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KOREA - 2015

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So today we had the chance of visiting one of the most prestigious women University in the world, Ehwa Womens University. As we toured the campus is seems like Ewha had a very rich history about its campus, its been around for about 130 years and started in 1886. It started due to the fact that there was not really a institution for females to study in, and Ewha wanted to be leader in women Studies, so thats just what they did.

Ewha campus looked very nice, it had a good mixture between of trees and buildings. The campus was also was really nice to look at. With the abundance of trees and bushes, it kind of reminded me of Washington. The first part of the seminar, we were taught about the library system that Ewha had to offer. They’re main goal was to make it easier for students to research, and it seems like exactly what they are doing. As a student doing projects and research is not an easy task to do alone, and it seems like Ewha is trying its best to make it easier for students to find information and apply it.

As i mentioned Ewha is a all woman university, and during break time i dont think i ever saw that many females at one place in the same time it was quite a site to see. I felt a bit out of place being a male in a predominate female campus, but it was an enjoyable experience, and i aint the only one who thought so lol.....

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So today a group and I decided to spend the majority of the day in Everland. Our orginal plan was to spend the day in Lotte world but the reason we changed our plans is due to the fact to were able to obtain a 50% discount coupon, so we decided Everland it is! Our journey to Everland was not an easy one, First we had to take the orange line all the way to Yangjae station,  Then take the Shinbudang line all the way to Jeonja, the take Orange line to Giheung and lastly take the last green line to Everland, where we thought that was the last bit of transportation we had to take, but nope, we had to take a shuttle bus to our Destination which took us like 5 min, so you can say it was quite a journey to get there. But in my opinion it was all worth it. As we entered the Amusement park we were bustling and trying to figure out what we should do first. We decided it was best just go try and attempt to around the whole amusement park in the matter of time we had, so that’s exactly what we did. The first attraction we came across was a Hologram concert, and Joyce really wanted to go, and the reason being is that during that time they were going to show a Big Bang Hologram concert, and us knowing how big of a fan she was decided to give it a try, and boy we were shocked. As we entered the “venue” at first there wasn’t a lot of people as I expected, so maybe I thought “I guess it isn’t that good” and was I proved. The show blew my expectations, it actually seemed like Big BanG was right in front of us preforming, and I look to my left where I see Joyce, the number one big bang fan, fangirling like no other. This just shows how advanced technology is getting these days, being able to portray people like there actually there is amazing. I would tell you more but I feel like there was a lot to mention so ill stop right here

 And congrats to Sunny on meeting his new Zombie bride…lol

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Busan, thanks a lot.

As our full day of Busan came to an end, the #squad decided we wanted to head to Seomyeon (which is supposedly like the hongdae of Busan) and decided to explore the city. As Steve met with a friend that was currently abiding in Busan. So if you didnt know Seomyeon is a big subway station, that has multiple exits, and even when i went with Steve the previous day, he wasn't too sure on what exit to take, so when i was expected to find the right exit, it seemed like i knew where i was going, but honestly i just didnt know where we were heading but instead just bsed it.

As we took the exit we were greeted by the rain, which was just great. All through this trip i didnt think i would need a umbrella, but this day proved me wrong. So what did i do, i gave in and bought a umbrella for the price of 10 dollars. But with the luck i had, guess what happened, about five minutes after i bought the umbrella it stopped raining! What?! why?! Anyways the group and i ventured on our way to find something to eat, as all of us were pretty hungry. But there was one problem, the place we were at currently didnt look anything similar to what i saw yesterday. so what did i decide to do, is ask for help. For those you dont know me too well, im not to person to ask for help on a regular basis. For example if i dont where something ill just stick with my pride and try to find it myself, i know its pretty bad. But i  felt like it was my duty to find the right place, so i gave in and asked. Luckily we were already in Seomyeon but not in the main heart of it, so the kind gentlman directed on the correct way to get to the main part of Seomyeon. As i mentioned everyone was pretty hungry and so we stopped at at millmyeon shop and ate there, the thing is i had the same dish for breakfast and i was kind of sick of it already. but this wasnt about me, my friends were hungry and i decided drop my greediness. After Dinner? we managed to find the place we were looking for all day long!

