Vacation~

Hey hey hey!

So the finals are over and the roommate’s gone and Christmas was three days ago!
Finals went smoothly, I even wrote the 7 paged final report and let me tell you, IT WAS NOT EASY! I mean…the thing was double spaced, one whole page for pictures and I STILL had trouble getting the text out. I’m so glad it’s over now.

Haha, the roommate thing was funny.
She started packing on Tuesday (last week) and left on Wednesday. I was watching tv in the living room the whole time she was carrying her luggage out and she didn’t even stop to say ‘Bye’ or anything.
HOW OLD ARE YOU?!
I mean, we don’t have to love each other, but we were roommates for 3 months and actually got along well at the beginning and she doesn’t say a word even though she passed me by before leaving.
Pfft, little princess.
I’m so not going to miss that one.
The funniest part was when she had left, I waited about 3 minutes and dashed into the room to change to the better bed and the other table and just spread my things all over the room. It’s mine now!
ALL MINE! 8D

Naturally most of the exchange students have gone already, too. There’s a few, who are coming back for next semester, but most of them aren’t and I miss them already. ♥

My Christmas was better than expected. We were invited to a top notch classical Christmas concert and naturally got the tickets for free. Our Korean friend’s father is good friends with the conductor and so they even took us to the after party. Even though it was mostly a bunch of old men, there were a few talented musicians there, too. The ones who went were me, Ines (my German flatmate), Ines’ friend Pascal (from Switzerland – Ines goes to a Swiss university) and Rimt (a Dutch girl).
This was on the night of the 24th.
On the 25th, we went to a department store, used our money on a grand dinner and made our way back to the apartment to prepare for it. We had chicken in different forms and ACTUAL SALAD…with MOZARELLA! x3
A Christmas cake was also a must buy, since the cakes here are hella cheap!

I was invited to go skiing today (one night trip, so we would’ve been returning tomorrow), but I got a fever and thought I should rest it away before Monday, so I had to decline the offer.
I so wanted to go!
I got a call from lé boyfriend around 11 p.m last night saying they JUST decided to go to this ski resort the next morning, they would be leaving around 8 a.m, would I like to join? 8D
HELL YEAH I WANNA GO!
The price was unheard of…had I gone, I would have payed 60 euros or so. Yes, for the whole trip. Gas,gears, lift tickets, accomodation, EVERYTHING!
60 euros!
(For the non Finnish reading this, in Finland, you’re lucky to even get the gears for 60 euros…for ONE DAY!)
And what do I do? I develope a fever!
Talk about unluckiness. -_-’

Anyway, so I’m staying home for this weekend.
It might not be too bad of an idea after all. Pia is coming here on Monday, so at least I have the whole weekend to prepare everything thoroughly.
Like I said, she’ll be here on Monday and we’ll be in Seoul until the 4th. On the 4th, we’ll take the ferry from Busan and sail off to Fukuoka, Japan. We’ll be arriving in Fukuoka early on the 5th and won’t come back before the 10th. After that we still have the 11th to do something funky here and on the 12th, I’m gonna have to say bye bye to Pian once again.
After that…
I HAVE NO IDEA!

Seriously…it’s a long vacation to be doing nothing, but I just don’t come up with any plans. 8D
Ines left to Malaysia yesterday and will be back by the time I get back from Japan, but she has an internship until the school starts, I think. So she’s no fun either, except for the weekends.
I heard that there’s a small island under the mainland, that’s not packed with tourists and it should be beautiful all year round. My boyfriend promised to check it out and possibly take me there if it turns out to be worth visiting.
Anyhow, I wanna see more of Korea…not just Seoul.

That’s all folks!
Until next time I decide to write~ ^^

• Mint •

2 weeks!

