Today I have some news that might actually interest people who don’t know me personally and are thinking of coming to Korea themselves: I took the placement test at Sogang University yesterday. Originally, I didn’t even want to take it because I’d always known I wanted to start at level 1 and that level 2 would be too hard for me, but the guy at the reception desk where I handed in my application told me that I’d have to take it since I had some knowledge of Korean and that there would be distinctions between different level 1 classes. Well, I hope he’s right.

 I was scheduled for 2:20 and I was a little disappointed to find out that they let me wait a full 40 minutes before I actually had my interview – I always try to be as punctual as I can, so I am generally rather displeased when other people or institutions display tardiness.

So, at approximately 3 PM, I was led into a room with a short Korean guy who started asking me very basic questions in slow and easy-to-understand Korean. Some of the things he asked: what was my name, where was I from, why did I come here, what were my hobbies, when was my birthday etc. etc. All very, very basic stuff I had very little trouble answering. After that, he had me read a short story about a person named Andy who was very desperate to watch a soccer game and had me talk about it. That was a lot more challenging: I don’t know how to do reported speech yet, so I didn’t know how to explain what was said and by whom, but somehow I managed to bring the gist of the story across. My grammar is not that hot yet and my two best skills are doubtlessly listening and writing (because I mainly studied Korean via watching Korean dramas and chatting in it on Skype).

 Afterwards, we discussed my abilities and the guy told me I already knew a lot, but that I should probably start with level 1. Level 1 should be very easy for me (perhaps too easy), but he suggested it was probably better to start with an easy level than put me into a level I could barely keep up with. I fully agree with him there. Then he said that, given the fact that I’d never studied Korean in any kind of academic or official setting, my abilities were rather impressive. And I blushed.

Well, to sum it up, I’m happy with both the interview and the outcome, but I can’t deny I’m a little worried about being put into a total beginner’s class. I am definitely not a total, super beginner and I would be rather pissed if they put me into a class where half of my peers didn’t even know how to read Korean! I don’t mind going over some of the basics again, but I’d consider my time wasted if I had to sit through classes of being taught how to read or how to construct the simplest of sentences. I hope they put me into a class where people already have some knowledge and if they don’t, I’d be pretty disappointed.

 My first day of class will be on September 3rd. I’m really looking forward to it!

Recently, I’ve gone back to something that I hadn’t gotten into ever before while abroad – geek mode. I’ve been re-playing Final Fantasy X.

 I can say with full confidence that I’ve completely assimilated into Korean life by now and that my family is the only thing I miss about Austria. Everything else back there, I can happily do without and I’ve thus been blessed with very few instances of homesickness. There’s no doubt in my mind right now that I’ll survive here for a year or longer.

 Actually living in Korea is very different from visiting here. When I first visited, I knew I would be leaving in the very near future, so how I spent my time was quite on the opposite of what I am doing now. Knowing that I wouldn’t have much time here, on my visits I hurried from one place to the next, met as many people as I could to keep busy, spent money mindlessly on food and drinks (I must have spent tons of money on drinks that day, because I was running around outside a lot, and I couldn’t bear it for very long without a cool can of coke or juice from the vending machine) and was, all in all, just trying to have as much fun as I could in a relatively short period of time. This time, it’s all different.

 I spend a lot of my time doing things I did in Austria, such as surfing the internet, writing stories, playing games, reading books (I bought and read, among other novels, Harry Potter 7 while in Korea), meet just one man instead of several per week, budget my money to the best of my ability and sometimes have to deal with not being able to afford something I really want. It’s very, very different – but despite all that, I don’t consider my current life here to be any worse than when I was a mere traveller and visitor. Both has its charms, of course, but in the end I have to say that actually living here is even more satisfying than visiting, despite the fact that I’m not doing very many fun things I would do were I here only for a trip. I can’t quite describe it – all I really know is that my life here is a happy one and that I very much like the steadiness of my life here in South Korea. I’m not bored here like I was at home and I’m not lonely, either. It’s a good life and the decision to come here is one I don’t see myself ever regretting.

