3급 (Level 3)

Level 3 started about a month ago, but I was busy writing Japan posts, so this is my first real update of the semester. Hopefully I'll appreciate the Japan ones more in a few years when I can't remember the details as well, because it took a lot of time to sort through and caption photos.

Let me just say... wow. This level is kicking my butt. I thought they'd save all the pain for 4급, but I guess not... (The Sino-Korean number 4 sounds like the word for "death," so often times elevators will skip writing floors containing the number 4 altogether, or, more frequently lately, replace it with the Latin letter F for "four." In some cases, foreigners are also known to try to make bad puns...^^ No, but seriously. There's really a thing.) I think Joana and I have an interesting perspective, because we started taking classes at SNU at level 1. Most people take level 1 and/or 2 during their exchange program semester and that's it. Several people from our level 2 class are in our level 3 class, but they did not take level 1 here. Anyway, there was definitely a jump in difficulty between level 1 and 2, but I feel like there was a considerably larger jump in difficulty between levels 2 and 3. Suddenly the things we have to listen to are spoken much faster. Levels 1 and 2 taught 3-4 grammars per day then had a review day. Level 3 teaches 3-9 grammars per day. 9! And there's only 1 hour of review the next day, instead of 4. And we're using an old, boring book (first published in 2000). Levels 1 and 2 were redone recently, and have color! The new level 3 and 4 books are being released soon, but not in time for me for level 3, anyway. So some of the grammars from level 3 were already taught in level 2, or level 3 assumes some things not taught in the new level 2 book (but, I assume, they were taught in the 2000-series books). But, really, the main problem is the speed, I guess. I spend an hour or two every day previewing the next day's lesson so I can focus on listening to examples in class, rather than listening and trying to understand the grammar explanations. (Plus, the teachers really only speak Korean, and sometimes trying to explain a Korean grammar only in Korean doesn't work...) I dunno. It just seems like those of us from level 2 that came to level 3 should be less confused than the people that tested into level 3, because SNU should've prepared us (better) for level 3. I mean, I guess it's good level 3 is a lot more advanced, but still... I think level 2 should've left us in a better situation... but maybe I'm expecting too much. We'll blame it on the book discrepancies.

Enough class talk.^^

On May 19 (the day after I returned from Tokyo), Joana and I went to a free TalkToMeInKorean lecture at Kyobo Bookstore at Gwanghwamun. It was somewhat surreal to see the teachers in person. I first started seriously learning Korean through their website (with its podcasts/pdfs) 2 years ago. Hard to believe it's been that long and that I've come this far, heh. But, if you're thinking about learning Korean - you can't beat their lessons. For the past...6 months or so, they've been focusing on other things and haven't really released a lesson-lesson in a while (they've put out all sorts of culture and vocab videos, though), but they have ~200 lessons already posted, each covering a different grammar point or fixed expression. Level 1 Lesson 1 assumes you already know the alphabet, so I recommend BusyAtom's videos on YouTube to learn that much (at least, that's how I did it). They started a new website called HaruKorean.com, too, where you can write a sentence daily and receive feedback/corrections from native speakers. I haven't tried it myself, but it sounds cool if you have no one else to help you.


The audience. You can sort of see me in the back-middle-left, wearing yellow.

The next day, Mary, Hera, Joana and I went to the Seoul Zoo. You may recall I went there back in March, when everything was frozen over, including me. This time, there was no snow! The sun and plants and animals were out!




We saw lots of animals, too, but I didn't take very many pictures as they were all in cages....

On 5/25, my favorite actor, Lee Min Ho, had a fan meeting in Seoul. I'd seen ads on the internet about it, but I couldn't for the life of me find the event location or where to buy tickets. Eventually, after some searching in Korean a few days beforehand, I found out it was being held at the Grand Peace Palace (Cathedral) at Kyung-hee University on the other side of the city. I didn't have tickets, but I decided to check it out anyway, and maybe try to get tickets on site. They actually still had some available! Though, by the time I thought to just walk up to the box office and ask, I was a little late. Well, I didn't realize I was late, til I got in and the meeting had already started... I thought it started at 7. Turns out it started at 17:00. Oops. Good thing I came super early, planning to try to buy tickets. Curse you, 24-hour time!



LMH in action only ~30m away, some posters, the venue.


A powerpoint slideshow before he came out to sing us some songs... :)

On 5/26, Joana, Hera and I went to the last day of the annual, week-long Gyeongbok Palace lightup event. There were soooooo many people. And the walking paths on the palace grounds are covered in gravel, so in most of my pictures, it looks like it's snowing. Sadly, only the front part of the grounds were open, so we couldn't go to my favorite part (....the concubine pavilion, Hyangwonjeong, and its pond).


One of the palace buildings, crawling with people. And another on a pond.

May 31 was Anne's birthday, but we celebrated it on June 1, at Han River Park (my favorite place in the city!). It was a long day, but we all had a great time. Joana actually just talked about that day for her first level 3 presentation (the topic being a person or a day you can't/won't forget).



The river from near Yeouinaru subway station, and the 63 Building.



Playing in the fountain. It started off as volleyball, but ended as water-soccer. I was a
goalie and ended up soaked. Decided to play in the water jets. It was awesome.




Bike riding, listening to jazz on the floating stage, and sunset.



Sunset/night near the fountain.


I recorded sound, but the background convo was distracting, so I took it out...

