STUDYING / EATING / SHOPPING

The last days in Korea went by so fast! I am back home now, trying to adjust to the time difference before starting to try to adjust to the life in Finland again. However, in Seoul we did so many things during the last few weeks, during and after the final exams, that it's hard to remember everything. My final exams were all crammed on the first exam week, 3 exams in 3 days, except for one already before the official exam week about Korean history and culture. I decided that even though I want to and need to study and prepare well for the exams, I will also enjoy the time left in Seoul and make the most of it. And I think I managed to do that quite well! I combined studying and hanging out in Gangnam cafes, studied together with friends and also took some breaks from studying too to do fun stuff. For example one weekend we finally visited the famous Hongdae clubs Nb1&2 owned by YG entertainment. I have to say that out of the clubs I went to in Seoul, Nb2 was by far my favourite. Even though your clothes and hair smell like cigarettes after that, I liked the general relaxed feeling and the hip hop music there. Better than the edm clubs, of which there's an endless offering in Seoul. Other than that during the last days we did some (okay a lot of) shopping, for example in Myeong-Dong, Coex and Ewha. I also went to have lunch with one of my professors on a Saturday with another exchange student from the same course. We talked about the culture and differences of Korea, Germany and Finland. The professor knew about Finland, having been there once, that it's cold and dark there, people "eat Rudolph" (meaning reindeer meat) and that there are ferry boats that go between Finland and Sweden that certainly have a culture of their own :D It was very interesting since in Finland I'd never imagine going to a restaurant to have casual lunch with a university professor. But in Korea it is not that unusual. We had three dishes that we all shared, another custom very popular in Korea but not in Finland.

 

One shopping place I still have to mention here is Express Bus Terminal. It was just a few subway stops away from us but somehow we never visited there, not before the professor we had lunch with told us about the underground shopping street there. We went there during the last week with my roommate and it's a good thing we did! The underground shopping street there is alltogether a little over a kilometer long, full of clothing, decoration and flower shops with quite cheap prices. I found a blouse and pants there, 10,000W (about 9€) each. The station also has a huge fancy shopping mall next to it, one we didn't explore that much, besides the typical Etude House haul for some cosmetics. After that we felt like we needed some fresh air and walked to Gangnam station. Keeping in with the theme of doing new things, we finally took the time to wait in line for Shakeshack, and American fast-food chain restaurant that neither of us had tried before. Apparently when something becomes a trend in Korea it happens fast and in full force. At the same time the trend might go away as quickly as it was born. It is  actually more of a fad. In Gangnam there is a long line to Shakeshack all day, from before it even opens around 11am, until the evening when it closes, and seats are hard to find once inside the restaurant and already waiting for your food. However it was nice to try it and the burger was actually pretty good. I heard something similar happened earlier with a Taiwanese cafe chain called Gong Cha in Korea, there was a huge hype around it that suddenly just died out. This is something a marketer could benefit from with the hype and large momentary profits, although it also creates a challenge when the life cycle of a product or service is short.

 

MIDTERMS & HALLOWEEN PREPARATIONS

So the midterm exams are full on and I already had one last week I studied a lot for. It was so different from Finnish university exams that I don't really know how it went. It had only very precise true/false statements and multiple choice questions. I still have two exams left, and one of them is after the actual midterm season. So still some studying to do! However, we have also been preparing for Halloween! A small group of us is going to a costume party on Saturday, so earlier this week we visited a party supply store where we bought supplies for our costumes :) The store was called Joy Party and it was at Gangnam-gu Office.



From there we walked towards Apgujeong where we (I mainly) admired all the luxury brand stores! I especially fell in love with how the Dior store looked like. I also found a Cos store that had a 50% off sale where I found a perfect basic top :)

 

On the way home on the subway we encountered an older Korean man who had a pet bird with him! We got to hold the bird, or my friend did since I'm kind of uncomfortable touching them. But it was so cute! After the subway ride the man put the bird into his little bag before going outside. What an endearing duo! :)

 

Otherwise this week has consisted of another hospital trip, since my flu/illness seems to be a very resilient type, and a lot of studying. We also studied at a cafe a couple of times to get some change of environment which was really nice. The cafes here are really cosy and a lot of students study in them.

