3 months in Korea through my phone

Hi there! It's been 3 months since I moved to Korea (well 3 months and 3 days), and a lot has happened during these 3 months. This morning I uploaded all the pictures from my phone to my laptop and got the idea for this post. It's gonna be picture heavy, and most of the pictures are not-so-clear and weird but it's a story, guys ! It's me taking weird pictures of food and my friends when we're bored and trying to snap pictures of pretty buildings like a damn tourist while we're walking around. Usually I try to keep my blog clean and I'm really picky when it comes to selecting the pictures that I'm publishing here but this time I'm forgetting all my standards and just putting everything here. If this works out well, I might make these "through my phone" posts a regular thing. As you know,  "a picture is worth a thousand words", so let's let the pictures do the talking this time. During these 3 months I've...

while taking the weirdest pictures..

xx,

Julia

Cherry blossom spring picnic @ Seoul Forest

Today before school we had planned to have a small spring picnic in Seoul forest (서울숲 ), one of Seoul's largest parks. Luckily the weather cleared up a bit and it didn't rain like it was supposed to, at first. It was actually pretty warm, even. 

We met around 10:30 A.M, went to buy some fruits and snacks and then walked  around a bit before sitting down, stuffing ourselves with delish food and chitchatting about this and that. And like every picnic, ours also had outdoor games. Including baseball with a soft tiny ball (that we ended up losing in the end) and using our school books as bats. Talk about acting like proper ladies in their twenties. Anyhow we had a pretty great time, and the park was amazingly beautiful, so I'd call this day a success. 

We were all super tired at school though, and it doesn't help the situation at all that we got a pile (literally, a pile) of papers that we need to finish by tomorrow for our course recap lesson. Midterms are coming up next Monday & Tuesday. We have a talking exam, listening exam, writing exam, reading out loud - exam and reading & answering a bunch of questions - exam. Huh.. I better get to my homework now. It's 8:30 and I haven't even started. This is going to be a long night..

xx,

Julia

Ranee cooking academy @ Idae, Seoul

Hey guys ! 

Yesterday instead of regular classes at school we did a small field trip and attended a cooking class in this private cooking academy here in Idae, called "Ranee". We made 해물파전, pancake kind of thing with seafood and onion, and 찜닭, braised chicken with vegetables. The whole place looked so incredibly modern it felt like being on some TV cooking show or program. Korea is full of these private academies, and you can practically learn anything in those, from beauty all the way to languages and cooking. Our teacher cooked in the front of us and explained things into a microphone and we saw what she was doing from the TV screens all around the place and did after her. It was great. Afterwards we went to Ewha womens university campus to take some group photos and then for some bingsu to the  nearest solbing cafe. 

Next week is the last school week before our "midterm" exams, so this weekend (and the next one too) will be spent studying! School keeps me really busy nowadays, but I will try to pick up the pace with updating this blog again! Tomorrow I'm planning to finally do the long ago promised post about our neighborhood. Let's hope the weather will clear up a bit so I can take good pictures. It's been raining and being foggy literally the whole week. 

'till the next time! 

xx,
Julia

I am alive

Hello guys ~

I am just briefly writing to tell you that I am, indeed, still alive. Last few weeks I spent studying Korean pretty much everyday because of the Korean placement test I had coming up on the 11th of March. It's over now, and so is my vacation. School started today, and I was placed on the 3rd level (intermediate) which is exactly where I tried to get. We even got into the same class with my friend Sara, so that's pretty nice. Next 2 months will be spent studying hard and preparing presentations every other week and having a lot of exams and homework. I'm really excited. I have classes everyday from 2pm to 6pm, so the only free time I have during weeks is in the morning or during the evening.  So I'll be back in few days, or a week, depending on how much homework and other assignments we get this week! Next weekend we have a MT trip coming up, so I'll definitely write about that, too. MT stands for Membership Training, and it's like an overnight field trip, very popular here in Korean universities. Lots of delish food and drinking games are involved. 

Otherwise everything is going well here in Seoul. Spring is coming, it's warm and nice. No snow or cold winds here anymore (for the most part). I've never been in Korea during spring or summer, but today it was really warm and the air smelled exactly like it did in Japan when I arrived there for the first time. Like, very humid and... tropical? So it felt weirdly really familiar suddenly. 

Anyway, I need to get back to studying and then I'm gonna sleep. Long day ahead tomorrow, once again. 

xx,
Julia