As you guys have heard in the news, some days ago the North Koreans fired some grenades to Yeongpyeong island. Some soldiers and civilians died and South Korea raised their alert level to the highest since the Korean War. Nothing really exciting happened in Seoul. At that time, I had class and didn’t know about anything. My friends in Korean class told me then.I can still remember my friends making a lot of noise on facebook - but seriously, what will happen here? Nothing! I also asked my Korean friends about this incident and most of them believe that it’s just noise the North is making. Some friends, who have other friends in the military service (it lasts 2 years here) were a little bit worried. At least the brother of of of my friend didn’t sleep well as he is stationed in Paju near the DMZ. President Lee Myung Bak warned the North and threatened with revenge if NK won’t stop future provocations. He announced to reform the defense law and ordered to deploy some cannons (I think) on the island. Anyways, as far as we can judge this situation by now, they just want to have attention again. Unsurprisingly, they just revealed to own hundreds of centrifuges to produce uranium. Seriously, are they gonna try to mess up? And as the recent wikileaks cables reported, China’s leaders have a lot of mixed feeling towards them. Some useful resources about that: Good article written by Annette (German) Photos from boston big picture

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It shows the grenade shells that were found in the destroyed houses. source: © Naver.com

Just after our PLZ trip, Edgar, Hai, Daan and me decided to have a quick visit at the Seoul Lantern Festival 2010. Have seen the ad for it at the Seoul Design Festival in October and was recently noticed by the Seoul City Blog.

It’s located directly at the Cheonggyecheon (Wikipedia), the renaturated river park just in the middle of Seoul. I think it is held every year in November, but there’s a second chance to see a similar lantern feast around May (Lotus Lantern Festival).

The exhibited lanterns were made in different countries. You could clearly see that some lantern came from China, while others were sponsored by Japanese artists. While some were pretty well elaborated, some just didn’t make sense!

Kimbab lantern? This looks like an ad, not like art. It might lie within the food but not on papyrus.

Couple V-pose!

It was so full! I have never seen it so crowded at the Cheonggyecheon, that might also have been affected because of the G20 summit and it’s entourage. Or just the fact that COEX station was closed for that week and nobody could shop, hehe.

(Korean: 신사동)

Last Saturday we went there for some visiting. Shinsadong is a neighbourhood (dong) located in Gangnam-gu. It’s next to the famous Apgujeong area and thus attracted a lot of fashion boutiques. However, is not the made out of very expensive high-fashion brands where you can only buy luxury goods, but it also doesn’t mean it’s super cheap like in Dongdaemun or any other bazar-like market - because there is no open sky market like that. Instead, you will find a lot if chic cafés, some run by nationwide franchises, some rather small-business owned. As you go down the streets, you sometimes notice a lot of people taking photos.

It looks like as it is very popular by professional photographers to capture shots of their models in a relaxed and picturesque environment. Hands down, it’s cheaper than booking an airplane to Paris or another European city: Sinsadong-gil really does not look Korean at all on some corners. For example look at all the cars parked here. You will barely see domestic car maker brands rather than quite expensive import models. Still, it was very interesting to walk around there. I will show you some photos later on.

Links: http://global.gangnam.go.kr/global/cts/list.do?pcode=GTS103&menuNo=110216&lang=en

After having having Viet night yesterday, Thursday was the day for exploring Apgujeong. I was worried a little that we couldn’t make it, because started raining and the air rumbled a lot while having Korean class. But in the end, it was neither cold nor rainy so Seongjin, Seungyun, Becca, Tim and me decided to go out! A lesson learned was that you should NOT take the bus while rush hour. We needed approx 90 minutes to go there. By metro, it would have taken us way less :)

By the way, today was also Peppero Day (빼빼러 대이), which is kind of a Valentine’s Day in Korea. Rumors say it was just a day the chocolate stick maker invented to boost their sales. It is celebrated on November 11th! I also got some from Ian, Edgar and Hye-in, thanks for that! But never wish somebody a happy day when they are single… they will not appreciate it :D

As we arrived, we realized that Rodeo-ro was pretty empty after 6pm ^_^ So instead, we went for dinner in a Chinese restaurant where 승연 has been several times before ;)

The food was pretty decent! And the price was ok for Apgujeong too, I imagined it to be more expensive than it actually was.

Actually, Rodeo-ro was just in front of us. It is very famous for their luxury department stores and international luxury boutiques. Just like Sinsadong but more with expensive brands.

As we all love to sing, we went to the Everysing Noraebang, which was operated by SM Entertainment. So we went straight down for Noraebang.

