LARA IN KOREA!: ON CAMPUS

CAMPUS LIFE AND SOME RANDOMNESSITIES

The campus life is totally different from my university experience so far. As you know SNU campus is very big and green. It's located between hills and I'm sure a part of it is also built on it. When I was walking back to my dorm last week, I got the feeling that these hills were killing me. It was too hot! :) But just like in Belgium, it seems that autumn has arrived here aswell... Yesterday the temperature dropped with 10 degrees! From 30 tot 20, so chilly! But today was nicer again, and according the the weather forecast we will have a nice week with temperatures around 23 degrees and sunshine. I'm looking forward to the autumn season, as it is my favourite. I like the changing colors of the leaves, the bleak wind and the rain. When the weather cools down, I would like to go hiking around campus. I heard that there is one beautiful mountain with a little temple on top.

My days are relaxed without being boring. Basically I wake up around 7h45 in the morning. I take a shower, check some e-mails while I'm eating my bowl of cornflakes. At 8h30 I go down to Julieta's floor and knock on her door. We walk to school every morning, it only takes us 15 minutes. Every weekday we have class from 9am until 1pm. Every 50 minutes we have a ten minutes break and one breaks lasts for 20 mins. During the break we drink some water (!), eat a snack, drink some coffee and hang around in the courtyard. I like my classmates, 11 in total: Edwin from Culumbia, Baseem from Yemen, Wangwei from China, Emily from the USA, Hugo from Canada, Ramla from Tunesia, Umer from Pakistan, Harshraj from India, Lenka from Czech, Shervin from Iran, Ereden from Mongolia and my Belgian self. Everybody is from another country and although we have another background, we're having a lot of fun together.:) For me the Korean classes are still not too difficult, because Korean is so similar to the Japanese and Chinese language (probably that's why all of this is still funny! Who knows... maybe they will eventually implement some rigid teaching manners like in the Korean army). And I can feel that the pace and level of the classes will go up very rapidly, so I better pay attention and study some in advance. :) After class we all go to have lunch together in one of the many cafeterias of our campus. In the afternoon we often study, relax together, go to downtown Seoul or to the Naksungdae area to buy some stuff like fruits. In the evening we usually gather to have dinner together. Sometimes we eat in our kitchen while we are watching Korean dramas, sometimes we go out eating.

When we feel like we don't want to be in our dorms all the time, we can just walk outside and enjoy the green environment. You can practice a lot of sports, but I don't know yet how to arrange all this. I once went with Tyler to a place that we call 'our secret bench' to read a book and watch the scenery. When I received the news of my graduation Julieta, Tyler and I got ourselves some beers + sweets and went sitting at the pond to celebrate the fact that I'm a Japanologist now. Although I know these different people for only a few weeks, it feels great getting to know them. Both Julieta and Tyler are interesting personalities and we all got here because of different reasons, so it was interesting to listen to each other's stories about how we winded up here. :) Too bad I cannot celebrate my graduation together with my classmates in Gent! Anyhow, I don't mind NOT wearing the silly toga and hat!

To compensate for still not having a roommate I got myself some roommates: I bought three little plants. One of them already had a flower after one week. I also had to buy me something to soften my bed, because it was just too hard to sleep on. And I also found something to cover my matras (in Belgium we call it 'bedsprei'). Korean people, just like in Japan, usually sleep on a cushion/matras/futon which they can put on the floor when they are going to sleep. In the morning they fold it up again and store it in a closet, so they can use the room for other things. (Building skyscrapers including rooms with multifunctions, could this be the future for our increasing population growth and consequently the earth's lack of livingspace?! I'm already living in a mini-scraper! ;)) Anyhow, it wasn't easy to find something like a 'bedsprei' for my matras, as they don't use this here. I'm happy I brought a cover for my blanket (hoeslaken). My bed finally looks cosy now. :)

JUST SOME THINGS I MIGHT SHARE WITH YOU

*Fruits are quite expensive in S-Korea, because they import a lot of it (my guess would be from China). But I feel I'm not eating enough fruit, so today I went to the market in Naksungdae to buy a melon, grapes (I guess they're grown in Korea as they taste really strange :)) and sharonfruit (I've put them on my windowsill so they can ripen some more. They are still a little bit hard, that's probably why they were so cheap :D).

*Supermarkets sell so many different kind of brands, I think it's even more varied than in Belgium. Today I wanted to buy milk. They didn't seem to sell the brand of milk I'd bought before! And I also couldn't understand what was written on the boxes and packages but I think I saw 15 different kind of milk brands, 10 different kind of washing powders and so on. Shopping is an exhausting activity, because I cannot yet understand what is written on the products, so making a good choice is hard.

*I finally have a Korean buddy! I enrolled in a 'buddy program' at school. Korean students at SNU can sign up as volunteers to meet and help a new foreign student. My buddy her name is Han Jaeran (한재란). She was busy today, that's why we couldn't meet at the buddy orientation. But she has sent me an email to apologize. I think and hope she's nice. :)

*In awaiting of a much cooler hobby I'm watching clouds, which is perfectly fine for me now. I want to participate in Taekwando and Korean cooking class... But I need to find out the basic information first, like "when, where and how much dinero".

*The Museum of Modern Art (MoA) is a really nice building. We have two museums on our campus. This modern one, and a more traditional one about history and sec things like that.

*I will be gone for two days to Daejun, on a scholarship trip (Thursday and Friday). NIIED will give us an orientation (again!) and offers us an environment to get to know other KGSP (Korean Government Scholarship Program) students from all over S-Korea. 'k Ben benieuwd!

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