National Holiday!

Good morning Korea... after yet another try at a full night's sleep and yet another (partial) failure. There are several reasons for that: being a light sleeper myself (a mosquito can wake me up), not having the window properly covered to block sunlight (although my flatmate Danny tried hard with a couple of homemade solutions that have improved things nonetheless) and being still under the influence of jet-lag and hour changes. I went to bed just after midnight, woke up at 4:30AM, then fell asleep again, woke up like 3 or 4 more times and finally decided to get out of bed just before 9. Quite decent for my recent standards!

I have spent the night alone here, quite a change from the first few days, in which Danny's parents helped him with the move and even stayed for a couple of nights. However, everyone was gone when I arrived yesterday evening: mother back home, Danny to a friend's in Busan to enjoy today's national holiday.

Yes, I had a very busy day yesterday, highlighted by the opening of a Korean bank account -- if someone wants to make a donation/contribution to my wellbeing here, please do not hesitate to contact me for the details! --, the activation of my Korean mobile phone -- also thanks to Danny; the number is +82 10 8685 2376 -- and my first lectures in Korea, which were easier and shorter than expected: I attended a course on Africa-East Asia relations, taught by a very good Iranian professor, and a Proseminar on International Relations that, despite its name, had nothing professional to offer (just an introductory course including a lot of Korean students with very limited English skills).

In fact, this week we are on a tryout mode: we'll have to attend all lectures we'd be interested in and then make a decision by the beginning of next week (or, in case one or more courses are really appealing from the onset, make it now). I also need my professors at the UAB to confirm they agree with my preliminary choices and, so far, they've kept mum...

As far as today's National Holiday is concerned, I have the impression that Korean people are approximately as masochist as us Catalans. According to LifeInKorea.com, "March 1, 1919, marked the beginning of the Korean Independence Movement On this day, independence fighters announced Korea's declaration of independence from Japanese colonialism. In response, Japanese police and military forces killed and injured thousands of unarmed protestors."

In any case, I plan to enjoy this bloody day strolling around what is known as Seoul's Little Manhattan, a small island in the middle of the Han river. I must leave now: my multinational friends (mostly French, but also Italian and American today) will be there in 30 minutes... I guess I'll be a tad late, just the usual 10 minutes that every Spaniard is allowed under international standards!

I'll post some more stuff later!

First sights of Seoul

The royal palaces are smaller than in Beijing, and the futuristic feel maybe can't compare to Tokyo's, but Seoul surely holds its ground with dignity on both accounts.

The first photo was taken last Friday, while descending the stairs going out of the Hankuk University subway station: that taller building in the back is the main building of my new university. It's just a short walk, but one filled with restaurants and cafeterias, much like the rest of central Seoul.

In fact, at first it seems unbelievable how they can have so, so many restaurants everywhere. The answer is clear: everybody eats out quite often because it can be cheaper than buying your stuff at the supermarket and then cooking it yourself. I'll give you an example: yesterday we ate a big bowl of soup, several side dishes or banchan (including the ever-present kimchee and always included in the price of your meal on an as-much-as-you-can-eat basis) and a Korean omelette (pajeon) to share among 4 people with free purified water for just KRW7000 (EUR4.5) each. Then I went to the supermarket: 1 litre of milk, 1.4 euro; 1 litre of orange juice, 2.4 euro; and I don't even want to think about the cost of the Korean-made virgin extra olive oil bottle!

However, drinking decent coffe at one of the extremely recurrent Starbucks-like cafeterias (yes, they all look, feel and ARE the same) can be a much more expensive experience, to the tune of KRW4000+ (EUR 3 or more). One wonders why there are so, so many of them...

... until a day like today arrives: non-stop rain, all day long. We wanted to do some sightseeing, just like yesterday... but we ended up in a traditional food market, first eating a variety of deep-fried specialities (a bit too fatty, I'd say) and then some pork dishes, including something that looked like a blood sausage but in fact was blood with noodles and rice wrapped with a thin layer of pork intestine. Then it was hiding inside a cafe and finally a brief trip to the Dongdaemun commercial area, where I just bought a cheap Chinese sweater that I will use for my jogging stints.