 

It has also gradually started to get colder here, although it's still not very cold in Finnish standards. But especially today was a cold and rainy Sunday. We coped by taking a break from studying to take a walk around the Heukseok-area and also went to eat Jjimdak, one of my favorite foods here.

 

GLOBAL FAIR @ CAU

Today at Chung-Ang University we had a Global Fair, where exchange students could represent both their country and their university while presenting them to Korean students who are interested in studying abroad. We had to prepare some promotional material from our home universities to give to other students. It was actually quite a big deal here, there were local TV channels filming at the scene, and people from different embassies visiting. For example the Swedish students here were contacted to have "fika" (coffee and buns) at the Swedish Embassy in Seoul this week, and the ambassador of Denmark visited the fair to give a speech.
  Unsurprisingly the USA was the most interesting exchange destination and their booth had a lot of visitors, but there were also a few who were interested in going to Finland, which I am happy about! :) The Finnish spicy, salty liquorice candy Tyrkisk Peber was not a big hit among the students though :D I hope we didn't scare them away with that.. :D haha
  I was pleasantly surprised how well everything was organized, and I want to give big props to Cau's international office for putting this event together! The booths and everything looked really nice and professional.

 

KOREAN FOLK VILLAGE @GYEONGGI

Yesterday we had our first trip organized by our school's culture club. The destination was Korean Folk Village, approximately an hour away from our university in Seoul. It is a traditional Korean village portraying the time of Joseon dynasty, which ruled from 1392 to 1910. I didn't really have a lot of expectations about the place, which turned out to be a good thing since I was really positively surprised! The place was really nice, there was a lot to see ranging from different performances and traditional village houses to a beautiful and peaceful buddhist temple. The food was very good, we ate bulgogi-bibimbap and kimchi pancake at the food court. Me and my friend also tasted some really spicy tea from a traditional Korean herb pharmacy.
For an activity we could choose either traditional paper doll making or pottery making. I chose pottery and you can see the result from the last photo :D We get our own creations to ourselves in one month when they have baked them in an oven.

 

SCHOOL FOOD

At first the school food here felt really strange compared to Finland. You get many different small dishes at once, you don't get to take your own food, instead the cafeteria staff puts the food to the plates and you just pick one plate of each food item. The prices are pretty much the same as in Finland; 2,500-3,900W (2-3€). However, it varies a lot whether I eat at a school cafeteria or at a restaurant near by our university campus, because there are a lot of choices and the prices at most restaurants are only a little bit more expensive than at school.
There are three school cafeterias we have tried so far. First one is in the same building as our dormitory, and the other is in the next dormitory building where we can go through an inside corridor. The third one, in my opinion, is the best one, located in the brand new business & economics building. Last two pictures are from there and the first two pictures are from our dormitory's cafeteria.
    

Lunch during Chuseok last week. There were these traditional rice cakes (white and green in the picture) which were really good! I heard that there are some traditional rice shops where you can get these. Luckily a Korean friend also brought us some more of them to eat from her holiday at home :) Otherwise lunch consisted of sweet potatoes, kimchi, veery spicy pork and some soup that was quite good.

 

Spicy but good, tteokbokki (also rice cakes) is one of my absolute favorite foods here! This time at lunch there was also some pork, seaweed soup which I didn't really like, rice, very spicy kimchi, some noodles and radish.

 

The new cafeteria at business & economics building serves more international kind of food. Usually at lunch there are some kind of cutlets, either meat, fish or chicken, some salad with a very sweet dressing, usually strawberry, rice and - my favourite -  spinach soup!

So in conclusion, I mostly like the school food here, it's only difficult when sometimes the food is so spicy you literally almost cannot eat it. But you can get used to it bit by it, I think. And one other thing about all of the food here is that there is no salt whatsoever. Even if you order fries at the nearby McDonalds', they are not salty :D But it's a bit healthier that way, since at least in Finland salt is used a lot in all foods.

