After my short trips to Taipei and Takarazuka, I finally flew into Seoul, my primary destination for this summer. I am studying the Korean language at Yonsei University, and the program started a week ago. Other than some stomach problems last week, everything is going fine, and finally I have gotten to point where I can sit (or lie on the bed) to blog and to contact my friends here.
In terms of language study, given that this is the 4th foreign language I’ve studied, the whole experience is depressingly repetitive, and it feels like there is a gap between myself and those who are excited about this exotic experience of learning a new language. “School activities” have started to bother me. I have also become too picky about the pedagogy of language teaching.
During the first week here, Michi and I were staying at a cheap motel close to school. It is one of those “love hotels,” and you can easily tell what people thought of us when they saw a Korean (looking) girl and a white guy walking in and out of this motel among the other couples. I liked this hotel, actually. It was apparently a small family-run business. There was a whole family (parents, two small kids, an older woman and a puppy) sleeping, eating, living together in a tiny room on the other side of the small reception window. When we left early each morning, we saw the whole family lying together, deep asleep in that room. The owner (the father) was very easy-going and kind to us. Whenever he took naps, he would put up a sign in the reception saying “빈 방 없음 (No Rooms Available)”.
Last week we hiked from Shinchon, where Yonsei is located, to our favorite Kal-guk-su (white peppery beef broth + udon noodles) place near Kwang-hua Gate last weekend. We wandered around the back streets near Ehwa Univ. area and passed a small street market. These pictures (hilly back streets in Seoul, a tower of instant noodles, a mountain of garlic) are from that time but I’ll also make a flickr page or something soon to put more pictures.