2019 South Korean Study tour
Today, we made our way from Seoul to Busan. We were very grateful that we didn’t have to lug all our luggage there on a train as we had a bus. About halfway to Busan, we stopped by the Beopjusa temple. It is located within Songnisan National Park and is widely known for its large bronze statue of Mireuk-bul. This temple is a Buddhist temple and when we were visiting it, we saw some people practicing buddhism. There were many areas there where we weren’t allowed into or wear our shoes into. After we had a look around the temple, we gathered together and signed all our names on a tile. We walked back to the bus and stopped to eat lunch. We had bibimbap with a lot of banchan (side dishes) and a hot pot like soup. The villagers in that village were really kind and nice to us, s especially the ahjumma were we had lunch. I think we would all like to thank her for putting up with our attempts at korean! After a few more hours on the bus, we finally made it to Busan! We immediately went to our homestay families where they welcomed us kindly. I think all of us really appreciated their hospitality to us and we hope they enjoy the Australian goods we got them. I‘d say that we would all like to go back to visit them in Busan again, especially the ones with younger “siblings” there. ^^
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Today we made our way from our Busan home stays and headed south for Gimhae, were we met some of our friends a Jaeil high school. We arrived at the school and was greeted by many happy smiling faces and made our way into the school. We then enjoyed a lunch together getting to know our buddies and walked around the school really exploring how korean students go to school. We all really learnt a lot and had fun. Then came time for the welcoming ceremony where the principal of Jaeil high school and Mr Anderson exchanged gifts. The students of Jaeil high school performed for us, showing us traditional music and we performed some korean songs for them, like Clap by Seventeen, the three bears, and Arirang a traditional korean folk song. After this we all headed to a classroom where we painted some traditional paintings and got to spend some quality time with the students before we left to meet our new homestay partners in Gimhae. We then met with the students and also exchanged performances, spending some time with the students over dinner, we then headed home and settled in with our homestay getting ready for the awesome day that awaited us tomorrow.
Second day at Lexis started with us having a meeting first and then going to our first half of the lesson. We learned some new Korean phrases. First half of the lesson went pretty fast and we had our 15 minute break. During this break, we went to the nearest GS25 (convenience) store to buy some snack to add to our gift that we had prepared for our teacher's birthday. 15 minute break was over and we had to go back to class. In class, we just continued from what we had left before the first break. If was a great lesson as it was the second day at Lexis and we were pretty comfortable with one another. Class ended after some time and we prepared a small surprise party for our teachers birthday.
For our afternoon activity, we had a k pop dance class. We walked to the area since it wasn't far but it was raining a little. We learnt dance moves for two songs. The first one was 'sorry Sorry by super junior and the second one was by seventeen. Both songs dance moves were equally hard but we managed to learn in the amount of time given. It was so fun learning the dance moves even though it was really hot. After kpop dance class, we were given free time. During this free time, we planned to go to 노래발 but our group was too big for their rooms, so we went to bowling. It was a great time and for some of us it was the first time going bowling. Our 성셍님 bet us all with the highest score in the hundreds. We were at the bowling area for around 2 or so hours and then we went back to the subway stations to go back home. Overall, it was an amazing day. We celebrated our teacher's birthday by having fun and going to new places. The kpop dance class was also fun. Today was an exciting and adventurous day at Gamcheon Cultural Village. We started our day early in the morning and went to Lexis Busan, where we studied Korean for a few hours. Then, after eating some delicious Korean rice porridge for lunch, we took the subway and bus to Gamcheon cultural village, where we explored the historical side of Gamcheon. Here, there were many beautiful cottages, houses and flats that were colourful and high up in the mountains. The view was spectacular and so we took so many pictures! One interesting activity we did was a stamp collection, which involved looking around the village and finding certain places where we could collect our stamps. Whilst doing this, we were able to fully embrace ourselves into Korean culture by trying some snacks such as fish-bread and visit a few shops selling traditional Korean souvenirs such as dolls wearing hanboks etc. Taking a walk along the streets whilst taking in a breathtaking view of the small houses was a calming and fun experience which will forever be memorable. After this, we set foot in Nampo-dong, which is famous for its Jagalchi Fish Markets and of course, shopping. After spending some time there, and after a long and adventurous day, we returned to our sweet homestay families awaiting us. Overall, today was a total blast and visiting Gamcheon Culture village was an eye-opening experience. Although the weather was rainy and humid, the experience was definitely worthwhile!
