My Desk

As a proof that I'm quite busy these days, here a picture of my desk:

I use the Nintendo DS as a Korean-English translator, so unfortunately no gaming :(

Meeting Sun-ah and King Sejong

This Sunday I met up with Sun-ah, a friend from last time I was in Korea. She is preparing for the civil service entrance exams and stays at her grandfathers house which is outside of Seoul so she can study without distractions (maybe I should try that too). This weekend she came to Seoul though and we could finally meet up. She picked me up by car close to the dormitory and we first went to have lunch and some coffee at the next subway station. Then we decided to go to Gwanghwamun, the area around Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Blue House (the residence of the president is called Blue House in Korea...hehe so not quite American but similar). We did some book shopping in a huge Kyobo bookstore because I had run out of books and then we went to a museum about King Sejong the Great and Hangeul, the Korean writing system. King Sejong reigned during the 15th century and in this time invented the ingenious Korean alphabet.
Outside the museum is a big statue of the King and we took some pictures together with him:

The Great King and us

The museum was really cute and you could do a lot of hands-on stuff, like taking a picture on a replica of the royal throne. Felt good but could have been a little bit more comfortable:

Don't I look like a good king...uh...queen?

I also learned something really amazing that day: apparently there exists a language called Cia-Cia which is spoken in parts of an island close to Indonesia. Because they didn't have an adequate writing system though they started a pilot project in 2009 to consider writing their language in Hangeul, the Korean script because apparently Hangeul can express Cia-Cia very adequately in writing. There is also a textbook which teaches Cia-Cia via Hangeul. This was all very new to me and I thought this was really interesting! You can read a little bit more about the whole story here.
Since a lot of the museum was about Hangeul they even had benches shaped like Korean syllables.

I'm sitting on "ha"

I also learned how to make an origami crane which is so much more complicated than I always thought it is. My friend told me that all Korean children learn this in school and they could even take origami as a extracurricular subject.

Before going back to Hanyang University by subway we had a small dinner together. Mine consisted of rice mixed with vegetables covered with fried tofu.

I'm going to bed now because it is already really late here and I have to get up early tomorrow (like every day :(  I hope I dream about a pigsty!
why?
well, Koreans believe, that if you dream at night about a pig, you will have a lot of good luck!

Korean Drama: Soulmate

I finished watching my first Korean drama today! I have to admit though that I watched it with English subtitles but still I got the impression that it also helped my Korean proficiency ;)

Soulmate (or Soulmeiteu) is a really funny romantic series which unfortunately has only one season. It is quite different from other Korean dramas (as I've been told) and if you're just going to watch one Korean drama this should be the one! The soundtrack and the actors are fantastic and once I started watching it I couldn't stop anymore!

First Week of Language Class: Recap

The first week of language class is over and it is finally weekend!
Time for a quick recap! Language class is good but of course really intensive. Think twice before taking it, because you won't have a lot of free time during the week. I dreaded to receive more homework than the other days of the week today but fortunately it is the same as always.
Language class is four hours every day and you have to come to class prepared every time. You have to talk a lot so the teachers will notice when you are lazy...During class time you practice grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation and listening and speaking in general. Homework includes a written essay every day (which is a pain because it takes quite long...). All in all it takes me around two hours and thirty minutes to do all the homework tasks each day. The worst thing is that we have to learn all the dialogues which are in the book by heart. In the morning a few people are picked and have to stand in front of the class and recite the texts. I kind of disagree with this teaching method and would rather spend my time differently...So every evening I desperately try to cram the dialogue into my mind...Since I don't want to do it, it is really difficult for me to memorize anything!
I also have to go to graduate school classes twice a week which makes my schedule really busy!
But everything would be ok if I didn't have to get up so early every morning. I'm not a morning person so I'm quite grumpy in the morning :P poor classmates...I hope they learn soon not to talk to me before I had my first coffee ;)
I'm quite friendly with some people in my class now. I changed my seat and am now sitting with some nice guys. Next to me is one Chinese girl who doesn't speak English so we have to communicate in Korean which is quite funny! She is also always tired and hungry so we feel connected :) today she gave me a chocopie when I said I didn't have breakfast...you know, giving me food is the best way to make friends with me :)
There is also a funny Chinese guy sitting close to me and we joke around a lot. I guess we are the class-clowns :) His name is Wei-Wei but I call him why-why because it took him more than two days to memorize my name ;)

Today, like every Friday from now on, I met my old "Sprachzwilling" from Bayreuth and we started language tutoring again. We will always have one German hour and one Korean hour. It's really exhausting to speak only Korean for one whole hour but I hope it will become less tiring soon.

