing before. I didn’t know what to expect, as the last time I had gone to a new church in order to attend regularly was when I was in eighth grade. I found out about this church through my friend, who had attended the college ministry group when she was living in Korea, and decided to check it out with a girl I had met the first week here, who found out about it through someone else. 

I’m not entirely sure if it was the mindset I adapted upon going that made the experience so valuable, but I am so glad that I found this group. The college ministry had a meeting every night for a couple of days to start off and help people get to know each other, and this led to attending New Philly, the associated church. 

So far my experience meeting new people in Seoul has been a bit frustrating. It is hard to meet and talk to people who aren’t exchange students, and every one is very focused on their own thing. However, at New Philly, I didn’t feel the alienation vibe that I did walking around campus. Everyone around me made a conscious effort to smile and talk to me, and this lasted past the first visit - while it may be a simple thing for someone to remember your name, it made an impact on me. 

I’ve been going every week since I found this church, and joined a Bible study group (we had our first meeting Monday). However, my main reason for writing this post was to talk about the content of a sermon from two weeks ago. It had an impact on me and I still think about it, so I wanted to share my feelings before I forgot about the sermon.

The topic was on chapters of life, which sounds a bit cliche, so I kinda thought I knew what to expect. I did, but it was exactly what I needed to hear that week. The pastor was talking about recognizing that God is in control of our lives, and that as children of God, we should be letting God guide us instead of trying to be in control of everything and expecting everything to go our way. Sounds simple right? I have heard this many times, but I feel like what made me pay attention was because I knew I wasn’t doing that, I was very aware that I wasn’t focusing my life around God, and that I was trying to be on the throne of my life.

The pastor went on to talk about how we pray to God asking for specific things to happen in our lives like finding a significant other, landing a new job, losing weight etc. She referred to these things as chapters in our lives, and that asking God for things to come faster, or come at all is like skipping chapters in a book. We pray and ask for things to come in the next chapter, but perhaps it isn’t in the book at all, or its not for the next ten chapters. I’m not sure why, but this analogy really stuck to me. I think it was because I haven’t been very content with where I am in life, I wish I looked different, I wish I wasn’t single, I wish I had more money, I wish I had found a job already, I wish that my relationships with others were stronger. I pray about these things wanting them for selfish reasons, and wanting them immediately. This analogy made me realize that I am treating God like some sort of genie in a bottle, where I can pray and expect results immediately. I have been proven time and time again this is not the case, but I keep praying like it is some sort of magical spell to get me what I want and I just haven’t been pronouncing it correctly. 

So this month I’m really focusing on trying to pray differently - instead of praying with the goal of ultimately getting what I think I need or want, I am trying to pray with contentment, and for patience. Of course, this is not easy, and I still am struggling everyday with wanting what I do not have. But at least now I am more away of my mindset, and can correct my thinking when I start to revert to discontentment. 

I felt like I had many other thoughts I wanted to write here, but I don’t know if I got tired of writing or just ran out of what I wanted to say. Anyway, thanks for reading and I’ll hopefully upload about my trip to the JSA soon!

[courteliza]

solo adv. #1: digital media city

I spent about two hours early last week making a bucket list of places to go around Seoul. Since I have a gap from 10:30-5pm Tuesdays and Thursdays, and no class Friday, I decided to try and use this time to visit some unique areas. It took me about a week to actually just get up and go somewhere, as some unforeseen assignments and a couple orientation things took up some time. 

(entrance to main area)

I took Line 6 to the DMC station, and then was supposed to take the bus for a couple stops but ended up getting on the wrong one and going the opposite direction. I didn’t realize this until the bus driver got to the bus changing terminal and asked me to get off the bus. I ended up walking back around an area that clearly wasn’t for pedestrians, and eventually got on another bus. 

Digital Media City was the first place I chose to go to, since I had wanted to go for a while and it seemed appropriate considering my major. The DMC is basically an area full of, you guessed it, digital media. Several big tv companies have their bases here, CJ & EM, KBS & MBC. You have to pay to get into any of these places, so I walked by the buildings and looked out for any celebrities (Unfortunately I saw none).

I spent about an hour in the Korean Film Museum. It was free, and had alot of things translated into English so I read pretty much everything. There was hardly anyone there since it was mid-day, and I was able to take my time with everything. 