After a long bus journey from Seoul to Busan and finally settling in, we finally started our first day of school at Lexis. Gathered in a class room with our name tags and orientation booklets, we were told about the schedule we were to follow and the different activities which have been included to the course we were taking, we were then separated. Having met our teachers and the short introduction on what we were going to learn. In no time it was 10:30, our morning break, giving us an opportunity to meet our friends and talk about what we had learnt. After a short 15 minutes we were to return to our class rooms and prepare for our first lesson. At 12:15 in the afternoon, we were released to get lunch with our friends. We left and had lunch meeting back at Lexis at 1:00 to get ready for our Journey to Dongbaek Island and the Haeundae Beach. After a short journey on the subway, we started our treck on the path with surrounded Dongbaek island. We stopped by various attractions such as the light house which sat on the carved stones; stopped by the Nurimaru APEC house. We also walked pass a mermaid statue based on the legend of Princess Hwagok. Finally arriving at the Haeundae beach, we were dismissed to go back to our homestays. Everyone was tired and excited to go home.
Today is the second day of our tour, the weather is really hot and sunny and the teachers decided to have a walk around Seoul and explore the history behind.
The first place we visited is Cheonggyecheon (청계천). Cheonggyecheon used to be a ghetto and it was where poor people lived, but in 2003, the President at that time, Lee Myeongbak, recreated the place, lay down all the tall buildings and made a park to create Cheonggyecheon. It took three and a half years to finish the whole project. All of us are amazed how the situation had changed and how people enjoyed this place. At the end of the walk, there is a man-made waterfall which is pretty amazing and we took lots of pictures there. Besides, there is a night market at Cheonggyecheon at Friday and Saturday night, but we did not have a chance to take a look. After Cheonggyecheon, we went to visit the statues, Admiral Yi Sunsin and King Sejong. Yi Sunsin is a great general which had created really good battle ships, using 12 battle ships to beat many Japanese in 1595 and win the war. While King Sejong is the king who created the Korean alphabet, he learnt from other alphabet systems and managed to make a new alphabet specific to the Korean langauge and that’s how Korean script was born. The third stop is going to Gyeongbokgung Palace. Gyeongbokgung Palace was the main royal palace in Joseon dynasty. There are lot of tourists and most of them are wearing hanbok. We had a walk in Gyeongbokgung Palace and learn about what is the usage of each palace but we didn’t finish them all as it is really big. After that we took the subway and went to Namdaemun Market to have our lunch. In Namdaemun Market, there are lots of things to buy, clothes, accessories, souvenirs and food. The market is really big and have many little isles which make it really easy to get lost. After all we went back to out hostel and get some rest. The evening activity is going to the Seoul Music Festival. At first, we just thought that it is only going to be random people dancing to music and we did not expect that there are going to be celebrities in the festival, so all of us went crazy, screaming and shouting during the performances. The atmosphere was really good, we all enjoyed the performances. Last we headed back to Myeongdong and have a dinner near our hostel, and packed up for going to Busan tomorrow. We began our journey gathering at the airport on a warm Adelaide morning. We were all eager to begin our journey that was long awaited.
The first plane ride was long and the food was mediocre. We tried our best to keep ourselves entertained as we awaited our arrival in Kuala Lumpur for the dreaded 9 hour stop-over. We found entertainment in annoying on- another and playing lengthy games of uno. The stop-over allowed us to travel in circles around the airport in Kuala Lumpur which had limited shops of our price range. We ate and drank and ate and drank some more. We finally departed Kuala Lumpur at 11:30pm and we’re scheduled to arrive in Seoul at 6:50am. Sleep and fatigue began to overcome as we had not slept in over 17 hours. Most of us found it impossible to find sleep on the plane as we were uncomfortable and frequently disturbed. Once we arrived at Seoul-Incheon airport we had to line up for immigration where hundreds of people were lined up in front of us. Eventually once we made it through immigration we travelled the length of Korea to pick-up our luggage. The next part of our journey was to find our accommodation in Myeongdong by travelling through the subway. We lifted, carried, dragged and rolled our way through the extremely busy subway to Myeongdong, the tourist area of Seoul. Our accommodation didn’t allow us to check-in before 2:00pm so we had to fill our time by exploring the streets of Myeongdong as well as the cuisine. We found it hard to do so as most of us were dying to know what a bed felt like again and break our 24 hour famine of no sleep. Once we finally had the luxury of a bed and some much needed rest we were off again to explore the streets of Myeongdong and Hongdae. Hongdae is another well-known hipster place in Seoul where many talented musicians, dancers and singers or even high school students show off their talents by busking in various amphitheatres. I found myself mesmerised by a group of very talented and extremely good-looking guys who covered various K-pop dances and interacted with the audience. They are well-known on social media and are very popular in Hongdae. Moving away from the up-beat performance I was drawn to another amphitheatre that had the angelic sound of a guitar. A lone young man covered various English and K-pop songs using only his guitar and voice. My hunger drew me away from the entertainers and towards a “tteokbokki” restaurant. The tteokbokki was light and fluffy and had a very nice heat to it. By far one of the best tteokbokki I’ve had. After that it was time to end our night and head back to the hotel to get more sleep so we could have many more adventures the next day. |
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