Well, while I was outside today, it started raining, so I had to walk home without an umbrella, getting all wet. However, it didn’t take long for a handsome Korean guy to approach me and give me his umbrella. Korean guys for the win. ^^

In other news, I spent 2 days of last week not in Seoul, but at Hajodae Beach, which is a little beach in an even tinier village set on the East Coast of Korea, bordering on the Sea of Japan…or East Sea, as it is also known in Korea. Well, regardless of what you wish to call the sea, this is where I went last week with my boyfriend, with the kind financial support of my boyfriend’s father (you know how there are so many girls online who complain their Korean boyfriend’s parents hate them and try to break them up? Well, I guess I can consider myself lucky then, because the parents of my kimchi lover not only do not mind us being together, but actually support our relationship).

 Hajodae Beach turned out to be very nice and the place we stayed at was a comfortable, though completely overpriced “Contel” (mixed condo and motel.. I had never heard of contels before, personally). However, what was decidedly less nice was the weather – it rained throughout our entire stay there, which resulted in us spending quite more time than I had imagined we would watching TV. Watching the weather report revealed that all parts of Korea were sunny those days – except, of course, for the province we were in, which was stuck underneath heavy clouds and prevented me from seeing the sun even once while I was there. It was quite frustrating, but we managed to make the best of it – instead of being depressed over the fact that my dream of resting on the beach all day while getting a charming tan had been pretty much ruined, we thought of other ways to entertain ourselves. Twice we went swimming when nobody else on the entire beach was and fully-clothed at that. It was fun, despite being somewhat of an unconventional holiday.

 On the second day of our stay there, we made a trip to Yangyang, the closest city – however, being used to Seoul, it wasn’t much of a city at all. I really missed Seoul while I was there. Despite the fact that I appreciated the change and being able to spend a lot of time with my boyfriend was fantastic, I ended up missing Seoul by the end of the first day. Have I become a true Seoulite already…? All in all, an enjoyable trip that not even terrible weather could ruin completely.

 The few pictures we took will be uploaded later.

Originally , I wanted to upload this post last Monday. Then, when I couldn’t on Monday, I promised I would on Tuesday – well, that didn’t work out either, and we’re looking at Friday night now. All because I’ve been so tremendously busy and preoccupied this week. Plus the fact that uploading the pictures and commenting them all took literally hours – and I’m still not finished uploading all. A good number of them, however, can now be found here: http://neavanille.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=4

 As I mentioned a few times before, I attended Bible Camp at Omega Presbyterian Church last Saturday and Sunday… despite not being religious. But, my boyfriend is, and he is volunteering at the church as a teacher for a group of children aged 4-12 , whom I had the pleasure to meet last Sunday and, as it often is with children, their charm immediately won me over. Though I am not Christian, and never will be, the atmosphere I had encountered at the church the Sunday before had impressed me deeply (I would never have thought I would feel so accepted and so part of a community. They say that as a foreigner, you will never truly be accepted by Koreans, much less Koreans you’ve just met. Well, despite all that, feeling totally accepted was exactly what I did). Though I might have attended church for less than noble reasons (basically, to make my boyfriend’s parents like me more), I did find plenty of reasons why that Sunday was not a wasted one. Even though I initially felt very dismayed at having been talked into attending… Bible Camp, I ended up not regretting it and coming home with a positive feeling and a happier outlook on life. I must say, though, that as an Austrian, “Bible Camp” is a very weird concept, as it doesn’t really exist there – at least not to my (honestly, quite religiously-challenged) knowledge. My mother even sent me a worried e-mail “child, what is this Bible Camp? You’re not hanging out with some sort of religious cult groups, are you????” Yupp, that was my first reaction as well.

 However, Bible Camp turned out to be very fun. On the first day, I was assigned the ‘job’ to take pictures and ’sell’ food during breaks (the children paid with stickers). I liked nearly all of the children very much, and while they had certain reservations about me the first time we’d met what with me being a foreigner (most children their age have probably never talked to a foreigner before in their lives) the second time we met, on Bible Camp Day 1, they were considerably more open to me, some even hugged me. The girls called me ‘unni’ (big sister), which I think kind of pissed of my boyfriend because they call HIM ‘ajeossi’ (uncle).

