New, fresh and exciting experiences aside: six weeks have passed already for me since I arrived in Seoul! Things have started to become habits, and the feeling of being in an unfamiliar place has worn off, being replaced by the feeling that this is my home now. Let me give you a glimpse of what my everyday life looks like.
What you already know is that on tuesdays and thursdays (excluding the following Chuseok week), I’m mainly at the university. As soon as I finally get some meaningful assignments, I will probably spend my wednesdays at the university aswell, which is very fine with me (still four consecutive free days in seven days).
Breakfast is eaten in my goshiwon, lunch is mostly eaten at the university (also if I’m only there to meet some friends staying at the on-campus dorms) or on the street if I’m away. Dinner is almost always eaten with friends in some cozy location in the area – yesterday was actually the first day I ate my dinner alone in such a place. Korean food is still awesome, just not that new to me anymore. Therefore, why not share a picture of a fancy japanese dish I had this friday?
The weather is still beautiful, although finally getting colder here too. But even though sunday was my first day in Seoul without temperatures above 20°C, the weather forecast still offers days with 25°C and above in the next weeks. Add an average of under one rainy day per week and you got just perfect weather, not even comparable to the early autumn Germany has to offer.
Activities with the other international students/our buddy group are another part of my everyday life, although they do not have a real schedule. They don’t fall into a certain category (party/sports/culture/misc), so here’s just a team image of the big buddy olympics of 8 days ago!
Another physical activity I really enjoy is the conquest of Seoul’s various Mountains, like those to be found in Bukhansan National Park. While the hiking routes are populated with quite a number of seniors, they mustn’t be underestimated! Reaching for the top, you actually climb walls of rocks using hemp or steel ropes – all of which is worth the view from the summits! They’re also some of the very few places at which you can not hear the constant background noise of the city. Finally, I haven’t climbed any mountains outside Seoul yet, the Chuseok week however opens a time window in which a short trip outside Seoul may be a thing.
Further concerning the topic of sports, I actually found myself a korean ultimate frisbee team to practice and play with! After having my first tournament, I talked with the organizers who are belonging to the Soongsil Students Ultimate Frisbee team (short: SSUF). Five minutes later, I was in! Although not the first one, I currently am the only foreign player in their team, which means that all communication is done in Korean!
That leads me to my progress in learning korean. Long story short: if I sank more time into that, I could speak Korean much better now than I actually can. Some situations can be mastered already using the little knowledge I have acquired up to now, but for many circumstances it’s simply the vocabulary that is missing for me. Otherwise, I’d already be able to understand Koreans talking to each other! Even though I’m not attending any language course, learning words with an app and occasionally grinding a grammar topic through my learning book seems to be enough for me to quickly pick up the language and get right into touch with the people here – if I only devoted more time to that…
Okay okay, I finally admit it – I am not able to ditch my long-time hobby of video games in Korea, this place is just too convenient for gamers to not spend some evenings with their digital pleasures. While playing video games yourself in the PC bangs surely is fun – especially when considering the quality of the gaming gear there – I also visited an eSporte game last Friday, just to get a glimpse of how gaming is being presented as a viewable sports discipline for the masses.
Finally, I didn’t go to Karaoke the last weeks just because there weren’t any friends opting into that. Neither did I really go to a club to party, which I really should recitify as soon possible. What I did instead was to visit a billard cafe with friends, as they were turned down from a club for not having their passports with them. And it was very well worth it! The quality of the whole game equipment was absolutely stunning, even including anti-friction-gloves!
Despite all that stuff I’ve already done, there is still quite something on the bucket list, especially regarding things you’re normally not able to do at home. Stay tuned for insights on Noraebangs, Gangnam partys, Jimjilbangs and Temples!
And sorry for the varying image sizes here, I somehow set my phone’s camera resolution to 640×480 a few weeks ago and realized it just yesterday.