신데렐라처럼 (Like Cinderella)

Seoul has an amazing, (usually) convenient public transportation system. It's got 14 subway lines with 8 million passengers per day (according to wiki). The subway goes to major hubs (large intersections, etc) in the city, and from there you can take a bus to other locations.


Subway map. Not to scale. I live equally close to Sillim and Seoul National University Station
(not "of Education") on the green line in the bottom middle, essentially under the "won" in "Indeogwon."

I can't even imagine how many buses there are... but ones from 11 different routes stop at the stop at the bottom of my hill. Anyway, this means that you walk to the closest bus stop, take a bus to the closest subway station, take the subway to the general area you want to go, take another bus/walk to your exact destination. With a T-Money transportation card, buses and subways are ~90 cents for the first 5km, plus ~9 more cents each 5km after. And there are free transfers bus to bus, bus to/from subway, and intersecting subway line to subway line. Alternatively, there are taxis. Fares vary based on type ('regular' or 'luxury'). There are also International ones in which the driver will call a number with a free translator at the other end (for English, Chinese and Japanese only)... but I'm not exactly sure how this works as I haven't had to use it yet. The 'regular' taxi base fare is ~$2 for up to 2km and ~9 cents each 35 seconds sitting in traffic or each 144 meters when moving thereafter.

The reason for my post title, you ask? Subways and buses stop completely between 11pm and 12am and don't start again until 5:30-6am (even on weekends!). So, if, for example (as is the case w/ my friends and me), your favorite eating/drinking establishment is across the river near Hongdae (Hongik University stop on the green line, straight north of Sillim station in the above subway map), you have to leave at ~10-10:30pm to be able to walk the 15 minutes to the subway station, ride the subway for ~30min, and still have time to catch the last bus from the subway station (at ~11:30). Or, you can take a taxi, whose fares go up after midnight, conveniently when the subways and buses stop. :) A subway/bus ride from Hongdae costs ~$1.50 per person. A taxi ride costs $14 for up to 5 people going to the same place (if not, the meter is reset and the base fare is reapplied when the first person gets out).

So, last night (Sunday, 1/27), Iza and I went to Kim Jaejoong's (side note: most Korean names are 3 syllables -- last name first, then first first name, then second first name... so in English, his name would be Jae Joong Kim) concert in Ilsan (Daehwa station, orange line, top left, above). From our dorm, it's 5 minutes to the bus stop, 20 minutes by bus, 1h20m by subway, 20 min walking. The show started at 6 and ended at 9:45.


So many people!

We had to haul butt out of the venue to make it in time to catch the last train at 10:49 (we actually made the 10:34 one). We also managed to make a connecting train at 11:22, but unfortunately for us, its final stop for the night was 4 away from Sillim, so we had to go out of the subway station, and find a taxi at ~12:30am. All the taxis right by the station were for the airport (seriously, who needs to go to the airport at midnight??), so it took us 10-15 minutes in an unfamiliar area to find a taxi willing to go to our house. Still, even as 2 girls wandering at night, Korea feels pretty safe (did I mention guns aren't sold to the public? No 2nd amendment here). Seriously. It's strange to see people leave all their stuff at the coffee shop (cellphone, wallet, bookbag, etc, just chillin' on the table) while they take a 15 minute bathroom break.... and no one bothers it.