Sorry for the lack of updates!
I do have the time, but somehow I just always find something better to do.
And because of that, this post’s gonna get long again! Prepare!
MUAHA. 8D

Anyway, a lot has happened since the last post and I’m not gonna go through it all, just the best bits.
We went to a spa!
It was amazing! The whole thing had like 7 floors for God knows what and it only cost around 5 euros. With no time limitation what so ever.
NOT BAD!
Of course they had different types of massage services too and the prices varied from around 12 euros all the way to 70 euros, depending on the set. Everything looked so professional though, and they even had real sports massages.
One part of the spas here in Korea always consists of different types of saunas. And no, not the kinds you see in Finland. Here, when they say sauna, they mean these huge heated rooms with loads of people. Everyone gets a pair of very unflattering shorts and t-shirt as they pay for the spa, and these sauna rooms are the places where everyone wears them.
There’s usually one huge room with televisions, snack bars and some games, where everyone can socialize and spend their time as they like. Besides the main room, there are small human-oven like rooms with different temperatures, where you can test your heat tolerance as you see fit. I didn’t see any temperature signs, but the doors usually have a sign that says either “high temp.”, “mid temp.” or “low temp.”. I’d say the high temperature room was around 70 C.

When you’re done sitting around, testing the sauna parts of the spa, it’s time to return to your locker and get ready for the real spa treatment. The spa sections are naturally divided to women only and men only, ’cause here swimsuits are forbidden.
But damn, the pools are a treat!
They have so many different kinds of waters! Natural salty sea water bath, ginseng bath, somethingsomething minerals water bath, outdoor bath (which is great when it’s cold outside!), 20 Celcius temp bath, massage bath…the list goes on.
They also had two kinds of saunas in the spa section and to my pleasant surprise one of them happened to be the Finnish type of sauna that I’m starting miss so bad already. It was around 80 Celcius, just perfect for me.

I’ve also been sporty!
A few weeks back, we went hiking at a nearby mountain. The hike took about 5 hours (well…6 ’cause we got lost on the way back) and even though you might think that going up was the hardest part, it wasn’t. Sure it was energy draining and all, but coming down was all about concentration and feet placement. It was in the middle of the fall here, so the rocky paths were covered with leaves, which seriously made the ground dangerous.
We were dead tired by the end of the night, but at least we had one hell of a day!

Yesterday, we went ice skating!
YES!
It was indoors, and the ice was practically melting, but STILL!
You know, how usually when you’re ice skating your toes are supposed to be freezing, you can see your breath and you always feel like drinking hot chocolate after skating for an hour?
Well, this experience was totally different.
As it was an indoor ice rink, everyone was skating without their coats and I even wished I had a t-shirt on, ’cause it got so hot. You could see it in the ice too. Even though they cleared and smoothened the ice every hour (I think), after a few rounds on the newed ice it was already getting bumpy and hard to skate on. Never the less, it felt like a piece of home…if even just a little.

I’ve been feeling homesick lately. I don’t know if it’s the season..Christmas coming and all. Here it’s no big deal, but back home it was always such a family holiday that just remembering it makes me feel blue.
I remember little things from back home in the weirdest places and suddenly start missing home. Sometimes I feel really stressed because I can’t just call my friend and go watch a movie with her (yes Anniina, that’s you), or because I can’t just go to the supermarket with mom and buy way too much stuff that we don’t actually even need. I also can’t buy a train ticket to Vantaa and just play games with Pia for the entire weekend, eating unhealthy and staying up late.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not giving up or anything, this is normal. It wouldn’t be human if I didn’t miss home by now.
I know I’m not going back to Finland before summer and I can deal with it. Pia’s coming to visit me soon and after she’s gone, it’s only a few months until mom comes here too. Time is gonna fly by, just like it’s done ’till now.

On school news, I’ve only got 2 more weeks left before the longest winter vacation ever.
(That also means that there’s only 2 more weeks of the oh-so-annoying roommate!)
Naturally the last week is the finals week, so there’s a lot of work to be done too. I’ve got three papers to write, two of them are a piece of cake and one…well, I can manage it. As for exams, I know we’ve got an exam on the Korean language, but I’m not sure about Japanese because it might be an oral exam again (which would be more than nice!).

