tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-26511538518368191782024-03-28T11:54:01.120+09:00Far far away in KoreaMy experiences in Korea: the good, the bad and the weirdTehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.comBlogger38125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-1759628377234933192016-11-14T14:22:00.001+09:002016-11-14T14:22:20.174+09:00Getting a driver's license in Korea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Last week I got my very own Korean driver's license - yay! So excited. :D<br />
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Thanks to a new Canadian friend I met a couple of months ago, I was introduced to this place called Multicultural Family Support Center. I didn't even know there was such a place in Jeonju. But it's really great. The people there are really nice and helpful, and they offer several different types of classes, like language, music, arts and crafts classes etc., and most of them are free. They even offer a driver's license class to help you get a driver's license.</div>
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Of course getting a driver's license can't be entirely free. But the class they offered was free, meaning we got free books and free lessons for about a month to help us pass the written exam. They also provided us with all the information and all the documents we needed, which made everything so easy. Of course you can easily get a driver's license on your own if you look up all the information online, but it was just so much easier and more comfortable this way. :)</div>
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THEE TYPES OF EXAMS:<br />
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1. WRITTEN EXAM<br />
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So the first thing you need to do is pass the written exam. Luckily the written exam is available in several different languages, so you can take it in English, Russian, Vietnamese, Chinese, Japanese etc. I originally wanted to take it in Korean, because I also wanted to learn all the vocabulary at the same time. But I ended up not having enough time for that, since my family was visiting me for about 3 weeks. So I just took it in English. The book (which we got for free from the center, but otherwise costs about 10dollars) contains all 700 questions and answers. Out of these you get 40 on the exam:</div>
22 questions with 1 correct answer (22x 2points = 44points)<br />
17 questions with 2 correct answers (17x 3points = 51points)<br />
1 video question (1x 5points = 5points)<br />
You then need at least 60 points out of 100 to pass the exam.<br />
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It took me about 3~4 days to study. What I did was, I just tried answering all the question to see how many I already knew. Luckily most of the questions are pretty logical, so you can solve them correctly if you just think about it a bit. I marked all the questions that I got wrong and after finishing all the 700 questions I went back to the ones I got wrong the first time, which was around 125. I tried solving those again and still ended up with around 40 of them wrong. Then I just wrote the questions and answers of those 40 down on a piece of paper and just learned those. This method seems to work, 'cause I ended up getting 100 points on my written exam. :)</div>
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Actually before taking the written exam, you need to get your eyes checked at a hospital. It takes less than 5 minutes and costs less than 10 dollars.</div>
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After you're done with that, you go to a driving school.<br />
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There you first need to take 5 hours of traffic safety education class. I didn't realized I was supposed to listen to the whole 5 hours on the same day and didn't bring any food with me. Luckily the driving school provided us with big bowls of ramyeon (Korean cup noodles) during a break time. :) Well I must say the driving school I went to was really nice. They also gave us ramyeon before the exam. :) The instructors there were all really nice too and even though the school was located quite far from where I live, they had a shuttle bus pick us up every morning. :)</div>
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2. DRIVING COURSE EXAM<br />
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After that it's time for a driving course test. You only spend 2 hours of driving on the school's driving course. After that you immediately get a driving course test. Which is super easy. You have to sit in a car by yourself and do exactly as the computer tells you. For example:</div>
-turn on the engine within the next 10 seconds<br />
-turn on the left blinker within the next 5 seconds<br />
-turn on the wipers within the next 5 seconds<br />
And so on. Really super easy. I don't even know how anyone can fail that test.<br />
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3.ON-ROAD DRIVING EXAM<br />
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Finally it's time to get on a road. I was really excited, although at the same time a bit scared. I wasn't sure if I was ready to get on the road, after only 2 hours of practice on the driving course. But I trusted my instructor. There are 4 possible courses you can get on the final exam and you only get to practice driving on those 4 courses. </div>
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The minimum is 6 hours of practice driving before taking the exam. I had 2 hours of Monday, 2 hours on Tuesday and 2 hours on Wednesday morning. And I already had an exam on Wednesday afternoon. I really wasn't too confident, because 6 hours just doesn't seem enough. But I guess it's enough for those 4 courses.</div>
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There's a special instructor for the exam. And the whole exam and scores are recorded on this special tablet. When you're ready, you click where it says 'course' and the computer picks a random course for you. I got course B.</div>
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There are 4 available courses at that driving school. A, B and E are kind of similar. But the last U-turn on the E course is different, 'cause there's no special green traffic signal to turn left. I didn't like this course and was hoping to get course C. Surprisingly everyone else seemed to hate course C. I guess 'cause it's different. But I liked that there was only one U-turn on that course. I really don't like U-turns.</div>
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Anyway I got a B course. You start with 100 points and then keep getting minus points for when you make mistakes. You need at lest 70 points to pass. I passed with 84 points - yay! :D</div>
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Since all is done thought a computer, the results are sent to the police station right away and my driver's license was waiting for me at the driving school the next day already.</div>
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Here it is - yay. ^^<br />
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However, I am still not confident enough to drive on the road by myself yet. I will practice for a while with my husband, before I start driving on my own. But first, he needs to teach me how to park. :D I don't think I can go anywhere before I know how to park. :D</div>
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So basically, getting a driver's license in Korea is super easy. But that also kind of worries me. I mean, 6 hours of practice driving is just not enough, is it? No wonder so many Koreans drive like complete maniacs (I don't mean to be rude, but it's kind of true). I know that back in my country, people get around 20 practice hours on average, which also includes driving at night, on the highway etc. Nothing like that here, just 4 set courses. </div>
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Korea is going to make some changes about getting a driver's license at the end of December 2016. Which is also one of the reasons the center encouraged us to pass the exam as soon as possible. I really hope they make it a bit more difficult.</div>
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It was also not very expensive. I paid around 400 dollars at the driving school. Another 7 for written exam, 7 for medical check up. And I think about 20 dollars for getting my driver's license issued. So still less than 450 dollars all together. Compared to Europe, that's really not expensive, right?. Unless you fail. Then it can get expensive. Because every time you fail the final exam you need to pay 55 dollars to retake it. Or you can buy more practice hours, if you feel that 6 hours are not enough. Then you pay 30 dollars per extra hour, but of course the cost may be different depending on your driving school.</div>
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Anyway, congratulations to me ;) Oh and speaking of congratulations: the center organized this small "party" at the end of class and gave us all small presents for passing the exam. I actually got 2 presents. I got an extra one for being the only one who passed the written exam with 100 points :D</div>
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I got a cute tumbler and a purple shopping bag. :) Big thanks to the Multicultural Family Support Center in Jeonju. :)</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-47151968055622840462016-01-18T19:32:00.000+09:002016-01-18T19:32:02.148+09:00Pororo and kimchi<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Happy New Year everyone~ or as Koreans say: 새해 복 많이 받으세요~ <i>Saehae bok manhi badeuseyo</i>, which literally means: a lot of luck/fortune in the new year.</div>
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I just realized that my last post was from the hospital, so I hope I didn't make anyone worried. I am still alive and I'm still in Korea. My health is still not at its best, but I am working on improving that. In fact, this is my New Year's resolution for 2016. Starting February I will try out a new diet. I don't mean the kind of diet to lose weight, but to eat healthier by eliminating unhealthy stuff and replacing them with healthier food. And that is why I need a month to do some research and make a plan.</div>
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But I am not going to bore you with all this. Instead, I wanted to share with you something really cute about kimchi that I saw on TV a couple of days ago. I am sure you all know kimchi or have at least heard about it before. (But just in case you haven't: kimchi is a Korean fermented side dish made of vegetables - most commonly cabbage - and seasoning.) I think a post on how to make kimchi would be awesome, but I'll wait with that 'till next year when I go make it together with my boyfriend's mom and aunt. This time it's about Pororo and the health benefits of kimchi.</div>
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Korean TV, same as in most countries, has tons of programs, but mostly nothing to watch. Therefore, sometimes I end up watching some kids' programs, such as Secret Juju, Pororo, Larva or Black rubber shoes, which are probably my favorite Korean animations. Out of this Pororo is probably the most famous and the most popular among children. There are tons of Pororo merchandise to choose from and even our last Christmas cake was a Pororo cake.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our Pororo Christmas cake</td></tr>
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Pororo is this cute penguin wearing glasses that has many good friends. One of his friends, called Loopy, also happens to be a good cook and in this special program of Pororo, she tells us, how kimchi is really good for digestion. And kimchi really is good for digestion, because it is a great source of probiotics. I guess this is why Koreans try to teach their children from a very young age to eat kimchi. Kimchi comes as a side dish to pretty much every meal, but it can be a bit too spicy for children. However, it can also be added as an ingredient to other dishes, for example<i> kimchi</i> or <i>chamchi jjigae</i> (kimchi or tuna stew), <i>bokkeumbap</i> (fried rice), <i>buchimgae</i> (Korean style pancake) and many more and this way it doesn't taste too spicy. <i>Kimchi buchimgae</i> (kimchi pancake) is the one that also appears in the Pororo animation.</div>
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Let's just get right to it. I'll attach a link to both the English and the Korean version of it. Some of you might be learning Korean, so this could be a good practice for you. My mom and my sister were so excited about Korea when they visited in summer, that they both started learning the language as soon as they got back home. And to help them with their study I will include a transcript of the Korean version at the bottom of this post. Just ignore it, if you're not interested. ^^</div>
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English version</div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/NgZ072T9Xfo/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NgZ072T9Xfo?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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Korean version </div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/-65tviOug5Q/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/-65tviOug5Q?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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Isn't this cute? So next time you can't make <i>eunga </i>(poo ^^) in the toilet, try eating some kimchi. ^^ Korea has so much delicious food, that something like this can easily happen. I remember this one time I went to Mr.Pizza with some friends and I ate way too much. I ended up tossing and turning all night, because I was so full. Just like Crong :D</div>
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My sister loved kimchi. And even though I've written about this before, she obviously forgot that Koreans usually share food. Especially side dishes. That means that the kimchi in the middle of the table is for everyone. Instead, my sister pulled the plate with kimchi to herself, thinking it came along with her <i>bibimbap</i> and ate the whole thing herself. Well to her defense, the lady working there really brought it to the table at the same time as her <i>bibimbap</i>. Anyway, it was kind of funny. ^^</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nSVrZvJfRs0/Vpy8BV6YVdI/AAAAAAAAC-U/FoBj2Z5dfB8/s1600/DSCN0706.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-nSVrZvJfRs0/Vpy8BV6YVdI/AAAAAAAAC-U/FoBj2Z5dfB8/s320/DSCN0706.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Here's my sister with all the <i>kimchi</i> right in front of her, before she pulled it even closer :)</td></tr>
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I think that's it for now. I wish you all a very healthy New Year. Try some delicious kimchi or at least eat some other types of veggies or some delicious fruit that is good for you~ ^^</div>
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Transcript of the Korean version as promised:<br />
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뽀로로와 크롱이 에디의 집에 놀러 왔어요. Pororo and Crong came to hang out at Eddy's house.<br />
짠! Ta-da.<br />
이게 뭐야? What's this?<br />
잘 봐~ Watch closely.<br />
와! 피자잖아! It's a pizza!<br />
우와~ 맛있어! wow, it's delicious!<br />
뭐? 피자로봇을 빌려달라고? What? You want to borrow the pizza robot?<br />
좋아! 대신 망가뜨리면 안돼. Okay. But don't break it.<br />
어느덧 저녁이 됐어요. Just like that, it's now evening.<br />
크롱. 하루 종일 피자만 먹으면 어떡해~ Crong, you've been eating pizza all day!<br />
으휴.. Oh dear.<br />
저런...응가가 나오지 않았어요. Oh my. There's nothing in the toilet.<br />
어어...이게 무슨 소리지? Oh... what's that sound?<br />
크롱, 잠 좀 자자! 제발! Crong, let me get some sleep! Please!<br />
아침이 밝았어요. Morning has dawned. <br />
얘들아 안녕? 응? Hi guys! Uh?<br />
그런데 크롱이 아직도 응가를 누지 못했나 봐요. But it looks like Crong still hasn't been able to go to the bathroom.<br />
무슨일 있었어? What's wrong?<br />
어제 한 숨도 못 잤어. 크롱이 밤새 응가도 못 누고 끙끙대는 바람에.. I couldn't sleep a wink last night. Because Crong couldn't go to the bathroom all night.<br />
정말? 괜찮아 크롱? Really? Are you okay, Crong?<br />
아하~ 기름진 음식만 잔뜩 먹어서 변비에 걸렸구나? Ah, he's constipated because he ate too much greasy food.<br />
어떡하지? What should we do?<br />
김치를 먹으면 좋은데.. It would be good to eat some kimchi.<br />
피자 말곤 딴 건 쳐다도 안 본다니까.. He won't eat anything except for pizza...<br />
아! 내게 좋은 방법이 있지! Oh. I have a good idea.<br />
요리조리 요리공주~ 루피~
맛있는 요리, 영양 많은 조리!