I have lots of plans for the next couple of days (including a meet-up with a Korean friend from 4 years ago, visiting the English-language debating club and going for membership training next weekend with the global student union), so I hope I will have more interesting blog material than just my language class.

Dormitory Inspection Week

Hide your instant noodles, hide your cookies & chocopies, hide all other food and hide your hair dryer! It's Dormitory Inspection Week!

(and yes, this is exactly what it sounds like)

Korean Intensive Class

The Internet in the dorm was so crappy the last two days that I didn't even try posting anything...sorry! Sometimes it was even too slow to check my emails which was quite annoying. Today is better, even though it's still not really good.
Yesterday the Korean Intensive Class started and I'm already swamped with homework! Yeah this will be great ten weeks ;) I know, I know, it's my own fault since I'm doing the class voluntarily... ^^
When I came to the Language Institute yesterday morning I was quite happy to see the class arrangements because I was in a class with two people I knew. But first thing the teacher did was to send me to another class (same level though, so I don't know why). I don't know anyone in my new class and I don't really like the people there :( Most of them are Chinese, can't speak English and even if they can they just speak Chinese to each other. So I spend our break times alone and just study for my other classes (there is always something to do). There are also three other non-Chinese people but two of them are quite annoying...and the other one is very shy and quiet. Hmm, hopefully at one point the Chinese guys will start talking to me...
We have class from 9 to 1 every day (except on the weekend of course/fortunately). After every 50 minutes we have 10 minutes break. We have two different teachers; the first one stays for 3 hours and the other one comes in for the last hour only. They are both very friendly :)
All in all the class is ok, Korean teaching style needs getting used to...and I've to get used to getting up early every morning!
Also we have lots of homework...and with lots I mean LOTS!!!
I'll keep you updated about my progress!

Otherwise the last three days were rather quiet, just doing work and studying and meeting some people :)
On Sunday I had really delicious barbecue with my roommate and her boyfriend:

Philipp and Elena

Galbi and random vegetables

Couldn't fit all of the food on one picture!

And yesterday me and Stephanie met a group of Korean girls which we got to know on Friday night. First we had dinner of course and I was happy to introduce a (Korean!) food to them which none of them had tried before: Kongbul.

 Afterwards we went to a coffee shop and were just hanging out together :)

Tomorrow will be a really exhausting day (first 4 hours of language class and then 3 hours of graduate school) and I still have homework to do, so this must be enough for today :)

Field Trip Part 2: Borigoge Village

The first thing we did at Borigoge Village was having lunch. We all sat down on the floor, Korean style, and enjoyed our Bibimbap, rice with seven different kinds of vegetables (as our itinerary informed us).

Eating Korean style

Self-mixed Bibimbap

Afterwards everyone could build their own miniature 솟대 (Sotdae). Sotdae are carved wooden birds errected on poles in order to protect the village and to grant the wishes of the villagers. Usually they are really big so we made miniature versions of them, which were used as toys by Korean children in former times.

My Sotdae Pieces

The base of my Sotday with my name in Korean

 The finished product looks like this:

It's so simple and easy to build and I think it is really cute :) plus we got to take our Sotday home afterwards. I hope I can get mine back to Germany without it falling to pieces...

Afterwards we went into the yard where we could make tofu ourselves. Tofu is used in many Korean dishes and I really like food which includes tofu in any way. I've never before though thought about how tofu is produced so I was very curious about the production process.
You start by grinding beans into a white smelly paste which doesn't look very appetizing:

Grinding the beans is not as easy as it looks because the stones are quite heavy and you need a lot of strength to do it. I guess if you do it often you get very muscular arms ;)
The result is a white paste which looks like this:

White bean paste

You get all the bean paste and put it in a special kind of cloth which you then have to knead thoroughly. The solid stuff collects inside the cloth which you can use to make some other food stuff but what you need for tofu is the liquid actually.