(no one was there)

After this I went to check out the Digital Pavilion which has a lot of virtual reality exhibits, but I wasn’t aware that you had to make a reservation beforehand, so I got kicked out (or rather, was followed out of the building).

I walked around for a while and decided to head back since KU was about an hour away. On my way back on the metro, an elderly lady started talking to me all in Korean and I struggled through telling her where I was from and where I was studying with the very limited Korean I know at this point. Despite being somewhat embarrassed, I was really appreciative of her desire to talk to me even though she couldn’t understand me, it really made me feel welcome. (Thank you, ahjumma! 

I discovered that I really enjoy going on trips alone, despite my friends’ criticism and shock over my lack of caution for myself. It was really satisfying to be able to navigate by myself, and I felt much more free to do whatever I wanted, unlike when I am with a group. Here’s to many more solo adventures.

[courteliza]

cheering orientation?

When you attend one of the only two schools (that are rivals) in Korea that have a varsity culture, knowing how to cheer for your school is a must. Korea University and Yonsei University have a long running rivalry, which is often demonstrated during the festival IPSLENTI games and kpop concerts. 

KU and Yonsei both have their cheering orientations on KU’s campus together, but KU international students have a separate orientation the day after (which was yesterday). Nothing could have prepared me for the amount of yelling, shoving and bending over that I did for two hours straight, learning the 20 different cheer songs that KU has. Nearly all of these songs consist of shitting on Yonsei, calling them chickens and drunks. 

Cheering is led by the KU Tigers, the cheering team who combines dance, taekwondo and cheering into pretty awesome moves (which I will never be able to replicate). They also lead the cheering and tell us when to shout, punch eachother, etc. 

(the IPSELENTI festival cheering song - 15/20 of the songs we learned. We were all packed into this tiny auditorium that became overheated about five minutes in)

I expected not to like it since I kinda hate yelling and seemingly aimless physical movement but it was super fun and I really felt like a KU student. It was the first time I had ever done any sort of cheering since Messiah doesn’t really have a varsity cheering culture. I felt like a well-rounded college student. Once we had gone through the songs once we repeated most of them and then went on stage to do some sailor themed song where we had to pretend to row boats. I had this moment of ‘what am even doing here’ for a few minutes and my abs hurt so much afterwards (gotta work off all the food I’ve been eating).

Now that I’ve had a sneak peak of KU pride, I can’t wait till the IPSELENTI festival in spring. 

[courteliza]

an image dump

Some pictures I haven’t used in any of my posts from the last two weeks.

30th KUBA (Korea University Buddy Assistants) Group 6! (my orientation group)

Pork cutlets - one of the meals with my KUBA group.

Korea University main gate entrance at night. (seriously is the Hogwarts of Korea)

Outdoor bookshop near Dongdaemun Market. This place reminded me of one of the scenes from Shopping King Louis.

A turtle ship model I made at War Memorial.

Lastly, a random picture of me in front of the Gyeongbokgung palace.

[courteliza]

phone woes

One of the things I expected coming to Seoul was having access to wi-fi everywhere. The reality of internet access here turned out to be much different - despite the many available networks, many of them are not free. Navigating Seoul is nearly impossible without a smart phone, as the different apps tell you information about subway stations and place locations. Unfortunately for me, my phone does not do well using maps with its old battery, and I have no data. I felt really uncomfortable walking around without being able to contact anyone or look at a map. So, yesterday I went to the KT service center (KT is a cellular service company) and paid 30,000KW for a sim card which includes texting and calling and 2 GB of data. I mostly did this because I wanted the data in case of wi-fi-less locations.

However, this only takes care of one half of my problems, since my phone battery gets worse and worse everyday. My phone itself is working completely fine, it just dies randomly at 50%. After doing some intense Googling and asking random people on Reddit, I finally found a place in Hongdae. 

I went there yesterday and was told they couldn’t fix my phone because my model wasn’t released in Korea. I didn’t understand this because the battery system should have been the same, but I left and went to a cafe to try and figure out my options. I decided to try the Yongsan Electronics Market, and so went there from Hongdae and arrived at the Yongsan station, which is basically where the KTX train, Korail and the Metro lines meet. It’s a huge station with lots of different ways to exit and enter, so I spent a good twenty minutes just getting out of the place and down the escalator. 