요리조리 요리공주 루피~ Yummy yummy cooking princess Loopy. <br />
오늘은 무슨 요리일까요? What is today's dish?<br />
짜잔~ 이걸 먹어봐 크롱..... Ta'da~ try this, Crong!<br />
어디.. Let's see.<br />
오홋! 김치 맛이 나는 것 같은데~ Oh~ it kind of tastes like kimchi.<br />
그건 바로, 김치부침개야. That's a kimchi pancake.<br />
아! 크롱이 응가가 마렵나봐요~! Oh, it looks like Crong needs to go to the bathroom.<br />
드디어 응가가 나왔군요! Finally something has come out.<br />
잘됐어! You did it!<br />
당장 로봇을 돌려주자고? You want to return the robot right away?<br />
크롱과 친구들은 피자로봇을 가지고 에디의 집에 갔습니다. Crong and friends are took the pizza robot back to Eddy's house.<br />
그러게 적당히 먹었어야지. You should have eaten in moderation.<br />
당분간은 김치부침개를 먹게 하려고.. For now we're going to give him kimchi pancakes.<br />
그래? 아! 그럼 이렇게 하는 건 어때? Really? Oh. Then what if we do this?<br />
피자 로봇이 김치부침개 로봇으로 바뀌었네요. The pizza robot has been transformed into a kimchi pancake robot.<br />
맛있겠다! It looks delicious!<br />
먹어볼까? Let's try it.<br />
크롱! 너 거기 서! Crong! Stop right there.<br />
크롱이 김치부침개를 정말 좋아하는군요! It seem lpoks like Crong really likes kimchi pancakes.<br />
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-88249786616013433262015-10-28T11:06:00.002+09:002015-10-28T11:06:41.202+09:00My Korean hospital experience<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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That was definitely something that I didn't want to experience... but there was no other way.</div>
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A week ago Saturday my boyfriend and I were at home eating crepes with chocolate cream and bananas for dinner. We were planning to go see LED lights at night on a hill not far away, but I suddenly got a stomachache. I thought it was something I ate and I just figured it would get better after a while, but it only got worse. My boyfriend told me immediately to go see a doctor, but I really was sure I'd be fine. At some point it got so painful that I didn't know what to do anymore. I called my mom and she too told me to go to the hospital. So finally I did.</div>
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It was past 10pm so we had to go to the emergency room. The doctor there was luckily a specialist for this kind of problems. So after checking my stomach it seemed he knew right away what was wrong with me. He was talking to my boyfriend and I couldn't really pay full attention, but I suddenly heard them talk about some surgery and I freaked out.</div>
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I suddenly remembered all the Facebook posts and different blogs from foreigners in Korea, complaining about Korean doctors. Everyone was looking for English speaking doctors who were used to foreigners, complaining that most Korean doctors would only talk to the husband and almost ignore the wife. Suddenly I thought that's what was happening to me: the doctor's talking to my boyfriend about surgery and I have no idea what's going on. >.<</div>
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But luckily that wasn't the case. The doctor wasn't ignoring me or anything like that, I just really was in no condition to be talked to. I was in way too much pain.</div>
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They sent me to get an x-ray and CT scan. And CT scan was the most awful thing ever. You just have to lie there still for about 10 to 15 minutes. But I really wasn't able to do that with such a pain in my stomach. My whole body was shaking like crazy....</div>
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After the doctor confirmed I had what he thought I had, he pushed a tube through my nose into my stomach. I told him I was going to throw up, thinking that he or someone else would bring me something to throw up into, but he was just "yes, throw up, that's good!", so I threw up all over myself and my doctor's and my boyfriend's hands.</div>
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After that I finally felt a bit better and the doctor explained everything to me. I had an intestine blockage called ILEUS. Apparently this sometimes happens to people who previously had surgeries in their abdomen area. By inserting a tube through my nose they were able to remove all the gases out, but they told me I'd have to stay in the hospital for a couple of days and that I wasn't allowed to eat or drink anything. </div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HtOKyRg-sq4/VjAtTVPcfWI/AAAAAAAAC5E/2-DD1pPuZls/s1600/hospital1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HtOKyRg-sq4/VjAtTVPcfWI/AAAAAAAAC5E/2-DD1pPuZls/s320/hospital1.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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They moved me upstairs to the fourth floor in a room with 6 beds. My boyfriend said he'd stay with me and I was so happy to hear that. That of course wouldn't be possible in my country where family and friends are only allowed to visit during visiting hours. But here, they can stay with you for as long as they want. Under each bed there is a small sleeping surface you can pull out and someone can sleep on. But the bed next to mine was unoccupied so my boyfriend just slept there. It is terrible enough to be in a hospital, but to be in a hospital in another country so far away from home is even worse. That's why I was so happy to have my boyfriend with me the whole time. But at the same time I remembered MERS and I understood how that can be a problem. In Korea it is a custom that when someone is in the hospital all the relatives and friends come visit you. But that can also be really dangerous in cases like mers. And it can also be just a bit uncomfortable.</div>
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My boyfriend's parents came to see me on Sunday morning. My boyfriend got scared when he heard about the possibility of surgery so he called his mom and told her. I was really in a terrible shape in the morning when they arrived and even though I was happy to see that they were worried about me, it was at the same time a bit uncomfortable. I looked awful and I felt awful... My boyfriend's aunt and uncle were also worried and wanted to come see me, but my boyfriend told them not to come. He was worried that I might be too uncomfortable. I guess that's also why he didn't tell his friends until I got out of the hospital.</div>
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I thew up a couple times on Sunday and had a terrible diarrhea, but in the evening I started feeling a tiny bit better. The doctor came to see me like he promised he would. He was really nice I must say. On Monday I had some more x-rays and I was told the surgery wasn't necessary. I was so happy to hear that. Finally on Monday I was allowed to drink water and it tasted so good! ^^ For lunch I was told to try eat a little bit of juk, which is Korean rice porridge and is usually eaten when someone has been ill or had digestions problems.</div>
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I was a bit worried that the grandma's in our room might feel
uncomfortable because of my boyfriend in a room. But one morning when we
woke up there was a huge wasp or a hornet in our room and we all
freaked out. Then my boyfriend threw a blanket over it and took it
outside, even though I'm sure he was scared too :) At that point all the
grandma's were saying how lucky they were to have a guy a in a room. :) </div>
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On Tuesday I was allowed to go home. ^^ I stayed on soft food for another couple of days just to be sure. Now I'm trying to change my eating styles a bit. I should eat a little bit many times a day, instead of a lot at once. I'm also learning how to chew ;) It's hard when you're used to eating really really fast, but I'll learn.</div>
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Even though my experience in a hospital was quite painful and I wouldn't want to go through it ever again... the doctors and nurses were all really nice to me. I've seen many doctors before for a cold or bladder infection or something, but I'd never stayed at a Korean hospital before. I always go to a regular hospital where people speak Korean, rather than search for English speaking doctors which are usually more expensive. And the doctors are always really nice to me and explain everything to me. But I'm pretty fluent in Korean, so maybe that's why I have no complaints. But in any case, I hope I don't have to go back to the hospital ever again or at least any time soon.</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-357866970188425692015-09-10T17:57:00.001+09:002015-09-10T17:57:29.511+09:00Summer highlights<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Korean summers are way too hot and humid to do anything... even to write a blog :P Well, almost ;) I can't believe I haven't posted anything in three months or so... But I've actually been a bit busy. Here are some of the best things that happened this summer:</div>
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FAMILY VACATION IN KOREA</div>
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The best thing thing that happened this summer was my mom and my sister visiting me in Korea! :) So I spent a lot of time preparing things for their vacation: finding accommodations, making a schedule of things to do and things to see etc. </div>
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They were here for about 2 weeks and we really got to see a lot: Seoul, Jeonju, Busan, Daegu, Yeosu, Gunsan, Boryeong... But I'll write more about our vacation in the next couple of posts, so check back again soon ;)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LIwF9bU8Upk/VfEfNv2QDxI/AAAAAAAAC38/5pq992fo95Y/s1600/koreavacation1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="275" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-LIwF9bU8Upk/VfEfNv2QDxI/AAAAAAAAC38/5pq992fo95Y/s400/koreavacation1.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">With my mom and my sister at Namsan Tower, Seoul</td></tr>
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MY BROTHER'S WEDDING<br />
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My brother got married! :D Well, actually I just realized that maybe this should be the best thing that happened this summer. It's just that unfortunately I was unable to go to Slovenia for the wedding :( But at least I got to see some of the wedding through skype - thanks to technology ;) Of course it's not the same as being there, but it's better than nothing.</div>
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It was actually kind of funny. My brother set a computer there for us to see the wedding through skype. We didn't see the ceremony well, but at least we heard it clearly. :) I really liked their whole wedding style. It was so simple and yet so beautiful. Nothing too over the top. Completely different from typical Korean weddings. I'd also like something similar for when I get married. :)<br />After the ceremony we didn't see much. They were busy having a proper wedding celebration with food, music etc. :) But we stayed tuned a bit longer just to look at people. It was quite funny and we even noticed a guy with a hole in his vest :D</div>
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My brother and his bride also hired a professional photographer and the wedding photos looked amazing! I'll ask him if it's ok to post one or two on my blog as soon as he wakes up - time difference ;) </div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pp0VbVHx84E/VfFBVuzSAvI/AAAAAAAAC4M/9CwUv51lNRM/s1600/korvac4.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pp0VbVHx84E/VfFBVuzSAvI/AAAAAAAAC4M/9CwUv51lNRM/s320/korvac4.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The guy with a hole in his vest</td></tr>
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SUMMER ON THE BEACH<br />
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There is no real summer without a day on the beach :) We went twice this year. Once together with my mom and my sister in Boryeong, and once to Busan, just the two of us.</div>
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Busan is quite far away, but we wanted to go there, because that's where we went for our second date about a year and a half ago. We wanted to try the burgers that we remember as the best burgers ever. We wanted to try them again and see if they're really that amazing or if it was just because we were so happy getting to know each other and falling in love. :) Well the burgers really are good. But the restaurant has changed a bit since our last time there and I think we ate something different back then.</div>
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Anyway, both times at the beach were fun. My boyfriend bought an extra beach tent and mat for my mom and sister :) The water was amazing in Boryeong, but really dirty in Busan. I was so disappointed. The beaches there look amazing, but the water was just full of trash. :( But we had lots of fun anyway. We just have to remember to use more sunscreen next time. My boyfriend and I were all red and some of our skin peeled off - yuck. But we're all better now. :)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6gj5T4iRzi8/VfFBf7PBdgI/AAAAAAAAC4Y/QdEp1PWvJFQ/s1600/korvac2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6gj5T4iRzi8/VfFBf7PBdgI/AAAAAAAAC4Y/QdEp1PWvJFQ/s320/korvac2.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Thursday Party's burger</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0VgkYWGaqYo/VfFBf9gpO0I/AAAAAAAAC4U/Bv763QHWSsE/s1600/korvac3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0VgkYWGaqYo/VfFBf9gpO0I/AAAAAAAAC4U/Bv763QHWSsE/s320/korvac3.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">View from our beach tent</td></tr>
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MY NEW BIKE<br />
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My boyfriend bought me a bicycle - yay! :D I don't have a car and I can't drive anyway. So I take public transportation, but there's no bus to get to the post office or super market, so I have to walk. And it takes about 15-20mins to the supermarket and about half an hour to the post office. So I thought it would be great to have a bicycle. I talked about this with my boyfriend a year ago already, but he thought it would be too dangerous. Well, Koreans really drive like crazy, so I can understand that he's worried. But this year he bought me one anyway! Of course I had to promise to drive slowly and carefully ^^ And it's such a pretty one too. It's teal and has a basket, and even seven gears - it's perfect. ^^</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1yfrNdm6UmQ/VfFBx_4hArI/AAAAAAAAC4k/4-idiFaCKnI/s1600/korvac1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1yfrNdm6UmQ/VfFBx_4hArI/AAAAAAAAC4k/4-idiFaCKnI/s320/korvac1.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My precious :)</td></tr>
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Anyway, this summer was great! And now I can't wait for the weather to get a bit cooler. It's the middle of September already and it's still almost 30<span class="st">°C outside. But at least it cools down at night, so I can finally sleep again. :) </span></div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-20133014842230447762015-05-27T13:35:00.000+09:002015-05-27T13:41:10.916+09:00A trip to Yeosu<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last weekend my boyfriend and I were celebrating our 1 year anniversary and therefore decided to take a trip to Yeosu. We went there together last summer and decided to visit it again. There's a train going from Jeonju to Yeosu, so my boyfriend didn't have to drive. We wanted to take the KTX, which is the fastest train in Korea. But there was no KTX going to Yeosu at that time, so we had to take Saemaul train instead.</div>
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In Korea, there are three main types of trains. The fastest (and the most expensive) is KTX. Next is Saemaul, a bit cheaper and slower than KTX. Third, the slowest and cheapest is Mugunghwa. We took the Saemaul and I think my boyfriend even paid a bit more so we would get more comfortable seats, but we ended up getting the worst seats ever. I have never had a more uncomfortable seat, even on Mugunghwa. It was one of those seats with a table, so we had to face another couple the whole time. And the seats were so weird, so hard and uncomfortable... I can't even explain, the back of the chair had a 90 degree angle, so you couldn't possible sit like that for two hours.</div>
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After a couple of stops a lot of people got off, so we moved to a 'normal' seat. The seats on Saemaul are nothing special, but compared to what we had before, they felt amazing. After about an hour and 45minutes we arrived to Yeosu. Yeosu is a city located in Southern Coast of Korea and is famous for hosting Worl Expo in 2012.</div>
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Last time we took a two day trip there, so we had time to visit downtown area as well, but this time we decided to stay at the Expo area and see the things we skipped last time. There is a huge aquarium in the Expo area, but it is rather expensive (as most aquariums are) and we went there last time, so we didn't go there again. </div>
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Instead, there was this Shark exhibition and we decided to check it out. There were many people at the ticket office, but apparently most of them confused the exhibition for the Aquarium, so the woman stepped out from the ticket booth and yelled out loud that this was not Aquarium and that there were not life fish inside. The exhibition hall was almost empty, but that was even better for us. And we didn't expect much, but we were positively surprised. There were displays of different types of sharks and other sea animals and I thought it was really well made.</div>
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There were also different activities for the kids - of course we had to try them all out too. :) For example, they had stamps with sea animals on them, basketball with sea creatures written on the balls. You probably had to check what sea creature it was and then throw the ball in the right basket, but we didn't go in such details. :P There was also origami and as you can see from the photo, my boyfriend made a nice fish. I on the other hand didn't do so well and just gave up... </div>
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There were also this 'slippery' fish that you had to try and catch with your hands. There was one kid that was pretty good at it. My boyfriend and I were too afraid to even touch them. Well I had to touch one because I lost at the rock-scissor-paper game to my boyfriend. And there were those 'doctor fish' that eat the skin. I find it rather scary, but I eventually managed to keep my hand in there for a while.</div>
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After the Shark exhibition we saw a man dressed as a teddy bear and went to see what was going on. It was a teddy bear museum and since the price was 50% off that day, we went to look inside. It was quite cool. Hundreds of teddy bears in different themes. There was a dinosaur theme, American theme etc. It was nice.</div>
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Then we went to another hall to see another exhibition. I don't even remember the title, it was different stuff about pollution and oceans. It really wasn't all that interesting. There was also a 4D movie, but you had to wait for more than an hour to see it, so we skipped that.</div>
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The whole Expo Area is quite big and if you're a smoker, then you should know that the whole place is non-smoking. So you have to actually leave the area, go outside the gates near the road if you want to smoke. My boyfriend was a bit annoyed about that. :)</div>
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After that I wanted to visit the Odongdo Island again. It is this beautiful island with more than 70 different species of wildflowers and with a small lighthouse on top. We visited it last time and I loved it so much. I really recommend you to visit it, if you're ever in Yeosu. </div>
