News from Korea, it's been a while...

Hii~
sorry that I haven't been writing anything^^; There were already several people asking when I'm going to update again, I finally have time and I'm in the mood to write something. So this will be quite a long update. I'll try to update more frequently in the future :)

Quite a lot happened the last weeks. We finally moved to our apartment. We had some difficulties, but everything worked out fine. Our landlords are a really nice elderly couple. Our apartment is very nice and quite big. We like it here^^ 

View from our front door

Some time ago we went out with some Korean friends. After we ate something, we walked around in 강남 (Gangnam). There we decided to go to a Board Game Bang (방= bang which is room in English). This was a new concept for me, since we don't have those on Germany. It looked kinda like a normal cafe, just that u can play Board Games. We paid 2.000₩ per person, and could play there for 1 hour. You can also get food and drinks there. There are other kinds of 방 in Korea, the best known is probably the 노래방 (Noraebang) a Karaoke room. Another would be the Multibang, a room where you can do different things, like playing Wii, Karaoke, Games, or watch DVDs.

I also had my orientation at the HUFS on the 29^th , where we got told some things about the university and safety in Korea and we were able to fill out our form for the Alien Registration Card. We also got told that the placement test for the Korean language course, would be on the 3^rd September, which came as a surprise for us, since we were told it would be on the 11^th so most of us hadn't really prepared at all. And some friends of us only arrived on the 2^nd. Another thing is, that we never got an email or anything regarding the change of date, the Internet site of the university still said that the test would be on the 11^th... not the best organisation..

Monday last week we went to the Immigration Office, to apply for the Alien Registration Card. We weren't sure how many people would be there, so we decided to go really early. We were there about 15 minutes before they started. We got number 15 & 16 and only had to wait about half an hour. Even though the organisation there wasn't the best either. And the English.. well some could speak it well, but I kinda expected a little bit more, since it is the Immigration Office.

After that, we went to the Bank in Itaewon to open a bank account, since we live near it and we thought, well it is Itaewon, and a really big branch, so they should be able to speak English.
Weelll... we were able to somehow communicate, but only in a mix of English and Korean. But they were all very nice and helpful, and after a lot of thinking and asking around I was able to make an account. For know I can only withdraw and deposit money in the bank, but it is possible. I will get a card for that later, when I have my Alien Reg. Card.

Friday we went to 경복궁 (Gyeongbokgung) the biggest palace in Seoul and the Sejong and Yi Sun-Shin museum. While you have to pay for the palace ( but only 3.000₩ which is really not much) the museum is free.

Gyeongbokgung

Gyeongbokgung

A bench inside the Sejong Museum designed to look like hangul

Saturday my flatmate and i decided to go and see if there are any clubs we can go in. Since we are in Itaewon, there should be quite some. So we went out at around 10:30 which is still early here. But we only saw Lounges and Bars, but since we were searching fr a club and everything looked so expensive we went on. In font of one Club (Pawn8) a promoter approached us to come in. So we asked how much the entrance fee is and he said 20.000 but we didn’t want to pay so much, so he said we could get in for 10.000 each, and get a free drink. So we decided to give it a try. We went in at around 11 there was nearly no one. But after some time, the club started to fill. It was a rather high class club, many guys in suits and the prices for drinks started at 10.000. The music was good, they had DJs there that changed around every 2 hours. We had fun, although the music was reeeally loud and you were allowed to smoke inside which I personally don't really like. But we stayed till around 4 in the morning, and when we got out we had a husky voice and couldn’t really hear much xD

As you probably know it is still 추석 Chuseok in Korea, which is a traditional holiday. ( If you want to know more about Chuseok you can read this http://english.visitkorea.or.kr/enu/SI/SI_EN_3_6.jsp?cid=811650 ) So a lot of stores are closed, but definitely not everything. There is still enough open :)
Monday we decided to go to 덕수궁 (Deoksugung) a palace in Seoul. Because the entrance was free and they had some traditional music performances there. And after that we went to get some 빙수~

 

Deoksugung

Deoksugung

That's all for this time,
Nadine