Life of Mari

having such a good time~!

I can’t believe another week has passed by this quickly; it’s already Saturday again..!  I had so much fun the past week, maybe that’s why it went so fast haha. Last Saturday, me and Erica used the day to go shopping around Edae. Edae has so many small sidestreets with lots of various shops (mostly clothes and shoes shops), so you can spend hours and hours just walking around looking and shopping. There are a lot of really cheap clothing stores here, but usually you get what you pay for (meaning the quality isn’t that great). I’ve been walking around in Edae a lot lately, and I’ve found a lot of really nice stores. It’s so nice to be living this close to the shopping area (actually it’s almost in the middle of the shopping area), but at the same time it’s not so good… cause even just going out with Erica to the supermarket around the corner, we end up going into random shoe stores along the way to try on shoes..! I need to gain more self control in order to not use all my money for shopping while living here haha.

On Sunday I went to Baiwei’s house again, and we ate together with his family and another chinese friend, then watched two long movies together, and had fun outside on the playground near his house. Once again I had such a nice time! On Monday we didn’t have class for some reason, so I stayed in pretty much the whole day doing laundry and studying. Nowadays I actually look forwards to sit down in my room and study - cause I’m at a point where korean is no longer difficult for me. Honestly, level 4 is not even close to as difficult as I thought it’d be, and I’m so glad both of my teachers this semester are so nice. I’ve come to enjoy reading class a lot, cause it’s so fun to get better and better, and while reading I always go like “aah so that’s what it means” (cause there are so many words and phrases I’ve heard before either from other korean people or from watching tv).

My korean book for reading practice~

On Tuesday I ate lunch with Erica, Baiwei, Yijing and her boyfriend after school, and then Baiwei and I went to a coffeeshop in Edae to study and do language exchange together. Usually we end up talking a lot more than actually studying, but speaking practice is also important! we communicate mostly in korean, but also in english for him to improve, and he’s trying to teach me chinese which is really difficult haha. I think it’ll be quite a slow learning process for me!

After about 2 hours of studying we were so tired, so we packed our things and went to a noraebang (karaoke place) nearby!! it’s sooo much fun, probably my favorite thing to do here in Korea. We were singing for about an hour or so before we both went home. Then Erica and I cooked dinner together in the kitchen, and ate while watching funny korean tv-shows in her room. It’s so great to be able to cook together this often; not only is it a lot of fun, but it’s quick and easy as well~

Wednesday was Erica’s birthday! I got up extra early in the morning, showered and got dressed, and then ran to the coffeeshop down the street to buy a hot chocolate for her. I attached a small note to it that said “happy birthday” in korean, and then went to her room to give it to her! We went to school together as usual, and ate lunch together afterwards. I stayed with her for an hour or so while she was working in the library (her part-time job which she does every schoolday from 2-5pm), and then I went “home” - actually I went to buy her a birthday present. She told me the other day that her little nephew had broken her headset while she was back in China for the vacation, so I bought her new ones. She was so happy upon receiving my gift! at 5:30, Erica, Yijing and her boyfriend and I went to eat dinner together, and then we had birthday cake afterwards which Yijing had brought with her.

The weather was really nice on Thursday, so Baiwei and I went for a walk after class, after eating lunch with Erica. We ended up in a coffeeshop again, and did some studying - but mostly just talking and having fun. I got home around 5:30pm, and studied and watched korean drama series. On Friday (yesterday) there was gonna be a korean writing contest event instead of class. It was held outside, so we were sitting outside till 3pm - and it was so hot that day! All students wrote either a poem or an essay about the decided topics, and later on they gave out prizes. The students who did the best received lots of money - I’m so envious haha. There were also lots of performances like Taekwondo, korean traditional music/dance, and they showed a korean wedding ceremony. Quite interesting.

After it was over, I went with Baiwei to eat lunch with his classmates and one other classmate from level 4, it was so nice to meet all of them! After eating together, we went to a noreaebang and sang our hearts out for nearly 4 hours(!). We only paid for one hour, but they kept giving us “seobisu” (service) all the time, so we ended up staying till past 8pm. I really had so much fun!!

Today I’m going with Erica and another friend to a history museum, it’ll probably be interesting. Other than that, I need to spend my weekend working on a presentation for this coming Thursday, about a korean news article. The past few days I’ve been reading so much korean news trying to find a good article haha.. Now I’m gonna go get my laundry which just finished, and then Erica and I will cook lunch together! :D