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But if you do go there, DON'T take the red train to take you there. There's this small red train that takes you from the main entrance of Expo Area to the Odongo Island. We probably waited for about 30 minutes for that train and so did about 30 other people. But when it finally arrived, it was FULL and only about 5 or 6 people got off the train. Meaning that the other 25 people there just wasted their time waiting for it, including my boyfriend and I. The whole things was a total BS. My boyfriend even called the person on the train to ask where we could get on, and the guy told him it was only possible at the main entrance. If that was true, then why wouldn't people get off the train. It made no sense at all.</div>
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We were fairy upset with the whole thing. It is much better to walk. It is really not that far anyway and it's less than a 30 minute walk to the island, but there was no way we could have known. We'd already lost so much time, it was hot and my boyfriend complain that his legs hurt, so we didn't go to the island after all. Instead we found ourselves a nice bench next to the sea, where there were almost no people around. We took a short nap, enjoyed the view and just relaxed. ^^ I wanted to walk more, but my boyfriend hasn't completely recovered from the cold yet and I know his legs hurt lately because of work. And resting on that bench near the sea was actually really nice too. ^^</div>
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In the evening we wanted to get some dinner first before getting on the train, but my boyfriend ran out of cigarettes. Since the whole are is non-smoking, the convenience stores also don't sell cigarettes. So we had to walk to the train station to buy some. And since we were at the station already, we went to buy the tickets in advance. And we were so lucky to do that, because we got the last two tickets available. There were only two trains left, A KTX at 9:10pm and a Mugunghwa at 11:40pm. It was only 7:30pm when we arrived at the station and we got the last two tickets for the KTX. I guess sometimes it's not so bad that my boyfriend is a smoker. ;)</div>
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The restaurants also started closing around 8pm, but we still managed to get what we wanted. Well, we wanted tuna, but got chicken instead. It was still quite good though. Then we sat down on a bench and watched the sea-life display while listening to music.</div>
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The ride back was much more comfortable with KTX. Since we got the last tickets we didn't get to sit together. I was in the first car and my boyfriend in the fourth, but a girl who got a seat next to my boyfriend was kind enough to switch places with me. ^^ KTX can go as fast as 300km/h, so it should be almost as fast as Japanese Shinkansen. But the thing is, there are a few stops between Yeosu and Jeonju so it can't go really fast for a long time. We used the gps to check the speed and we went about 200km/h. We arrived home around 11pm. Not everything went as we'd planned, but we had a really nice day anyway. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-77324772907201672572015-05-12T18:29:00.003+09:002015-05-12T18:30:12.152+09:00Everland<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My boyfriend didn't have to work last Saturday, so we decided to visit one of the biggest amusement parks in Korea - Everland.</div>
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This was our second time in Everland. We were there last summer and even though we arrived early in the afternoon the place was really crowded and we had to wait a lot for each ride. That's why we decided to leave a bit earlier this time. Unfortunately, things didn't go quite as we had planned.</div>
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We woke up early enough to go to the car wash first. It takes about 2~3hours to get from Jeonju to Everland so we wanted to be as comfortable as possible. It was a self-service kind of a car-wash and we finished fast. Then we got home, took a shower and were ready to leave by 12 o'clock. But then one of the fuses (or something) died in the car and it took a while to get it changed without the right tools. After my boyfriend finally got that fixed, the car's computer program showed many errors and had to be reprogrammed (or something, I really have no clue about cars). Anyway, you can't do this without special equipment so we had to drive to my boyfriend's father's workshop first. Then it turned out that my boyfriend didn't have the right key with him and we had to wait for the security guard to come and unlock the place for us and then... after all the programming and test drives... it was already almost 3pm. Oh and for some reason, on top of everything, the door to our building got stuck and wouldn't open, so we were kind of locked out for a while... :) And yes, there was a lot of traffic that day too.</div>
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Well, what can you do. It's a long drive and who'd want to have some problems on the way. It's better to be safe than sorry, so... we had no choice. We left around 3pm and there was sooo much traffic that we didn't arrive to Everland before 6pm. It wasn't the way we'd planned it, but since it couldn't have been helped, I tried not to get annoyed and decided to have a great time anyway. ^^</div>
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We bought the night ticket (after 5pm) which is a bit cheaper, but still expensive. With a little bit of a discount it was still 36.000krw per person. But all amusement parks in Korea are rather expensive and this is one of the biggest ones.</div>
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Well, the good thing about arriving so late was that there were really not that many people. Last time we were there we had to park really far away form the actual amusement park and had to take the park bus to the entrance. Which is kind of annoying, 'cause the bus is always crowded and you have to wait for it on the way back too. This time we parked right in front of the entrance. :)</div>
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The park is really big and beautiful, so even if you don't like the rides, you can still have a nice time. Actually, my boyfriend and I aren't really big fans of roller coasters and other scary rides. We always joke that we're like grandma and grandpa when it comes to amusement parks. We look at the ride and check if there are any old people riding it. If we see a grandma or grandpa on it, then it's okay for us. :)</div>
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The first ride we took was this small roller coaster. Not one of the scary ones that turns you up-side-down. A much smaller one, located in the "kids" part of the park. It still looked really scary to us. So as we were waiting in line, I noticed this grandma riding it and just as I said to my boyfriend: "look, that grandma's riding it and she looks... emm... never mind" I was going to say "just fine", but the truth was, she didn't look fine at all. Her face was really pale and she looked terrified. :) But we were too embarrassed to step out of the line filled with kids, so we took the ride anyway. I think we were the loudest... it was so fast... but luckily it was done in like a minute or something. :)</div>
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Then we headed toward the Peter Pan, which we both love. :) But on the way, we saw another ride with almost no people in line, so we decided to check it out. We had no idea what it was, but there were many kids and old people so it couldn't have been anything scary. And it wasn't. It was kind of boring actually. :) It was called a global village and you're basically just watching this Chucky-looking dolls representing different countries of the world. :) I think we'll skip this ride next time. ^^</div>
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Then there was Peter Pan. The lines were not too long, so we never had to wait for more then 20minutes. But for some reason, on almost all the rides that day, there were never enough seats for the two of us. Every time people started to get on the ride and we thought it was our turn too, the person working there said: "till here" just as it was supposed to be our turn, so we had to wait one more round. We were really not lucky that day.<br />
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Then it was time for our favorite ride in the park. A bit scary, but still not too much for us: the magic swing. However my boyfriend wanted to find the smoking area first, which was really far away and it took a while to find it. So before taking a ride, we went to get some burgers. And good thing that we did, because almost all the restaurants closed right after we ordered. I think we were among the last couple of people who still got to order. And while people were still eating, they suddenly turned off the lights, so we were basically eating in the dark. :) It was so weird.<br />
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As we left the burger place, it started to rain. We wanted to get an umbrella, but they were way to expansive, so we didn't buy one. It wasn't raining that much anyway, so we were still able to get on the magic swing and bumper cars. :) And after that we spent a lot of time in the gift shops. We didn't really buy anything, but it was fun just looking around.<br />
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Well, we only got on five rides this time and it was raining a bit... but despite everything we still had lots of fun. ^^ It was a really nice day. Then after a long ride home we arrived around 2:15am and went straight to bed. We were exhausted.</div>
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We said that next time we'll try to leave really early in the morning and stay in the park all day. We'll see if we have more luck next time. ;)</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-32093684883422449112015-04-21T12:53:00.000+09:002015-04-21T12:53:12.464+09:00Registering my new address<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Since I recently moved I had to go and register my new address at the immigration office. I really don't like dealing with this type of things, but now it's all taken care of. When you change your address in Korea, you have to report it at the immigration office within 14 days or you might end up paying a really high fine. Actually, the date on our contract is about 3 weeks old, so I was worried that they might try to charge me something. But really, people don't usually move on the exact date they sign the contract for the new place, do they? And actually, neither did we. Luckily there were no problems at the office.</div>
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The immigration office is located on the opposite part of the city form when I live, so it took me more than an hour to get there by bus, or actually by buses, since I had to transfer too. It's been a while since I took a city bus in Jeonju and I almost forgot how much I hated buses. Not only in Korea, I think it's pretty much the same back in my country. Luckily the only uncomfortable thing this time was when a woman sitting next to me didn't get up or at least move her legs to let me get pass her and exit the bus. I basically had to climb over her which was quite uncomfortable for me since I was wearing a skirt and probably uncomfortable for her as well since my butt was right in her face, but that was really not my fault - better move next time, woman! :P</div>
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Anyway, after an hour long bus ride I finally got to the Immigration office. I've been to Jeonju immigration office twice now and I never had to wait for too long. As opposed to the one in Daegu where no matter what time you arrive, there are always at least 20 people ahead of you. I was the first one in line and I would have finished it all in 5 minutes if... I had some cash with me. :( I left home in a hurry and forgot to get some cash. So I had to leave the office, walk 5 minutes (in the rain) to the nearest bank and get some cash. When I got back to the office, there was already a queue of 5 people so I had to wait for a while. My fault. But finally it was my turn.</div>
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For a registration of a new address you need the following documents:<br />
-an application form (which you can print out from the internet or get at the immigration office)<br />
-your passport<br />
-your alien registration card<br />
-copy of the new contract<br />
-<a href="http://www.google.co.kr/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=2&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CDIQFjAB&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.gimhae.go.kr%2Fservlet%2FFileDownload%3Fpath%3D%2Fupload%2Fportal%2Fpublicdocument%26name%3D%25EA%25B1%25B0%25EC%25A3%25BC%25EC%2588%2599%25EC%2586%258C%25EC%25A0%259C%25EA%25B3%25B5%25ED%2599%2595%25EC%259D%25B8%25EC%2584%259C.hwp&ei=qsI1Ve3bH8XHmwWF-4HoAQ&usg=AFQjCNHgtsGyDMMXSs1JXQ7KI03eN30SrQ&sig2=OqFeBK0tdx6Bx0T9ApJYXg&bvm=bv.91071109,d.dGY" target="_blank">letter of guarantee from the person who singed the contract if the contract isn't signed under your name</a><br />
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There was no problem with my documents, except that there was no more space for a new address on my alien registration card. So I had to pay to get a new one made. It isn't that cheap. It costs 30.000krw and I had to pay for the delivery cost. It should arrive by mail within 2 or 3 weeks. While getting a new one made I should have asked them to change the photo for me, but I didn't think of it, I just wanted to get back home asap. I really look like a ghost on my alien registration card. >.<</div>
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So I'm done and I don't need to worry about this anymore. Our new home is starting to look really nice! Almost all is done now, except for the small room. We need to get a desk and a chair to put in there, some storage boxes for the extra blankets... and I think that's it. ^^ Well, that's it for now, I've got some vacuum cleaning to do. :)</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-31766150249125683892015-04-17T13:19:00.000+09:002015-04-17T13:24:30.854+09:00Spring and cherry blossom ^^<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Finally spring is really here~ it's already the middle of April and it's usually quite warm at this time. But this year it seems to be a bit colder. We also have a lot of rain. Back in my country, April is known as the 'wet month' because of the amount of rain. But here in Korea, April shouldn't be particularly wet. It's June/July when it should rain the most, because of the rainy season. But maybe Slovenian spring followed me to Korea. :)</div>
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Still, last weekend it was really sunny and warm and it would have been a shame not to go out and enjoy the nature a bit. Everything is in bloom and it's also the time for the famous cherry blossom. Cherry blossom usually doesn't last more than two weeks and they started more than a week ago already. However, it's been raining a lot and there's just no fun watching the cherry blossom in the rain. There were a couple of nice warm days last week, but my boyfriend works till late, so we didn't have time till the weekend. I was afraid a lot of it would be gone because of the rain, but luckily it still looked beautiful. ^^ </div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nxMP2okBCM4/VS3iYh_fqJI/AAAAAAAACxg/0gE7jrSdkZY/s1600/cherry9.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nxMP2okBCM4/VS3iYh_fqJI/AAAAAAAACxg/0gE7jrSdkZY/s1600/cherry9.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W1RLmy3yucY/VS3iYs6jglI/AAAAAAAACxk/igOSyBACsUg/s1600/cherry11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-W1RLmy3yucY/VS3iYs6jglI/AAAAAAAACxk/igOSyBACsUg/s1600/cherry11.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a></div>
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There are so many places to see cherry blossom in Korea and a lot of university campuses have them too, so we decided to visit a university in Iksan. Iksan is a small city only about twenty or thirty minutes away from Jeonju and the university we visited is called WonKwang. There were a lot of couples and families with children walking around, sitting on benches and watching cherry blossom.</div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pj3DDngwsl0/VS3iu3f2OOI/AAAAAAAACxw/87pj3i7I0e4/s1600/cherry3.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pj3DDngwsl0/VS3iu3f2OOI/AAAAAAAACxw/87pj3i7I0e4/s1600/cherry3.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3QZ34ePF0ao/VS3ivNmYUuI/AAAAAAAACx0/_wob2aNlpsc/s1600/cherry10.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-3QZ34ePF0ao/VS3ivNmYUuI/AAAAAAAACx0/_wob2aNlpsc/s1600/cherry10.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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I really like how this university has so many benches everywhere. We also walked around a bit, took some photos and then found a nice place to sit beneath the cherry trees. It was so warm, more than 20<span class="st">°C and there was almost no wind either. Every now and then when the wind blew a bit, the white cherry leaves would fly around like snow. It was so nice that we didn't even want to move. I could have fallen asleep right there on that bench. :)</span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iqutFBVB_Fs/VS3jG_YY0LI/AAAAAAAACyI/DRErZ7V1cZw/s1600/cherry2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-iqutFBVB_Fs/VS3jG_YY0LI/AAAAAAAACyI/DRErZ7V1cZw/s1600/cherry2.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aefcqDmZjug/VS3jG4pPTkI/AAAAAAAACyM/fRGEc6lX_9M/s1600/cherry6.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aefcqDmZjug/VS3jG4pPTkI/AAAAAAAACyM/fRGEc6lX_9M/s1600/cherry6.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="st">Later we decided to have some dinner near the university. Usually next to every university there is this one street that has lots of good restaurants, cafes, <i>norebang</i> (karaoke), dvd rooms etc., where the students hang out. So we were going to eat there. But parking is usually the problem in such areas. After driving around for a while we kind of gave up. It didn't look like we'd be able to park there, so we decided to go back to Jeonju and eat some curry.</span></div>
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<span class="st">It was such a nice Saturday. I was really glad that I was able to see cherry blossom this year after all. I know it's Japan that's most famous for cherry blossom. I mean, who hasn't heard of the word <i>sakura</i>? <i>Hanami</i> is another Japanese word associated with cherry blossom, literally meaning 'flower watching' and means having a picnic under the blooming cherry trees. But in truth, cherry blossom is just as popular in Korea, even though the Korean word for it (<i>bbeotkott</i>) might be much harder to pronounce. There is also a word like <i>hanami</i>, which is<i> bbeotkkotnori</i>, but here it doesn't literally mean 'watching the cherry blossoms' but having fun or playing beneath the cherry blossom. -<i>nori</i> means a game, amusement etc. and it is found in many other words such as <i>bulkkeotnori </i>(fire+flower+amusement = fireworks).</span></div>
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<a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-03-blooming-row-cherry-blossom-china.html" target="_blank"><img alt="http://phys.org/news/2015-03-blooming-row-cherry-blossom-china.html" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ccCLByRpTBc/VS3f0AbB-kI/AAAAAAAACxI/6GsgZl-qaR4/s1600/cherry1.png" height="231" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span class="st">Last time someone on facebook posted this article about where cherry blossom really comes from originally. Apparently China and many other Asian countries enjoy cherry blossom too. And now they are arguing whether it's really Japan that's the real home of cherry blossom or whether they actually came from China. I thought the whole thing couldn't be more ridiculous. Why must people always argue about everything, even about something so beautiful as cherry blossom. I don't care where it comes from, I just want to enjoy it during those two weeks, whether I'm in Korea, Japan, China or any other place that has them.</span></div>
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<span class="st">Can you find cherry blossom in your country? If you can't, I'm sure there are plenty of other beautiful flowers blooming right now. Make sure you take some time to get away from all the stress and observe the nature in spring. Maybe do as Koreans do and open a bottle of <i>soju</i> (Korean alcohol) or beer while you're at it, too. :)</span><br />