Anyway! Back to JJ's concert.. I'm sure many (all?) of you don't care, but it was actually far more interesting than I initially expected. Jaejoong (henceforth "JJ") is part of a Korean group called JYJ (short for "Jaejoong, Yoochun, Junsu"--the 3 members' names), ironically super popular in Japan but not so much in Korea. This was his first solo (mini) album and concert effort. You can watch his first video on YouTube. It's not quite as popular as Gangnam Style (heh), but in 2 weeks it's gotten 1.5 million views. Anyway-- JJ is an interesting character. He started the show off by having everyone chant "We love you, Kim Jae-joong! 'Mine' [his song] is awesome!" (사랑해요 김재중, 마인 대박 김재중 -- "Sa-rang-hae-yo Kim-Jae-joong, Ma-in dae-bak Kim-Jae-joong") as he rode this..basket over the audience. 2 hours of audience games followed. As I'd never been to a fan meeting before, during the first round, I had no idea what was going on. But everyone stands up at the start, and when you lose/fail, you sit down, and whoever is left standing (when it's a small number) gets to go up on stage to do something w/ JJ. So, the first game was 10(ish) trivia questions about JJ. Some were super-obscure and it was kind of scary that people knew them (or guessed right)... His birthday was Saturday (1/26), so one of the questions was "on what day of the week was JJ born?" I will forever remember that January 26, 1986 was a Sunday-- but at least 5 people already knew that. They got to go up on stage w/ JJ, and play a few games to whittle it down to one person, who got a necklace from the man himself. The next game was Rock Paper Scissors (Koreans use this to decide many, many, many things) vs. JJ. This was for a flower in your hair (I'm still curious what would've happened if a guy had won -- there were a few in the crowd). The final game was just a random seat selection, to taste JJ's cooking. Yes, he cooked, live on stage with a hotplate. Hah. Imagine your favorite member of your favorite band cooking for fans and that's just a sliver of what a Kpop fan meeting is. ^^ Finally, he sang some songs, including a cover that was voted on by fans on Facebook. When we arrived, there was a glow stick on our seat, and a note in several languages saying to use it during the fan-voted song. I wish I could've taken a pic of all the lit glow sticks, but I was afraid of getting kicked out, like the girl in front of us (busted by a security guard 30 minutes in, cellphone confiscated, escorted out, never to return). I did manage to take the above picture after the show, when I figured it was safe to do so (no JJ or security in sight). Everyone spoke entirely in Korean, but I understood quite a bit. And because, as I mentioned, JYJ is so popular in Japan, there were a ton of Japanese fans there (Tokyo is just a 2 hour flight away), so all the written stuff was done in both Korean and Japanese (except the glow stick directions, which also had English). Though JJ did take a minute to greet fans in English (the extent of his English knowledge? "Hey guys! OK, bye bye!" haha), which I appreciated.

In other news... (yes it's been a while since the last blog post... sigh)... I got a haircut on Friday, 1/25. Joana and I went together to this place near her house. Iza and Ines came too, but they just sat in the waiting area. It was an experience. They give you free drinks (coffee, tea, whatever), a fancy robe, and a scalp massage (plus internet access and a laptop to use while waiting)! And apparently the owner/manager of the place came out to personally cut our hair. Yay foreigner service... I decided (while waiting and Googling around) to get some layers. The first cuts she did were my bangs, and I had to watch over a foot of hair being chopped and tossed onto the floor! I think I lost about 5 pounds of hair overall... because she cut layers with scissors, but then took a blade and added a gradient. End result?


I'm conveniently wearing the same clothes for your ease of comparison! The "before" picture is a little blurry
(taken w/ my Nexus 7) but you get the idea. Also, don't make fun of the "V," I'm trying to fit in, OK?? ^^

Class has been going well. We're getting to some things I didn't know before, mostly relating to honorific language (Korean has many intricate speech levels). For example, when the subject of the sentence is a friend (or someone of similar/lesser age), you use can use one verb, but when someone is of a higher social status (your boss, teacher, etc) or age (your parents, etc), you use a different form of the verb, or in some cases, an entirely different verb. I didn't really study this before, and it's still kind of awkward, but it's definitely interesting.


Left: Me during one of our hourly 10 minute breaks, courtesy of Ines. Right: The paper I pulled to act out
for our "Present Progressive" grammar lesson. It reads "Doing the 'Gangnam Style' dance."