Anyway, I’ll write again after the exams and all…when I finally have the room to myself! No more roommate! Whee~

• Mint •

Midterms

This week’s the midterms and you could easily sense it weeks before this. Last week the school library suddenly became the number one place for all the hardworking (studying in this case) Koreans. It’s amazing really, there seriously are no free seats anywhere in the library, no matter how hard you try to look for one. Since last week, they started opening the library at 4 a.m, just so that students would get more time to study.
And people actually go there! 4a.m!
Insane!

My own studying has been minimal compared to that, but I’ll manage.
Hopefully.
I had my first exam on Monday (yesterday). I studied the material carefully, but I still did bad. Actually the whole class did bad so I’m not worried.
The thing is, the teacher actually assumed that we would memorize the names of 24 seasonal periods plus of course the other topics that our material covered.
24! In Korean!
None…not ONE of us memorized them. We didn’t think that was as important as remembering the late King’s name or what the different elements in the Korean flag represent.
And the best part was…not even the Korean students in our class knew them!
HAHA. 8D

Today’s my second exam. It’s gonna be an oral exam, because the class is Intermediate Japanese Conversation. I’m actually kinda worried (read: VERY worried).
The teacher only told us that she’s gonna interview us one by one, but she never revealed the topic she’s going to interview us on.
Thus, we really don’t know what to study. It could be anything.
This is very bad for me.
Even though I can handle a normal conversation in Japanese, my vocabulary doesn’t cover all that much. And ’cause I don’t know the topic, I haven’t been able to study any words either.

[EDIT] I worried for nothing, the interview was a piece of cake! The teacher’s so nice and all went sooo well! I even got compliments on my Japanese!
幸せ~♬

Tomorrow’s a day off and on Thursday we have to turn in our Midterm papers for the Cinema class. I still haven’t even started on that, but it’s only 600 words so I can easily start it today when I get home and finish it tomorrow.
Friday’s finally the Korean exam. I have to study.
I’m gonna spend most of tomorrow and Thursday evening studying for that. Even though the subjects aren’t that difficult, the exam covers a lot so I have a lot of material to go through and memorize.
And when the clock hits 3 p.m on Friday, we can finally sigh and get ready to celebrate a friend’s birthday and the end of the exams.

On a totally different note…
How hard can it be to open a window when you burn the insect candle?!
I was about to choke when I woke up, ’cause a certain someone had closed the door and all the windows and THEN started burning the candle (Huom Suomalaiset, kyseessa on siis sellanen Off kierukan sukulainen, josta lahtee paljon savua). You could see the smoke clouds in the room and the smell was horrible.
I mean…doesn’t it only make sense that the smoke HAS to have a way OUT of the room (other than our lungs)?
Just hope my clothes won’t start to stink because of this.
-_-

My roommate’s gonna be here only one semester, so I get a new roommate when the spring semester begins. And right from the beginning I’m gonna make sure she understands that there are TWO persons living in this room.
This also means that I’ll have the room all to myself from January till the last weeks of February. NIIIICE. 8D

• Mint •

Blah.

This is gonna be heavy on whining so get ready.

I’m slowly starting to get annoyed by the little stuff my roommate does. Sometimes I just wonder how a person on her twenties can still be so childish.
It’s amazing, really.
Everything has to go her way, if not, she starts pouting and doesn’t speak for a good while. If we want to do something, it has to be convenient for her too.
She has no respect for anyone really.
It’s also obvious that she’s never lived on her own before (I’m not saying that it’s her fault or a bad thing, it’s just obvious), nor had a roommate before.
But still, wouldn’t you think that a person with even a little brain would be wiser than to shower at 1 am when everyone else has already gone to bed and you have classes the next morning? -_-

Okay, enough of that. Hopefully I’ll manage with it somehow till December. Only 2 ½ months and the school’s over for this semester!