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Also, you might enjoy this song from Busker Busker called Cherry Blossom Ending. It's nice and it's perfect for spring. ^^ The music video is cute too.<br />
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-60087751469153833522015-04-14T14:17:00.003+09:002015-04-14T14:17:58.668+09:00Black Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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April 14th is known as the Black Day in Korea. It's nothing scary. ;) It's actually similar to Valentine's day and White day. Remember how on Valentine's days girlfriends buy chocolate for their boyfriends and how on White day boyfriends buy candy for their girlfriends? So who buys what and to whom on Black day? Well, there are no presents. Black day is not for couples, it's for single people. :)</div>
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February 14th - Valentine's day</div>
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March 14th - White day</div>
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April 14th - Black day </div>
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Yes, finally! It's not always all about couples. I know how annoying it can be when you're single on holidays like this. Even Christmas is more or less for couples in Korea. Then there's Valentine's and White day and Rose day and so on... but at least there is one day for singles too :)</div>
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On black day singles or people who didn't receive any gifts on Valentine's and White day get together and eat <i>jajangmyeon</i>. Yes, it's <i>jajangmyeon</i> again. :) The reason people eat jajangmyeon on black day is very simple - it's because of its black color. <i>Jajangmyeon</i> (as you probably know by now) is noodles in black soybean sauce. And even though black sauce might sound or look strange, it is very very yummy! I love <i>jajangmyeon</i>.</div>
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So on black day friends gather over some <i>jajangmyeon</i> and then complain about their love lives or the lack of it :) Well either that, or they can just celebrate being single. :) </div>
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My boyfriend and I also wanted to go and eat some <i>jajangmyeon</i> for dinner tonight. Even though we're a couple we just both really love jajangmyeon. But then we decided not to go. For one thing, that delicious chinese place near our house might be crowded tonight. The other reason is, we usually eat dinner at home during the week and eat out on weekends. So we'll have some <i>jajangmyeon</i> this Saturday instead. Also, we don't want to upset any singles out there like on the picture below hehe ;)</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7bw8p4pAfeA/VSygH2Od-mI/AAAAAAAACwk/J8CzE38HDnM/s1600/blackday3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-7bw8p4pAfeA/VSygH2Od-mI/AAAAAAAACwk/J8CzE38HDnM/s1600/blackday3.jpg" /></a></div>
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Well Korea actually has a lot of special days on the 14th day of the month. After Valentine's day, White day and Black day there are others too.</div>
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May 14th - Rose day</div>
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June 14th - Kiss day</div>
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December 14th - Hug day</div>
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But these days are not really that popular. I guess Rose day, Kiss day and Hug day are. But other, I've never even heard of. There are also Silver day, Green day, Movie day, Music Day, Whine day and Candle day as I've just discovered online. But I've never heard of them and neither has my boyfriend. I think most people don't really celebrate those. But I guess some might, and why not? It's a fun thing to do as a couple. But it can also be too much. I think my boyfriend and I have enough holidays for now. We've got our anniversary coming up soon too. ^^</div>
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Anyway, I hope you have a great day whether you're single or not. If you can't get <i>jajangmyeon</i> then treat yourself to some other type of food that you like and have fun. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-75590176910802912002015-04-11T13:19:00.001+09:002015-04-11T13:19:23.876+09:00We moved! ^^ (Renting a place in Korea)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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We've been really busy lately trying to find a bigger place for us, so I didn't have much time to update my blog. We've been living together for a while now and our place was really nice but also really small. It is what the Koreans call a one-room. That means that except for the bathroom and a tiny balcony with the washing machine, we only had one room that was living room, bedroom and kitchen all in one. Well luckily the kitchen was kind of separated a bit from the rest of the room, but still. We made it as nice and cozy as possible, but it's really meant for just one person. And now we decided it was time to move to a bit bigger place.</div>
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Similar to one-rooms, there are also two-rooms, three-rooms and four-rooms available to rent. We plan to stay in our new place for a while so we decided to look for a three-room. All the house renting in Korea is done through the real estate agencies that are called <i>budongsan</i>. You can search for places on the internet or through various mobile apps. And when you find the one you like you contact the <i>budongsan</i> and they show you the place.</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vNQzeXSU-9g/VSiczC19xRI/AAAAAAAACvs/-TJkbOV2hwQ/s1600/move1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vNQzeXSU-9g/VSiczC19xRI/AAAAAAAACvs/-TJkbOV2hwQ/s1600/move1.jpg" height="143" width="200" /></a></div>
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We've seen several different three-rooms and apartments and while some actually look better than on the photos, some look A LOT worse. We really wanted a clean, rather new place. Sometimes the real estates agents can show you some other rooms they think you might like if you don't like the first one. The good ones are gone within a day, so you have to be lucky too. It's really been stressful running around, looking for something that we'd like... you see something so nice online and then when you see it in person it's all so dirty and old... and you feel so disappointed. But we got lucky. Last week a new three-room add just appeared online and we called in the morning already. We sat up an appointment with the<i> budongsan</i> and went to check it out. This one actually looked better than on the photos and it was quite big compared to most three-rooms. It was perfect for us. It had a big kitchen, which was the most important thing for me, and two bathrooms, one of them quite spacious, which was the most important for my boyfriend. :) So we decided to take it.</div>
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There are several ways to pay for the room. You can buy it, but seriously, who can afford to buy an apartment these days? Then you have<i> joensae</i>. This means you pay a large amount of money (probably less than a third of what the place is worth) and then you get that amount back once your contract is done. This is really good if you can afford it. Altogether you pay less than the monthly payments would cost and you get it back in the end. However, this can also be dangerous, because in case that for some reason the owner of the place doesn't give you the money back, the insurance company won't cover all the costs but only a certain amount. I don't really have much experience with it, but this is what my boyfriend told me. And then, there is <i>wolsae</i>, which is a monthly rent. Together with the monthly rents, there is always a key deposit which can also be quite expensive. Usually if you pay more for the key deposit the monthly rent is cheaper, and if the key deposit is cheap, then monthly payments are higher.</div>
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For example, an average one-room in Jeonju (prices here are a lot cheaper than in Seoul for example) would costs between 200.000won to 300.000won monthly with a key deposit between one and three million won. There are a lot more expensive one-rooms too, depending on how new/clean it is, the location etc.<i> Jeonsae</i> would be somewhere around 20 million. Some one-rooms are completely empty, others come with air-conditioning, laundry machine, closets etc. So the price also depends on that. Oh, and let's not forget, you have to pay the real-estate agent some money too. The more expensive the place, the more you have to pay.</div>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-30tU-CU7Q3w/VSidMOOXcuI/AAAAAAAACv0/Ilqmb-XVvr4/s1600/move2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-30tU-CU7Q3w/VSidMOOXcuI/AAAAAAAACv0/Ilqmb-XVvr4/s1600/move2.PNG" height="400" width="223" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some of the one-rooms currently available in Joenju</td></tr>
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You might wonder what the difference is between a four-room and an apartment, at least I did. And the truth is, I am not a hundred percent sure, but as far as I know, apartments are usually in large apartment buildings with 10 floors or more. Three and four-rooms on the other hand are located in so called villas that are much smaller and usually don't have more than 4 floors.</div>
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So we found our new three-room home in a new villa and we moved in more than a week ago. Our friends were really nice to come and help us move our stuff. I've been packing everything in boxes for about two days and I couldn't believe how much stuff we actually had in that small one-room. :) We called a truck to help us transport our bed, closets and book cases and it cost only 50.000won, since our new place is not far from our old one.</div>
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We managed to do everything in just one day. We moved all our stuff to a new place and of course we were dead tired and starving at the end, so we ordered some <i>jajangmyeon</i> for us and our friends who helped us. I've written about <i>jajangmyeon</i> before, so if you don't remember you can check my post on <a href="http://mypinkkorea.blogspot.kr/2014/09/chinese-food-in-korea.html" target="_blank">Chinese food in Korea</a>. Koreans almost always order<i> jajangmyeon</i> after they finish moving to a new place. I don't know why, I asked my boyfriend and he also doesn't know. I even googled it in Korean and apparently a lot of Koreans don't know the real reason :) But probably it's because the food usually arrives fast and because after you're done eating, someone from the Chinese place comes back to your home and takes all the dishes and leftovers away, so you don't need to do anything. :) <i>Jajangmyeon</i> is usually quite cheap too.</div>
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So after finishing our<i> jajangmyeon</i>, the friends stayed over for a bit to watch our new smart TV :) And I took a short nap, 'cause I was exhausted. Then after the friends left, we went back to the old place and cleaned everything. You're supposed to clean it when you leave, especially if you want to get your key deposit money back. So we did. We could have done it the next day, but we wanted to finish it all on Saturday, so we'd have Sunday to rest.</div>
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It wasn't easy and I had no idea moving could be so stressful. But I am so so so happy with our new place. We're slowly buying all the furniture that we need and it looks nicer every day. ^^ I might post some photos later when we're done decorating. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-67297989723307803062015-03-23T12:15:00.000+09:002015-03-23T12:21:53.389+09:00Sunday at a Zoo<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It looks like spring is finally coming to Korea. :) The weather is getting warmer and everything's beginning to bloom. It's really nice outside so it would be such a waste not to go anywhere on weekend. </div>
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My boyfriend and I wanted to visit the Zoo a week ago already. Unfortunately, so did hundreds of other people. We got stuck in a traffic jam near the Zoo and we suddenly didn't want to visit the Zoo anymore. There were just too many people. So instead we stopped at Sori Arts Center which is almost right next to the Zoo. There were almost no people so it was nice and quiet, just some couples walking around or sitting on benches and kids playing with roller-skates and badminton. The weather was also really nice and warm. </div>
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That day I really felt like eating cake so my boyfriend and I bought it and took it with us to eat it outside. We sat down on a bench and enjoyed our blueberry cake. We sat there for a while, walked around a bit and watched the cute little kids exploring around. At the Sori Arts Center, there's this strange looking sculpture and I wondered what it's supposed to represent. My boyfriend's explanation was that it represents 'Whisper' with a drop of blood on it. My boyfriend can really be romantic at times ;) Just in case you don't know: 'whisper' is a brand of female pads originally called 'Always', but known as 'Whisper' in Korea, Japan and some other Asian countries.</div>
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This weekend we tried going to the Zoo again. The weather was a bit cooler than last week (around 15°C) so I was hoping there would be less people this time. Also, we left home a few hours earlier to get there before the huge crowd arrives. And this time we were lucky. There was no traffic jam and we got to the parking lot without a problem. It took as a while to find a free space to park though, but we made it. The Zoo itself didn't seem too crowded because the park is really wide.</div>
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The entrance ticket is ridiculously cheap here. Or is it just ridiculously expensive back in Slovenia? Here a regular adult ticket with no discount costs 1300krw which is less than 1<span class="st">€! I just checked the website of the Zoo in Slovenia and an adult ticket cots 8</span><span class="st">€!!! Can you believe it?! Visiting a Zoo in Slovenia is actually more expensive than watching a movie at a movie theater. How is it in other countries, I wonder... Please share in the comments if you have the time. ^^</span></div>
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<span class="st">Anyway, after paying the entrance fee we walked around and looked at the animals. I didn't take too may photos this time. I already have lots of photos from our last year's visit to the Zoo and I think I was just a bit lazy this time. Or my hands were just too busy, because I carried the snacks in one hand and held my boyfriend's hand with the other. :) We bought this colorful snacks that my boyfriend wanted to feed the animals with. I know you're not supposed to feed most of the animals, and on some cages there was a sign asking people not to feed the animals. So we didn't feed those, mostly just sheep, goats and these huge fish in the pond :) I think the fish ended up eating most of the snacks. My boyfriend might not be an expert on this but he assured me that this snack can't hurt the animals and I also don't think any of the sheep, goats or fish will get sick because of it. </span></div>
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<span class="st">We brought our own lunch with us, since we wanted to have kind of like a picnic. So before going to the Zoo we stopped at this pab-burger place. It's a special rice burger sold in Korea. It's popular 'cause it's really yummy and really cheap. There was a menu written in English in the store, but I can't find a photo of it online. Instead if you can't understand Korean, you can look at the photos on their <a href="http://www.bongousse.net/menu/menu_list.aspx" target="_blank">website </a>to see some of the different types. </span></div>
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<span class="st">I think my boyfriend got beef bulgogi with tuna-mayonnaise topping and I got tteokgalbi with tuna-mayonnaise and cheese topping. We came to a conclusion that whatever rice burger you choose you need to have tuna-mayonnaise with it. It is so much yummier this way. :) Or at least that's our opinion. You get plastic spoons with it so you can eat it like my boyfriend does - you mix everything and eat it like a meal. Or you can eat it the way I do - don't mix it and just eat it with a spoon. But actually the original way to eat it is to squash it with your hands before removing the wrapping. If you do this then you can actually hold it and eat it the way you would eat a regular burger. But everyone has it's own way that suits them. :)</span></div>
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<span class="st">We found a nice bench for our lunch but as soon as we sat down the wind got really strong. It felt really warm but as soon as the wind blew we felt cold. We didn't want to carry our jackets around so we decided to leave them in the car. It was like this the whole time, there was no wind at all but as soon as we found a nice bench to rest on, the wind started again. Until we found this one bench behind the lion's cage. There was really no view from the bench but the back wall of the lion's cage and it's probably the most unpopular bench in summer because there is no shade. But this time it was perfect. It was so nice and warm that we almost fell asleep there.</span></div>
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<span class="st">I watched the kids walk around with their helium balloons. They looked so cute. :) I really thought Hello Kitty would be the most popular balloon among the girls but I was wrong. Hello Kitty is apparently more popular among teenage girls or girls my age that like cute and pink stuff. But the little girls in the Zoo seemed to prefer Frozen characters, Pororo characters and Secret Jouju. Boys also had lots of Pororo, dinosaurs and I believe dolphins were popular with both boys and girls. :)</span></div>
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<span class="st">I remember I also loved helium balloons when I was a kid. Once, our neighbor took me and my sister downtown and bought us heart shaped helium balloons. My sister picked the one with Mickey and Minnie mouse and I picked Superman lol Now I'm all into pink and girly stuff but when I was a kid I picked Superman :D Well, I had a huge crush on him when I was in preschool, so that's why. ;)</span></div>
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<span class="st">Is it also common in your country to have a small amusement park for kids inside the Zoo? I don't think it's that common in Europe. But it's a normal thing in Japan and Korea. Some of the rides actually looked quite fun and prefect for my boyfriend and I since we are a bit of grandma and grandpa when it comes to amusement park rides :) So we both agreed it would be great when we have a kid so we will be able to get on those rides, pretending it's for our kid's enjoyment, when it's really for our own ;) </span></div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-30039786068829499392015-03-16T12:56:00.002+09:002015-03-16T13:01:29.605+09:00White Day - March 14th<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Yes. Finally. A female version of Korean Valentine's day. :) Remember that on Valentine's day in Korea only boys get presents (chocolate) from girls? Well on White day it's boys' turn to buy presents for girls. And instead of chocolate, they mostly buy candies.</div>
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I received my first White day gift this year a day earlier. My boyfriend's band had another concert on Friday the 13th and another band member gave me a cute box of chocolates. I haven't tried them yet, but he assured me they tasted better than Guylian chocolates that we were eating together on Friday. If that's true then they must really taste delicious :)</div>
