Ewha Festival (food mostly)

cool restaurant+club in Hongdae

delicious bacon and cheese potato dish in Hongdae 맛있어!!

our Korean teacher brought us treats one day :)

"Do you Tok?"  "I'm different!" i thought it was cute/funny

some stalls from the ewha fair

 

Kristen and her huuuuge Kimchi pancake 

맛있는 김치전!

 Pics from the field trip to the Buddhist temple in Insadong, basically its the lantern festival pics but in daylight

The lanterns were there to celebrate Buddha's Birthday 

paintings on the temple showing Buddha's life

tea ceremony: black tea and green tea

this was on one of the walls, i thought it was adorable

 ohhh more food pics from the festival!

cheese fries....yummmm the cheese was like baked into the fries it was wonderful

kimchi pancake stuffed into a cup 

In line for Sugar Cane juice!!! 

The sugar cane juice was really good, kinda had a molasses/vanilla flavor??

 Then i found the alcohol booths :P

Makgeolli 막걸리and Cider cocktail!! cute!

Very Korean Dunkin Donuts

More dorm/Cherry blossom photos

view from my balcony

looking left from the balcony- view of Int'l house dorm

 These top photos I took when I first arrived here. That's why the trees are all bare and stuff. I took all these with Kelly's super special Canon Camera, so they should be better quality :P The memory card was mostly full already of stuff from home, so I filled it up really quick. Luckily I have like 3 more mem cards here so I'll make sure to go out and do some more photoshoots soon :) I hope you like these photos! They're all from around my dorms and the last few are at Hakkwan, where my Korean Classes are.

From a second floor balcony

Dinner Adventure!

Me and my friends K and J (names shortened for some anonymity, unless they're ok with me using their names :P ) decided to go out for dinner tonight! We decided just to walk around until we found a nice place to eat. We wanted to go somewhere we could eat actual Korean food instead of you know, sandwiches or japanese food or something. Finally we came across this restaurant with some yummy looking Galbi dishes (marinated and grilled meat)....so we went inside and were seated at a table with a hole for the grill in the middle! YAY I always wanted to eat at a place like this, ever since seeing it in dramas and stuff! We ordered a galbi dish with vegetables...

fresh in the pan, pre-cooked...

Ready to eat! YUMMM!!! <3

At first we weren't sure if WE were supposed to stir it up, or if the server would come by and stir and cook it for us...but we soon found out that we didn't need to touch it at all cos it seemed like every time a server walked by they'd stir it up. Seriously, as soon as one server left another took their place like, 5 seconds later. There were also some side dishes you could optionally pick up, like kimchi (spicy cabbage), pickled radish, shredded lettuce, and cucumber sauce. I'll say that the meal dipped in the cucumber sauce was my personal favorite. The sauce really balanced out the spiciness of the galbi.
Another point of interest: the silverware and napkins were in a little drawer on the side of the table. Super convenient! They only had rice spoons and chopsticks, but that was fine with us :)

We decided to go shopping at some of the street shops on the way back. Bought my first souvenirs!! I won't tell what, cos one of them's a gift! I did get a cute ring though :) and I saw a couple stores I want to go back to once it's warmer and I bring more money. I almost bought some "leg wormers" though...maybe if it stays chilly I'll go back and buy them :P

Engrish is wonderful

These super creepy guys stared at us while we waited to cross the street... >_<

My friends bought bookbags, and we had a good time identifying various Kpop songs playing in the stores, but after a while it got really cold and we decided to head back. We'll see what tomorrow brings! We're gonna meet up again and with a few other people go adventure around Seoul!
 Here's a few other pics I took today:

I thought this poster was a little funny

path to the dorms at sunset

sculpture things? On other side of path to dorms

See you tomorrow, my honeys!

Orientation Day

 Hey Lovely People! So yesterday was Orientation day, so we had to spend like 4 hours in an auditorium being welcomed to campus and told how to register for classes and stuff. The best part was free buffet lunch, I'll admit ^_^ Kimbap and fruit and japchae and potato/seafood salad and some mini eggroll things and some barbequed meat on a stick! YUM!
Then we went on campus tours and geez we only were introduced to like 5 buildings and this campus is huge but honestly I'm not too worried about finding my way around, the maps are really helpful and I'm gonna find my classes before they officially start up so I make SURE I don't get lost!
So that all wrapped up around 4:30, maybe, so then a couple girls and I decided to go walk around and find this convenience store called Daiso, because I needed to get a bowl and other eating stuff.
There was lots of adorable stuff there, and I almost bought a cup with some cute Engrish on it, something like "Hope you have a happy Tiger", but instead I bought a more adorable cup with baby animals and some Japanese on it :)
BRB I want some Banana Milk...