The reason why I don’t update so much is because there’s really nothing new happening everyday. Seriously, you don’t want to read ‘went to school, had two classes, went out eating, came back, slept’ all over again. That’s just about it.
Every now and then there’s something worth of updating.
A few weeks ago on a Friday, we went to a baseball game that was free for our university’s students. We had to register online and when we got there, they gave us a free KFC’s hamburger, juice and thundersticks. I lost my thundersticks after the game! T_T
The game wasn’t all that interesting (and it lasted like 3 hours) and we were mostly busy trying to keep up with the cheers and the beat that the others were doing with their thundersticks. All in all, it was fun, but the weather had just started to get colder so in the end we were freezing.
But our team won! 8D

Our school also had it’s 90th birthday. A biiig party. I didn’t know we had that much money!
Naturally it was free and only for the students of our university. Once we entered, again we got burgers, water bottles, back bags and Chung Ang University t-shirts.
The beginning was boring…naturally. Speeches and all that.
But the reason all the students were there was Big Bang.
Hell, that’s why we were there in the first place! xD
They only performed like three songs and we couldn’t get all that close, but still, we got to see them live! ^^

Just yesterday there was a concert again. The Asia Song Festival 2008. A festival that gathers artist around Asia to one big stadium for 3 hours. And the best part? The whole thing is free. The lines weren’t even that bad, we only had to stand in line for 3 hours. >.> Didn’t seem that long though.
I knew half of the artists, but it doesn’t really matter. It was a great experience, and gosh those Korean fangirls can SCREAM! O.o
Man, my ears hurt even thinking about it.
Anyway, here’s the artist list if anyone’s interested:

• South Korea •
동방신기 [Dong Bang Shin Gi] (DBSG/TVXQ/)
소녀시대 [So Nyeo Shi Dae] (Girls’ Generation)
샤이니 [Sya i ni] (SHINee)
신승훈 (Shin Sung Hun)
SS501
Rose Jang

• Japan •
w-inds.
Berryz工房 (Berryz Kobo)
土屋 アンナ (Tsuchiya Anna)

• China •
胡彦斌 [Hu Yan Bin] (Anson Hu)

• Taiwan •
Fahrenheit

• Hong Kong •
Karen Mok

• Thailand •
ICE

• Vietnam •
Ho Quynh Huong

• Philippines •
Rivermaya

• Indonesia •
Agnes Monica

As expected, they saved DBSG for the last, and we fled before that. I cherish my hearing more than seeing them from far-away seats.

Oh, one more thing. Flickr’s now updated too, so you can find new pictures there, check it out. ^^

• Mint •

Updates

I know I don’t update as much as I should, but I’m still alive.

School is the same old. No elevator in the Liberal Arts building and classes are on the 6th and 7th floor.
Joy.

The courses I’m taking are:
• Korean Folklore and Culture
• Exploring Korea Through Film
• Exploring Korean Performing Arts with Field Trips
• Learning Korean Language in English
• Multimedia and English Education
• Intermediate Japanese Conversation

The one from English Education is pretty interesting. At first I thought that I’d just try it, but would probably withdraw from it ’cause it might be boring…and boy, was I wrong.
The book I bought for the course is covers some interesting areas. The only bad thing about the course is that I have to do some actual studying, unlike for the other courses. -_-’

I was supposed to send my home university the Learning Agreement paper a week ago, and I only remembered it just now. There’s been a lot going on with the school though, so hopefully they’ll be understanding about it.

There’s been a lot more going out than back at home. It has it’s good sides and bad sides, but I’m focusing on the good ones. :p

We’ve also made some friends outside the school and exchange student circles, which is good ’cause now we have way more people to bother to take us around Seoul.

• Mint •

Randomness

The teacher at ‘Exploring Korea Through Film’ makes me giggle.

