Thursday 5 March 2015

My week in photos: the "From Slovakia to Korea" edition

By: Zana

Hey guys!

Just wanted to upload some photos I took as it is exactly a week since I left for South Korea :-)
 
     
                                   Breakfast at hotel in Prague                              All packed up at the airport

The view of our plane
Literally flew across whole Asia to Seoul
I took a no-make-up selfie at the airport
My first lunch in Korea (which I ordered by myself...in Korean... wooop)
btw: looks better than it tastes
   
Then I ate some more... Kimbap...my favorite :-)


   

        I wore black on white on gray                                 Took a selfie                                               Made myself a green dark rice tea

    
Got a first coffee in Korea....which came with a Merry Christmas wish... in March
                                         Got bored 
    

Walked around and found a park


And found a typical Korean market



Monday 2 March 2015

Foreigner in Korea: First impressions

By: Zana

                               Hello people! J

As I promised I’m writing my first blogpost from Korea! I survived my 16 hours long flight(s) (in total with transfer) and happily landed in Seoul on Friday 11am. Then I traveled by train to Busan where we got picked up by our Korean buddies (students who are supposed to be helping us here) and took us to Gimhae, where we all had dinner together.


I have spent my first week-end just wandering around the town looking at everything, still trying to actually believe that I am in Korea. People here are very nice and always try to help you. 

Beautiful wall graffiti :-)

Apart from Gimhae being really clean and tidy (no trash on the ground whatsoever… okay, maybe from here and there, but really minimal) I have been struck by the stares and glances I get all the time. I was walking with my friend around and a few people actually stopped by to say how beautiful we were just because we were foreigners. :-D It is kind of nice but sometimes the stares are the sort of unwanted attention that makes me uncomfortable. :-)      

As far as the food goes, I am not really a fan of spiciness that makes you tear up a little, so the food for me is not the best part. But when I'm able to find something that isn't spicy (like Kimbap on the left), it's really good! 

At school, we had our placement test today and according to our results all three of us (I came here to study with 2 classmates, if you didn't figure that out yet) ended up in the advanced level of Korean language and my first thought was. R.I.P. Hopefully, I will manage :-) 

My first classes start tomorrow and I am excited and curious how it's gonna be.  

The one thing that's definitely crazy is the traffic! Koreans drive insanely insane, fast and it makes me feel unsafe at some points. 


Another thing that caught my eye is how fashionable 99% of Koreans are. They always try to look their best and even when they are wearing sweatpants they are really well dressed around it. They simply care about their appearance more than in Slovakia. Even though Gimhae is a very small town in comparison to Seoul or Busan, young people here are always dressy.  (I will maybe try to get some pictures of Korean fashion...I don't know.)

At campus
Small stream with a nice and calm path- great for walks

View form the dormitory window 
Restaurant with hanging lamps (must look cool while dark) 
That's it for now, I will write again with more exciting stories :) 
See you soon :-)