A lot of fangirls/fanboys go here to get their merchandise stuff. We could only afford taking a photo together:

Riding with the bus back, I also noticed that plastic surgery ads were very much present in Apgujeong, also on the bus:

So, today’s Saturday and I finally have time to write down some notes for my blog. The second week is almost gone and I must admit, I forgot so many things that I did! Monday - Met some of my friends at home university for eating - went to yeouido with Jospeh Tuesday: Was at the doctor, since my coughing and cold did not get better. It turnet out that I have tonsilitis, actually it is almost over by now. Lesson learned: never go out without an umbrella and then, don’t be drunken! Was then half the day in library for getting my mac set up and wrote some pages for my paper. finally finished by now. Wednesday: Classes started. But not for me. Actually I did not that much except eating on campus, walking around and getting some stuff at Sinchon. Thursday: Went out too early. The night before, we had the heaviest typhoon in the last 15 years. Actually nobody notived about it when we slept, but you could see a lot of deracinated trees in the morning in campus. Classes are pretty good, both of my professors have studied in the US/Canada so their ability to teach and speak to us is excellent. However I feel that the courses might be too easy for me. Korean language class is crap until now. I mean, I did the placement test not for fun but to get into a higher level. Instead, it looks like I totally failed and so that’s why I got into the beginner 1 level. We have actually been learning the Hangul for 4 hours by now, which i think is a total waste of time. That is comething you can learn on myabe one day! Friday: Hmm overslept in the morning so I could not see a class and beg for a seat. OK, nevermind I can do it in Germany but would have rather taken it here. Dropped one course, so I have 3 courses in total. Was on the beer cruise party that night and made some new friends! Went eating after that. I’m gonna hang out with the boys again for having a wine buffet and then we might go eating out partying, I don’t know yet. Sunday is definitely the day where I should reorganize myself - my rooms so messed up and I should get my things managed.

Heute morgen wollte ich zum Changdeokgung Palast aufziehen. Habe dann vor dem Gate bemerkt dass es montags geschlossen ist. Super. Also bin ich zum Geongbukgung rueber, der nur 300m weiter weg ist. Danach war bei der King Sejong und der Admiral Kim Yu Shin Statue. Eigentlich wollte ich danach noch zum Insadong aber irgendwie habe ich es nicht gefunden…. Insofern bin ich einfach in die Bahn gestiegen und wollte eigentlich in Yongsan mir ne Kamera holen. Hat auch nicht so geklappt :)Naja egal, irgendwann bin ich dann zurueck und dann essen mit dem Besitzer des Hostels und einem Freund. War super! :) Auch wenn man nie so richtig nen Plan hat, hier ist mir jedenfalls nie langweilig :D

After having not gone to Jeju due to strong weather changes, I took the KTX to back to Seoul. The KTX is a high-velocity train, which has been built on own Korean technology for some generations. It took me about 3 hours to go from Busan to Seoul. Unlike my first experience with the Japanese Shinkansen I thought this train was neither particularly comfortable nor exciting. Because of the flat the ground elevation there was not much to be expected. I arrived so late I did not see anything from the Liberation Day Parade (8/15), so went directly to the hostel. Seoulwise Hostel is a newly opended hostel and very inviting by its facilites. Located on the opposite of Hongik it is an ideal starting point to go out to some places and to see the university. I met with Dima after check in and went for some Korean BBQ afterwards. We took Samgeopsal. As digestive walk we went over to see Yonsei a bit.

Since the third day is now getting pretty lame after having two hardcore sightseeing days, I could either spend the day chilling around or just see something else. So I decided to visit the Yandong village as it was a secret hint by Mr. Kwon, the owner of the Hanjin Hostel.Yandong village or 얀동마을 is a traditional village, where nowadays still farmer use to live. Like Andong or Yeonju it is a famous destination for tourists. Apparently I was also the only foreigner today. In the evening, I also watched a musical performance at the Bomun Lake. The style was taken from the Shilla era. Unfortunately it rained so after one hour the performance was halted and I had to go home…

Yesterday evening after arriving at the hostel, I just made friends with two people sleeping on the same floor. We went for eating at a nearby place with the help of some guy called Danny who worked for the tourist office occasionally. I had Samgeobsal again (and will probably have it even more often). Matthew and his Australian friend work as teachers in Japan and have been on a shot trip to Korea. We went for eating in the university district (yes, have have a college here!). After that, we went back to the hostel, where I met Nick and Wayne ho both live in Seoul right now. Today, I went on sightseeing with them. And in the evening, we went to some bar to have some beer drinking games. It was very fun!