STUDYING @ CAU

So by now I've gone at least once to all of my classes here at Chung-Ang and thought I'd do a post about the courses I chose and what they seem to be like. My major is here business (in Finland I study in Turku School of Economics). The Cau business courses are competitive and you had to be very quick when registering (at 4am in Finland may I add). Exchange students got to register before the regular students, but there were limitations on how many exchange students can fit to a certain course. The recommendation is 5 courses per semester, which equals 15 credits and the limit is 19 credits. I chose a couple business courses and a few general education courses that I thought could be a good fit to my major and department.



About the timetable: the classes are usually 3 x 50 minutes once a week, with the exception of some 75 minute classes once or twice a week. I have Monday free and on Tuesday I only have one 75 minute class, but Wednesday, Thursday and Friday are longer days with the earlier classes, free periods in the middle and then the classes continuing until 17:30.




My courses are:

Business Communication

This course is kind of a basic course about writing different things in English and also about discussing things together in class. I don't know how much of this is actually new compared to the courses I've already taken in Finland but let's see. I don't think I am keeping the course though if I'm not able to include at least some of the credits to my degree. Many assignments through the semester but no exams.

Korean History & Culture

The professor in this course seems fun, he was really impressed about me being from Finland :D He also stated that the classroom we were in was "bullshitty" (it really was), so from now on the class is in the nice new business school -building. Seems like an interesting course, from what I've browsed the materials.

Korean and Global Business

I like this course a lot actually, a lot of interesting information about the history of Korean economy and politics, the professor is 80 years old (!!) and has studied in The US and taught in universities all around Asia. A loot of reading to do for each lesson though, but not so many assignments - only two essays and a final exam.

Organizational Behavior

This course seems very interesting. I think it shows the difference between Finnish and Korean culture very well, since majority of the students are from Korea, and also seems to be kind of competitive. For example, on the first lesson we had 10 minutes to prepare a 1 minute presentation in front of the class of 80 students about ourselves. In addition to midterm and final exams, there's a group project and individual assignments coming up, and attendance is closely monitored: 4 absences and you're out, and if you're late from the class twice, it equals one absence. Nice, since my previous class ends only 15 minutes earlier and the transition takes usually at least that. This class is also conveniently on Friday 15-17:30 since the professor wants to ensure high motivation..

Elementary Korean

I've only had an introductory class on this course, but it seems like we are starting slow and beginning by properly learning Hangul (the Korean alphabets). On the first lesson we had to once again just introduce ourselves and tell why we want to learn Korean. Few quizzes and a midterm and final exam.

International Relations

This is the only graduate-level course I have here. Yet another professor who has studied in the US, and he seems really excited about his subject. Another very interesting course, and one I think is structured well. There are parts I and II, after which we have a midterm exam, and after that part III, and a final exam. We also have to do an international news summary for each week.


So far all of my courses seem very interesting and I like them, but we'll see if the workload of six courses becomes too much at some point. 

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

Annyeong ha se yo! Hello from Korea! I arrived here today really tired after a long flight but had to get some things for my dormitory room right away (like a pillow, blanket and toilet paper), so me and another exchange student Annika from Germany went to get some food near the university and also took the bus to a small mall nearby :) It was funny to run into familiar H&M and Zara first thing there.
   The food was really good even though at first I didn't know what I was actually eating :D Turns out it was cold noodles and pollack. Good, but quite spicy. Surprise for my tastebuds even though I knew to expect spicy food here.

 

I just love the view from my dorm room! I don't have a roommate yet but I expect to get one tomorrow after the rest of the students arrive. Today was also the first dormitory orientation where we learnt a lot about the rules in here (there are a lot) and different activities. I'm struggling a bit with all the Korean language mixed with English :D Also the Internet/wifi at the dormitory has been a pain in the ass not working most of the time and I really hope it will get fixed soon.
Now I'm super tired after a long day of traveling and exploring new things so it's time to go to sleep!