 The day started with Bible work-shops taught by Sung Ryong and the pastor’s wife (it keeps occuring to me that calling her just the pastor’s wife is kind of sexist (but I can’t call her anything else because that’s what everyone calls her and I don’t know her real name), because she is reduced to being associated with her husband, stripping her of her stand-alone individuality. But I think this is just how it’s done in Korea – people are very often addressed by their family connections, women more than men, although it happens to men as well. I believe Sung Ryong’s parents call each other “Sung Ryong’s mother/father”. In Korea, individuality doesn’t seem to be a very popular thought). After that, there was mass for the children with songs sung by Sung Ryong and a few sermons by the…. uh, pastor’s wife. The children went out to play some outdoors games following mass and all in all, the day was full of much more games and play than any ‘real’ Christian propaganda and in fact boring stuff was kept at a minimum for the children – which I think is reasonable given the attention span of children, and handled MUCH BETTER in Korea than in Austria, where the majority of churches are Catholic and the majority of church services are as dry as a nun’s gusset where you’re expected to shut up and wait until the ordeal is over. Compared to that, church in Korea is muh more enjoyable, especially the service for the children. Though it might all be a Protestant vs. Catholic thing, and Catholic churches in Korea might be not one bit better. Who knows.

 Anyways, on the second day, I was asked to help prepare ddeokbokgi (spicy rice cakes) for the kids and though I happily obliged, I was not so happy anymore after discovering that my t-shirt had ended up pretty red shortly after I was done. Still, I enjoyed to see the children take to MY spicy rice cakes with childish enthusiasm. On the second day, the children’s day was interrupted by the adult service at around 11 PM. Adult service is decidedly more boring than the one for children, but it’s quite bearable with all the songs we sing. Plus, it helps that I don’t understand a word of what the pastor is yapping on about – while in Austria, I kept thinking, “who are they trying to fool with this bullshit? Sinning? Man in the Sky?” here I am just blissfully unaware of everything said. ^^

The day ended with games when the children came back and after they had left for good, I was taken out by Sung Ryong’s parents for dinner and had two delicious servings of BBQed beef. In case you didn’t know, Korean BBQ is just out of this world, so if you haven’t tried it, DO IT NOW!

Check out the pictures for a lot more comments about the weekend and photos of all of the children. All in all I have to say that Bible Camp might be my most unusual experience in Korea to date – but it’s definitely something that, against all odds,  I quite enjoyed experiencing.

Well, I got admitted into University and am set to start my Korean language education with dedication (doesn’t that rhyme nicely?) on September 3rd. However, it is not Seoul National University that accepted me.

I was puzzled to find out that SNU had rejected me for unknown reasons since I had previously believed that these University language programs accepted everyone since they had nothing to lose (they’re not giving me any degree) and could earn a lot of money, but apparently I was mistaken. They cold-heartedly rejected my application without even bothering to contact me on time, despite the fact that the lady at the admissions office had told me I’d get an e-mail no matter what the answer was. Well, that was kind of… unprofessional.

So, all kinds of broken, I set out today determined to get another University to accept me, and ended up going to Sogang first because their session starts a month before Yonsei does, and I have very little patience left. Sogang is a relatively small, rather unknown Uni (though, considering it was founded only 47 years ago, it has so far managed to earn itself a pretty good reputation) but they are very famous for their Korean language program which is supposed to me more ‘Western’ and more communicative than the grammar-oriented programs at other Universities and considering that this is how I learned English and I figure it doesn’t matter much where you are studying as long as you put in extra effort, speak Korean outside of the classroom and read regularly. I went there at around 9 AM this morning (the University is around 30 minutes away on foot) and the man at the admissions desk immediately gave me the first scare – “what, you only have a tourist visa?” Dread started to work its way up my spine as he dialled the Immigration Office’s number to inquire whether I could change my tourist visa to a student visa later on, and I almost panicked when he mentioned the Korean word for Japan, figuring he was asking if I had to do a visa run to Japan mid-way through class. In the end, though, he hung up and told me it was all right and that I just needed to walk to the Immigration Office with the required documents and I’d be issued my student visa on time. Whew!

