Life in Seoul

making memories

Today is my last day in Korea, and I won’t be coming back until October. I’m leaving a bit early because of some troubles with my visa (I was originally gonna leave in the middle of June, but suddenly got a phonecall from the immigration office saying that I’m still in Korea on my student visa, and since I’m not studying right now I need to get out of Korea as soon as possible. I thought that since I went to China, I’d come back to Korea on a tourist visa - but I was wrong). I called the flight company and asked to change the return date of my ticket, but they said it can not under ANY circumstances be changed.. so I ended up having to buy a new ticket. Boyfriend is also coming to Norway and will be staying for 3 months, but he will be leaving Korea in the middle of June on the date when I was supposed to go (originally we were gonna go together). So yeah, I’m leaving tomorrow afternoon, and it hasn’t really sunken in yet. Going back to cold, windy, rainy Norway - yet I’m somewhat excited. I went shopping last Friday to get all the things I will be needing while I’m in Norway (isn’t it funny how I used to go shopping in Norway for what I needed during my stay in Korea - now it’s the opposite lol). So I spent quite a lot of money on the makeup and skincare products that I use, plus some clothes and such. Now I’m well prepared for 5 long months in Norway!

I’ve been back in Korea for about a month or so now, and the first week I was pretty much just studying for the TOPIK test and spending some time with the boyfriend. Then I had the TOPIK test - which went ok, but not great, thanks to the ridiculously scary ahjussi teacher who kept talking during the whole first half of the test, and yelled at someone every 5 minutes. I couldn’t concentrate very well at all - I’m sure the teachers are not allowed to behave like that… So after getting the results in June, I will decide whether or not to take the test again.

Still hooked on bubble tea - I’m trying out all the delicious flavors~! so many new bubble tee stores have opened up all around Seoul lately, so nice!

Boyfriend and I got new pretty couple rings to celebrate our 100th day together in advance. Since I have to leave Korea a little earlier than planned, we won’t be able to see each other on our 100th day which is a little sad.. Korean couples always make a big deal out of the 100th day, but for boyfriend and I we’ll just get the rings and then we’ll celebrate properly once we reach 6 months!

Recently I’ve spent a lot of time with the boyfriend, hung out with some close friends, and just had a good time in general. Boyfriend and I went to Busan for a 3-days vacation about a week ago, and it was so nice! We spent lots of time on Haeundae beach where we had sort of a picnic (with fruits and ice cream hihi) while watching the ocean and talking. The first day we went to the beach, the wind was super strong, but the second day the weather was so perfect. Did I mention that the weather is super summery here in Korea these days?? it’s been really hot for a little while..

We also spent a few hours at a huge super-nice sauna (jjimjjilbang), where I went once before together with Erica the last time I was in Busan. It’s located inside a shopping mall, and looks so nice on the inside. The entrance fee is a little expensive, but definitely worth it! I especially enjoyed the outdoor footbath area~!

For transportation we took advantage of a free shuttle-bus service for foreigners, which I’ve used once before when I went to Kyeongju, and I’d recommend this for all foreigners in Seoul who wants to visit Busan or Kyeongju! The bus is so nice and comfortable!

Also, me, boyfriend and his cousin spent a few days showing his cousin around a little in Seoul, and one of the places we went was the president’s house (at least that’s what I think it was.. lol). The security was so strict there..!

Picture taking by boyfriend’s cousin while we were looking at the president’s house. can you guess where I am? haha

I’ve written before about my korean penpal whom I lost contact with a few years back, and how I wanted to meet her now that I’m in Korea.. Well a few days ago I finally heard from her again - she was quite surprised upon getting to know that I’ve been in Korea since 2010 studying korean! We decided to meet once before me going back to Norway, so we met for the very first time today. It was so nice to finally meet her, and we had so much to talk about! we had a really good time walking around in Daehangro talking about everything, laughing, drinking bubble tea, eating delicious waffles and looking around inside the campus of Sungkyunkwan University where she studies. I have a feeling we’re gonna become really good friends, and can’t wait to meet her again when I come back to Korea in October!!