Moral of the story, is always have a plan, if you don't it'll screw you over, like almost what happened to us.

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SEPT 1 2015

So its been our second full day in Busan, and i got to say this place is what i imagined and much more. First of all the hotel we’re currently staying at...all i to got say is ...Wow. This place is way way better than our motel in Sinimun. The room is larger, WIFI signal is great, and they got computers that have League of Legends on them....what?!!? that super dope! Anyways the hotel isn't the only good thing about this place. Busan to me is the equivalent of Seoul but not as many people, and i cant mention Busan without the seafood. The first day we arrived we were barraged with local seafood from sashimi to stews for a person who loves seafood it was surely a dream come true..

So the day was getting late so we all decided to head back to the hotel, but some of us wanted to check out the convenient store and buy some late night snacks, so we headed to the nearest 711, and what we managed to find, it one of the workers was wearing a Mariners Jersey. I found this quite amusing, someone from thousand of miles away wearing a jersey from my hometown, what are the chances.

Fast foward a day, (which is today). This day was a free day for us. Matt had optional activities planned out, for example going to an aquarium or visiting a museum. but me i kind of wanted to catch up on some sleep, so i decided not to go, but long behold one of my  relatives sent me a text to Kakao talk. The thing is me and him have been chatting and off for the past 4-5 years, and we would talk about how we should hang out when we had the chance, and lucily this week he was on vacation from his teaching job, so we set a time up and we did what we promised to do for the past 5 years. As we were planning on where and what time to meet, i was a little bit worried due to the fact that Busan is such a big place and what if he didnt know where to go, or i didnt know where to go, and we would just be running in circles looking for eachother all day. But luckily we managed to find each other. As we meet up we did the things that all koreans do, go to the bar order some drinks and anju chat at bit, then head to the local arcade where we played some streetfighter, and etc. Seeing hin has been a blessing to me. As he and i been close, and after he left we started drifting apart a bit, but after today i seem like out bond has gotten a little bit stronger and all those days of not being able to hang out, this day has made up for it.

So all in all thank you Busan for giving me all these awesome surprises, that you have to offer

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Yesterday was the last day we would be spending at hotel Unique and luckily for this last day we were given a free day. During the previous week we were planning on going to Lotte World and spending the whole day at the amusement park, but there were a change of plans.

The previous night we were all too tired from clubbing we just decided to postpone out trip to Lotte World and decided to do something more serine and kind of just have a relaxing day instead. So what we decided to do is head to Bukcheon and look at the traditional houses that they had to offer. As someone who has living in Seoul for this past two week, and constantly seeing tall building it was a breath of fresh air too see something different. These houses that were in the village of Bukcheon were not tall or bulky but really had a look to them that made us think what houses would look like in korea if we lived here back in the days. It was also interesting to see the mix between past and modernism, as we looked over the mountain we can see  what Seoul has become during the past 30 years, and how much Seoul has transformed itself. And then we look back behind us was something really interesting to see, and that’s the one  thing I really like about Korea, is how they manage to mix time frames between past and present.

  After Bukcheon the group went to Gwanghamun and just tour the city for a bit. As we toured around the city, we managed to find a statue of Kim Sejong (the man who wrote the Korean language). Something about the statue is that it looked over all of Gwanghamun, and im not sure if the placement of the statue was there on accident, but it seemed like he was looking over all of Korea. And of course since the weather was so hot and humid, we decided to try a famous coffee shop among college students, Edaya.

After the coffee shop only me, Michael, Adam and Joyce were left.  Luckily we were able to have Mandy come with us. The first thing that we decided to do as group is rides bikes. Maybe it’s just me but it looks like a lot people ride bikes over here. While we were riding around Yeouido there were people on mountain bikes, road bikes, double bikes, people that looked like they were preparing for the Tour De France, little kids that were being taught how to ride bieks for the first time , and a lot of age groups as well.

After bike riding everyone was quite hungry, so we decided to the most common thing to do when you’re in a park, and that’s to order chicken and beer. As I mentioned we had Mandy with us, so she showed us the ropes on how to order delivery here in Seoul. We all assumed that delivery would have taken awhile, but it was oddly gratifying to see our meal come in the duration of 5 minutes. Who would have though it would have come this quickly, we were all in awe on how quick their service was.