Tutoring has also been going well. Tomorrow morning is my final lesson. We've been working on previous TOPIK (Test of Proficiency in Korean) writing exam questions. They have to be 150-300 syllables per. I've generally hit the mark, but I'm not sure it's been in the allotted time (I think you only get 30 minutes to plan/write on the topic on the actual exam), so I'll have to double check that. But she's helped a lot on formatting and she's explained a few grammar points I was confused on. (Remembering that she speaks no English, this is quite a feat, heh.) We've also eaten together a few times at the student cafeteria near the language buildings. I told her how I'm not very good at using chopsticks (I can use them well enough to eat my meal, but by the end, my hand is very tired, mostly because I'm holding them wrong). So she bought me training chopsticks! Hahah...


The character, Pororo, is famous in Korea like Elmo is in the US. You can see the slots for your pointer and
thumb. I haven't opened the package yet, but these are for 5-7 year olds, so I'm hoping my adult fingers fit...

Last week I came down with a bad cold... sore throat and cough turned into sore inner ears turned into headache and runny nose. In Korea, people go to the hospital for the common cold and get injections. It seemed to help my classmate... but without health insurance, I didn't want to go. And I've been putting off getting health insurance (mainly because there isn't much info online, so I anticipated quite the hike in the cold) since I got my Alien Card on 1/4. Finally, last Friday morning, I went. Korea has a nationalized health system, where you pay 4.3% of your pay (I've read that employers pay half, so I think you only pay 2.15%) into the national system, or, if you're self-employed, your assets are assessed and from that, you pay a fixed amount per month. As a student, I have to pay 43,000 won per month, or about $38, to have access to the same health care at the same cost as any Korean (as a registered foreigner)! That's crazy. In the US, I was paying ~$150 every 2 weeks, and that's not even counting what my employer was paying. Doctors' visits are about $10 and prescriptions are $5. Where the system kind of sucks is that it doesn't cover 'optional' treatments, and a lot of treatments for rarer diseases like cancer are considered 'optional' (according to some Googling). For that, there's private insurance at a higher premium. But still, I went into the local National Health Insurance office (Sindaebang Station -- 1 down from Sillim, 100m out Exit 2 to catch the 5524 bus for 2 stops, another 150m walking), and in 2 hours (2 long, somewhat painful hours of paperwork, where no one spoke any English... thank goodness for my limited Korean knowledge), I had my insurance card (pamphlet, really):


No proof of insurability/previous coverage or health checkup required!

Random picture time:



Left: Korean cellphone cases and screen protector I bought for a high school friend.
Right: Said phone cases have a hole along the middle edge for 'charms'. I bought a stuffed owl for mine.
Bottom: I'm not sure I'll ever get used to driving (and parking) in Korea...

Food! These are perhaps the most least appealing Korean foods I've seen so far...


Left: Samgyetang, literally Ginseng Chicken Soup. The closest thing to chicken noodle soup we could find here.
Right: My gingseng looked too much like a finger to resist putting it in the leftover red kimchi juice...


Left: The end of our Jjajangmyeon (black bean sauce noodles) dinner. Super, super unappealing...
Definitely not my favorite dish, but I wanted to try it. Right: A nice Italian restaurant called Vapiano's in
Gangnam. Iza and I got (some kind of) risotto and ravioli and wine (hard to find and expensive here).

1/26 was Ines's birthday (as well as Jaejoong's!). We went to Hongdae to celebrate. We stopped at a new restaurant. No idea what this food is called, but it was a big pile o' meat with super spicy sauce and lots and lots of bean sprouts (the go-to filler). We also paid a little extra to add sausage and udon (fat) noodles.



Top: Raw and cooked pile o' meat. Bottom: Ines' cake! Finally, Paris Baguette cake, you were mine!!
This one was strawberry yogurt. So darn tasty.

I still have some homework to do for tomorrow... so... that's it for now. Hopefully the next post won't be two weeks away. These take too long to write, heh.