Now I need to pack the final rest of my things, get a good nights sleep, and then go to the airport tomorrow. Excited to see family and friends again, but little sad to leave Korea this soon.. I’ve really had the best time ever this time in Korea!!

China part two

It’s been over two weeks since I came back from China, and it was a really nice vacation. I saw and experienced a lot of interesting things, had a really good time, but also a few moments of frustration in situations where communication was a problem. Chinese people are way worse than koreans when it comes to speaking english; most of them either don’t know more than a few words of english, or just nothing at all.

Pretty Yijing when we were out sightseeing.

I was determined to see “dragons”, and waited quite some time before it started, and then realized they were only lions.. It was fun to watch though, and interesting to see how the guys inside of the lion were doing it.

We found a really nice place with a lake in the middle, and the lake had lots of colorful fishes. We sat down on a bench by the lake for a while, feeding the fishes and talking.

A tiny magazine-shop by a subway station, covered in all sorts of magazines.

A cafè called RBT, we went there quite a lot of times for bubble tea and snacks etc. I drank quite a lot of bubble tea during my stay in China - it’s fairly cheap and comes in all kinds of flavors, tastes really yummy! I love the bubbles~! As mentioned before, chinese people don’t seem to drink much coffee, so they have lots of other types of drinks. Bubble tea has recently became quite popular in Korea as well, and while I was gone in China two new bubble-tea shops opened up in Edae, plus one in Sinchon!

Chinese crosswalks - I can imagine a lot of people lost their lives on them. I thought korean drivers were crazy, but that’s until I saw chinese drivers..! They really have no patience whatsoever, and does not care if the light is green or red - they’ll still drive right across the crosswalk in full speed. Some roads that people cross a lot doesn’t even have crosswalks, quite scary if you ask me.

tall tall buildings.

Yijing and I went to visit her rich aunt and uncle about a 3 hours drive from her hometown. We stayed for a few days, and every morning we’d hear exercise music from outside - the morning exercise of the students in the school right nearby. Quite fascinating to watch them all in matching clothes, synchronized as can be. This is something chinese students apparently have to do every morning.. I remember I hated gym class at school, and that was only twice a week - I can’t even imagine having gym class every morning!

The view from her aunt and uncle’s apartment, they were living on the 13th floor. Despite them being super rich (her uncle’s shirt costs the same as what I pay for one months rent here in Korea), they still had hole-in-the-ground toilets inside their house.. Actually most of the toilets I came across in China were hole-in-the-ground toilets, and very very few of them actually provides you with toilet paper. If you ever go to China, bring a pack of tissues with you wherever you go, cause you’ll be needing it for sure!

We also went to a Zoo, and I was quite disappointed upon getting to know that there was no panda there at that time.. it was still fun though.

Inside the zoo. It seemed like the day we went, was class-field-trip-day, cause there were so many groups of students there! I felt a little like the kids were looking more at me (the foreigner) than at the animals… There was a lot of pointing and wide eyes haha. And again on this part too, it’s a lot worse than in Korea.

A man in the zoo were selling these tiny turtles in small boxes for a cheap price.

Meat on sticks from 7-eleven down the street from Yijing’s house, we ate these quite a few times whenever we got hungry.

One of the quite poor neighborhoods we passed by.

My flight back to Korea went fine, and I was picked up by the boyfriend at the airport, all handsome dressed in a suit. I’d definitely go back to China for a vacation in the future, though next time maybe to explore a different place.

Graduation, and first days in China

Wednesday last week was graduation day for the level 6 students in the KLI, all my closest friends were graduating. This graduation was the 200th one in the KLI, so it seemed like they put a lot of effort into making it good, and it was written about in the news as well. It’s a little sad that I won’t be graduating as I’m not gonna do level 6, I’d really love to have an occasion to wear a pretty hanbok for.. Yijing, Diana and Erica were all so pretty in their hanbok, and boyfriend was really handsome in his suit.

Early in the morning on Friday last week, I went with Yijing and her boyfriend to the airport. They were bringing so many things (five suitcases plus hand-luggage), and since my suitcase was only about half full, we filled mine with some of their things as well. Yijing apparently shopped a lot the last few weeks since she won’t be coming back to Korea for a long time. We boarded the flight just in time, after having run across the airport to find the right gate, and had a nice 3,5 hours long flight. After landing in Guangzhou, we were picked up by Yijing’s father, and then drove for about an hour before getting to her place. Her place is quite nice - a lot bigger than I expected.

