Pictures

Exam preparation in the library and in the classroom (my classmates making themselves mad just before the roleplay exam! I thought it was a better idea to take pictures)

20071030_ExamPreparation

Sightseeing at Jongmyo Shrine and Changgyeong Palace.. the color of the trees is just amazing!

20071111_JungMyoShrine

On the way back we tried to take a bus (if you can take a bus in Seoul it pretty much means you're really getting accustomed to the life here, cause it's much more difficult than the subway) and just found a right one very quickly. Tried to ask the driver if he was going our direction which he was so we got in. But then he tried to ask us something else which we couldn't understand, so the whole bus was listening to his questions which we didn't understand. Somewhat embarrassing. Well.. the next busstop he threw everyone out cause there was a huge demonstration and he couldn't go his route. First we thought about taking a subway but then we decided to take a look at the demonstation where we shot some more pictures. There was a lot of well equipped riot police so I wanted to get away quite quickly (definitely don't wanna be in the middle of a fight if some stupid protesters start one) but Lera was just too curious and shot a lot of photos which the police didn't seem to like too much. Anyway, I HAD to take some, too. Besides gathering stones at various places, some protesters uttered their "love" for the police by trying to decorate the police bus by adding some Korean. However maybe they should have chosen some nicer words than those :D

20071111_Demonstration

last two weeks

So, obviously I have been a little lazy writing here, which was most likely due to the unexpected high workload at the Korean course which makes me study in the library quite long every day...

20071013_WarMemorial

The weekend after the Korean writing contest, first I spent an amazing evening in Shillim in the good old Dick Tracy bar, just like in old days. On Saturday, I went to the Korean War Memorial. Unfortunately, we went a little late and realized just two hours certainly wouldn't be enough for a complex of that size. On Sunday I think I just tried to study but like always rather watched movies and played some games until the evening.

Last weekend, I met with Gaeul, a German literature student to practice my Korean and her German. We first went to a cafe and indeed spoke a lot of these two languages, but when we went to a supposedly German-style "Bräuhaus" for some beer (it was indeed not bad, however quite expensive) and to another bar later on, we somehow switched to English for the harder topics.

20071020_Namsan_Tower

On Saturday, I went up Namsan Tower with Martin and Sebastian from my University. So there's more pictures of Seoul from a high perspective now. Later, we met Urte, another German student, for going shopping in Myeongdong. Like always, not too much time, and so we left again after maybe two hours. I met up with my former buddy KD and his friend Seonu for talking and drinking some beer. Later on, I took one of the last subways to Hongdae to meet the other SNU exchange students..
Sunday I wanted to pay my rent. So I wrote a text message to my landlady, and she called me back... Unfortunately I was not able to understand a word, so I called Joseph for help. I was able to pay meeting the landlady by chance on my way out, but still later on met with Joseph to say thanks and to eat some Galbi. Later on, Gaeul joined us and we had some beer in a bar... once we found it, cause the first place we went to required us to order Sidedishes as well. That's actually not really what you need if you just ate a lot, so we left that one again in search for a better place :)


Well well... and then today I felt like taking some pictures on my way to school, so here they are:

20071023_waytoschool

And I'll be back to studying now

Photos

Today I was at a K-League soccer match Seoul vs Busan with a lot of exchange students from Seoul National University. Seoul won 4:0 which was very nice. Think I never saw that many goals in a stadium before. And there was some fireworks right after every goal. I want that job! Watching soccer games, pressing a button on a goal and getting paid for it. Sounds nice :-) There's more pictures linked on the pic above.

And I also uploaded some pictures of my last sightseeing trip ...

Tomorrow my Korean class will start. Really wondering what it'll be like, hope I can fit in well :) Should go to bed now in order not to fall asleep in the classroom maybe :-)