After receiving our chicken, we decided to head down to Hangang park to enjoy our meal. As we were sitting again the park was filled with people, ranging from old men to young kids and they were all doing what we were doing. It looked like a festival full of mats and foods lol.

As it kind of suck being our last day in Seoul (well until we come back) I can wait to see what Busan has to offer, hopefully its not as hot as it is over here in Seoul but we’ll just see about that.

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Yesterday we decided to head to Edelman, the biggest PR company in the world, currently abiding in the city of Jung District, Seoul. As mentioned is the biggest PR company in the world and started in the United States. As a PR company Edelmen has several clients ranging from Samsung to OB premier. For those who don' what a PR does, PR agencies, as opposed to advertising agencies, promote companies or individuals via editorial coverage. This is known as “earned” or “free” media — stories appearing on websites, newspapers, magazines and TV programs as compared to “paid media” or advertisements. One of the projects that Edelman is participated in during the course of about 2 years, is there project with California Almonds, where currently they ar campaing about the consumption of almonds, it seems like not many koreans consume on a daily basis, so what Edelman is currently trying to do is promote the consumption of almonds by video campaign and endorsing their almonds via celebrities and health fitness experts. After Edelman we took Subway to Crevate, where the main focus of their company was to create ideas. The company name Crevate was created by joining to the two create and innovate. They are currently trying to make a platform for getting people to become more creative, and right now on their website they currently have a function, where civilians can use this format or template (as some would say) to create ideas. Crevate has been challenging task from diverse platforms such as electronics, automobile, healthcare, and entertainment, their aim is to understand the consumer and innovate their clients products service and business as whole, and the crazy thing is that they only have only 5 employees. This site visit one of the more interesting site visits that we had in my opinion, it seemed like this company had a strong philosophical standpoint of creating idea, and their work philosophy was also something that looked appealing as well. Then later in the day we took the bus to Jamsil Stadium and watched a Korean baseball game, between the Doosan Bears and Lotte Giants. This experience was something that was new to me. And someone who avidly watched korean baseball games from home, it was super excited to actually attend one, as i knew already that baseball games in korea, had a whole different atmosphere than baseball games in korea.It was a fun and exciting experience and i wouldnt mind going to another one near in the future.

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So today wasn't as busy as out other days, after hearing a seminar from Matthew at Kyung-Hee University (btw it was out last day there) we decided to head to SloWalk, a design firm and web development company that works with certain clients such as Non-Profits and NGO. Most of their projects aim to help social impacts such as the environment and other social changes. The company was located in Jongro in a small building, and when we entered their office space, it was rather small, it may be due to the fact that they only had 30 employees. As someone who has a interest in Web development it was interesting too see and hear, how much work are put into these website. the thought, time and effort that is put in to create a website for a client is uncanny. The head web developer told us that he would put up hours and hours of creating the perfect website for their client. Slowalk philosophy is the client is always first and the second rule they go but to enjoy yourself. 

After the site visit we took the charter bus back home and decided to take our journey to Hoegi where out group went out and ate korean chinese food. When we sat down we noticed that the price was quite expensive, so we assumed that the quantity of food was going to be great, and we were sure right. Good thing we didnt order two serving or all of us would have been struggling to finish the food.

Now here i am in the at the Flower and Coffee cafe a couple block from Hotel Unique writing this blog.

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Today as we group we decided to head to Seoul National University (the suwon campus) and engage in a couple lectures about media sharing between different platforms and how different cultures share either music or photos, and other types subject matter each culture uses. As we entered the lecture hall we were soon greeted by students currently attending the university. One of the lectures that were given during this seminar session, was the topic of wearable technology and how it can help manage things like diets and overall calorie consumption, and how all that data can be implemented and be used by doctors to see how the users are living their daily lives and even diagnosis them. And the second lecture was given by our own Jinha Lee. Her lecture  made us think what kinds of user personas can we identify from real user of commercial Mir systems. And we learned there were a lot of different personas that were shown from Music Epicurean to addicts. As we went through the list the personas that i am most relate table too would have to be a “wanderer” and the characteristic of a wanderer were so spot it was a bit scary haha. The third lecture during the seminar was taught by Namho Park, and he talked about Digital Storytelling and how there are different platform where we can share our story.