Yijing and her boyfriend walking their two cute dogs.

The weather here is so warm and summery (sunny and 25 degrees celsius), but it’s a little cold inside her house.. the other night I slept in tights, two t-shirts and a thick sweater, and despite all that a mosquito managed to give me several bites all over my legs.. I have to say chinese mosquitoes are a lot worse than the korean ones that I hate so much - chinese mosquitoes are tiny tiny and cause so much harm (swollen red bites that itches like crazy).

The first day in China I did pretty much nothing more than eating all day, and I was ridiculously full by the time I went to bed. The second day we went to the super market to look around, and then looked around some more inside some shopping malls etc. I only bought candy and some gum that whole day haha.

There’s a lot of yummy food here, but most of it is quite oily. Also, Yijing’s hometown is known to have lots of sweet foods - even the soups taste sweet..! The other day we ate sweet foods pretty much the whole day, and when they wanted to go get ice cream I thought I was gonna throw up. I miss spicy korean food :(

I also miss cute korean coffeeshops. Chinese people don’t seem to drink much coffee at all, just tea all day long. for every meal. at least four times a day. Once in a while you can come across a Starbucks, but that’s pretty much it, apart from the strange fruits/juice-cafés. Chinese people seem to eat their meals at very settled times of the day - people were looking at us really strangely when we came to eat lunch in a restaurant around 3pm, and there were no other customers beside us there.

In a 7-eleven nearby. I like going there to buy milk tea~

Tomorrow we’re going to another city a few hours away from here, gonna stay till Thursday. We’re gonna be doing some shopping, and maybe go to a zoo to see pandas :D excited!

Happiness.

Level 5 final exams are over, and I think I did pretty well. No more stress about exams - until April 15th when I have my TOPIK exam (Test Of Proficiency In Korean), and I’m also planning on taking a Hanja exam (writing Chinese signs often used in Korea) in May. I’ll have to study hard for my TOPIK exam while I’m in China, as well as when I get back to Korea again! Recently I’ve gained a lot of interest in cooking, so the last time I was at my boyfriend’s house I made some korean as well as chinese food for him - it was very successful and super delicious!! Yesterday boyfriend and I were feeling a little adventurous; we got on the subway and got off at a place we’ve never been to before, then explored a little before taking a random bus and getting off at a place that seemed quite interesting. In the end we found a huge mart where we spent probably an hour or so walking around just looking at things and joking around. The weather yesterday was so nice, perfect for being adventurous like that. It seems like spring has finally arrived, I’m thrilled!


A random street at the random place where we started our walk after getting off the subway.

The two pictures above were taken in Sinchon last week.

Friday last week our Hanja classmates decided to meet at night to eat dinner together. In total we were about 10 people, including our cute Hanja teacher. We really had so much fun!! I’ve met so many nice people after starting level 5 in the KLI, it’s been so great. Especially my Hanja classmates are really fun to hang out with, we decided that we need to have several more meetings like the one we had. We started with eating dinner; grilled fish and dwenjangjjigae (some kind of soup, a little spicy but so delicious), and then we went to play pool at a nice place nearby. It was my first time playing pool in Korea (I haven’t played much in Norway either), most of us girls didn’t know much about how to play it but some of the guys taught us - and it was so fun!

The dinner, which kind of looks a little scary.. but it’s so delicious, one of my favorite things to eat here in Korea!!

I also went to another korean wedding, as my boyfriend’s cousin was getting married. My boyfriend is originally korean, but grew up in China with his parents. He has almost all of his relatives here in Korea. This wedding was quite similar to the one I went to the last time, but I thought it was funny how after the couple were officially wed, they walked down the aisle to some nice music, and then turned and went back again for taking pictures haha.. Oh and also, my boyfriend was singing at the wedding and I was probably more nervous than he was, but he did really really well!!

