Hi everyone! 안녕하세요!
Welcome to my first blog post! I’m currently on exchange at Korea University, located in Seoul, South Korea. Within in this first blog post I’ll be talking about my first month here, the challenges I’ve had to overcome, as well as exciting new experiences I’ve come across!
I arrived just over a month ago, 22nd August during one of South Korea’s peak heatwaves. To be honest, nobody could have prepared me for the humidity and heat that would welcome me when I arrived. I decided to book my flight a week and a half before the semester actually started so that I could have some free time to explore the country and have fun! However, a lot of these days were spent dripping in sweat and trying to find the nearest store with aircon. The good thing about South Korea is that every store has their aircon blasting during summer, as well as the subways, so whenever I felt I needed to take a break from the heat, I went to the nearest store I could find. I was told a lot by friends that I actually avoided the worst of the heat, as the week before I arrived it was reaching around 35 degrees celsius! However that didn’t make me feel much better as the heat stayed around 30-33 degrees for the first few weeks here.
The photos below are from my flight to Korea, I had a layover in Singapore for 7 hours so I did a bit of exploring and also met up with a friend who had recently just moved back from New Zealand!
Despite the heat I was still able to go out and experience a lot of fun things in Korea. My first week was spent meeting other exchange students at KU, going to music shows, and trying heaps of delicious food! In fact, the day I arrived I went to a music awards show. My flight arrived 8am KST, I made my way to the university dormitory, bought some essentials for my dorm and then got ready to head to 2024 K-world Dream Awards where I met up with some new friends. This was totally a new experience for me and was definitely worth it! Some of the artists I got to see were Zerobaseone, Aespa, Nct127, and many more! Even though I had technically been awake since the previous day 6am NZST (apart from like a 3 hour nap on my flight from Singapore), the thrill of the awards show and finally being in Korea kept me wide awake!
Another special experience I was able to have in my first week was going to the Zerobaseone comeback showcase, something I would’ve never been able to experience in New Zealand. I was lucky enough to win an entry by buying albums, and got to see my favourite group perform their new songs up close!
The week before the semester started, KU held an orientation for the semester 2’s exchange students. During this day we were shown briefly around campus, introduced to our buddy groups, as well as given free lunch at the university’s cafeteria! We also got given our university IDs~
The last free weekend I had before the semester started, I spent going on a trip with some friends to Yeosu! The main reason for this trip was to experience waterbomb, which is a Korean water festival where they have performances by Korean idols with heaps of water fights! This experience was super fun and worth the trip to Yeosu, which by the way was a 6 hour train ride there (cheap option), and a 3 hour train right back to Seoul (more expensive). While we were in Yeosu, we also checked out the beach, as well as took the cable car over the sea. All of these activities were relatively cheaper than they would be in New Zealand, so I feel like I really got my money’s worth!
Finally, September 2nd, classes started. I’m currently enrolled in 5 courses here at KU, which is the equivalent to 4 courses at UOA. These courses are: Intermediate Korean 2, Advanced Chinese Practice 2, Korean Cultural Diplomacy, INT’L Relations of East Asia, and Introduction to Korean Linguistics. Luckily for me, my Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays only have one class, however my Tuesdays and Thursdays are definitely long… Thank goodness I live on campus and Ku also has shuttle buses that run every 10 minutes! These shuttle buses are free for KU students and go all around campus, including the dorms. The only issue I’ve found right now with living in the dorms is that it’s at the top of a deadly hill, so if I don’t have some strong calves by the end of this exchange, I must be doing something wrong!
Between my 5 classes, 3 of them are in the same building and the other two are also in the same building. These two buildings are located near to each other, which is super convenient for me! So far I’ve definitely found Korean Cultural Diplomacy to be the most interesting course, which is surprising for me as to be honest, I usually have no interest in History or courses similar to that. My Korean class is definitely challenging but will be super worth it in the end, and as for my Chinese class, I’m one of the two only foreigners in my class and although it definitely is my most challenging course so far, the teacher and other students are super supportive and helpful which is a huge relief for me!
Since the start of the semester, it’s already officially been 4 weeks, however because of Chuseok it feels way shorter. Chuseok is Korea’s version of thanksgiving. Because of Chuseok, we were able to have Monday to Wednesday off (16-18 Sept), therefore it was sort of like a super long weekend. During Chuseok I was able to hang out with some friends and go to the Coex Aquarium, as well as Lotte World which is an indoor outdoor themepark.
These past few weeks I’ve also been to a lot of festivals, concerts! I’m a huge fan of music, especially Kpop, so don’t be too surprised when every blog post has a new concert I’ve recently been to hehe. Most recently I went to Zerobaseone’s Seoul concert, which was their first stop for their first world tour! I was lucky enough to go to both their Friday and Saturday concert, and as if these two concerts weren’t enough, I also went to ONF’s encore concert on the Sunday! And most recently, yesterday (Saturday) I went to Cravity’s Fancon! Now I know it may look like I’m made of money, but trust me guys… my student allowance and loan is helping me massively. As a New Zealander I’m sure we all know that Kpop artists barely ever have tour stops in New Zealand, therefore I’m trying to make the most of being here, as well as that concert tickets are decently priced here! The only issue is that ticketing sometimes can be extremely hard…
Lastly, this past weekend the KoYon games were held! KoYon games are sports games between Korea University and our rivalry university, Yonsei. Throughout Friday and Saturday, Baseball, Ice Hockey, Basketball, and Soccer games were held where we versed Yonsei! I was able to go to the baseball game in person, and although I don’t know a single thing about baseball, it was seriously one of the most fun experiences I’ve had since coming to Korea! KU’s cheering is especially unique, and definitely a highlight of attending any of their sports games (they take their cheering very seriously, as you’ll see in the videos I’ve attached.) And to make the match even better, we won against Yonsei 3-0! After the baseball game, we headed back to campus to watch the livestream for the basketball, however we lost against Yonsei… In the end we tied with Yonsei 2-2 for all the games, however the experience was still super fun!
Well, that’s all I have for this update. I actually vlogged my flight over to Korea, as well as some of my trip to Yeosu, however I still haven’t edited it… So let’s hope that by the time my second blog gets uploaded, I’ll also be able to link my vlog!
I hope you enjoyed my update, and stay tuned for more blog posts! Remember, this is only one month out of four, so there’s still heaps more for me to experience here <3
- Juli 줄리