In any case, yesterday we had the chance to visit one of the five royal palaces in Seoul: the biggest one (but allegedly not the nicest one), Gyeongbokgung. As you can see in the attached pictures, it ressembles the Forbidden City -- thanks to Korea being a tributary of the Chinese empire under the Joseon dinsaty, lasting more than 500 years and up until the turn of the 20th century -- but it's smaller in size and beauty. It also includes an interesting folk museum, but I guess hunger won and we did not spend much time there...

Then we walked along the big boulevard going to the City Hall, passing a statue of Admiral Yu Sun-sin, a true national hero who destroyed a full invading Japanese fleet in the 16th century, and then we turned towards the restored Cheongye Stream, meandering along what was a busy highway a meager 6 years ago. Yes, Seoul is progressively going greener, more design-minded, more architecturally attractive, although I guess much is yet to be done in that sense.

Well, tomorrow is a big day: first lectures, trying out the courses, checking out what they will be about... while taking care of a lot more stuff, including opening a bank account, getting my university ID card and applying for an extra (and quite bizarre) scholarship.

Keep you posted on that all!

Shower with LG

Morning everyone! 9:30AM in Seoul, and I am up since 7:30: the dready combination of excessive light going through the very thin curtain and the waking-up time of my hard-working Korean flatmate, who had to go to his University lab for 3 or 4 hours in the morning were too much for my light sleep. Hopefully tonight I'll be so dead tired that I'll be able to die in bed after dining with Mr. Flatmate.

Well, I just had a nice if original breakfast cooked by Ms Park -- yes, that's Daniel's mother: she's here helping out with the moving of stuff and, as a responsible Korean housewife, she insisted on preparing my breakfast --, whose main ingredients were scrambled egg and apple. They really love apples in Korea! I did not expect that: I knew tangerines were ubiquitous in the region, but it looks like Korea is a very decent apple producer... anyway, that's good news for me and my diet!

Before that, I had my usual morning shower. I am sure you wonder why I am telling you that. Well, it's just because it made me think of chaebol, the big family-run Korean industrial conglomerates. I am sure you know some of them: Hyunday, Samsung, LG... Sure you know them for electronic devices, cars and other technologically advanced products. However, that's not all they make: I guess it's impossible to realize how big a Korean chaebol is unless you live in Korea and take a shower using LG shampoo. Yes, no H&S for me here: my flatmate accompanied me to buy anti-dandruff shampoo, and we ended up with this! You really got the sense that those big companies encompass so many aspects of your daily life...

Anyway, going back to my experience here, yesterday was a very busy day. I also had the chance to experience the only downturn of not living in the campus residence: going back home late at night. It's not dangerous, not annoying... just inconvenient. Subways run until 1AM (ironically enough, just until midnight on weekends) and taxis are everywhere, and quite cheap (basic run: KRW2400, about EUR1.5), but it's just the feeling that you have to "hit the road" while your pals stay in the area.

In any case, I think everything goes quite smoothly. Yesterday I had the chance to meet a Korean girl, a good friend of the one who is now studying at the Autonoma, in Barcelona: she showed me around the small Hankuk University campus and then we had a wonderful dumpling soup meal at a small and cheap restaurant nearby. Later in the afternoon, we had the orientation meeting for foreign students: at first, I had the impression it was more like disorienting me, as it was mostly focused on undergrads, which make the most part of exchange students at my university.

However, they ended up giving us some very valuable information, such as whom to talk to for medical insurance (I shall go there on Monday), opening a bank account (I am not sure I really need one, but I will ask if it's worth the fuss for only 6 months), getting an additional scholarship based on your records (I will apply for that... we'll see if I get the extra EUR700 they award)... and registering for lots of activities they organise for foreign students. That should be a great way of knowing people and becoming involved with student life: I don't know if I will have the time to do it properly, but I might try.

I also had the chance to meet a Catalan guy from the UAB who's with the intl' student association and who's been in Seoul for 1.5 years now. He's slowly finishing his journalism degree while learning quite a lot of Korean: yes, if you want to focus on Korean language, Hankuk University might be a very good place to be an exchange student. They offer extremely intensive 10-week Korean language courses, running Mon-Fri, 9AM-1PM. Stressful, specially if you try to combine it with your regular courses... and it might even be incompatible with the schedules you might have in your course.

I am not sure I'll be able to take such and intensive Korean crash course, in fact. My main goal is finishing my MA strongly, with good grades and learning as much as possible. Now I have the daunting task of choosing which subjects are the most interesting ones, combining schedules, making sure my professors at the UAB are happy with my choices, talking to local professors for acceptance in their lectures and, of course, making sure I have Friday and/or Monday off for longer weekends and, therefore, longer trips around the country.