But it’s a fun course! We just watch Korean movies in a cinema room at the university’s library.
And I love my new white, little hangul keyboard!

I finally did what I promised ages ago…
I UPLOADED PICS! But yeah, most of them are taken by Wendy or Nai, ’cause they have their cameras everywhere with them.
You can find picture goodness here.
I’ll also put a link on the sidebar (Links), so you don’t have to scroll back to this post to find it.

• Mint •

First weeks

I’m always kinda thinking that ‘Oh, I should update my blog’, but then whenever I have time, I end up doing something stupid…like watching tv or something.

Anyway~
Last week was more like settling down and adapting to the life here. We had to do a lot of shopping for basic things like water, foods, slippers, toilet papers etc.
Luckily enough tho, Vicki has a friend here and he took us out to E-mart with his car, so we didn’t have to carry everything on a buss. Not only would that have looked stupid, but it would’ve been hella inconvenient. >.>
So thanks Jin Su!
We treated him to dinner as a thank you and even after we got home, he still took us out to play pool at Apgujeong. We saw a little night life (very little tho), and we had fun.

‘Cause Apgujeong looked like a nice place during the night, we decided to go there shopping on our own on Saturday. Jin Su told us the buss number we could get there by and it was all kinda easy to figure out. The only thing was, that no one really told us that Apgujeong is an expensive area with the brand name stores. -_-’
So the first store we walked in to, Vicki and I looked at a price tag of a t-shirt and turned right back to get out.
We did find some sales and got a few pieces on an affordable price and all in all, it was a fun day. We even took some purikuras (I still don’t know what’s it called in Korean, go google it!).
And the next day, our buddies took us shopping to Myeongdong 8D
We looove shopping (plus I really need more clothes >.>).
We ate some very delicious shabu-shabu and got in trouble (well, Wendy did) by taking a picture of a woman selling puppies in the street.

After the weekend, it was time to start the school on Monday.
We had fun searching for the first class room…
I asked two students if they knew where the class room was and both of them pointed us to the wrong direction. After that, Nai was brave and asked someone from an office to help us poor exchange students out, and the woman was really shy. She looked around for the room for a while and decided that it didn’t exist.
…oookay.
Eventually it did exist tho, and it was actually perfectly logical. We were just stupid.
I didn’t really know what to expect from the teachers, like English wise, but the first teacher…
Oh maaan, her English was/is sooo simple. It’s hard to understand what she’s trying to say at times. But then, her attitude and interest towards us is really nice. She really wants us to get a hang of Korean culture. (The class is called Korean folklore and culture.)

This week’s mostly been just getting used to the school and finding the class rooms. I made some new friends too. :]
My buddy student (Ja Hyung) was supposed to be on the same class with me on Tuesday, but she’d made a mistake in choosing the courses and she noticed she had already taken the course last year. Soo, I thought I was going there alone, but luckily Ja Hyung had a class mate (Su Young), who hadn’t taken that course yet and so I went with her.
I don’t know how my luck is like this, but Su Young happens to speak amazing Japanese and so we got along really well. Most of the time, we just forgot to speak English and automatically switched to Japanese.
She was with me on my second class too, but we’re both dropping that course…the teacher’s kinda strict. >.>

One of the exchange students (Miko) has also been studying Japanese (he actually lived in Japan) and when he found out that I could speak the language too, he suggested that I’d try out the Japanese conversation course with him and his buddy student (who also lived in Japan…I feel such a noob >.>). The course starts tomorrow (I think/hope it’s only once a week…that way it wouldn’t overlap with my other courses), and I’m still kinda hesitant about it, ’cause I really don’t feel confident enough about my Japanese.
I know 5 years of studying sounds like a lot and all, but I don’t think everyone understands the circumstances. It wasn’t a real school I studied at. I think the closest match in America for it would be Community College, but then again, even that sounds too fancy.
Anyway, Miko and his buddy (I forgot his name T.T) asked me to say something in Japanese to see if I could take the course and immediately agreed that I should. Sooo…I guess I should just trust them and go see how it goes. ^^

