Time sure flew by in the first couple of weeks. I barely know where to begin… While writing I realize that I've been in Korea for more than a month now. Next week is my last week of class before the Korean holidays start. This holiday is called Chusok, which is celebrated on the fifteenth day of the eight-month on the Korean Moon calendar (that’s a mouthful). This holiday could be considered as Korean Thanksgiving, an American family holiday. During this period millions of Koreans will go to the birthplace of their ancestors.
In the last couple of weeks, I've participated in multiple challenges to get to know the city. These challenges had different themes, from seeing cultural sights to food tasting. All the food is amazing in Korea! So far, the only thing I didn't like was the silkworm dish, but I'm trying to keep an open mind on the food subject. I do this by tasting first and thinking after because I don't want prejudice to be in the way my Korean experience :-). Especially the way of Korean dining is fascinating, considering you could be in a soju-restaurant till 3 am in the morning before going to the club. I currently live in a dorm on campus which has a curfew from 1 am till 5 am. To avoid penalty points we must decide to go all out or go to bed early every weekend. In my experience, going all out means crawling home at 6.30 am.
Besides the partying, there's plenty to do in Daegu! We've been to multiple locations such as the Dongwhasa temple and the Arc of Daegu. But the best part of being in Korea is just experiencing the food and culture by walking around through the streets in alleyways. In my experience, an area is only off-bounds when then the door is locked or blocked. Which granted us some beautiful sights, such as the roof of my dormitory for example. The people here are amazing, not only mentioning the Koreans but the exchange students from all over the world! The people I hang out with are quite diverse, from Germany to Italy, Korea to Japan and I haven't even mentioned Russia. It's amazing to learn so much about these cultures and languages.
Next week when Chusok starts I'll be traveling with Stefano and a few friends to Seoul. We will be traveling across Korea during Chusok in hopes of seeing the Demilitarized zone and the International Fireworks festival. After that, we've planned to go south to multiple cities before going back. Since I'll be having my first midterms in October, it's important to study every now and then. Especially for my Korean subject. Switching from a roman alphabet to a Korean one is easy to learn but hard to master. I learned this the hard way when receiving an F on my first test...!
As a conclusion, I've decided to start a video project on Korea. Some people already know that I like to make one-second videos and stitch them together. After multiple questions about it, I've decided to have a go at the video competition at my Korean school. Every fifteen days I'm done with a video. My plan is to edit these videos into an untouched 'master' video and for the competition an 'ultimate' video of maybe five minutes to compete. In these videos, I want to document my activities from start to finish, from summer till winter! Thanks again for reading!
Having a good one,
Wouter