Korean,Coffee!,Seoul Tower,Soccer.

First Classes in Korean

Last Wednesday I had my first classes in Korean, we got introduced with Hangul writing and pronunciation! Which was quite hard especially the first day. As they for example know 3 types of K , and the First one is pronounced a bit as a dutch g/k the second one is a dutch k sound but a bit more aspirated and the third one is a which is a double k is the first one stressed and more a hard k but then cut short. Looks very easy doesn't it? There is a real difference, but sometimes it is difficult to hear. The teacher is really nice and to get the pronunciation right she sometimes makes these funny faces. Every single day we have homework which is quite a lot as of course I am not yet fluent in Korean so these exercises which would take a Korean perhaps 10 minutes will take me 2/3 hours to complete, furthermore I am not doing things extra slow on purpose, may that be very clear! The first days were all about learning the Hangul alphabet and the combinations of characters, as they stack them in a certain order, for example Which Means Dog (dutch Pronunciation Ké/Ke) Consists of + (k+ea) and for example Wich is kong, this means ball/globe/zero Consists of , and or k + o + ng and there are some more rules which are for example with the means nothing, so only as the bottom letter of a character it means ng. I hope you are still with me after my technical explanation of the Hangul. Furthermore the teacher here works with stars after you have completed your homework in a good way, this may sound very childish, but it works, to be very honest I want 3 stars for every time I do my homework! 1 star is not so good, 2 stars is okay and 3 stars is perfect. Until now I only had 3 stars. Next to star stickers for doing your homework you can also get other stickers for participation in class!
So after a nice 3 days of Korean class it was weekend! Time to, make homework.... and do some fun things :-)

Coffee!

But before it was weekend we still had to go to the bank to open a bank account. Because if we don't get a bank account we (the other people that are here on a scholarship) can't get the money we deserve. So we had to report to Mr. Maybe at the international office after class and that's when we went to the bank accompanied by an employee of the international office and here we got coffee, real coffee actually. This made me so happy that I just drank 5 espresso's because this was the first coffee I had in Korea which actually contained caffeine. So I will visit the bank some more when I want good coffee. Furthermore the bank is especially for University students or something... I don't know why but I have learned not to question everything here in Korea. After having to fill out forms at the bank,not paying anything :-), drinking a few espresso's and getting instruction from the bank staff about how to use the card we finally got our card, funny thing is we got a booklet with it which contains the swift code of the account which with all 4 our us ends with SEXXX and the account is called a "Rockstar zone" another thing that's a "Only in Korea" But it is all from KB bank a trusted bank in Korea. So no worries there. After our good and a bit funny adventure at the bank we had to go to the international office again and make a copy of our bank booklet so that when Dankook University gets the money from the Korean government they can wire it to our bank account. When this will be is still a mystery since Mr. Maybe is in charge of this whole affair.

Seoul Tower!

The Saturday I went to a part of Seoul which is 80 minutes by subway from my school. To meet up with Ga Hee Wo, Spanish name Gabriella as I later found out and we went for a walk trough Seoul which was very very crowded at Saturday but we went for a walk next to this channel in the middle of Seoul which is a very nice place to be and where also the locals go to from time to time. So after the walk we went into the neighborhood to eat something and we came across this place which made porridge and decided to eat there which was a very good choice, I had a sweet potato porridge which was very purple but tasted very good though! So after this nice lunch we went to search for the route to Seoul Tower, after going up some steps we went the wrong way, but luckily Ga Hee is Korean and she could ask for the way up to Seoul Tower. so after a hard climb for 262 meters we finally reached the top, the climb was especially heavy because it was such a warm day Saturday and very humid. But it was absolutely worth it, especially for beautiful, romantic view over Seoul. Furthermore at the top there are fences with (a lot of) locks which are being put up there by couples and then they are supposed to throw away the key for everlasting love. After seeing a lot of these locks we decided to go to the observatory in Seoul tower which gave these fantastic views over Seoul especially as the sun came trough a bit and one had a really nice view over the Han river, though when I saw the sign with Amsterdam 8 thousand and something kilometers I couldn't help to feel a little homesick. After having spent quite some time in the observatory we decided to go and make the descent from the tower back to one of the many neighborhoods of Seoul. And finally down the hill we went for a coffee and some nice street food in Seoul and then it was already evening and so time to say goodbye and go back to the university. So when I finally got to Jukjeon Station (the station closest to Dankook University) I decided to walk back to the university which wasn't such a good idea as it turned out. At first it was raining a little bit and I thought to myself if it will be like this all the way it's alright, but then I got to this part where I couldn't take cover and it started raining like you would turn on the shower at full whack... So as we the dutch saying goes, I looked like a drowned cat. when I got back to the dorm, so the security guard took the opportunity to laugh at me, so I took the opportunity to very kindly curse at the man in my politest Dutch ;-) what goes around comes around of course!

Soccer!

So after a good night sleep I spent the whole Sunday on my homework, well the whole Sunday? No, not the whole Sunday when I just finished my homework an other Exchange student Paulo asked me to go and play soccer and so we did, we went to the church near Ori Station where we got stacked in a van with some Korean guys a mixture of young and old and we went to play in a small stadium which was actually used at the 1988 Olympics in Seoul as a training facility, it had artificial grass, like I guess a lot of stadiums in Seoul and we played for 3 times 90 minutes, not being used to sprinting a lot (especially not in these temperatures) I was quit tired after the 3 matches, 1 of them won, 1 lost and 1 a draw, and I had 2 good chances on goal. After the match of soccer they insisted on is going to dinner with them and so we did, in a Korean restaurant (I really love Korean food now) and we had dinner and a conversation, I spoke in German with one Korean guy because he had studied in Germany for 2 years and his German was better then his English. So after dinner we had to go back to Dankook university and one of the players (a 25 year old guy) brought us to the university in his privately owned car, a BMW M5... He told us before that he worked in a clothing shop... not that he was the actual CEO of an Online Clothing shop...