Yummmm...
Anyway! Afterwards we went and got dinner at a place called Mr. Pizza. The pizzas in Korea are a bit different from those in America, and hopefully I'll try them all someday, but this time we decided to try Bulgogi Pizza!

 Bulgogi, or Korean BBQ, is beef marinated in this really really good sort of sweet marinade. It also came with a little cup of butter and sweet pickles, and I can only assume we were supposed to eat those with the pizza, cos I definitely dipped my pizza in them. It was pretty good :) It was also good luck that we'd decided to eat at Mr. Pizza, because at the table next to us were all the Ewha PEACE Buddies. The Peace Buddies are Ewha students who are here to help us adjust to life here and also organize activities for us to do, such as the Welcoming Party at the Barfly club that was going to happen later that night.....But more about that later! We ended up asking the Peace Buddies where we should go with the check, and that's how we learned to take the check up to the counter where we'd come in.

There was this cute little comic book about how Mr. Pizza was created :)

napkin holder at Pizza place...Why does it say "love for women"?? We still don't know

Bought this cute ice cream at Orange Mart. It's vanilla strawberry on top and apple ice on the bottom!

Went back to campus and went our separate ways until we'd meet up again at 6:15 to go to the International Education Building, where everyone was going to gather and go together down to the BarFly for the party.

All dressed up?

So we were this huuuuge group of exchange students migrating through the streets of Seoul to this club, and we all honestly just felt too tired to party, but we were gonna try anyway! Especially cos they gave us all coupons for 3 free drinks ;) Hollaaaa! Here's some pics of the walk over...

Sexy Beer Man

The BarFly

You can also sort of see the little store next to the club...where this old lady came out and yelled at us for being a nuisance and stopping people from coming to her store...>_< So they club people talked to her and then made us move the line around to the other side so we weren't in front of her anymore...

Why is the club "Occult III" themed??

So it was really super loud inside, like not as loud as clubs and parties usually are...And why would they make it so loud if this is supposed to be a place for us to mingle and get to know each other? Whatever, it was still fun :)

My friend put her Minnie Bow on me...

New Friends! (yay, I'm making friends! *hyperventilating*)

After our free drinks ran out, we bought more. This is my Pink Panda :)

Store outside the club. "Something Women Want" WHY DO THESE RESTAURANTS WANT TO PLEASE WOMEN SO MUCH? is it just cause they're near a women's university??

Another thing, even though this is a Woman's University, there is actually quite a lot of guys here too. Sure, they're in the minority, but there's definitely quite a few male exchange students. Cool, huh?
So we left around 9:30, I think? We were all super tired and didn't want to stay until 11, when the party would end. We left and luckily one of the girls in our group is from here, so she called her gran and got some directions back, because we weren't quite sure if we knew the way back, especially since we were all slightly tipsy... :P Turns out the club is actually really easy to get to from Ewha, and we know how to get back if we ever want to go party there again.
Once again all the street food smelled heavenly on the walk back, and I saw a few cute shops that I want to go back and visit...
While we were walking and chatting, one of the girls suddenly stopped and said "G-Dragon alert!!" so I had to stop and take this pic... I love that man :P

GD for Saem

Aaaand then we got back and chillled in the lounge, got each other's contact info, and chatted about random stuff like Kdramas, BB cream, North Korea, and the possibility of a sandstorm today... if it is a sandstorm, I can't tell, all I know is it's really windy and colder than it was earlier. I do need to buy a mask though, for times when smog is bad or if an actually bad sandstorm does come in.... I'll make sure and buy a really cute mask tho ;)
Sooo yeah! Then I got to sleep in and then I just went out and got lunch and now I'm here updating my blog! Maybe I should go buy detergent, I think my roomie and I are gonna do laundry tomorrow...
More to come! Love you all! Please comment if you can, I love hearing from you guys!