Next problem around the corner. When it came to paying my tuition fees and I tried the Global ATM in the basement floor, it kept giving me the message “amount exceeds approval limit”. Fuck, and all this while Korean Universities, despite living in perhaps the most high-tech country in the world STILL don’t accept credit card payments. The staff at the bank spoke no English at all and I was already considering to call my bank back in Austria to tell them to raise my limit when I remembered my MasterCard. Fortunately, this one didn’t have a limit and I was able to withdraw the 1,470,000 won tuition fees. I returned to the admissions office, paid it and immediately got admitted.

I am set to take my placement interview August 21st at 2:20 PM. I won’t be late!

It’s 10:26 PM here in Korea and the e-mail that SNU had promised they’d send me today…. didn’t come. Well, that was kind of anticlimatic. I’m going to call them tomorrow and see, but so far I’m terribly disappointed with the lack of organization at Korea’s so-called elite University if they can’t even keep the deadline they have written black on white on their website. Well, I’m going to see about this – if they don’t accept me, there are plenty of other Universities who will, but I’m disappointed nonetheless. I was counting on enrolling there, actually.

In other news, last Sunday I did something so extraordinary that I barely dare mention it here, something so rare you’ll be asking yourself if maybe somebody hacked myself or forced me to speak vile aspersions on the internet. But no, I swear it’s true – last Sunday, I did something I haven’t done in 2 years and haven’t done voluntarily since the dawn of time. I went…. to church. Church where I was immediately coaxed into attending regularly and even – hold your breath now – attempt BIBLE CAMP next weekend! I must have truly gone mad. Bibi bubu lala lulu, the insane person goes.

I took the time and liberty to compile a list of my good as well as my bad impressions about this country. Keep in mind that these are all my personal impressions and opinions. I am very curious myself how much my impressions will change troughout the course of my stay here.

Good things about Korea

- Korea is very safe. You don’t have to worry very much about things getting stolen here. People are mostly honest here.

- Korea is extremely convenient, the most convenient country I’ve ever been to. Want to watch a movie? Want to eat live octopus? Maybe you want to go to a bar and meet people? Wherever you are, all of these things are only a short walk away, and for those midnight cravings, you can rest assured that a 24h convenient store is pretty much guaranteed to be right in front of your door.

- Korean people are very good-looking and walking through the streets is very pleasing to the eye.

- Korean restaurants and food culture is great – even in case you are not so fond of the spiciness of Korean cuisine, the cheap prices of food in Korea will sway you. You can have a decent meal at a restaurant in Korea for as little as $3, and included in that price is as much free water as you can drink.

- Even though Korea is a hardcore capitalist country, people give you freebies surprisingly often. When I bought a laptop, I got speakers and a mouse as free ’service’ and many public buildings offer free water (hot and cold). When ordering food, speaking a little bit of Korean very often results in you getting free extras with your meal.

- People here are generally curious about foreigners. Though there is substantial racism here (as mentioned in the negative things list), most Koreans are paradoxically also absolutely intrigued with foreigners. It’s not hard to meet people interested in talking to you, especially college-age people. People are also often very nice to you – I’ve gotten free rides on motorcycles for having a pleasant chat on the subway etc.

- Subway. Right. Korea has quite possibly the best public transport system in the world. The subway is absolutely fantastic and so is the bus system.

- Shopping can be done cheaply and in typical Asian fashion in Korea.

- Koreans are absolutely technophile! I list this as a good thing since I expect that most people reading an internet message board will be, as well, at least to some degree. You can use a computer practically everywhere and on the subway, you will see plenty of Koreans watching movies on their cell phones.

- Koreans are perhaps the most ambitious and hard-working people I ever knew.

- Korean nightlife is great.

Now, on to…

Bad Things About Korea

- Korea is sexist. Very sexist. But it doesn’t just hurt the women. There is huge pressure on the women to be feminine and equally as much pressure on the men to be masculine and of course, the compulsory military service for males doesn’t really help matters. There are countless social problems caused by this strict separation of the sexes.

- Korea is too hot and humid in summer and too cold in winter.