Today boyfriend and I went to a bookstore to buy a TOPIK book for studying for the exam (I already have mine, so he wanted to get one as well), and then we sat in a coffeeshop for a few hours just talking and having fun together. I ordered milk tea, and was quite amazed when I saw that the barista had drawn a tree in my tea..!! I have no clue how he did that, but it looks really nice, doesn’t it?

We also ate some Taiwanese pineapple cake, which he had gotten as a present from his Taiwanese classmate. I really love these, they’re so yummy!!

I’m leaving for China on Friday, and I’m really curious as to whether it’ll be as exciting as when I first came to Korea. This will be the last time I can spend together with Yijing before she goes to the UK for studying, so it’ll be nice to have over two weeks with her in China! These days I really feel like I’m at the top of the world, that’s how happy I am. So many fun and exciting plans and adventures to fill my days with, I have the best boyfriend and some wonderful friends who genuinely care about me, and everything is just right~

I only have three days left of school, and knowing this is my last semester, of course I’m a little sad about it. I can honestly say I’ve had such a great time in the KLI, and met some amazing friends while studying there. The classes have also been fun, and I’ve achieved my goal of learning Korean. My next goal is Chinese!!

one month♡

Happy one month for boyfriend and I! After class we ate delicious lunch at a chinese restaurant, then went to see a movie, and then spent some time in this cat café. This one is located in Sinchon and was quite nice. In addition to one drink each (he had iced-tea and I had chamomile tea), we also bought a little snack thingy for the cats to eat. It’s funny, cause when we first walked into the café all the cats were half sleeping and just taking it easy, but the second they smelled the snack we had bought, we were suddenly surrounded by all of them haha.

hahah he really wanted to pet the cats, but they kept escaping from him. This cat café actually had a few Norwegian Forest cats!! interesting.

In Sinchon.

I ate something called “dong bang” not long ago, which is a little bun with some kind of filling inside. The name basically translates to poop-bread, and the little bun itself is shaped as one.. the manager person working there also had a huge poop-shaped hat on his head haha.

Anyways, I’ve had another busy week so far - I haven’t even had time to go to yoga class.. At school tomorrow we have a debate about death penalty which I have to prepare for before going to bed, and final exams are next week already! Time is really flying by super fast. Also, my China-trip is approaching, I’ll be leaving on the 23rd this month. I’m really really excited!!!

love and cultural experiences

so I had pretty much the best valentines day ever. Valentines becomes so much better when you actually have someone to celebrate it with haha. The day started totally normal; baiwei called me in the morning and asked if I had arrived at school yet, to which I replied that I was gonna be a little late. We decided to meet after the second class as usual, and I figured since I was already quite late, I might as well take the time I need to prepare before going to school. However, when I finally got outside, baiwei was standing there waiting for me with a bouquet of flowers..! so unexpected, I really had no idea at all (cause when we talked on the phone earlier he said he had arrived at school already). I felt a little guilty upon realizing he had been waiting for me in the cold for over half an hour.. He gave me the flowers, a box of chocolates, and he had also got me a really pretty bracelet. He suggested we’d go on a date instead of going to school, and of course I agreed.

My breakfast on valentines day in a random coffee shop in Edae where we discussed what to do for the day.

What he had got me for valentines <3

some of the chocolates I made for him (I made probably 10 of these packs of four). I occupied the kitchen in the place where I live for probably more than 2 hours to make these chocolates,and people who wanted to cook something were waiting for me to finish, so in the end I just hurried to finish up and went to my room to decorate them prettily haha. I guess it’s a trend here in korea to make chocolates by hand and give them out on valentines, lots of girls are doing it.

Anyways, after eating a simple breakfast, we decided to go play games for a few hours in a multibang (so much fun!!), before eating delicious lunch nearby. Then we went to an ice-skating rink together (the one where Lotte World is).

After that, we just wandered around for a while inside the mall, pretty much just to drag out the time for as long as possible. I really didn’t want the day to end!

Other than that, last Sunday I went to a korean wedding, which was quite an interesting experience. A lot of korean weddings are not held in a church, but inside a wedding hall. The place was really pretty, and there were so many nice pictures of the bride and the groom.

