The 2nd week: Getting settled, and eventually educated.

It's Monday already, so I'm late with my updates, sorry for that. It's not the best of all Mondays, even here, where my life's supposed to be exiting, fun and extraordinary (which it is most of the time), Mondays can be bad.

It's raining, and after being deprived of (a reasonable number of hours of) sleep for 3 days, the author isn't feeling 100%. Plans to take it easy from now on have been made and will not be shelved as the next weekend comes, I swear.

On Saturday, we, the exchange students were finally, officially welcomed.
However, despite us being so very welcome, we are considered a health risk. Not only for local's sanity, as we can be very noisy and besiege entire districts when we're being officially welcomed, but first and foremost because we could spread Swineflu. This is why the initial Welcoming-Party has been cancelled. Instead of one massive event, where all the exchange students (almost 500 of us!) would have celebrated their arrival together, we were split up in several smaller groups and scattered over various places nearby KU.

It was fun, the only thing I find a tiny little bit irritating is that whenever we're being welcomed, (a smaller event had taken place for business students at KU Business School earlier this week) they don't even bother trying to introduce us to Korean culture:
At the KUBS party, they served us Krispy Kreme donuts, and Papa John's pizza. At Saturday's welcoming party, we had Bratwurst, Pizza again, and chicken wings. The beer was Korean though, so was "The Unavoidable", Soju.
When I took part in a Chinese Summerschool programme last year, the universities organized huge banquets for us, that featured even the most obscure, local delicacy, be it jellyfish in cold soup, taste-bud-numbing spicy fish-stew, ox-stomach, or deep-fried aloe vera. Not that all of that was lip-smackingly good, but the point is, that the Korean cuisine has more to offer than US junk food imports, and KU could put a bit more effort into showing us so, goddammit!

In a way though, this sort of behaviour IS very Korean. That's what makes the place so easy for Westerners to feel at home. But I feel I didn't take an airplane to the other side of the world to find myself eating Western fastfood and drinking bad Starbucks coffee way more often than I do at home.

But despite these little annoyances, I'm having a great time.
Seoul is excactly the place where I want to be right now. I got kind of settled the last week, and I caught myself saying "I'm going home", when heading back to my... to my "apartment"? No, that's not the word I'm looking for. Well, I hate to repeat myself, but hole-in-the-wall is still the only expression that fits here. I'm seriously at risk of turning claustrophobic.
Still, it's my own place, and in a city this big and crowded, it's great to have one's own door to shut behind oneself when necessary and as I was going to say, that's nothing that could spoil my enthusiasm about being here at the moment.

Even though I'm not technically "travelling" right now, I still occasionally get this moments, where I just can't believe that I'm actually here, doing what I decided I wanted to do. It's intense, and pretty awesome. Occasionally, I had these moments in China, and the most recent one here made me decide that I'm not going back to Europe. I mean, not asap. I want to to my obligatory internship next semester in South Korea if there's any possibility to do so. There has to be.

My previous blogposts might not have given you the impression, but, surprise, surprise, I'm actually here to study. I'm majoring business, but here I moved away from my "traditional" subjects quite a bit, except for one Marketing- and one Finance course. Instead, I'm taking courses on business, economics, and politics in the region, meaning China and Japan. Classes started last Monday, and after all the introductions were over, it was in fact sometimes quite astonishing. The "typically Asian" top-down approach to teaching, where the Songsaengnim (professor) is sacrosanct, and the students are humble, is not practised here. The level of both the teachers and the students is high, classes are interesting and challenging.

An exception may be "Korean for Beginners I". I am a beginner, yes, but one who doesn't have the patience to spend 5 hours a week repeating the Korean alphabet and being clapped at for being able to say "a-a ya-ya ô-ô yô-yô..."
I'd rather be out there and speak to real people, even though it might scratch my ego a little bit 'cause it's certain that I won't get clapped, but laughed at.

But here, another problem comes about. Being a foreigner in this place seems to magnetically attract other foreigners, which is not bad in itself 'cause you meet tons of nice people, but it is indeed very hard to get in touch with locals. Students are so busy here, so they usually leave right after class, and don't have time for a chat, not even think about one that involves one party trying out very-basic-broken-Korean.
But, where's a will there is a way, and my motivation is unchanged, at a very high level.

To bring this post to an end, and give you some more ideas about what life in this big, shiny place is like, I will just jot down some random observations, in no specific order. If you find an order, that's coincidental, my apologies.

- After Annyonghaseyo! (Hello!) and Kamsahamnida! (Thank you!) , the most frequently used phrase seems to be Palli palli! (Quick quick!). Koreans try to do everything fast. What's quite amazing too is their ability to switch between "modes". Take the subway: On the subway, at least half of the people are fast asleep, but as soon as they have to transfer, they run as if it was for their lifes.

- On public transport, they do not usually speak. If on the phone, they'll talk quietly, and cover their mouth with one hand. The only conversations you'll hear on the subway, are usually in English, held by some ignorant Weiguks.

- These Weiguks however, unlike in China, are not being stared at. Their presence is acknowledged with a shrug, very rarely some elderly ladies appreciate our fair skin (here still a status symbol) with a thumb up, or two.

- It's hard to find proper supermarkets here. Everything's full of convenient stores. If you do however find a supermarket, they have everything, and I mean everything.

- Korean pop-music is superpopular anywhere in Asia, which doesn't mean it's supergood. It's the cheesiest crap I've ever heard and I'm happy I don't understand the lyrics (yet, I'm planning to change that).

- Koreans have excellent manners. There's no public spitting, at least very, very little.

- The essential piece of advice I give to China-travellers "ALWAYS have tissues!", can be abandoned here. Public toilets are simply extraterrestial. Even in places like the subway-station, they have additional features like seat-warmers.

- more random observations are to follow next week...

This is me in the most beautiful place in Seoul I've been so far. High up on a hill near Dongnimmun station, the view is mind-blowing.
Since you get a bird's eye view on the presidents palace, which you're not allowed to photograph, a friendly guard is up there too and he will check your camera.