- Korea is an extremely superficial country. In Korea, being ugly is the equivalent to being shunned all your life and young people can spend hours discussing only a love interest’s beauty. Being ugly in Korea is tough, for both sexes, but moreso for women and this explains why in Korea there are so many ads for diet programs, why there is so much plastic surgery and why many surveys have shown that Korean women are the ones to be most concerned with their looks out of all women in the world. Korean people are so obsessed with other people’s beauty that in most cases, conversation just isn’t going to happen if they find a prospective conversation partner to be physically unattractive. Which leads me to…

- Korean people don’t make good boyfriends or girlfriends on average, unless you are completely obsessed with them like me. Not only will their family make it difficult and will you have a tough time overcoming the language barrier, but the superficial culture they grew up in has caused most of them to be quite dull and uninteresting. They are a lot of fun to be around with, and they certainly are pretty/handsome, but dating them takes a lot of work and dedication.

- Korean people have this national disease of illusions of grandeur. They tend to not want to realize that, overall, the rest of the world, except for a few dedicated individuals, doesn’t really care about their country, might not even know where it is located and, worse still, might initially compare Korea’s economic power and standards of health to that of.. say, Cambodia. Koreans like to believe they are great people (maybe the greatest of all) and thus have a hard time coming to terms with the reality of their global insignificance. The Korean nationalism stems from a complex mix of feelings of superiority and inferiority compared to other nations.

- Koreans are rather xenophobic, especially if you are Chinese, Western Asian, South Eastern Asian or of African descent. A little bit less so if you are Japanese (though it largely depends on the people you meet, but in general, Koreans respect the Japanese more because of their power and wealth) or white (because Koreans equate whiteness with America, and America with money. And Koreans like money). There are plenty of Koreans who are not racist, though, and in everyday life, you will very rarely be the victim of outright racism directed at you, especially if you are a woman as most negativity is directed at male foreigners.

- Koreans are obsessed with money.

Overall, though, I love living here. What I love most is the lifestyle I am having here and despite the numerous problems of Korea, this lifestyle is enough to make me feel (mostly) happy with my life here.

I haven’t updated in a while, mostly due to the fact that nothing especially exciting has happened since I’ve moved into my room and in fact, I’ve already settled into what could be described as a routine over here. I get up at whenever I like, usually in the afternoon, go out to meet a friend and spend the evening with them or have dinner by myself at the hasukjip (the hasukjip food, though it isn’t delicious by any means, is definitely eatable) and then spend the night with my lovely, lovely laptop and watch Korean TV dramas on it. When I’m not doing any of these things, I might be out by myself exploring a part of the city I didn’t get to see last summer, but all in all I’m not doing earthshatteringly interesting things these days anymore.

Except for maybe today. Today was one of the first days that I left the city of Seoul and ventured out into the suburbs, where I was scheduled to pick up Sung Ryong from his army service (that didn’t quite work out, as dumb me got lost on the way and I had to call him, demanding, “Save me!!! I’m lost!”. Yupp. I’m not that good at finding the way). The city was called Kimpo and in this city, for the very first time, I really noticed I was a foreigner. Foreigner means waegukin in Korean, which literally means “outside person” as far as I’m informed, and oh dear, I really did feel like an alien. People stared at me wherever I went and indeed I felt like an exotic animal in a zoo. It was a rather new experience to me – though people in Seoul do stare occasionally as well, I’ve never been subject to nearly as much attention before in my short life. It was an… interesting experience, to say the least.

About money… I am considerably spending more than I should, but I figure it is quite normal to spend more money in the first few weeks than in the ones following, so I’m not too worried. I had to buy a lot of things to settle into my life here, so my bill for this month should be quite scary. From now on, I’ll try to eat at my hasukjip as often as I can, leaving only public transportation and my cell phone bill left as causes of a financial state of emergency (I don’t think my cell phone bill will be that high – I rarely do phone calls and sending SMS is only 30 won per message). I believe I will be able to budget well and shop within my abilities in the coming months.

Korean school still hasn’t started and truthfully, I am getting quite anxious to finally hit the books and get down to studying. Though I know I deserve a bit of laziness after all the stress of the last school year (right, mom?), I actually truly want to take Korean classes and am looking forward to my regular classes a lot. On Monday , I find out if Seoul National accepts me or not. If they don’t, I’m going to cry.