The bride was my classmate in level 2, she’s japanese and the groom is korean. When we first got there, we all got to take pictures with the bride, and then we went to the big room to wait for the ceremony to start. The whole thing didn’t really last for very long, and the man who wed them kept talking about how they should raise their kids to make a happy family, that they should give their kids lots of pocket money and have them play different kinds of instruments etc. At the end, the groom sang a song for the bride, and then they posed for pictures with family and friends.

After taking pictures together, the bride threw the bouquet for a pre-decided girl to catch (lol the camera man basically said “now we’re gonna throw the bouquet, who amongst the bride’s friends has a boyfriend?”), and then we went down one floor to eat at a wedding buffet. About an hour or so later, the bride and the groom came to the buffet area to thank us for coming to their wedding.

Earlier this week I went with my class to come kind of small korean palace nearby where we learned how to make and drink korean traditional tea, and could try on a korean hanbok. I was quite excited about this as I have never worn a hanbok before, so I volunteered to try it on. They only had the yellow and red hanbok which is the color combination that unmarried women used to wear in the old days, but nowadays there are so many other pretty color combinations.

Me wearing the red and yellow hanbok, and a girl from my class. 

We also did some kind of origami, making what’s supposed to look like the korean hanbok. It turned out ok I think haha.

Today I went to do two hours of yoga in the morning, before trying to finish my questionnaire analysis thingy in korean (for which in advance I had to interview at least 15 koreans about a self-selected topic..!). Tomorrow I’m going to baiwei’s place again, so I need to wake up a little early!

fun times and delicious foods~

I realize it’s been quite a while since my last post, which is mostly because I’ve just been really busy in every way. It’s been freezing cold lately; the other day the temperature went down to -17 degrees Celsius..! walking outside, it felt like my face was gonna fall off, and I definitely couldn’t feel neither my fingers nor toes. please come a little sooner, will you Spring??

Last week I had fun with my friends pretty much every day; going skating, bowling, singing karaoke (three days in a row!), playing Wii-games in multiroom, eating delicious foods, sitting in coffeeshops either studying or just chatting etc. I had so much fun to the point that when Sunday came, I was almost exhausted haha..

This is called Bossam, and it’s super yummy. The kimchi there is amazing!!

At the ice-skating rink.

Karaoke time! usually we go to a place that looks much nicer than this one though.

Bowling with some of my classmates~ me, two other girls and one guy. The guy was the one who suggested we’d go bowling, and the rest of us agreed even though neither of us didn’t have much of a clue about how to bowl. It ended with him having to buy all three of us girls coffee afterwards, because we won a bet about beating his score in the second round (all three of us girls’ scores against his haha).

On Saturday the weekend before that, I went to Baiwei’s house again, and we had a lot of fun! As usual his mom cooked lots of delicious chinese food for us, we watched a really nice korean movie together, played some games on his computer, before deciding to go out for a little walk.. which ended in a 45mins long walk to E-mart where we bought ice cream that we ate while looking around. I found a little childrens’ book called “The little Prince” which I never had the chance to read when I was younger, so I’ve been wanting to read it since a long time ago. Thought it was a nice idea to read it in korean! so far it’s quite interesting.

This week I’ve been super busy studying for midterms, which I had yesterday and the day before. I’d say my exams went really well, even though I could’ve probably done better on the listening exam. I managed to catch a cold a week ago so I was really not feeling very well during a couple of days, however I forced myself to go to school since it wouldn’t be smart to miss a class right before my exams. Yesterday I took a long nap after coming back from school, then took a nice walk outside with Baiwei right before it got dark, went shopping with Yijing and two other mutual friends, then the four of us had dinner at the chicken place in the second floor of the building where I live. So yummy, but we ordered a lot more than we could actually eat, so we got the rest packed for take-out (this will be my dinner today haha).

A coffeeshop where I went with my classmates last week for planning our class discussion. Anyways, the guy working there gave us two slices of cake and a giant cookie as service~! such a nice surprise, and it all tasted delicious!