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My boyfriend's concert went well. I love their songs. But unfortunately the sound was really too loud, especially the vocal. But that wasn't the band's fault. After the concert the DJ played mostly metal songs, which was cool, but we all complained a bit about our ears hurting after we left the place.</div>
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The next day, on March 14th, my boyfriend surprised me with my White day's present when he got back from work. He kept saying he doesn't want to spend money on such holidays so I was really surprised that he got me so much. But he said it's because this is our first White day together. :) He got me this huge lollipop :D I've seen this being sold before and now I've finally received one :D It's pretty heavy. There must be lost of regular sized lollipops inside. But it looks so cute, wrapped like a real giant lollipop, that I just don't want to open it yet.</div>
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He also had another huge box with him and I was wondering what was inside. And I couldn't believe it, but he got me my own personal prize machine. :D It's like a miniature version of the prize machines you can find in Korean arcades (have I written about them yet?). Last time when my boyfriend and I had dinner with his friends on Lunar New Year's we saw this prize machine with cute little plush ducks inside. We tried like 10 times or something to get one, but it was impossible. The crane picked it up several times but as soon as it moved a bit, it dropped it again.</div>
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When we visited the lake Bled in Slovenia last Christmas, there were tons of ducks. And for some reason my boyfriend remembered the Slovenian word for a duck - 'raca'. He can't make a real Slovenian 'c' sound because it doesn't exist in Korean language, so it sounds really cute when he says it. I guess since then we both really like ducks and that's probably why we tried to get one from the prize machine. </div>
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So anyway, my boyfriend has a good sense of humor and he thought it would be really funny to buy this for me. He told me he'd ordered it a while ago and kept it in the trunk of his car, so I wouldn't find it. :) We laughed so hard when we tried to grab candy from our prize machine. The lights turn on when you put a coin inside and this funny circus music starts to play. I am surprisingly good at it and was able to catch all types of candies already. :) It's fun to get a bit childish and silly like this every now and then. :)</div>
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Later that day we went to eat some Japanese <i>shabu-shabu</i>. Which is this yummy sliced beef that you cook inside a spicy soup. Salad bar was free so we were able to eat as much as we wanted. It was so delicious and we ate so much that we barely made it to Megabox to watch a movie. Strangely though we were able to eat the whole big size popcorn before the movie even started. :) We watched Chappie and it was really good. Better than I expected. But not better than Kingsman. I think that was the best movie we've seen this year.</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-45994947306261415482015-03-11T14:04:00.001+09:002015-03-11T14:04:57.345+09:00A windy day in Gwangju<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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The weekend after Korean New Year's, my boyfriend and I decided to go on a short trip somewhere. We both love going on one-day trips on weekends. Last summer we went somewhere almost every other weekend. But in winter it's too cold for that. However, last Sunday the weather outside looked so nice and sunny that we just had to go somewhere. So we decided to visit Gwangju.</div>
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Gwangju is the sixth largest city in Korea and it is located less than an hour south from Jeonju. We originally wanted to visit the Gwangju Biennale exhibition hall, but when we got there it was closed. I guess we should have checked online before going there, but we didn't care. Around the Gwangju Biennale there is a beautiful park and there were lots of families with children flying kites. It's been a while since I've seen so many kites. And I don't remember ever flying one. It looked really nice.</div>
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Luckily the folk museum was open, so we decided to look around. I really like Korean folk museums. They are pretty much all the same, but me and my boyfriend always have fun looking around. We saw displays of Korean food, clothes, dishes, games, festivals, weapons etc. We have this game that we like to play in museums. For example, if there is a display of five old dishes we each pick the one we like and then on the count of three we both point out the object to see if we choose the same one. Or, if there are male clothes displayed I pick one out for my boyfriend and he does the same for me with female ornaments and stuff. It might sound stupid, but it's fun. :)</div>
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The most fun part of the museum for me was the food. It looked so real and it was really fun discussing what each of us would eat and what not.</div>
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At the museum's gift shop we noticed they were selling kites and we couldn't resist. We also wanted to fly one so we bought one for 3000krw (around 3$). I thought it would be hard but it wasn't. It was so windy that it flew up in the sky without a problem. Actually, even before flying our kite I wondered how so many kites don't get all tangled up. And apparently sometimes they do, because that's exactly what happened to our kite. But we solved the problem quickly and then we decided to move a bit away from the museum where there were less people.</div>
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We let the kite as high as it could go and then we sat down on a park bench and enjoyed the view. It was fun, but really cold, so we didn't stay too long.</div>
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Lately the wind is really strong. And even though it's slowly getting warmer outside, the wind is still really cold. Koreans have a special word for this called <i>kkot-sem-chu-ui</i> that means the last cold weather before spring comes. And I couldn't believe it, but last night it snowed! I guess that was the last snow this winter. It won't be long till spring is here and we can finally spend more time outside and go on a picnic or something. I can't wait. :)</div>
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As always, thanks for reading my blog and feel free to post any comments. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-31671453784297646542015-02-23T17:06:00.000+09:002015-02-23T17:06:01.918+09:00Happy Lunar New Year<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last week was another holiday in Korea, a rather important one: the lunar New Year or <b>Seolnal</b> in Korean :) I'd say this is one of the most important Korean holidays together with Chuseok - the Korean thanksgiving that I'd already written about.</div>
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Seolnal is a family holiday, a time to spend at home with your family. That's why most Koreans travel home to their parents' or grandparents' house to celebrate. And for the same reason, Seolnal can be really uninteresting or lonely holiday for foreigners here. In the past years I spent seolnal alone in my dormitory room... but this year, I got to experience it the way Koreans do, with my boyfriend's family. ^^</div>
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Even though New Year's - the 1st day of the new year is just one day, most Koreans get three whole days off, at least all schools are closed for three days. And luckily this year, it was Wednesday, Thursday and Friday so my boyfriend didn't have to work for 5 days straight. ^^ </div>
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On Wednesday we went to my boyfriend's parents' house for lunch. His sister was there too and it was nice to see her again. His mom prepared LOTS of food and it was all delicious, especially tteokguk. <b>Tteokguk</b> is a rice cake soup and it is always eaten on New Year's day, because it is believed that it brings you good luck in the new year if you eat it on Seolnal. Rice cakes are usually white, but they can be different colors too and in the tteokguk that my boyfriend's mom made, they were yellow, purple, red, green etc. so it looked really nice and colorful :) It looked so yummy that I didn't remember to take a photo of it before I was half way done already.</div>
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Another thing associated with tteokguk is getting older :) I don't remember if I'd mentioned this before or not, but Koreans count age a bit differently. Here, when you're born, you're already a year old, so in Korea, you're always a year older than you are in in the West. Another thing is, you don't age on your birthday, but everyone gets a year older on Korean New Year's - Seolnal. In fact, it's said that you gain a year after finishing your tteokguk. :) In Korean language growing a year older is even expressed as 'eating another year' - 'hansal ul meokda'. Someone even sent me this cute picture while wishing me a happy new year's. What's written on the spoon is 'hansal' meaning 'one year' or 'another year', showing that even if we don't want to, we all get a year older again :)</div>
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So until my birthday in July, I am again two years older in Korea than I am in my country... Korean age counting system sucks :P</div>
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<br />On Seolnal children usually put on Korean traditional clothing - hanbok and then wish their parents and grandparents a happy new year while performing a traditional bow for them. Parents and grandparents then reward this gesture by giving them a special new year's pocket money called '<b>sebet-don</b>'. I didn't wear a hanbok since I don't own one anyway ;) But I did get a chance to try on several different kinds of them in the past.</div>
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I didn't perform a traditional bow either, but I did buy some cake for my boyfriend's parents as I didn't want to visit their house empty handed. Unfortunately, I didn't know my boyfriend's sister would be there too, so I didn't have anything for her but some Slovenian candy. :( But anyway, this year I received sebet-don too. ^^ I received cash from my boyfriend's mom and two movie tickets from my boyfriend's sister. ^^ It was great that I got to experience Seolnal the Korean way, with tteokguk and sebet-don and everything. The best part was, I didn't feel like a foreigner, but like a part of a Korean family. It was amazing. ^^</div>
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After the delicious lunch, my boyfriend and I went for a short walk because we were so full. Then his mom played saxophone for us. ^^ And later we went to see the new family firm that is being built nearby and should be done by this summer. It looks really nice.</div>
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In the next days we went to use those movie tickets, we relaxed at home, went to a birthday party of my boyfriend's friend from the band, ate lots of yummy food, did some shopping and even went on a one day trip to Gwangju. But I will write about the trip in my next post.</div>
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Even if you don't celebrate Korean New Year's I still wish you lots of luck in the new year, as Koreans say: <i>SaeHae Bok Manhi Badeuseyo</i>.</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-58113391297498117912015-02-16T13:46:00.000+09:002015-02-16T17:57:30.410+09:00It's Valentine's Day :)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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In Korea Valentine's day is pretty much all about chocolate :) But sadly it's mostly meant for boys. It may sounds weird, but in Korea (and I think it was the same in Japan) on Valentine's days it's girls who buy chocolate for boys and not the other way around. Or they bake them some cookies or something. I think a lot of guys around here prefer to see girls give them something they made themselves. But girls shouldn't complain, since we get to receive presents on White day which comes a month later on March 14, except that on that day boys buy us candy instead of chocolate, which is even better for me :)</div>
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So as a good girlfriend that I am ;) I also went to buy some chocolate for my boyfriend. I went to Lotte mart since it's the closest shopping mall around here. Sadly Korea doesn't have that many good chocolate to choose from. I'd rather just give him Milka, 'cause it's really good and he loves it, but it's pretty much impossible to find here. Homeplus, which is another huge shopping mall, has a bit more to offer since it's owned by British Tesco. But still. Sure you can get famous brands like Lindt, Ferrero Rocher, Guylian etc. but it's usually quite expensive.</div>
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Lotte mart was surprisingly crowded for a weekday and everyone was crowding around the chocolate stand. A lot of chocolates were already wrapped and decorated with small ribbons so I chose some of those because they looked nicer. Toblerone even had a special Valentine's day edition so I bought that one too. Also, I saw a couple of guys buying chocolate and wrapping papers and boxes, so I guess it's not strictly just a one way thing. :) And ya, sure a lot of flowers and plush toys get sold on Valentine's but chocolate is still the most popular.</div>
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I also made some chocolate by myself. I got this cute chocolate making mould for Christmas and I finally got a chance to try it out. You need about 200g of chocolate but I had only 70g packages so I used three different types: milk chocolate with acai berries, 70% cacao chocolate and white chocolate. I just melted the chocolate and put it in the mould and I got this cute little owl shaped pieces of chocolate. White chocolate didn't turn out so well, I don't know what I did wrong, but white chocolate always seems a bit harder to work with than milk or dark one. Anyway, my boyfriend loved it. ^^ i knew it - Korean boys really do prefer to get homemade sweets. ;)</div>
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My boyfriend and I are quite busy this Valentine's day so I couldn't plan anything special. He worked till 3pm and then we had to go meet someone downtown. Afterthat we went to eat some yummy galbitang, which is a special soup with beef meet inside. And now we're at a bar where my boyfriend's band is getting ready for their Valentine's day gig. They're pretty good and the best thing is, they write all their songs themselves :) I already mentioned in one of my last posts that I'd also be participating in their Christmas concert. Well I did and it was so much fun ^^ I was so nervous at the rehearsal but as soon as I got on the stage for real, I just sang and had fun :) I'd also share a video with you, but I realize I'm not the best singer and there were quite a few notes that weren't right :) But I felt really proud of myself nevertheless, just for getting the courage to get up on the stage and sing with a band :) I got a big applause too. Although it's quite possible the Koreans were more impressed by my Korean speaking abilities rather than by my singing, but it doesn't matter. ;)</div>
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This time I'm not singing since I haven't prepared any new songs yet, but I might perform again in March. This time it's just my boyfriend's band - Plastic Age.</div>
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Anyway that's all I wanted to write about Valentine's day. I can't write much 'cause I'm having problems sitting at my computer lately. I've had some lower back pain for a while which is also a reason why I haven't updated my blog in a while. But luckily I can write using my iPad ^^</div>
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Next week it's New Year in Korea, so check back next weekend to read about that. Today I hope you're all surrounded by people you love. Don't let this day make you feel depressed if you're single or can't be with the one you love, just treat yourself to something nice and do whatever makes you happy. Happy Valentine's day everyone. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-82115600117169761312015-01-26T13:06:00.000+09:002015-01-26T13:06:09.390+09:00Sulbing<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last weekend my boyfriend and I decided to have some yummy Korean dessert - Sulbing. Sulbing is a rather new dessert, I'd say. When I was studying in Seoul in summer of 2009, there was no Sulbing yet. There was, however, a popular Korean dessert called Patbingsu.</div>
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Patbingsu is a name for a very famous Korean dessert. 'pat' means red bean paste and 'bingsu' is shaved ice. So when you order a patbingsu you get a bowl of shaved ice with read beans, and sometime Korean rice cake (tteok) and other fruits are added too. It might sound strange, but red bean paste is really sweet and is therefor used in many desserts and pastries. It's very refreshing and perfect for hot and humid summers in Korea.<br />
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There are also many different variations where red bean paste is replaced by another ingredient. The most popular are probably green tea, coffee, yogurt, strawberries etc... Since there's no red bean paste (pat) in these desserts, they are just called 'bingsu'.<br />
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Sulbing is also a very similar thing, but a rather newer version of it. The first Sulbing store opened in Busan and sometime between 2013 and 2014 it became really popular. The branches started spreading across Korea and today there are pretty much everywhere.</div>
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The main difference between sulbing and other types of bingsu is that sulbing doesn't contain shaved ice, but tiny flakes of frozen milk, which gives it a much sweeter and creamer taste. Pieces of frozen milk really look like snowflakes, thus the name sulbing, which means snow ice. The dessert is usually translated as snowflake sherbet.</div>
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The first branch in Daegu opened about a year ago or so. I can't remember exactly, but one opened right near our university. I heard it was very popular so I went there with my friend and another friend of his. We ate 2 different sulbings together - a strawberry one and 'injeolmi', which is a type of Korean rice cake. Both were really yummy. However, injeolmi has a lot of... kind of rice cake powder I guess? It can be just a bit hard to eat if it's not mixed well and you have to drink a lot of water with it.<br />
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Sulbing and bingsu, as well as many other Korean dishes (not only desserts) are usually shared among two or more people. It's just a part of Korean culture that people share food, meaning that several people eat from the same bowl or plate. Some people are uncomfortable with that. I even know some Koreans that don't late to share food like this. But most Koreans do. I have no problems with it, luckily. Sulbing is quite big and probably too much for one person. Also, I think you'd look a bit sad eating a huge sulbing by yourself. (Even though, in my opinion, there should be absolutely nothing wrong with eating it by yoursefl!).<br />
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There are several subilng flavors to choose from. Here are some other sulbings that I have tried so far: cheesecake, blueberry cheesecake, mango cheesecake (yes, I love cheesecake), berry yogurt etc. You can get blueberry and mango sulbing without cheesecake too. And there are also caramel-coffee, sweet potato etc., but I don't drink coffee and I don't like sweet potato that much.<br />
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Blueberry, strawberry and mango sulbings are not available throughout the year. Mango is only availabe in sumer, bluberry in fall and strawberry in winter. Last time, my boyfriend and I wanted to try the new premium fresh cream strawberry sulbing and it was DELICIOUS! :)<br />