(The Yongsan terminal market - not my photo, my old phone was nearly dead at the time)

(this one is mine: the view on the way down the longest escalator of my life)

I then found the electronics market, which seemed pretty dead at the time, probably because I went there during the daytime on a weekday. After walking up and down the gate (there was literally where I was it was weird) I found a Used GSM phone shop where there was a girl who looked my age working. She looked approachable and more likely to understand me, so I gave it a try. I was so glad I chose to go there because she showed me the affordable options and didn’t bother trying to sell me the expensive phones. On top of that, she gave me her number, business address, and told me to call her if there were any problems in the first two weeks. I got a charger, adapter, case and screen protector along with the 2017 Samsung Galaxy A5 I settled on for a really good price, which probably would have ended up being the amount it would have cost to fix my battery. I can use the new phone back in the US, so it seemed like the best option to me.

I will still sad that I had to spend money, but I felt pretty accomplished for figuring out everything on my own. My mission mentor said that she was really surprised I even found the Yongsan Electronics Market at all, as it is more of a locals spot.

Day one with my new phone and I haven’t charged it since this morning (AccuBattery says I’m going on 11 1/4 hours), so I’m pretty satisfied. I hope it proves to be a worthwhile investment. I feel alot more safe walking around the city now that I have a phone that doesn’t die at random times. 

[courteliza]

tips for tech life in Seoul

I’ve now been in Seoul for almost a month, and have gotten a pretty good feel for how to navigate the subway and view subway times, etc. I’ve found out some things here by trial and error, which no one told me before coming to Korea.

1. Put a hold on your phone service.

Call your phone company and downgrade to the lowest plan, if you want to keep your US number, or cancel if possible. Unless you don’t want a Korean phone number (see #2) and have unlimited data in Korea with your current plan, there is no reason to keep it.

2. Get a Korean phone number.

You will need this for buying things online (Amazon is unreasonable here) at places like G-Market and Coupang. Additionally, most places where you can buy concert tickets require a Korean number. I highly recommend you find a Korean phone plan like KT if you are staying in Korea for any significant amount of time.

3. Get a data plan or a wifi egg.

If you don’t buy a data plan through your Korean phone company, you better expect to rough it out. Yes, there is wifi everywhere in Seoul, however it is NOT all free. You will not have wifi on the subway. For your own safety and convenience, it is smart to invest in some sort of internet-enabler. KT makes a portable wifi “egg” that allows you to have wifi anywhere. I chose to buy 2GB of data for emergencies when I set up my number instead so I didn’t have to pay monthly.

4. Get a Kakao account. 

This is the primary way Koreans communicate. KakaoTalk is a very easy app to use, and allows free texting and calling over wifi. This will save you alot of money, especially if you don’t have an unlimited texting and calling plan.

5. Download Citymapper.

This app saved my life. It tells you all of the subway and bus routes, with line information, times and even shows the best place to sit in the subway. Allowing you to input your location and navigate step by step to your destination makes it a great babysitting app for new Seoulites.

6. Download Naver Map.

Forget about Google Maps. It won’t help you here, especially if you can’t read Hangul well. Many places aren’t shown, and the walking directions often do not work. Much to my chagrin, I discovered Naver Map only after I got lost repeatedly on campus. This app actually gave me directions to walk to different academic buildings. Saved. With Naver Map, you can also save routes and places, which is awesome especially if you are consistently directionally challenged (like me).

7. Carry around a portable battery charger.

This has been my salvation, especially since my phone battery is crap at the moment and dies randomly anywhere from 20-55%. Even if your phone has a healthier battery than mine, it is a good idea to bring a couple extra charges with you. Since I use Naver Map, Spotify, and Instagram pretty religiously throughout the day, this has definitely been a must for me. Also, you never want to be stranded without directions or a way to contact someone.

Anyway these are some major things that I wish I knew before coming to Korea, and I thought I’d share them with y’all! I’ll update this as I find out more information.

[courteliza]

I forgot school is a thing

The first week of classes at Korea University ended up being much more stressful than I originally thought - this wasn’t due to the KU registration process but rather my home university and my own overconfidence. The add/drop period at KU is only for four days, which didn’t bother me at first since I had gotten into the classes I wanted to take on registration day. Some things had changed, so I submitted the course approval form for my home university about 1.5 weeks before leaving for South Korea (around Feb 10). The only class I need to graduate is a literature general education course, which I thought could be fulfilled through one of the media classes I registered for, since they both required a lot of reading and writing. Turns out, I was stretching this too much, and about a day into the first week of classes, the form from my home university returned only to be denied. Needless to say I was extremely annoyed, and long story short I am now taking a teaching literature in EFL class, (which requires an individual presentation, much to my delight) that I missed the first week of because I could not find the classroom. Like I said, first impressions aren’t my strong suit. The big shout out here goes my home university, who almost screwed up my graduation status (did all that money mean nothing?) and then said that my EFL class was an exception for my special case (I think not after what I went through).