Enough of my rambling for now~! I’m gonna watch a few episodes of a really exciting korean drama series, eat dinner, and go to bed a little early. I’m still quite tired, as there have been so many things happening lately. Next week will consist of more fun, since the exams are finally over!

level 5, super busy

school started last week, and I’ve been super busy since then. My classmates are really nice, and we’ve already had two class meetings so far (typically eating together, playing games at a multibang, singing karaoke, going to coffeeshops etc). Everyone keeps saying they wish they had the atmosphere of our class - we’re really having a lot of fun during class, and we have many interesting discussions etc. Our class is probably the most diverse one in level 5; there are people from China, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, Columbia, Vietnam, Thailand and Norway (me). I think this also makes our class discussions a lot more interesting, since everyone has quite a different view on things, and can talk about how things are in their own country.

Our teachers are also nice, especially our pregnant reading-teacher who is quite funny and really good at explaining words and expressions. She’s almost 7 months pregnant, and walks up several floors of stairs in HIGH HEELS.. so we always tell her to take the elevator and wear comfortable shoes haha. Also, we have a class of our own choice three times a week, and I chose Hanja class (learning chinese characters commonly used in Korea). Surprisingly our Hanja teacher is my teacher from level 2, whom I really like! and also, the Hanja class is for both level 5 and 6 students, so Diana is also in my class :D

A study room in Sinchon I went to with one of my classmates yesterday.

On Sunday I went to the airport to meet Yijing. We had decided to meet at a coffeeshop in the airport where we parted the day she left for China, but since her plane was an hour late, I decided I’d just wait for her at the gate she’d be arriving. I waited and waited, but didn’t see her anywhere and got kinda worried. I couldn’t call and ask where she was, cause she didn’t have a korean phone anymore.. after a while I sent her a message through Kakaotalk, since the airport has wireless internet, but the reception wasn’t so great. Yijing’s boyfriend kept sending me messages through Kakaotalk asking me if I met her yet, which I hadn’t, and then it seemed like we both got in touch with her at the same time; yijing said she’s waiting at the coffeeshop, I said I couldn’t find it and told her to come to the gate, then her boyfriend told me to go to the coffeeshop where she’d be waiting, but Yijing went back to the gate since I said I couldn’t find the coffeeshop… so when I finally got to the coffeeshop, she had already gone to the gate haha. After running like crazy all over the airport, I finally found her! We got back home, I helped her pack out a little, we went to buy some things she needed, and then we ate dinner in the second floor of our building - the new chicken restaurant! the food was delicious, so we’re definitely going there again.

On Monday I went with Yijing to a hairsalon nearby, to color and cut her hair. I brought my korean books for studying while she got her hair done, and the guy doing her hair was so funny. He kept asking us questions mostly about our life in Korea and how we like it here etc, and seemed quite fascinated by two foreigners  talking together in korean. He kept giving us hot-choco refill, and even offered to give us one for take-out when we were gonna leave (I guess it’s a korean thing to have small coffeeshops inside the hairsalons, we sure don’t have that kind of things in Norway at least!).

Other than that I’ve been super busy studying korean, studying chinese and hanja, going to yoga-classes, going with Yijing to different places for shopping and such, doing language exchange, preparing my 10 minutes long presentation about a newspaper article (which went quite well) etc. Oh and, on Sunday I decided to buy new warm shoes (since the korean winter is supposed to last until march some time), but of course the very day after, the weather got really mild and almost Spring-like; around 8 degrees, not particularly windy, a little sunny during the day. I do want Spring to come faster, but why does it have to be right after I buy new warm winter shoes..?! ahh frustration haha.

Pictures taken inside one of my favorite coffeeshops~

excitement~!

One of the few times it snowed till now. The temperature has been freezing cold lately (not to mention the super cold wind!), but we haven’t gotten much more snow than this.

I’m really excited and in a super good mood these days! Yijing is coming back to Korea on the 15th(!!), and she will move in right across the hall from my room (as in, when I open my door, I’ll be looking straight at her door). ahh how great!! This is what I was hoping for all along, as we’re such close friends - and now we can be together for the whole next semester as well! Also, we bought plain tickets to go back to China together right after the semester has ended (on the 23rd of March), and I’ll be staying with her for a bit more than two weeks. so excited!!