It’s now been a few days since I moved into my own little room and I am as happy with it as I was in the beginning. It is great to finally live by myself and to be able to schedule my activities to my liking. I even love doing all my groceries shopping – I love Korea because you can buy any food you like at any time of the day, and in fact there are several 24/7 shops right outside of my room, which means I could theoretically buy chocolate bars or orange juice or whatever else I desire at 3 or 4 AM. I love it – it’s exactly the kind of thing I missed back home. This kind of urban freedom and how boundless it is, how, compared to a small village in Austria, you can do, see or have anything at any time of the night or day without having to drive a car. Everything is reachable on foot, subway or bus here in Seoul and the city has quite possibly the best public transportation system of the world.

The day before yesterday, I went to Yongsan Electronic Market with a friend (a couple of huge buildings and open-air shops that sell everything electronic your heart may desire, from computers and accessories for it over movies to cell phones) and bought a used laptop for 550,000 won. That may seem like a lot considering my tight budget here in Seoul (okay, it is a lot), but I don’t regret having bought it – I am going to be a college student for a few years now and sooner or later, I will need a laptop, so I might as well buy one now. Plus, Korea is definitely a better place to buy electronic equipment in than Austria is – not only are the prices cheaper here, but the quality tends to be very good, as well. I got a pretty nice, quality model for my money (I might post a picture some time) and plan on using it extensively. Thankfully, as I think I mentioned in a previous post, my hasukjip offers free internet access, which basically means I am now set up with a computer much like I was at home, with all the privacy your own room gives you and an internet cafe fails to provide. I have been ecstatically happy with my laptop these past few days and have been especially delighted with its fast internet speed, incomparable to the slow connection I’ve had to endure in Austria.

Korea is very hot and humid these days, and it is only scheduled to get even hotter in August. Asian humidity, for me as a European, is very hard to bear, but I will do my best to get used to it. Thankfully, air-conditioning in Korea is top-notch, as is the rest of the country’s technology. Korean people on the whole have a very strong affinity for electronical equipment.

There’s one thing that I haven’t talked about yet on this blog, despite the fact that it was the very thing I came here for in the first place: the Korean language. I have to say that, all things considered, I have made quite a bit of progress within the last few days, despite not having had the chance to take formal classes yet. I am good at chatting and sending cell phone text messages in Korean already and I am able to hold simple conversations. My Korean friends like to compare my language skills and my accent with that of a Korean child of 5 or 6 years of age. It’s doubtless, though, that I still have a long way to go until I reach the kind of proficiency I am striving for. Korean is a hard language, though getting to a conversational level is probably easier in it than it is in Japanese and Chinese – the real difficulty in Korean is the grammar and the sheer endless array of suffixes and politeness levels. It makes Korean a very, very complex, yet undeniably very intriguing language. Since the person I spend most of my time with speaks excellent English, I am currently not speaking as much Korean as I probably should, so I should make an effort to befriend a few people with very poor to non-existant English skills. Given that in Korea, like 80% of people don’t speak English very well at all, this shouldn’t pose to be much of a challenge.

I hope that all my friends and family back in Austria are not too worried about me – don’t worry, I am very fine and very happy here. Life in Korea is good.

I know you’ve all been waiting for this – I finally got around to uploading a few photos I’ve taken since arriving here. Admittedly, I am somewhat lazy with taking pics, so the staggering number my picture-taking has amounted to accumulates to nothing more than… 14. Yeah, but 14 is still better than nothing, so take your time to browse the following:

http://www.neavanille.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=2 Photos with comments! =)

It’s now been a day since I moved into my new room and it feels very good! Today, the old man even moved a fridge into my room – this is great as I can now save even more money by storing larger amounts of drinks in my fridge. The room has turned out to be a great deal and I’ll be eternally thankful for Sung Ryong for digging t up. Though, I still have a large amount of work ahead of me – I still need to unpack all my clothes, put all of them into my…. ‘closet’ and need to think of suitable places to store my books, DVDs, shoes etc. It will be so exciting to manage my own room and be fully responsible for everything about it.

I want to buy a PC I can use from inside my room and will probably set out to buy one tomorrow morning. Tonight I am meeting a female friend named Soyoon – she seems to be very nice and I hope we will have a lot of fun hanging out together.