I have also been told that May 5 and May 10 are national holidays: I will surely take this opportunity to travel either to Japan or to Vietnam. Flight prices are already high, but having some extra days to spend there might do the trick for me. I am willing to pay a few extra euro to enjoy a longer stay there. Now let's see if I can find someone else to come with me: if not, that should be fine, I will surely find people in Japanese hostels!

I could keep on writing for one more hour -- for instance, talking about how I ended up being invited to dinner by one American professor at my university, together with Antoine, the guy from Bordeaux who's also in the same EU exchange program --, but I think that's enough for now. I will meet Antoine, another French exchange student at Sogang and Silvia, my colleague who'll also study at Sogang at 1, but before that I'd like to visit the Seoul City Hall area and maybe also see a bit of Namsan park.

So... let's move it! I'll keep you posted!

Anyway

Seoul, day 1

Once again, I don't have much time to post: it's 8:30AM here, and this appartment is going crazy. The guy I am living with is moving to another appartment in the same building complex (yes, I knew it beforehand: I had the chance to live in both the new and the old one), and he's packing everything with his mother in a hurry. They won't even let me help: I just had to made sure all my stuff was packed, the things I did unpack put inside a big green box... and I'll leave at 9!

The rest of the trip went great: I slept a bit on my way to Seoul and then, after the last meal, I somehow decided to talk to a guy who was sitting almost next to me. Yes, he was Spanish. Yes, he was going to Seoul. Yes, he was coming as an student, although not to Hankuk. However, I then met another guy from Málaga who will indeed be at Hankuk, and with whom I'll meet again today. I also had the chance to meet 2 students from Seoul University who came to pick the guy from Malaga up: nice people, they also helped me make sure I took the right bus... You know, I think I will have a good time here: Koreans are so helpful, so willing to make you feel at home that even those very first moments, where you don't really know where you are, are easy and smooth.

Well, the people in charge of the moving have just arrived! I have 20 minutes until they take my stuff out of here! I will then just go to Hankuk: I will take it easy, have breakfast there at the Starbucks and then meet a fellow student who will show me around the campus. Then it's a 2PM welcome meeting for foreign students and, to cap the day, a 4:30PM meeting with 2 professors who'll be "tutoring" me and the rest of students in my exchange program.

Keep you posted! Cheers!

Live from Dubai

Hello everyone!

Just a short post to let you all know that I am already on my way to Seoul: a short night stopover at Dubai, enjoying a butter croissant filled with mushrooms and cheese... and then it's the last flight to Seoul, with a brand new A380!

The flight from Madrid was pleasant enough: we were offered a nice meal, I had an empty seat next to mine... so I had plenty of free room to sleep and read comfortably. By the way, I became quite surprised at discovering there are so many interesting places I want to visit around the country: historical sites, natural parks, volcanic and isolated islands... Will I have the time to go everywhere I want to?

Oh, by the way: the first leg of my long journey was also good enough: taking the AVE to Madrid is a real pleasure. Just 2 1/2 hours, sitting there comfortably, even sleeping... and you wake up in Madrid!

I also had the chance to enjoy one last "typical Spanish breakfast" with very good company before departing, at an old-fashioned Madrid cafeteria. I don't think I'll find the same places in Korea, although one of the things I am really looking forward to is tasty Korean food!

Excited, nervous, intrigued... as usual, my mind goes over and over everything. Let's see what awaits me tomorrow, when I'll land in Seoul. Next post, already from East Asia!

Welcome to my new blog

Hello everyone, and welcome to my new blog!

The main idea behind this is to keep all my friends informed about what life will be for me in South Korea, where I will spend the next six months. I am writing it in English in order to reach as many people as possible... no worries, I won't be writing looooong posts, it should be easy to read and not too boring!

I'll try to post regularly, hopefully every two or three days... but you know me, I am quite unpredictable and I might get tired of that, so we'll see!

Anyway, regular posts will start when I land in Seoul. The countdown has already started: just one week and I'll be in Asia! Until then, craziness around here: too many things to do, lots of people to meet and not enough time for it all!

However, the experience will make for it all, I am really excited about this change in my life, and I am also looking forward to sharing these experiences with you all!

Cheers!