Kneading in progress

The white liquid you collect through this method is soy milk. Next thing to do is boil everything and then comes the difficult part. You add a certain amount of sea salt water which has to be stirred into the hot soy milk in a very special way. If you stir to slowly or to fast, add too much or not enough sea salt water, you can start grinding beans again because your tofu will taste very bad and you have to throw it away.

Boiling the soy milk

Stirring the sea salt water into the soy milk

If you want to make tofu you need to be very patient!
The result now is something called "soft tofu". You can further solidify it by putting it into casts and pressing it into form but soft tofu is already often used in stews and soups. We simply added some salty soy sauce to it and it was incredibly good! Together with a bowl of rice I could have this for lunch or dinner!

Self-made tofu with soy sauce :)

After eating we had some free minutes and walked around the small village.

Village life

Even though the village was very small they had their own small temple complex:

Similar to Yongmunsa there are many small (quite kitschy) figures around the temple grounds:

The entrance gate housed some tall wooden guardian figures, which (for some obscure reason) all (except one) were sporting guns. Well, at least I can really imagine them protecting the village!

We took the bus back to Seoul and were all glad to finally arrive back at the dormitory. This was a great day, I hope we will have another field trip soon!

Field Trip Part 1: Yongmunsa Temple

We received many reminders to not be late for our field trip today. In the course of last week I got several emails, two text messages (one in English and one in Korean) and at least one facebook message all telling me not to be late. Last evening this friendly reminder was sent to us via email:

Since we didn't want to shed any tears we all diligently dragged ourselves out of bed before 8 in the morning so we could be there on time. Taking two private buses it took us around one hour and thirty minutes to arrive at our first designation of the day: Yongmunsa Temple. After taking a group picture with all the participating exchange students (around 70 people) and the international office staff we were free to wander around by ourselves...well, at least for an hour ;)

Entrance Gate to Yongmunsa Temple

One hour is quite short for exploring the temple because first you need to walk uphill for more than twenty minutes to get from the Entrance Gate to the main temple complex. You walk along a small riverbed which probably looks really idyllic in spring but today it looked a little bit desolate. I still liked it though because it created a solemn atmosphere which went well with the temple atmosphere in general.

The way up

You could still see some snow on the way up even though it was relatively warm today.
The first thing you can see when coming closer to the temple is a gigantic Ginkgo Tree. It is said to be more than 1,100 years old and it is supposed to be the largest tree in the East.

Gigantic Ginkgo Tree

Seeing all the temple buildings and especially the tree gave me a pleasant surprise! I've been here before! Nearly four years ago I participated in a temple stay program at Yongmunsa together with other exchange students from Ajou University. It didn't occur to me before that this was the same temple but the tree gave it away at first sight! We stayed at the temple for a weekend and you really live like a monk there when you are participating in a temple stay (including getting up at 4 in the morning to perform the 108 bows in one of the temple buildings). We went in late fall so we had to pick up the Ginkgo nuts which smelled really really bad!
Well, to come back to the temple, it is really beautiful and surrounded by mountains, I would love to go back there one day and hike around the area.

There is also a well where you can drink fresh mountain spring water. Just take a ladle and have some, it's really refreshing!

Mountain spring water

On the temple grounds you can find a lot of these small figures which take small coins and even candy as offerings.

Another common sight, not only on the temple grounds but also around it, are stones carefully piled upon each other. Sometimes they get quite high but some remain very small as well. As far as I remember correctly you can make a wish when you place a stone on top of these piles but you have to be really careful so the structure doesn't collapse.

Wishing stone piles

Random temple roof

Small shrine

Since our time was nearly up and we still had to walk back to the bus parking lot, Stephanie and me walked down the mountain again but of course we had enough time to take some pictures at a small suspension brigde, which was unbelievably wobbly!

And of course we also had time to take pictures with some kitsch-scenery and lifesize dolls close to the parking lot :)

Poor guy, you can't see that one of his hands fell off...

Pure romantic :)

After everyone arrived back at the bus we were off to the second part of the field trip: Borigoge Village.