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Korea has a lot of desserts like this to offer and most of them taste really good! Especially in summer, when the weather is really hot and humid here. I definitely recommend you try some of it when you visit Korea :)</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-63145798883678911982015-01-19T13:03:00.000+09:002015-01-19T13:03:29.609+09:00Home sweet home<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been a week since I got back to Korea from my annual Slovenian trip and I am finally able to sleep again normally. I had a bit of a jet lag when I got back and I kept waking up every day at 5am - annoying. But it's all good now. </div>
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Our Slovenian trip was great, it just went by so fast. I didn't even get to meet all my friends. But I was really happy to spend time with my family again and my boyfriend was excited because it was his first time in Europe. </div>
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On our way to Slovenia we stopped by in Amsterdam, because we had to wait 9 hours for our connecting flight. I love Amsterdam and I wanted to show it to my boyfriend, but... unfortunately the weather was terrible. First of all, it stays dark there really long. We wanted to wait at the airport until it gets light outside, but it was already 9:30am and it was still dark. And it was also raining... a lot. I checked my iphone weather forecast and it said it would stop raining so we decided not to buy an umbrella, but then it started to rain even more. My boyfriend was worried about his new (really expensive) leather jacket so we didn't have the best time there.</div>
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But Slovenia was great. My family and my boyfriend got along really well! He was worried that they'd have problems communicating since he doesn't really use English often, but there were no problems at all. At first I helped a lot by translating and later, my mom and my boyfriend spent a lot of time chatting together with no problems at all :)</div>
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I often said that Jeonju reminds me a bit of Ljubljana (capital of Slovenia - my hometown). It's not really the same, but I lived in Daegu before for almost 3 years and it is completely different from any place in Slovenia. It's so much more... Korean? But Jeonju for some reason seems a lot more familiar to me. And when my boyfriend and I went for a walk around our neighborhood the first evening he said it doesn't feel strange at all, that it's so much like Jeonju :)</div>
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My boyfriend was able to spend only about 10 days in Slovenia because he had to go back for work. But in those 10 days I tried to show him as many places in Slovenia as possible. And I think he liked Bled the most. Our lake Bled is one of the most popular places to visit and it really is beautiful. We also tried the famous Bled cream cake - yummy! ^^</div>
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Other than Bled we also visited a huge cave in Postojna, the Predjama castle, Slovenian coast, snowy Kranjska Gora and the famous Planica ski jumping hill. Oh, and our capital city too, of course.</div>
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LJUBLJANA</div>
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PLANICA AND KRANJSKA GORA </div>
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SLOVENIAN COAST - PIRAN</div>
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PREDJAMA CASTLE AND POSTOJNA CAVE</div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MBKebXB00-I/VLx_Z0etpmI/AAAAAAAACkg/2xhUoD3mwJo/s1600/predjama1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MBKebXB00-I/VLx_Z0etpmI/AAAAAAAACkg/2xhUoD3mwJo/s1600/predjama1.JPG" height="320" width="240" /></a><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3Q4WSZ9Uv0/VLx_Z9RGUkI/AAAAAAAACkc/LK0P04x6_Rg/s1600/postojna1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Z3Q4WSZ9Uv0/VLx_Z9RGUkI/AAAAAAAACkc/LK0P04x6_Rg/s1600/postojna1.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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My boyfriend was amazed at the number of castles in Slovenia. There are no castles like this in Korea so it was quite interesting for him to see. Although, after a while, he said, let's not visit any more castles... :) They are beautiful, but maybe we saw a bit too many of them :)</div>
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He loved our Slovenian food. Especially my mom's cooking. He made it clear that my mom is a way better cook than I am... :) And I think that especially, he loved Calamari - Mediterranean squid dish. Korea has a lot of seafood to offer, including squid. But he said he'd never seen small squid like calamari. Apparently squid in Korea is a lot bigger... but I'm not really a squid lover so I don't know. But anyway, he loved calamari :)</div>
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He was also surprised when he saw our city buses. I never noticed that before but ya, I guess it's true, I don't think you can find such long buses in Korea.</div>
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One thing we didn't like in Slovenia were the toilets. The public ones I think. They used to be free, but now you have to pay for a lot of them. Especially at touristic places like lake Bled. It costs 50cent per person and I thought I could pay 1eur for both of us. Unfortunately it wasn't 1eur, I paid 2eur by mistake and I was the only person to get in. Later we went to buy some chewing gum for 50cents to get another 50cent coin so that my boyfriend was able to go to the bathroom too. So we ended up paying almost 3eur (almost 4000krw) for the toilet!... The ones in Ljubljana were free but so dirty. Also, in Korea you can use the toilet at a cafe without buying anything there. In Slovenia you can't really do that.</div>
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After my boyfriend went back to Korea I spent most of the time at home with my family, enjoying my mom's delicious food and some of the things I really miss in Korea, such as our fresh Slovenian bread and our plain yogurt. It is so hard to find bread in Korea, it's all just toast and that's totally different. European bread is the best... so soft... and not sweet like this toast here. And yogurt... ah... impossible to find in Korea. Well fruit yogurt is not a problem, but plain yogurt. Plain yogurt in Korea (and in many other countries too) is sweet - yuck! :S No way... our Slovenian plain yogurt has no sugar at all and it's not all liquid either. It's impossible to describe the taste, you'd just have to try it. But anyway, I miss yogurt and bread the most and my mom can't really send it to me :(</div>
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And now we're back in Korea. In our cozy small home in Jeonju :) And Korea also has a lot of things that I'd miss if I moved back to Slovenia. For example norebang - karaoke :) So our first weekend back in Korea, we went to see a movie at Megabox (Taken 3), we went to norebang for 2 hours and we had some really really yummy dessert calles Sulbing. But that's something I want to write about in my next post. :)</div>
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Thank for reading my blog and feel free to post any comments and/or questions. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-30824432941314698692014-12-09T14:17:00.000+09:002014-12-09T14:17:17.472+09:00Movie Theaters in Korea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last weekend my boyfriend and I went to see another movie at a movie theater. We just love movies so we go see them often, usually at Megabox. There are several different movie theaters in Korea, the biggest of them being Lotte Cinema, Megabox and CGV. Jeonju has all of these three.</div>
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This is the street downtown where all the movie theaters are. It is usually quite crowded, especially on a weekend, but it was really cold outside so maybe that's why it was so empty.</div>
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My boyfriend likes Megabox the most, that's why we mostly go there. He says that CGV is not so clean and the toilets are really dirty there. But we went there once and I didn't think it was bad at all. But by now, I've also gotten used to Megabox.</div>
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Some theaters have some special seats or special movie halls available, but not all of that is available in Jeonju. For example, CGV has this cool seats for couples called Sweetbox. It looks really comfortable, like a sofa for two. But unfortunately we don't have it in Jeonju, so we haven't had a chance to try it out yet :( Apparently there is a premium Sweetbox too, but I'm sure tickets are A LOT more expensive for that.</div>
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<a href="http://img.cgv.co.kr/R2014/images/sub/specialtheater/sweetbox/sweetbox_03.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.cgv.co.kr/R2014/images/sub/specialtheater/sweetbox/sweetbox_03.jpg" height="269" width="320" /></a><a href="http://img.cgv.co.kr/R2014/images/sub/specialtheater/sweetbox/sweetbox_05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://img.cgv.co.kr/R2014/images/sub/specialtheater/sweetbox/sweetbox_05.jpg" height="150" width="320" /></a></div>
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Maybe we'll try them out when we go to Seoul next time. What we do have in Jeonju is Table M theater in Megabox. It's not all that special, but you do have A LOT more space for your legs, and a table to put all the snacks and other stuff on it. A ticket is a bit more expensive, but I'd say it's worth it. We've been there several times already.</div>
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A regular tickets usually costs around 8000krw (8$). Which is almost the same price as in my country, I think. But one of the cool things in Korea is discount ^^ Almost everywhere you go, you can get discounts with a special bank card, membership card or point card. At Megabox we always get 4000krw discount with our T-membership card, which is another reason why we usually go to Megabox.</div>
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Last time we saw Dumb and Dumber To and it was quite funny :) We wanted to see Taken 3, but it looks like it hasn't started showing yet. These are some of the movies we went to see together this year:</div>
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Lucy</div>
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The Maze Runner</div>
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Faults are in the Stars</div>
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Interstellar</div>
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Annabelle</div>
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Gone Girl</div>
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Wolves</div>
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Into the Storm</div>
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Dawn of the Planet of the Apes</div>
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Transformers: Age of Extinction</div>
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Well, I'm sure we saw other movies too, but these are the only ones I can remember at the moment. Luckily you can watch all the movies with subtitles and not dubbed.</div>
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And of course, you can't watch a movie without a snack :) We usually get some popcorn - half original for me and half caramel for my boyfriend (there is also garlic popcorn, but we never eat that). We tried the fried chicken there once too, but it wasn't that good. Sometimes we take fried potatoes with our popcorn when we're really hungry too. And then we usually spend almost more money on snacks than we do for the tickets. Kind of how you spend more money on coffee than you do for dinner - sounds crazy, but it happens often in Korea, especially for students. Luckily we don't drink coffee, so we don't have problems with that :)</div>
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At this time there is a special snack combo available too - block combo. For 11000krw you get large popcorn, large drink and 150pieces Megabox block. We just had to get it :)</div>
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It's like Lego and since my boyfriend and I both really loved Lego when we were young, we couldn't resist. We built them as soon as we got home and this is how it looks like :)</div>
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After the movie we went to Mango Six again for some more of that yummy frozen yogurt. This time we had some honey bread with it too. It was soo yummy, but we were waiting for it for more than 15minutes, so when we finally got it, we forgot to take a photo of it. Anyway, this is how it looks like And it's really really yummy ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-1063710022440450972014-12-01T14:34:00.001+09:002014-12-01T14:38:14.244+09:00December is here :)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Wow, it's December already~ time really flies. And guess what: it's snowing! :D It's the first of December and it's the first snow in Jeonju this year~ ^^ It was still raining in the morning and then it started snowing~ :) My boyfriend sent me a photo from work and the second photo is the one that I took from our window :)</div>
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This weekend we went downtown to do some Christmas shopping. The city is not all cowered in lights yet. It might be still too early or maybe the city just doesn't get all lit up in December. It's my first December in Jeonju, so I don't know. But I do know that Christmas in Korea is not exactly the same as Christmas in Europe or at least in my country. In Slovenia, Christmas is a family holiday when all the family gets together for a yummy Christmas dinner on Christmas eve, goes to church at midnight and then exchanges presents on Christmas day. At least that's how we usually do it in my family.</div>
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In Korea, however, Christmas is more of a couple's holiday than a family thing. Couples go out on a romantic date and exchange gifts with each other. Unfortunately I never went on a Christmas date, so I can't give you a good example :) But I can see how Christmas time can be really romantic ^^ At least all the cafes in Jeonju are really nicely decorated and there are Christmas songs playing on the radio. Last time my boyfriend and I stopped at a cafe for some ice-cream and sat by the window next to this cute little Christmas tree. It felt really nice after a long day of shopping with my boyfriend's parents :)<br />
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Actually, my boyfriend told me that he'd never decorated a Christmas tree before... ever! So he was kind of excited to get a little Christmas tree with me. We can't have a big one since we have no place for it in our cozy little home :) As Christmas is getting more and more popular in Korea too, you can get Christmas trees and ornaments in any big store or shopping mall. We just got ours from Daiso - a really cheap store (all products cost between 1 and 5 dollars) that has pretty much anything you can think of. We put on some Christmas music and I let my boyfriend do most of the decorating ^^</div>
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We are quite happy with the result ^^ It might be still a bit early, but it's December already and for me, it's not just the 24th and 25th, it's the whole month that is special. With all the Christmas songs and Christmas movies and all that happy feeling that comes with it, a couple days are just not enough.</div>
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And this year, we've got so much plans for December:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Our matching passport covers :)</td></tr>
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1. <u>Flying home to spend Christmas with my family</u> - the most important one :)<br />
It will be the first time for my boyfriend to visit Slovenia and meet my parents ^^ I am all excited and he's a bit nervous :) As I was too, when I met his parents. But I'm sure he'll be okay ^^</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My boyfriend's band: Plastic Age</td></tr>
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2. <u>Christmas concert</u><br />
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My boyfriend plays lead guitar in a band and every year they have a Christmas concert. This year a bit early, 'cause we're flying to Europe. So we have less than 2 weeks to get ready. Yes, we, including me :) Since I'm kind of a guest singer hehe not that I'm such an amazing singer or anything, but it's the privilege you get from dating the band leader :D I just hope I don't embarrass myself...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My shoebox present for a 9-year old boy ^^</td></tr>
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3. <u>Christmas shopping</u><br />
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Of course, everyone needs to do that. We need presents for my family, presents for his family... And I also joined the program called "One day Santa" where you buy a Christmas present for one of the Children in need, so I bought a present for a 9-year old boy in Slovenia.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">What I'll try to make this week :)</td></tr>
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4. <u>Christmas cooking</u><br />
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It should be Christmas baking, but unfortunately we don't have an oven. Actually as far as I know, most families don't have ovens in Korea and Japan. But I really want to make something yummy for my boyfriend's family, so my sister gave me a recipe for a dessert doesn't require an oven ^^</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ci8IVsNKOX0/VHv4r8Mv6DI/AAAAAAAACg4/RgYxXcWufwU/s1600/a5.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ci8IVsNKOX0/VHv4r8Mv6DI/AAAAAAAACg4/RgYxXcWufwU/s1600/a5.JPG" height="200" width="149" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Last year's Christmas Norebang</td></tr>
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5. <u>Christmas Norebang (karaoke)</u><br />
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Yes, I have to do that every December :) It's awesome. Last year, my friend and I bought ourselves a cake, went to norebang and sang all the Christmas songs we could find. :)</div>
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And we're leaving in a bit more than 2 weeks, so we don't have much time. I'll try to write about how all this goes. And I know that spending time in Slovenia with my family is really not what my blog title says, but it might be interesting to read about how my boyfriend experiences our country and our Christmas traditions for the first time :) So yup, I'll keep you posted.</div>
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Until then, to help you get into Christmas mood, here's a Korean version of Jingle Bells that you can learn :) Don't worry, you can do it. If my boyfriend was able to learn it in Slovenian, you can learn it in Korean - have fun :D</div>
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Here are the lyrics:</div>
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huin nun sairo sseolmaerul tago<br />
tallineun kibun sangkwaedo hada<br />
jongi ullyeoseo jangdan madchuni<br />
heunggyeowoseo sori nopyeo norae pureuja<br />
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jong sori ullyeora jong sori ullyeo<br />
uri sseolmae ppalli tallyeo jong sori ullyeora<br />
jong sori ullyeora jong sori ullyeo<br />
kippeun norae pureumyeonseo ppalli tallija</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-23278003411107264652014-11-11T17:31:00.000+09:002014-11-11T17:32:00.241+09:00Happy Pepero Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Today is Pepero day~! :)<br />
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Pepero day is celebrated on November 11th in South Korea. It is not a big holiday, it's just a day when people give each other a special Korean snack called Pepero.</div>