At least at this point I now I have everything sorted out, although I am a bit sad that I am now taking 4 classes instead of 3. I really liked my empty schedule. 

I really like my media classes, they are more centered on film than I thought but they will give me some great practice in writing and learning more about cinema in general. Some things are mostly overview from classes I already took at my home university, but it will be fascinating to see how the opinions and contexts change in a different country. People don’t really talk to one another in class, so I haven’t met any of my classmates. I hope this changes as the semester goes on.

My favorite class will probably be Introduction to Media Criticism, as the professor is hilarious and actually called out a Korean student for being too nerdy when he asked alot of questions about the syllabus and homework. He also told us to call him the class manager instead of professor, which I thought really funny.

I had kind of forgotten what it was like to go to class and have textbooks and things, so I was kinda thrown off the first couple of days. Thankfully, there was no homework the first week aside from some simple readings, so I spent Friday trying to find an art exhibit with my friend, which after two hours turned out to be a solo work of art in a sketchy construction supply mall called the Sewoon Plaza, which sounds much fancier than it actually was. Afterwards I got a reusable BT21 mug (with Koya on it, of course) at the Dunkin’ Donuts nearby since they were running a special where you got the mug for free if you ordered at least 8,000KW of food.

(ta-da! not my photo)

I needed one, and it was the cheapest BTS-related merch I could find. Now I can start making my own tea and buying instant coffee. (peasant for life)

Aside from walking an insane amount and stressing out about my graduation status, this week was better for me mentally than the previous one. When I first came to Korea, I felt a bit lost and overwhelmed by the difference of life at Korea University compared to back home. I was longing for people who thought more similarly to me, not in the US cultural sense, but with similar values and beliefs. I felt like most of the people around me cared more about dating and spending a ton of money partying, and I felt really lonely. One of the things that stuck out to me the most was the individuality that people in Seoul seem to love. As an introvert, I tend to process things inwardly and often keep to myself, but I am constantly watching those around me and tuning myself in to the feelings of others, to better understand them and for my own learning. I feel as though here, the average person does not really care what anyone else is doing, and while I felt self conscious coming to a new place not knowing many things or the language, I noticed that it doesn’t matter to others. I don’t think I see this as a negative thing, rather it was just very different to experience. Another thing I noticed early on was the care and respect for places. There is no trash laying around anywhere, and the streets and metro are very clean and no one is leaving any personal items behind. I thought alot about this, comparing it to back home and wondered why people where I live don’t value the space they are living in, and how a city so full of people can be cleaner than my small town. The third thing that stuck out to me was the way of dating: it seems like everyone is dating and couples are always together. I don’t remember seeing as many couples everywhere back home as here, and it almost seems like here people are more obvious about it. As it is back home, being single is seen as something negative, but I imagine it would be harder to be content with yourself living here and being surrounded by couples all of the time.

Now that I have gotten into more of a routine, I have more time to process these things, and at the moment feel more at peace with them. I realized that despite feeling lonely, I am quite resilient when it comes to standing up to what I believe in. While I might have experienced the fear of missing out at times, I still never did anything I didn’t want to do or that I felt violated my beliefs and even though this is simple, it encouraged me alot.

Another thing that helped alot was getting involved with a campus ministry called Emmaus. A friend and I started going to dinners with them and getting to know other Christians, and last Sunday we went to the affiliated church. I really enjoyed it and realized how much I was missing fellowship and welcoming people. I am looking forward to the other ways in which I can get involved with the church, as one of my goals while studying abroad was to get fully involved in a church congregation and making lasting relationships. 

There aren’t alot of pictures in this post, I apologize - none of the ones I took this week seemed relevant. I hope to get out another post about this week in a couple days. 

[courteliza]

all the sights

I had a hard time remembering that I was actually going to be living in Korea for several months since ISA orientation was so faced paced and kind of felt like a package vacation. The first day was a several hour long session filled with random facts about life in Seoul, policies for the different universities involved, and what sort of registration we had to do to stay in the country. My only complaint about this session was that I hadn’t eaten anything since the plane and all they had for us were juice-boxes and a kind of strawberry cookie. So the first thing I consumed in Seoul was a juice-box that tasted like SunnyD. By then I was really craving caffeine because I was extremely jet lagged and having a hard time staying awake during the info session. 

