Tag: jlee4946

By jlee4946

Finals season at Seoul National University has arrived and this is made clear by the lack of seats in the library. Something interesting at SNU is that at the library, there's a machine that you log into with your student ID and reserve a seat on the 6th, 7th, or 8th floor for a certain amount of time.

One thing I've really come to like is that the library is incredibly spacious and has absolutely enormous tables that are big enough that you can spread your stuff out in your designated area even though you're sharing the table with up to 5 other people. There are different types of rooms, such as the reading room where you're not allowed to use your laptop to type (i.e. writing essays, doing research) since even the sound of typing on the keyboard is distracting, the laptop zone equipped with outlets conveniently located at every seat, the multimedia plaza (my favorite place) where there are INDIVIDUAL TVs (or 2-seater seats or even 4-seaters) you can reserve for up to 2.5 hours and an expansive collection of DVDs to rent movies from, the computer lab with computers at every seat, and there is even one of those typical red London phone booths in case you need to take a phone call on every floor.

I've been spending quite some time there because it is such a great study environment. I think people study at cafes a lot here but for some reason I always get distracted and since they play music it's not as easy to focus there as the dead silent library at SNU.

...continue reading "Already finals"

By jlee4946

Something I've realized in Korea is that yes, I am actually here for school.

Being in a new place for such a short amount of time, I feel like there is a lot of pressure. Not only to focus on academics but also making new friends, trying new things, discovering new places, getting to know your "new home" country, something along the lines of trying to make each weekend worth it.

But ultimately, we are at school with classes to take and exams to prepare for.

The exam season is similar to that at GW, where most classes have a midterm and final with homework and assignments and quizzes all in between. Midterm season was at its peak around the 3rd and 4th week of October where it was impossible to find a seat at a cafe to study. An interesting thing to note though was that during the peak of exams, professors typically cancel the class before the exam. So if you have a Monday & Wednesday class with an exam on Wednesday, the Monday class would be cancelled. Maybe this is common practice at GW as well for some, but it was a new concept for me!

Another thing I found interesting was how in the library, if you want to take a study break and leave to get some food, you can trust that no one will take your stuff even if you leave your laptop open and your notes astray. Even if you leave for over an hour, your stuff will remain as you left it. I guess people really respect the mutual suffering they're going through.

...continue reading "Exam Season…"

By jlee4946

This weekend, I took a short trip to Sokcho, a coastal city in the northeastern region of Korea with one of my close friends from GW and one of my new friends from Seoul National University. We went to Seoraksan, one of Korea's most beautiful mountains and National Parks. It was really incredible since we managed to catch the end of the leaves falling and changing colors.

Seeing the leaves change colors reminded me of my favorite season - fall. But that also made me realize that my time here is already more than halfway over which really made me reflect on how so much has changed since I first got here. When I first arrived, the school organization that matches exchange students and students from SNU into buddy groups sent out the first group calendar filled with events to get to know each other for the month of September.

...continue reading "Change"

By jlee4946

Hi everyone! So this week is actually a really long break in Korea because of 추석 (Chuseok), Korean Thanksgiving. So while the holiday is technically 10/3-6, 10/2 is a Monday so the government made Monday a holiday, and then 10/9 is 한글날 (Hangeul Day) to honor the creation of the written Korean language. Therefore, basically Koreans have 10 days of vacations that started Saturday, and I took advantage and am currently in Hanoi, Vietnam! But here are some of my favorite Korean foods that I'm excited to eat for the rest of the semester:

• Fish cake (오뎅): for me, it's not necessarily the fish cake itself, but more of the environment of standing around the street food cart eating fish cake off the skewers, drinking the soup and conversing with the cute lady in charge of the cart. It's probably one of the things I was looking forward to the most about being in Korea and I wanted to wait until wintertime when it's really cold but gave in 2 weeks into my time here.

• Spicy rice cake (떡볶이): this is a dish that is served as street food as well as in proper restaurants. The first 떡볶이 I had in Korea was from this little restaurant next to my aunt's apartment complex and even though I'd had 떡볶이 hundreds of times over, nothing can quite beat the 떡볶이 in its takeaway box (other than my mom's).

• Korean sausage (순대): this is another dish that is often served on the streets and if you couldn't tell, I really really like street food. 순대 is basically a Korean sausage stuffed with various ingredients such as vermicelli noodles. It's definitely less meaty than American sausages and hits the spot when looking for a midnight snack.

...continue reading "5 Food Favorites from Korea!"