My NSLI-Y Experience

NSLI-Y Summer Program South Korea 2013 No longer answering anon asks - please dm me with your questions.

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Not sure if this is on here already, but this is the video I made for our NSLI-Y program’s final cultural presentation.

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Japanese Ramen restaurant in Hongdae, Seoul

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Omg I actually remember eating at this restaurant with Shaun after a Monday meeting. Makes me nostalgic :’)

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This morning, my host mom and sisters and I left home at 8:30 am to go the swimming pool at a police academy in Goyang, where we met some of my sisters’ friends and their friends’ mothers. Since I have freakish pool allergies, I couldn’t swim with them, but I finished my book (which had an unexpected but very satisfying ending) and slept for a total of about three and a half hours. When I wasn’t sleeping, I ate a lot, and listened to music, which was a nice background for watching the people at the swimming pool enjoy themselves. We left at around 4:00 pm, and now we’re just resting at home together. Maybe I’ll take a stab at studying before dinner.

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Selfie swag at the Chunggyecheon Stream. My friends here are rather interesting, no? (And somehow, all of these ended up being taken on my phone).

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We went to Gwanghwamun again today after school, and saw both the bubble tea ahjumma and the music store ahjussi again. Here are some really pretty places we visited, particularly the Chunggyecheon Stream, which was open today. After going to the stream, we went to Kyobo Bookstore, where I bought the next level of Korean language books to study when I return to the United States.

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Before class today, since I didn’t have any activities planned with my supporter or with NSLIY, I went out to lunch in Sinchon with Katie. We ate iced lattes, patbingsu, and ddeok, which is probably the least nutritionally valuable choice we could possibly have made, but since I was feeling gross it was good to have some refreshing food. Then, I got this gem of Camille, the maknae, doing the worm in the middle of class to prove that 춤을 잘 춰요 (she can dance well). I also learned today that my second teacher, Im 선생님, participated in a YouTube channel for teaching Korean, and that he’s actually quite famous as far as educational YouTube videos go (you know, he has about 1,000 views on his video, so no big deal). He, of course, was mortified when he found out that we had figured it out.

Here’s the link, if you’re interested in watching some of what I see every day (but maybe without as much pop music): http://youtu.be/o0R_3-asVaA

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I woke up today with a stomachache that somehow both made me feel nausea and pain at the same time. I grit my teeth, bit the bullet, and by some miracle got myself through public transportation and met my supporter group at Chungmuro Station to go to the Hanok Village, where there are a lot of traditional Korean houses. The architecture was very beautiful, and after exploring we all wrote our names in Korean calligraphy. Since it’s limited to three syllables, I had to write “Kris" (크리스) instead of “Kristen" (크리스틴), but I like the way it turned out. Maybe it isn’t beautiful, but the calligraphy woman called my handwriting cute, so I feel proud of it. I felt sick for the rest of the day, but still went to my classes, because I didn’t want to go to the hospital, which is required if you miss class because you’re sick and want the absence to be excused. I still feel pretty sick, though, so if all of the rest I’m planning to get tonight doesn’t cure me, I’m seriously considering going to the hospital tomorrow. All that said, I still can’t really say that today was a bad day.

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This morning, Katie, Salley, and I went to the COEX Mall in Gangnam to do some window shopping. It was actually really disappointing, except for the Pororo exhibit and nice little café we shuffled into for a break (we ate chocolate cake for brunch, I regret nothing). Then, we ate 고구마 (Korean sweet potato) pizza near Sogang and went to class.

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Also, this.

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The best thing we ate at Myeongdong (we also ate green tea ice cream, sugar cane juice, and chicken skewers) was 실타래, a sweet desert with a dry almond filling. It was amazing to watch the process by which each individual piece was made, and I liked talking with the young man who made our 실타래 in mixed English and Korean. He seemed to really love making it, and I loved both watching how it was made and eating it when it was done.

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Here’s Salley, the professional subway rider. I feel like I wouldn’t be able to get anywhere (other than to the YES Center, to and from school, and to basic areas with my nose to the Seoul area subway app) without Salley guiding the way.

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Seong-Jin forgot to make us order again (pictured with his head in his hands as we all giggle at the fact that he forgets every time). We ate icy noodles and beef sashimi. Seong-Jin chose the spicy noodles to be different from the rest of us, but it seemed like it was too spicy for him when his face turned red and he started to sweat a little. After finishing his own lunch, he dipped into some of ours to cool his burning tongue. Poor Seong-Jin.

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This morning, Seong-Jin took us to his school, Dongguk University, near Namsan Tower. He showed us a bit of the campus, but since it was monsooning, we had to go inside earlier than he had planned. In one of the classrooms, he pulled a projector screen down and we began planning for the big talent show at the end (I’m still not sure whether or not everything is supposed to be kept secret, so I won’t say anything about the details. He posed some more with his umbrella (today he took his big umbrella, which isn’t as cute as the one with the bears because it was raining so hard) and hustled us down to a restaurant for lunch.

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Also, here are a bunch of miscellaneous pictures that people sent me after I had already made blog posts about this or that and basically it was too late to include them but I still want to put them on here because, you know, I’m cool like that.

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Then, we went to Idae for lunch, where I met a French person and had a full conversation in French. At school, Katie was really nice and bought fish snacks for us. Since I was sick, my friends went to a 약국 with me and we got bubble tea at the same place we went to before, at Gwanghwamun, because the ahjumma there is awesome. We went to a music store, and finally got some absolutely delicious chicken nearby.

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Yesterday, we went to a Korean high school to learn to cook some Korean food. The high school was a private academy directed towards teaching students the trade of tourism. You could, in addition to learning the curriculum required of any other high school, major in cooking, the casino business, working for an airline company, being a concierge at a hotel, etc. It was interesting to see the school, and the food that we cooked was very delicious.

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After leaving Insadong, Seong-Jin took us to a restaurant nearby, where a lot of the other supporter groups came as well. Seong-Jin accidentally ordered for us again (even though he keeps telling us that one of these days we have to practice our Korean skills by ordering ourselves), and a picture of his disappointment is included. We left a note for ourselves in sparkly ink to return to the restaurant on July 18, 2015 at 5:00 pm.