Afterwards a couple of us went to find a store where we could purchase some essential things for the dorm room. We originally went with a huge group of other students and a few that had already been in Korea for a semester, but I hate large groups so four of us went off on our own. We soon realized that financially we fell at the bottom of the ladder, and have been going to Diso for our needs ever since. However, it was a good first place to walk around, and we found some awesome curry and expectedly embarrassed ourselves trying to order. (We did not realize at this point that you just walk in and seat yourself, we were waiting to be shown to a table like idiots.)

(first real meal in Seoul!)

Afterwards we just went back to the dorm since we were so exhausted and I was already dead by the time I got to my room since our dorm building seems to be located on the biggest hill there is on campus. Said hill has ten flights of stairs up to the appropriate entrance and then a short hill to the door. No need to go the gym while I’m here (or rather, this has become my excuse). With all the stairs however there is a reward, as the view from the top is amazing.

(view from Anam dormitory overlooking Seoul)

I always stop and stare at it for a while because it takes my breath away. Literally. I can’t breathe after the stairs.

For the next week we went to various tourist locations:

(Gwangjang market- one of my favorite spots for food: the tteokbokki and fish cakes here are a must, its super crowded on weekends though so the best time to go is a week night)

(Gyeongbokgung Palace: built in 1395 during the Joseon dynasty)

(War Memorial)

(my favorite dessert (this was in Hongdae): waffles with cream and flavored syrup)

(N Seoul Tower (Namsan): You can see all of Seoul from here! The view is so beautiful at night)

The visit to the tower ended our week of excursions, as classes started Friday, March 2nd (well for me the following Monday) More on that soon! 

[courteliza]

placed

This post is a bit delayed, I had originally wanted to have this one done a week ago, but that didn’t happen. My first two weeks here in Seoul have been pretty fast paced! It seems like only a couple days ago that I got off the plane, but also as though I have been here for over a month. If I blogged about everything that happened since I arrived this post would be extremely long so I’ll write about orientation week later.

(somewhere in Mongolia)

My first flying experience turned out to be much less hassle than I had imagined. After getting off the train and failing at getting Lyft, I settled for a taxi and got to JFK with over 4 hours to meander around. I feel like having this extra time made my fear of flying somewhat dissipate, since I had plenty of time to walk around the terminal and familiarize myself with the appropriate check in locations. Landing in Moscow was much more stressful. I had to push myself through the security checkpoint so I didn’t miss my connecting flight, and the airport was so disorganized that I was double checking my gate for about two hours. But overall, it was so much easier than I thought it would be and I was so thankful and relieved. Incheon airport was like a breath of fresh air when I landed. The airport made so much sense and was extremely efficient. Also the bathrooms were so so nice (like heated toilets and wall size mirrors, it was so extra). 

I was in Incheon for about four hours, as I arrived at 11:30 am and ISA wasn’t picking people up from the terminal until 2pm. I listened to music for a while on some bench by a fountain until a lady told me to leave because the fountain plants needed watering. This was a bit after running around the baggage claim area because I read the signs incorrectly, and all the while wondering if my luggage was going to be that statistical lost one. (Fun fact: It takes about twenty minutes to walk from one end of baggage claim to the other) 

I met my program directors eventually and headed to my dorm at KU, which was about and hour and a half by bus. Once I had checked in and received my room card, it took me no longer than ten minutes to blow the electrical circuit in my room (apparently power strips can’t be used with outlet adapters) which led to me crying while sitting on my bed in the dark until I mustered enough courage to talk to the guy sitting at the desk outside for help. I found out last night he is my RA when he asked if I remembered him (I’ve never been good with first impressions), at least I will never be forgotten *sigh*.

(my room shortly before the power went out)

My roommate got in after I had gone to bed, and I talked to her for about ten seconds in the morning when I woke up fifteen minutes before I was supposed to meet my group (I didn’t sleep at all on the plane, so I was exhausted). 

The dorms here are so nice - the floors are heated and my roommate and I have our own bathroom and shower. (Also, super fast wifi: the best benefit)

The next day I started orientation which I will hopefully get around to posting about soon!

Thanks for reading! ^^