Also, today I found out that our landlord (who is quite young, in her early 30’s or so) actually graduated from Ewha, and she suggested that we’d go there together to find out a little about how I can apply and such (like what documents are needed, and the dates for handing them in etc). So nice of her to help me, as I had no clue which building has the office I needed to go to. It turns out; not only do I have to take the Test of English Proficiency, but I also need to take the Test of Proficiency in Korean. The TOPIK (Korean test) is only 3 months away, so I need to study really well!! I’ve pretty much figured out what I want to study, and when I will start studying it, so now I only need the money for it haha. I’ll have to work hard to earn enough money once I’m back in Norway again!

The computer room they tore down in the second floor of the building where I live, wasn’t gonna be made into a hairsalon afterall - but a chicken restaurant!! I have to say they did a really good job making the place, but I’m just annoyed that they had to do it during the exact time of my vacation from school; super noisy everyday from 6:30 or 7am means no much sleep for me… they gave us yummy rice cake though, so they’re forgiven haha. I’ll probably go there for dinner soon, hopefully it’s a great restaurant!

My past two visits to the coffee shop down the street, with Baiwei. if I knew they had such delicious waffles, I would have ordered it often!

Christmas and ridiculous yoga classes

it’s already December 28th, and a new year is approaching. Just like last year, I didn’t actually celebrate Christmas much - at least not in the way I’m used to celebrating it in Norway. Obviously I don’t have my family here, and most of my friends have gone back to their hometowns (either permanently or just for the vacation). So on the 24th (which is when norwegians celebrate Christmas), I was invited to baiwei’s house - even though they don’t celebrate Christmas at all. I brought a little present, and lots of chocolate and tangerines to his place as it reminds me of Christmas~ It was so nice to stay at his house; just being together with someone on a day that it’s a given that I’d miss my family a lot. There’s always a lot of people at his house; other than his parents, they usually have uncles and aunts, and/or co-workers over for dinner and such. Of course they’re all very curious about me (being a foreigner and all), I guess cause they live kind of in the countryside where you normally wouldn’t see much foreigners at all. As usual, I had a really nice time; we ate lots of yummy homemade chinese food, played video games for hours, ate more chinese food, watched a movie, stuffed ourselves with chocolate and tangerines while watching korean comedy shows on tv, and then went out for a walk after it got dark. Actually, the first proper snowfall came that morning, so it was super cold outside! 

Christmas decorations outside a random coffeeshop.

A Christmascard I received from a classmate who is back in Hong Kong for the vacation!

So far this week I haven’t been doing much, mostly I’ve just been in my room watching tv/dramas, preparing for level 5, studying some chinese, and attending my yoga classes. I now know basic chinese, but my vocabulary is still quite limited and I can definitely not hold a useful conversation yet haha. The other day I started watching a chinese drama (which is so good!), and it helps a little for me to learn some simple words and practice my pronunciation. I’m meeting baiwei again tomorrow, we’re gonna do the english and chinese language exchange thing and then either play games or sing karaoke afterwards! The first week of my vacation I was super busy, but after that I haven’t had that much to do. I’m really glad I signed up for the yoga class - not only does it kill time and make me have something to do three times a week, but I’m also enjoying it a lot (even if some of the classes are really hard..!). The lady who has the yoga-pilates class is really nice to me every time I come to her class, but she makes us do these ridiculous poses and says “ok, we’re gonna repeat this exercise ten times”, and then after that she says “ten more!!” - and on top of that makes us hold the pose for ten seconds afterwards… for example, we have to balance on our butt while forming a V (legs straight, back straight), and while balancing she makes us do slow situps without touching the ground, and then sideways sit-ups while still keeping our legs straight up and balancing on our butts.. I think I like her class the most out of all though, I really feel good afterwards! Oh and, one really can’t avoid kpop anywhere in korea; in my last yoga class we were listening to Big Bang and Epik High songs haha.

Preparing for level 5; I already bought the books weeks ago. Really looking forwards to learning more korean, and excited to meet my new classmates!

The landlady came knocking on my door earlier today giving me fresh bread with jam and a cup of coffee~ so thoughtful of her! Last week she brought me coffee-flavored ice cream at 11pm haha. I really like her :D