Fantastic First Day

After sleeping for a really long time, I checked my emails and saw that a very good Korean friend of mine wanted to meet for lunch at 신촌(Sinchon) station (don't mix it up with 신천 - Sincheon station which is even on the same subway line, I can't perceive the difference in pronunciation). Great idea, but first difficulties were arising: finding the Hanyang subway station. Looking at the map I decided that I didn't feel like getting lost today and just walked completely around the university campus. Worked perfect, after walking for 20 minutes in perfect sunny weather I arrived at the station. From there it took around 20 more minutes to Sinchon station where I met Sun-ah, one of my best friends here in Korea, which I still know from my last visit around two years ago. Since it was nearly two years ago that she brought me to the airport on my departure day, we were really happy to see each other again :)
We went to a Korean restaurant to have my first "real" Korean meal in two years (my own crudely home-cooked meals don't count ;) and it was ohhhh soooooooooo delicious...and ohhhh sooooooooooo spicy :)

Bulgogi (the spicy kind) with vegetables

Sun-ah tried the Bulgogi first and stated that she was scared that it might be too spicy for me. And it really was spicy! But I was brave and announced that it is perfectly fine for me :) In fact, it was right at the treshold of pain...be proud of me! Will get used to it again hopefully!

Me and Sun-ah :)

While we were eating her husband arrived (she had married while I was in Germany) and after introductions we went to KrispyKreme. Oh I love Krispy Kreme! I don't want to live in a country without Krispy Kreme anymore! They have the best doughnuts in the world! Just look at them:

Krispy Kreme Doughnuts

Eating doughnuts and drinking coffee the afternoon passed quite quickly and Sun-ah and her husband brought me back to Sinchon subway station before taking a bus to their home. I went to Kangnam, where there are all kinds of shops because I wanted to visit the Kyobo bookstore, allegedly the biggest bookstore in South Korea. They also have a good selection of English books and books for foreign learners of Korean. Just take exit nr. 6 at Kangnam station and walk straight for around 10 minutes. The bookstore is adequately located in Kyobo-Tower. I discovered a lot of books I wanted to have and finally decided on the following four:

• Korean Grammar for International Learners from Yonsei University Press (sells on the internet for around 26 € I got it for 14.000 krw, ~ 9 €)
• Complete Guide to the TOPIK -  intermediate (TOPIK is the Test of Proficiency in Korean, similar to TOEFL for English; my goal is to take the TOPIK...and pass it...before I leave. And I thought it might be a good preparation for the placement test which I have to take for my Korean language class)
• Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden (I know, wrong country, but I always wanted to read it)
• An Appointment with my Brother by Yi Mun-Yol (This book belongs to a series called "The Portable Library of Korean Literature". All books of the series are short fiction so they are very small, the one I bought has only around 100 pages. They are very cheap though, maybe around 3 € and my plan is to read all 15 of them before I leave :)

All in all I paid around 30 € for all four books, which I think is a good deal. Especially language learning books are a lot more expensive in Germany.
On the way back to the subway station I passed an Artbox (selling stationery and other knickknack) and I couldn't resist going in. Everything they have is incredibly cute and I want to buy all of it! Unfortunately I can't so I just got a couple of small things...even the free bags are cute:

Now I have a notebook with ears:

Oh my cutey notebook

I arrived back at the dorm quite late (shops in Korea are opened well into the night) and made a plan to go stationery and book-shopping (there seem to be some nice bookstores with used English books) with my roommate on Tuesday :)
All in all: a fantastic first day in Korea!