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Pepero is the name of these yummy cookie sticks dipped in chocolate. The original pepero box is red and it is just chocolate-flavored, but there are several other flavors as well: almond, strawberry, white cookie, melon etc.</div>
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It's kind of funny that Korea has this whole day dedicated to one type of snack. It's like if back in Europe we had Kinder surprise day and we would all buy and give each other Kinder surprise eggs on that day... which would be really cool actually :D Well the point is, you buy a box of pepero for a friend or a boyfriend/girlfriend or anyone you care about. It's definitely a nice gesture and it really makes your day when you receive pepero boxes from people ^^ And it's really affordable too. A regular box of pepero costs 1200krw (around 1$) but around Pepero day you can get special prices too, like 1+1 or something. I just bought a box of strawberry pepero for 960krw at Lotte mart.</div>
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The back of pepero box looks like a postcard. You can write the name and the address of the person sending and the person receiving the box, and there's even a place for a stamp, so you could just send this without wrapping it or anything. But it's better to give it in person, I think. There's a place for a short message too :)</div>
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The date of Pepero day is November 11th and it's probably because the numbers 11.11 look like four long sticks that resemble pepero. There are different stories on the internet about how this holiday started. One of them says that two female students gave each other pepero in the wish of becoming tall and slim. Of course, this might not be true, but it's a nice story anyway. Wikipedia even says that if you wish to become tall and slim you have to eat pepero on 11.11 at 11:11 in 11 seconds. Lol I've never heard of that before, but it sounds like a fun thing to do. Of course, I assume they mean just one stick, because it would be impossible to eat the whole box in 11 seconds.</div>
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Korean Pepero sticks are really similar to the famous Japanese snack called Pocky. I belive Pocky was created first, years before Pepero. But Pepero day first started in Korea, sometime in the 1990s. Later on, when Japan saw how much money can be made with a day like that, Japan also started celebrating Pocky day. At least that's what the internet says, I am no expert. But I did live in Japan for a year and I don't remember Pocky being a huge day there. I might be wrong, but I don't remember receiving any Pocky on November 11th. Here in Korea I always get a least a box or two every year.</div>
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And even if you don't celebrate the day, the stores will remind you of it. You know how on Valentine's day for example, all the stores offer roses and hearts and chocolates and all this red/pink cute stuff to buy for your loved ones. Well, it's similar on Pepero day. Anywhere you go, there are tons of Pepero things to chose from. Not just regular boxes of pepero, but several "special editions" like extra huge pepero sticks or I don't know... Even stores that have nothing to do with Chocolate will sometimes have special Pepero day offers.</div>
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For example my favorite cosmetics shop in Korea called Etude House. Today they have a special 1+1 Pepero Day offer, where you can buy any two products and get the cheaper one of these two for free - not bad :) </div>
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My boyfriend and I decided not to spend money on Pepero, but I couldn't help but buy him at least one box ^^ It's not that expensive anyway.</div>
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I don't know if Pepero is sold where you live. Or maybe there's Pocky? I hear Pocky is sold in some of the European countries under the name of Mikado. Well, if you can't find any of these, then how about buying one of your favorite sweets, like Kinder surprise egg (lol I just LOVE them) or Milka or something and share it with your loved ones? ^^</div>
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Have a happy Pepero day ^^<br />
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-78979182776425059372014-11-07T13:33:00.000+09:002014-11-10T14:45:04.317+09:00Modern History Museum in Gunsan<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last weekend it was raining, so my boyfriend and I decided to visit the museum of modern history in Gunsan. </div>
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Gunsan is not too far away from Jeonju, it takes less than an hour by car. It is a small city by the sea and the bank of river Geum. It used to be a small fishing village and in the late 19th century the port was opened to ship rice to Japan.</div>
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After arriving to Gunsan we first had a small snack in the nearby convenience store (since we were kind of hungry already, but it was still too early for lunch) and then went straight to the Museum of modern history. The museum was rather crowded. Maybe because of the weather. It seems a lot of people like to visit museums on rainy days. </div>
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On the first and second floor of the museum you can learn about the history of the city, mostly about the fishing and farming and of course about the city in the time of Japanese-Korean war. There are many old items such as working tools or pottery on display and also different kinds of fishing boats. There is even a huge fishing boat in the middle of the room and you can climb up on it. And in the middle of the lobby there is a nice lighthouse. But the third floor is the most fun.</div>
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The whole third floor is turned into old Gunsan from 1930s. There are replicas of old buildings such as different shops, port, farm houses, train station, school etc... and you can walk around, enter the buildings and really feel like you're in the 1930s Gunsan :)</div>
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One of the first houses on display, and also the most crowded one, was the school. It was really small and it looked so cute. There were a couple of school desks and chairs and by the walls there were desks where you could try out printing ink on a paper. I tried it, but it was harder than it looked, so I kind of failed and didn't take a photo of it.</div>
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Then there were several shops that sold liquor, food, pottery, shoes etc. In the liquor store we could smell different types of alcoholic drinks and in the shoe store we were able to try on old type Korean shoes.</div>
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The last part of the museum was dedicated to Buddhism. And there was a small workshop where kids could draw pictures and post them on the wall. And we decided to join in lol Of course we were the only adults there drawing pictures, but why not, there was no "children only" sign. We only got to use two different colors of crayons since the kids were using the rest and we didn't want to take them away from them, so here is our masterpiece in two colors. :D</div>
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The museum was really fun. There was even a chance to try on old type Korean clothing and take a photo with this cool 1930s background, but there were too many people and we would have to wait for a long time. So we decided to skip that.</div>
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After leaving the museum it was time for lunch. My boyfriend found this cool place that's actually an old elementary school that has been turned into a restaurant. It is not that far from the museum, but still kind of in the middle of nowhere, so you need a car to get there. </div>
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When we entered the restaurant (school) the lady told us to go to the third grade - lol We walked down the hallway pass the first and second grade classroom until we took a seat in the third grade one. The third grade classroom is the biggest and there are places to sit on the floor too. Whereas the first and second grade classrooms are a bit smaller with only tables available. Every classroom still has blackboards on the wall, so even though it is really a restaurant, it still looks like a school :)</div>
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We ordered a Korean dish called ssambap. Basically you get stew, meat, rice, lots of side dishes (there was a fish too, but mostly vegetables) and different types of greens to use for wrapping: lettuce, kale, sesame leaf, Korean cabbage, chicory and red beet. You place one of the greens in your hand and then add some rice, meat, vegetables and ssamjang sauce. You wrap it all together and eat it ^^ It was delicious.</div>
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Before leaving the school we were able to try on old type Korean high school uniforms. They look a lot different from the school uniforms kids wear these days. Boys don't wear hats anymore (too bad, those hats look so cute! ^^) and skirts are A LOT shorter now. Anyway, it was fun to try it on and man, my boyfriend looked soooo handsome in that uniform ^^ <3</div>
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On the way back we stopped at Mango Six for some of that yummy yogurt flavored soft ice-cream. So in spite of the rainy weather we had a really fun weekend. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2Gunsan-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea35.9676772 126.736629335.1447602 125.44573580000001 36.790594199999994 128.0275228tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-17233986654448302202014-11-03T15:12:00.000+09:002014-11-03T15:12:48.131+09:00A rainy day in Jeonju<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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It's been months since I left Daegu and moved to Jeonju and I am really happy here. I love Jeonju, it's such a nice city and it is so much more similar to my hometown than Daegu. I don't really miss Daegu that much, I definitely don't miss the school dormitory! But I DO miss coin norebang (karaoke) around our university, I miss the subway... but mostly I miss my friends. :( But last Friday, a friend of mine from Daegu finally decided to visit me in Jeonju. :)</div>
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It was her first time in Jeonju, so I wanted to show her around a bit. Unfortunately the weather was terrible... it was pouring... I was afraid she might even cancel the whole trip because of all the rain, but she arrived anyway ^^ Actually her bus arrived 20 minutes early, so she had to wait for me at the station for a while. And when I finally arrived there, we realized we were not at the same terminal lol Luckily the two terminals are only a couple minutes walk away from each other. :)</div>
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My friend already did the research online and she had three things on the list that she wanted to see/do in Daegu: 1.See Hanok village 2.See youth mall 3.Have a bracelet made</div>
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So we took a city bus and went straight to Hanok Village. It is definitely the nicest place in Jeonju and a MUST SEE if you travel there. Even in the rain it's not too bad, but I still wish it hadn't rained, because we had to skip the palace tour because of that. It would just be no fun walking around there in the rain. </div>
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But even with all the rain, my friend seemed pretty excited - about the street food at least :D She was just walking around the streets of Hanok village and trying all the different types of food like: "wow, what's this, let's try it... oh, this looks yummy, let's try it..." lol Well thanks to her, I got to try out some new street food too. The first thing we tried was shrimp mandu (dumpling). I wonder why my boyfriend and I never noticed it before. It was DELICIOUS! In fact, it was so yummy that we actually came back later that day to eat some more :) The next thing was a kind of octopus on a stick. I am not a big fan of octopus or squid, so I decided to skip that one. I did take a bite just to try it and it really wasn't bad for an octopus, it was rather good.</div>
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Then we tried hotteok, which is usually translated as a Korean pancake, I guess. I've had it many times before, but this one was a bit different. It was larger and flatter and it tested amazing! It's also quite cheap too, only 1500won (1,5$) for the regular one with honey. If you want one with cream cheese or ice-cream it costs a bit more, between 1500 and 3000won. The place where they sell it looks nice too, there's this huge oven and you can sit and watch the guy make them and bake them for you. The only bad thing is, you have to wait a while. But it's worth it!</div>
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After that we looked for a place where they make leather bracelets with your name on it. And thanks to naver maps app and my excellent sense of orientation ;) it wasn't hard to find. It costs 10.000won (about 10$). You choose the text, color and size and the woman makes it for you. It doesn't take long. I didn't buy one, because I thought it would be better to get it together with my boyfriend and make it a couple bracelet if we decided to :) My friend chose a red one and it looked really nice. We just both agreed that she could have done the last syllable of the Korean name a bit nicer, but oh well :)</div>
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After that I was freezing cold. I know it's November already, but Jeonju has still been quite warm lately with almost 20 degrees during the day. But suddenly last Friday it got cold. And I would probably be ok if my feet weren't soaking wet. Walking around with wet feet is unbelievably uncomfortable... I was trying to have fun and not annoy my friend too much about my discomfort, but at some point I just couldn't take it anymore. So we walked to the city center, which is almost right next to Hanok village, and I bought some socks at Daiso (a cheap store all over Korea and Japan where you can get pretty much everything for 1000~5000won). Then we took a rest at Ann's house (the cafe that I'd written about before). But since I was wearing stockings, changing the socks wouldn't have helped much - stupid me. So we stopped at the shopping mall nearby where I bought some leggings and finally got rid of the wet stockings in the bathroom. Man, I felt so much better after that.</div>
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With the new energy I was able to walk to the market :) It wasn't that far away. In the market, my friend wanted to find this Youth mall she heard about from a friend or read about on the internet. It is quite small, so it is a bit hard to find, but we managed. It's a small place on a second floor with several different shops and restaurants. There was a shop with postcards (a thing that is sometimes really hard to find in Korea...) and there were people sitting outside writing them. But the best shop was this candy shop with candies that Koreans used to eat a long time ago and some I recognized too - candies that we also ate in Europe when I was a kid. And in front of the store there was an old video game that we just had to try. It was Bubble Bobble. I can't believe I even remember the name. We used to play this game on PC a long long time ago :) </div>
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We skipped lunch 'cause we were kind of full from all the street food we ate. So we just walked back to Hanok village to buy some ChocoPie - a snack you just HAVE to buy in Jeonju, it's really famous. And then we took a bus to our place here in Jeonju. Finally we were able to warm up a bit while we waited for my boyfriend to get back from work. Then we all went to eat dinner. My friend wanted to try this yummy food she saw on tv and my boyfriend knew about it, so he took us there. And omg, it was amazing. It was hot pot rice and my friend chose the mushroom version while my boyfriend and I went for the beef :) We all agreed it was delicious, but I was the first one to finish and I think the only one that actually ate EVERYTHING. :) I definitely want to eat that again sometime.</div>
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And after dinner we went to norebang for two hours. It was really fun. My friend and I used to go to norebang together all the time in Daegu. Then we went home to watch superstarK - a music competition that my boyfriend and I watch every Friday. We also wanted to play a board game together, but we were all too tired - my boyfriend from working all day, my friend from having to wake up at 5am that day and me from walking around with cold and wet feet.</div>
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It would have been so much better in sunny weather. I wanted her to see the zoo and this beautiful park near the university, but it has to be good weather for that. Well, at least she has a reason to visit again soon :) It was a great day for me anyway, despite the weather and all, and I hope my friend made some nice memories too. ^^</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, South Korea35.8242238 127.1479532000000735.6182063 126.82522970000008 36.0302413 127.47067670000007tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-49956030346378549632014-10-22T13:53:00.000+09:002014-10-23T10:38:15.148+09:00A wedding in Korea<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last weekend my boyfriend and I were invited to a wedding in Seoul. This was the third wedding I've attended in Korea, but this one was kind of a big deal for me, because it was my boyfriend's cousin who was getting married and that meant I got to meet my boyfriend's parents, his sister and other relatives :)<br />
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There are roughly two types of weddings in Korea. The traditional kind where the bride and the groom wear wedding hanboks and all... and the non-traditional wedding that is a bit similar to the weddings in Europe or America. The first wedding I attended was a traditional one. It was my Slovenian friend getting married to his Korean girlfriend. The second wedding was a non-traditional type and it was my classmate from Korean class (he's Korean, but lived in America most of his life) getting married to his Korean girlfriend. And this one was also a non-traditional one. My boyfriend's cousin (the bride) and the groom are both Koreans but live in Australia.</div>
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Korean weddings usually take place in special wedding halls. You can see lots of them everywhere in Jeonju. They are these huge buildings with lots of wedding halls inside and there are usually a lot of weddings taking place in the same hall on the same day. So when you walk in the building there is a type of schedule on the first floor that tells you what wedding is taking place at what time and on what floor. This one started at 5:30pm on a Saturday, so I think it was the last one that day. My boyfriend and I arrived there a bit after 5pm and most of the guests were already there. The groom was talking to the guests while the bride was sitting in a special small room where she was taking photos with the guests. We walked there to greet her and we also took a photo with her. She looked beautiful and I really liked her wedding dress! But I couldn't help but think how bored or tired she must have been, just sitting there all afternoon greeting guests one by one and taking photos with them. </div>