I've been watching this one Japanese drama lately. It's a remake of my first Korean drama, "Playful Kiss" (which itself is a remake of a Japanese anime, which is based on a manga). It takes place in Tokyo, and the opening credits are basically a highlight reel of my Tokyo vacation... so I was drawn in. And now I'm sucked in, hah. Anyway, the main character always has cool braids, and it made me want to try to braiding my hair again. So lately I've been experimenting with French braiding my hair.... well, Dutch braiding ("inside-out French braids"), really. It doesn't take too much effort and it keeps the hair off my neck. And it looks cooler than a regular braid. I don't really have any good pictures, but maybe by next time I'll have one or two. :)

The fan's on high and I'm still sweating. Time for some ice cream. :)

Tokyo, Japan, Days 6-7

Day 6 Day 6 was our last full day in Tokyo. We went back to Shinjuku, for breakfast and a visit to Gyoen National Garden. The garden closed at 4:30, so we decided to go to Tokyo DisneySea and buy After 6 discount tickets.

We ate breakfast at a place called Slappy Cakes. The first restaurant was opened in Portland, Oregon. For some reason, they chose Shinjuku, Tokyo as the second location. It's an interesting idea, though. You can order breakfast off the menu (the usual American foods, like pancakes, sausages, eggs benedict), or make pancakes on a griddle at your table. We opted to order off the menu, and I got the banana and chocolate chip with raspberry jam pancake.



The entrance, part of the menu, my breakfast, other people cooking pancakes at their table.

The elevator up to the restaurant (located on the 7th floor of the Lumine Est store... not to be confused with Lumine 2 that's closer to the subway) was covered in interesting drawings.


Inside of the Lumine Est elevator.

There are lots of stationery stores in Japan (and Korea, and maybe in the US... though I never noticed). A Korean classmate from Taiwan gave me some erasable pens for my birthday and I bought more in Japan. The green one already started to run out, so luckily I was able to find them in Korea, too. (Though, even those ones have Japanese on their casings.)


They're like colored pencils, but erase just with friction. No eraser clumps left behind!

We then went to Gyeon National Garden. There was a small admission fee for this one ($1 or 2), and unfortunately, it closed less than two hours after we got there, so we didn't get to see most of the gardens. Still, it was very pretty.



The (south?) gate, a teahouse in the forest, a lake with lots of koi fish (carp).



Me on a bridge on the lake, a koi fish causing ripples in the water, me in front of a pavilion.

After the garden closed, we headed towards Tokyo Disney Resort (technically located just outside the city in Chiba). Tokyo Disney Resort encompasses both Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo DisneySea parks. Tokyo Disneyland is supposedly a lot like Disney World and Disneyland in the US (though, despite my many trips to Orlando and Anaheim, I've still never been to either), so we decided to go to Tokyo DisneySea, which is unique to Tokyo. There are seven nautically themed areas, like Arabian Coast (Aladdin), Mermaid Lagoon (The Little Mermaid), Lost River Delta (Indiana Jones), etc. Regular admission is ~$62, but after 6, it's only $33. Of course, soon after arrival, it became too dark for pictures, but I still took a few, mostly of the entrance and the first area (Mediterranean Harbor).



Tokyo Disney Resort's 30th anniversary (DisneySea opened in 2001),
my ticket, the "aquasphere" at the entrance.



Mount Prometheus, Mediterranean Harbor x2.


Mermaid Lagoon, and me on a camel statue in Arabian Coast.

My favorite area, I think, was the Arabian Coast, though that may just be because I'm partial to Aladdin. The best ride in the park (according to the internetz), Journey to the Center of the Earth in Mysterious Island, was unfortunately closed for maintenance. Still, we rode many rides, all with zero wait time (thanks for going home before 6, everyone!). I don't think it would've been as fun if we had to wait for 2 hours, as some people (again, on the internetz) mentioned having to do.

Day 7 Day 7 was mostly spent traveling. Our flights were later in the afternoon, but hotel check out was 11, so we spent some time at the airport after checking our bags. I just want to say that the route to the airport via subway is probably the worst public transportation experience I've had. There's barely any English, and nothing is labeled or explained. You buy tickets from a machine, and it dumps you on a platform that says multiple trains (local, limited, airport regular, airport express) can be coming on either side of the tracks (usually one side only services one direction)... I dunno. I suppose it's largely our fault for not knowing Japanese, but you'd think if the main city metro had English, the route to the international airport would, too. (And on the way into the city, a nice lady at the ticket booth at the airport explained things well. We figured it'd just be doing the reverse to go back to the airport, but... it wasn't quite that easy.)


My ice cream cappuccino, and an angry Pikachu guarding the fake food displays.

While we were in the food court, I started feeling a little dizzy. I thought it was weird, but thought it was just me until a sign that said "Japanese Food" started swinging like a pendulum. It was nice of Japan to let us experience an earthquake while we were there. This one was a 6.1, off the coast of Fukushima (the same area as the 2011 7.1 quake). Thankfully, it only felt like a 2.-something by the time it reached Narita Airport.^^


Earthquake reports.

It was a fun week, but I'm not sure I'm in a hurry to go back to Japan, especially with so many other places in Asia to visit. (Not to mention, one of these days, I need to get out of Seoul and Gyeonggi-do!) Macau, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore are all higher on my list (also, Australia and New Zealand) before a return trip to Japan. Though, my friend mentioned she wanted to visit Osaka in November.... The main appeal of Tokyo was that the flight was so cheap (though it kind of evened out, with the expensive meals and city transportation), but, still.. going to Osaka with a friend still might be more interesting than going to the other places alone. And the heat made things difficult. That should be less of a problem in November. I'll have to think about it. :)