Then it was time for lunch. During lunch we had a chance to talk to some of the students that attended the university, and the student we talked to (i forgot her name) but she was still an undergrad and currently interning at Seoul National University for the summer. I forgot what specific major she was going for but i remember it had something to do with music. And since she had a passion for our group decided to ask her what her musical preferences were, and we got a surprising answer, she was apparently a fan of metal music, bands such as Metallica, Alice in chains. i was kind of in shock, due to the fact that this student we talked to didn't seem like she would like music that was so impactful such as metal. After lunch we had one more lecture from Matt Saxton about the topic of photo creation and management, for this lecture we talked about his different cultures have different subject matters, and how each cultures shares their photos whether it be through Instagram Flickr or even Facebook.

After we departed from SNU we took the charter bus to DaumKakao. And we talked and learned about the different services that DaumKakao is currently offering at the moment, from taxi services to fundraising charities. It was interesting to see all these services that DaumKakao had to offer. As someone who used Kakao often to message their parents or talk to their friends overseas it was interesting to see all these different platform that DaumKakao was trying to enter. Currently they are the most used sns service in Korea right now and have hopes to implement their services and technology overseas. Which was quiet fascinating in my opinion.

End of the day we decided to get loose and headed to the local noraebang to sing out hearts out, it was quite enjoyable it seemed like everyone was having a good time. We all got pretty high scores which was impressive lol.

KUDOS to the #Squad!!!!

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The Monk Life is Not For Me These 2 days and 1 night our group had the chance to participate in a Buddhist ceremony, where we had the chance to partake and mediation and _____. The temple we attended was on the outskirts of seoul in dogmyo district (line 1). As we were taught. Buddhist lived a very simple life, and we're very simple people, so that being technology was not a big standpoint around here, so technology was used very scarcely. The food here was also great lol. Before we came here we were told that there would be no meat at the temple, and first I was bit hesitant, but after the first day my mind was put at ease.

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The Buddhist Life is not for me lol

On Saturday our group decided to participate in a temple stay program, in Myogaksa temple.And to be honest i was not really looking forward to it, but that all changed .This temple was located a couple blocks from Dongmyo station (line 1). The temple was built on a very fascinating area, as it looked over the outskirts of Seoul, we learned that the temple placed there for fung shui purposes. when hearing temple i assumed that it was going to be somewhere up in the mountain haha. Right as we entered we were given clothes to wear during our stay there, and then the program started we were sent down to a room, where we first participated in a 20 min mediation session. During this mediation session, i  was lowkey tired, but the monk explained to us that the two big rules during mediation, is not to sleep and not to move a lot (and if you do, do it quietly) and that was kind of hard for me. For a person who has to be constantly on the move, this was a difficulty situation for me.

As someone who has been an avid christian all my life, getting into things was a little difficult, i honestly didnt agree with everything that they were saying a but some things i could relate, after about 15 minutes of mediation my mind started to feel at ease a bit. As someone who cant completely relate to the buddhist religion somethings i feel like Buddhist and christian have some ideas that they relate to, and soon enough i soon began to figure that out.

The cuisine that was presented to us during our stay was ( if i had to put it in one word )......healthy. As we were served multiple types of vegetables, a totally different lifestyle compared to to what im used to at home. But overall it was a very humbling experience

oh yeah i got to be a tea-master for a day lol

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Michael and I in 인사동, thought we take quick bromance picture.

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At the cat cafe in 명동 :)

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The L.E.D flowers in 동대문. The origin of this trip is that Michael and Joyce wanted to show us this amazing landmark that they found, so after our free afternoon we decided to head to 동대문 to check these out, and first I was a little skeptical since it pretty late and I just wanted to the hotel and rest, but in the end I’m glad I came, if I didn’t, I don’t think I would ever be able to see something like this…..ever.

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On the way here :)

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(via https://soundcloud.com/l2share10/apink-remember?utm_source=soundcloud&utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=tumblr)

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4 Days and Im Off

Still gotta pack though :/

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Leaving for Korea in D-27 Days!!