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Around 5:30 we all entered the wedding hall. There were cute white seats with gold ribbons around them, but they looked a bit old. Each ribbon was shaped differently and you could tell they've been used lots of time. There was a beautiful white piano in the front and a woman played the wedding march song as the bride walked down the isle with her father. The bride and the groom were then standing in the front, facing this old guy who was giving a really long speech. A really long one... or maybe it just seemed that way because it was really hot inside and we were standing in the back of the hall. A Korean wedding ceremony doesn't take a long time. Most of the time is just this speech, I guess. After the speech, the groom played the violin for the bride. On my classmate's wedding the groom also prepared a performance for his bride - he sang to her. I don't know if this is something typically done, but it was definitely nice. Then the bride's sister also had a surprise dance prepared. It was really funny, she walked in the hall wearing a huge white ribbon on her head and started dancing to Orange Caramel song. Later the groom and their friends from Australia all joined in the dance so it was really fun :) Unfortunately I didn't record the video of the dance, but here's a music video of the song. Watch it and you'll get an idea of how it looked like.</div>
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Now here's the most disappointing part about Korean weddings for me: the wedding cake. I am a HUGE cake lover and I can never say no to a piece of cake or two. Therefore the best part for me about any wedding is the cake! However... in Korea, you don't get to eat the wedding cake. No one does :( I'd already learned that on the previous wedding so I wasn't too disappointed this time, but I asked my boyfriend and his sister: who gets to eat the cake?? What happens to the cake?? Lol They weren't sure, but they knew the cake wouldn't be served so no one would get to eat it. It is so strange to me. There IS a wedding cake on every wedding in Korea. And it is part of the wedding ceremony for the bride and the groom to cut the cake with a huge knife. But they don't eat it, they don't even taste it, they just cut it. I have no idea, but it might be the wedding hall's cake and I wouldn't be surprised if the next couple getting married got to cut the same cake. o_O</div>
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Also, there is usually no "you may kiss the bride part". It is not strange at all for the bride and groom to not kiss at all on their wedding. I mean, I don't expect them to make out in front of everyone, but a short peck on the lips would be nice... In my classmate's wedding, there was no "you may kiss the bride part" but the groom gave a small kiss to his bride at the end of the ceremony anyway. But he's from America as I had mentioned already. On this wedding it might have been because both the bride and the groom (and the bride's sister as well) live in Australia that they got to kiss. One of the guests (the groom's friend or relative, I don't remember) said he had three questions for the groom: 1. do you love Rachel (the bride)? 2. Are you confident that you will love her for the rest of your life? And the groom answered loudly with a "yes" to both of these questions. And the last one was "is she your first love?" which was meant as a joke. Then he asked the bride to kiss the groom while he counts to 5 (or 3 or 10, I don't remember, let's say it was 5). And if she stopped kissing him before he counted to 5, he'd kiss her instead of the groom. So because of that they were 'forced' to kiss. It was a kind of kiss you see in Asian dramas, where they just put their lips together but not move at all. And I honestly prefer that. I don't think we all need to see them use their tongues, as I am sure a lot of couples do on their weddings in America or Europe.</div>
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Other than that, there was a part where the bride read her letter to her parents. I didn't understand all of it, but it sounded really sad. She was reading it really slowly, trying not to cry while her voice was shaking. The whole ceremony didn't last long. They usually take less than 30 minutes, I guess. But during the whole time, there were phones ringing all the time and it seriously bothered me. I find it so annoying. Last time in the movie theater this guy's phone kept ringing in the middle of the horror movie and it was really annoying. When it finally stopped I thought he turned it off, but instead we all heard this loud voice of an old guy: "hello?" and he just kept on talking as if he was at home... no manners at all! Every phone can simply and quickly be put to silence mode and if you don't do it, it is not the technology's fault, it just shows your bad manners!</div>
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Anyway, after the ceremony the bride and the groom took photos with their friends and families. I also got to be in the photos together with their relatives :D And after you took a photo you were supposed to go to the dining hall with a buffet to eat. Actually, a lot of people left towards the end of the ceremony already. Maybe they were afraid they couldn't get a seat lol and I can understand them, because the first thing we heard on the speaker when we walked in the dining hall was "there are not enough chairs, so we kindly ask those who have finished eating to give up their chairs to other guests" lol How can that even happen, another mystery to me. I don't know if it was just the people from this wedding this time, but I heard in many wedding halls, people from different weddings eat in the same dining hall at the same time. I am not sure how it was this time since I couldn't possible remember every face from the wedding.</div>
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We got to sit together with my boyfriend's parents, his sister and some other relatives. There were tons of food and my boyfriend and I were starving. We walked around the buffet and picked out the food that looked most delicious. There was really a lot to choose from, even sushi. There were some desserts too, including tiny pieces of cakes. It wasn't a wedding cake, but it was better than nothing. While we were eating, the bride and the groom (wearing hanboks this time) were walking around chatting with guests, thanking them for coming. They didn't get to eat anything. I don't know how long we were sitting there, 30 minutes? an hour? After eating we kept on sitting and talking for a while until another announcement from the speaker told us it was time to leave. I looked around and most of the people were gone already.</div>
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After you finish eating you just get up and leave. That is usually how it's done on every wedding in Korea. So the whole things - the ceremony and the meal together - doesn't last more than 2 hours. Guests don't bring wedding gifts but give money instead. You put money in an envelope, write your name on it and after you do that you get a coupon for the dining hall. I'm guessing that means if you don't give the money, you don't get to eat. At the first wedding I attended (my Slovenian friend) I wasn't prepared and no one had told me about this, so I really had no idea what to do and therefore didn't give any money. I felt kind of bad... On the next one I knew better and gave the money in an envelope. I wasn't sure how much to give, I guess it depends on how close you are to the bride or the groom. Also, I heard you can give less if you're a student. Anyway I asked around the school about how much I should give before I went to the wedding. This time I came together with my boyfriend so he gave the money for us.</div>
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All in all the wedding was nice and the food was delicious. I had a nice time and I was happy to finally meet my boyfriend's family. But I wouldn't want a wedding like that for myself. I would rather invite less people and have a small ceremony somewhere outside. I don't like these kind of wedding halls. At least this one had a door so it wasn't too loud (except for all the phones ringing) but in my classmate's wedding, the wedding hall didn't have a door, it was just kind of around the corner, so it was really really loud. I also don't like that feeling like you're supposed to just hurry and get it over with like "the ceremony is done, let's take photos... ok, photos are done, please move to the dining hall... there aren't enough chair so if you're done please leave... ok time to go home now etc". My boyfriend says it's because Koreans are so busy and because relatives come from all over Korea, so the ceremony can't take all day. And yes, I can partly understand that. Everyone is busy these days, who isn't? But you get married only once in your life (or it should be just once) and I think that's something worth making the time for.</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-14474594214230882452014-10-14T11:25:00.000+09:002014-10-14T11:29:23.088+09:00Jeonju Hanok Village and Internation Sori Festival<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Last week the yearly international Sori festival took place in Jeonju. It's a musical event that is mainly focused on traditional music. There are different performances, not only from Korea, but from several other countries as well. My boyfriend has attended this event many times before, he even played with his band a couple of times, but since I just moved to Jeonju this summer, it was the first time for me.<br />
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An opening ceremony took place on Wednesday evening at Sori Art Center. I don't know how much the tickets were, but my Russian friend who studies in Seoul, invited me and my boyfriend and gave us the tickets for free. Unfortunately the ceremony started at 7 and my boyfriend just got back from work at 7. After that we got ready and left, but it took as a long time to get there, 'cause there was so much traffic. So when we finally entered the hall and got to our seats, the performers started bowing already. So ya, we didn't really see anything. Too bad. My friend said it was quite good. After the ceremony there was a kind of reception with food and drinks, but it didn't taste that well. So we missed the whole ceremony, but I did get to see my friend from Seoul and meet some of her friends as well, so the whole evening/night was quite fun. We went for some makgeolli (a traditional Korean alcoholic drink usually made from rice) and then we took them to the Absolute bar where my boyfriend's band sometimes has concerts and where one of the band members works.</div>
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The photo is from a place where we drank makgeolli. Koreans usually also eat a lot when they drink, especially if they drink makgeolli or soju, I think. These kind of dishes are called anju.</div>
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On Saturday we decided to check out the festival at Jeonju Hanok Village, which is a traditional-style village located in the center of Jeonju. Tons of people came from all over Korea to see this festival, so the whole village was really crowded. It took us forever to find a parking space, but we got lucky eventually :) First we walked through the village, trying to get to a yummy tteokgalbi restaurant. There was a line of people waiting outsite, so it took us about 15 or 20 minutes to get a table, but it was worth waiting. Tteokgalbi is a dish made from pork and beef shaped into rectangles and grilled on charcoal. It is really really yummy. We were so hungry that I forgot to take a photo, but I will include the one we took last time. Oh, it seems like that time I was also too hungry so there is almost no food left on the table, but you can still see some of the tteokgalbi.</div>
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After that we went for some ice-cream. There was this really really yummy ice-cream we had in Lotte World - an amusement park in Seoul, and I saw a similar one being sold in Hanok village. So we decided to try it out. They had tons of flavors to choose from. I couldn't decide between peach and strawberry so I just ordered what my boyfriend did: blueberry yogurt. Usually the thing he orders ends up tasting much better than whatever I order, so I just went with his decision this time and it was really good. ^^ The weather was really nice and sunny (almost a bit too hot) so we were just sitting outside for a while enjoying our ice-cream.</div>
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Then we finally got our hands on the festival program pamphlet and decided what to see. Well it was me who decided, really. My boyfriend wanted to see some band, but they weren't playing on Saturday evening, so we went with my decision. I wanted to see something traditional Korean and pansori sounded great. I heard so much about pansori but I never had a chance to see the real performance. My boyfriend wasn't too excited about it. He says it's not that he doesn't like Korean traditional music, it's just that he had to listed to it so many times when he was younger.</div>
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We slowly walked toward the Traditional Culture Hall to see the pansori performance and decided to have a little snack on the way. We were really full from tteokgalbi and ice-cream, but there are so many types of snacks being sold on the streets of Hanok village that you start to feel hungry again just by looking at them. We decided to go for some waffles :)</div>
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Finally we arrived to the Traditional Culture Hall and got the tickets for the pansori performance. They were 10.000krw each. Ouch, a bit expensive. But I really wanted to see it, so we payed for the tickets and went it. We were about 10 minutes late but there were still a couple of seats available. Luckily, 'cause the performance is about an hour and a half long.<br />
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<b>Pansori</b> is a traditional Korean performance. It is kind of like a story telling. There are usually two performers: the singer and the drummer. While the drummer gives the rhythm, the singer singes, narrates and acts out the story. Different parts of the story have different rhythms.<br />
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The pansori story we saw was Chunhyang-ga. Sounds familiar? :) I know Korean names are difficult to remember, but I'd written about it before in my blog. It's the story from Namwon. I wrote a lot about it, so if you don't remember just reread <a href="http://mypinkkorea.blogspot.kr/2014/09/namwon-and-chunhyang.html" target="_blank">the post about Namwon trip</a>.<br />
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I've lived in Korea for 3 years now, so my Korean language skills are not bad at all. However, it is still much harder to understand things like songs or musicals, and especially pansori where they use kind of an old-style Korean. So I couldn't understand a lot of what the woman was singing (but neither could my boyfriend ;)) I looked around at people and I noticed they had these pink booklets with all the lyrics written inside so that they could follow more easily. I also wanted one... The woman sitting in front of us had two! And she wasn't even using them, she was sitting on them. My boyfriend told me to just pull it out from underneath her butt, but I was pretty sure she'd notice, so I decided to wait. I figured, if she keeps moving, the booklets would eventually end up on the floor and she wouldn't even notice. And that's exactly what happened. :)<br />
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The singer was really good, she had a strong voice... but what impressed us the most was... how on earth could she memorize 15 pages of the story?! Wow~ impressive :) During the performance I looked at my boyfriend once and he was sleeping lol Also, another funny thing about the performance was the audience. They kept on shouting things like 'oi', 'hoi' and other stuff :) I found it so funny. I looked at it online a bit and it is a perfectly normal thing in pansori. The audience's shouting is kind of like an encouragement and it is called chuimsae. There was this old guy sitting behind us and he kept on yelling 'kurochi' which is like 'that's right!' lol I wanted to do the same, but wasn't sure when or what, so whenever the audience started shouting I just joined them and my boyfriend found it hilarious. :) Well, at least he was having fun and wasn't sleeping.<br />
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I liked the performance, it was interesting and I would love to see another pansori sometime. Especially now that I'm prepared and have learned all the shoutings :D But towards the end, it started getting really really cold outside, so we couldn't wait for the pansori to end. After it finally ended, they served some snacks - mostly rice cakes. I grabbed a lot of them - I figured we deserved them after paying 20.000krw for the tickets - and we ate them on the way to the car. Luckily our car was parked close by 'cause it was freezing outside.<br />
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Unfortunately I was sick the next day (on Sunday) so we couldn't go to norebang (karaoke) or anywhere else for that matter (except for the ER) but at least we had a great Saturday :)</div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2651153851836819178.post-28360035012950406962014-10-09T13:43:00.000+09:002014-10-09T13:43:31.983+09:00Hangeul Day<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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And we have yet another holiday in Korea :D This time it is Hangeul Day and I just want to let you know shorty what this is (just in case you don't know already). </div>
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Hengeul means the Korean alphabet and Hangeul Day is all about celebrating the creation of Hangeul. As you probably know, a long time ago, Koreans used Chinese characters for writing. But Chinese characters are not entirely suitable for Korean language since Chinese and Korean are quite different, especially when it comes to grammar. Chinese characters are also not easy to learn, so in the old days, there were many people in Korea who were unable to read and write. And for that reason King Sejong or Sejong the great from the Joseon dynasty created Hangeul in 1446.</div>
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Hangeul is actually a very simple writing system that includes 24 basic letters: 14 basic consonants and 10 basic vowels.</div>
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There are also 16 additional symbols (5 consonants and 11 vowels) which are made by combining these basic symbols, so they can also be called complex symbols.<br />
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And that's all the hangeul symbols there are - pretty simple, right? ;) After you've learned these symbols you just need to put them together into syllables. Let's look at an example. Let's see how to write Hangeul day in Korean. Hangeul day in Korean is Hangeul-nal. So all you have to do is put the symbols together like this: combine h + a + n into one sylablle 'han', g + eu + l into another syllable 'geul' and n + a + l into the last syllable 'nal'.</div>
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And it's as simple as that. A lot of people ask me how to type Korean alphabet using a computer or smartphone. Well, now that you know that Hangeul doesn't have much more symbols than for example English alphabet, you can imagine how they can all fit on a keyboard. Consonants are on the left side and vowels on the right side. Using the shift button you can also get the additional characters. And as you type 'h', 'a' and 'n', your computer or a smartphone will automatically put them together into one syllable 'han'.</div>
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Creating Hangeul, King Sejong made writing for Koreans much easier and gave everyone a chance to learn how to read and write, so that reading and writing wasn't limited only to scholars (mostly men) in the highest classes in Korean society. This is why creation of Hangeul is so important and why this is one of Korean's national holidays. Although actually, it hasn't always been a national holiday. In the early 90s some people objected to the number of holidays (non-working) days in Korea and Hangeul day was therefore no longer a national holiday. This changed again in 2013 and now Hangeul is again a work-free day. ^^</div>
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Well I hope this was interesting for you and that maybe you learned something new :) As for me, I am happy that my boyfriend gets a day off work. But same as last week, he decided to work today and be free on Saturday instead. ^^</div>
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Have a nice Hangeul day, everyone! ;) </div>
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Tehihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10170013748477204449noreply@blogger.com3