Today was Vicki’s birthday and we went out celebrating. :]
I met our buddies near the school and we went to buy a cake and a present for her. After that, we met up with Wendy and Nai who brought the birthday girl there.
We were certain that Vicki knew what we were planning from like days before, but she says that she had absolutely no idea. =D
We ate some Italian and went to a pub just near here. Even though it wasn’t a big party, we had sooo much fun eating and drinking and making fools of ourselves (pictures will be added). ♥♥

Oh, about the pictures…I’m sorry. -___-’
I know I said I’d upload them during the weekend, but as you can see, we had a lot to do.
To be honest, I haven’t been carrying my camera along with me that much ’cause it’s heavy, but Wendy and Nai always have theirs with them, so I’m getting those pictures too.
I can’t promise anything, but I’ll upload them as soon as I have more time. ^^’

That’s it for now then, don’t really wanna turn this into a book. >.>

• Mint •

Seoul

The day of the departure went by really fast. Even the three hour drive to the airport was over before I knew it.
In the airplane, I sat next to a very nice man from Norway. It was his second time to Korea, and he was here for business (something about making bridges or boats or whatever..>.>).

My buddy student was waiting for me at the airport and we had something to eat there, ’cause the plane food wasn’t really all that yummy-looking (I’ll put up some photos on Flickr, when I have more time).

Ja Hyung (my buddy student) helped to get a mobile phone and took me to the International Office at our University. She also showed me a little of the neighborhood around here, so I’d be able to walk around on my own too.

When I got back to the apartment (we had once visited here to drop off the luggage), I was really tired and decided to just unpack, hit the shower and take a nap. I slept for a few hours to the sound of someone opening the door with the code. That was one of the workers at international office (though in Anseong campus, not ours) and she lives in this apartment too as an adviser for us. One more hour, and we welcomed three other girls that were sharing this same apartment. All three of them (Vicky, Wendy and Nai) are from America and while I share a room with Vicky, Wendy and Nai also share a room.

We went out for dinner and when we came back it was almost midnight already. I tried going to bed while Vicky stayed up and unpacked…and because I was still so tired, I fell asleep as soon as I closed my eyes.

The apartment is kinda nice I think. In our room, we have a huge window that actually opens up to the balcony and we also have our own separate bathroom, which is a huge plus. The other girls have one bathroom. Our living room looks really empty, ’cause it’s not particularly small and there’s only the AC machine, a TV and a sofa.
The kitchen’s also huge and it’s really nice with all the needed equipment.

Even though we went to bed last night around midnight, I think everyone was up like 6 am this morning. We blame the jet lag, the noisy street just next to the apartment and the heeeeaaaat!
After first just spacing off for a few hours, we watched some tv and decided to take a walk around the block.
We found the river! yay :]
There were some overly cute little kids playing at a playground near the river. Why is it that these Korean kids are sooo cute?
I mean like every one of them. *-*

After we got back to the apartment, we were picked up by a few buddy students and we went to the school (again) and ate lunch (which was good!).

When we got home there was a new housemate waiting for us. Ines, who is from Germany, had arrived today and had been out with her buddy student. We chatted a little and (yet again) watched some tv. After a few hours everyone was reeeaaally bored and just wanted to hop on a buss and get lost. 8D
It might have worked.
..but then we just decided to go walking to the opposite way of the one that we took in the morning. We ended up seeing soldiers at the gates of a cemetary, did ourselves proud by eating out at an all Korean restaurant BY OURSELVES (none of us really speaks Korean, Vicky does some and we all know a few words) and tried to get to the river again.

Tomorrow’s the orientation for exchange students and after that we’re gonna go downtown..to the sunnier side of the Han river ^.~

• Mint •

I panicked for nothing really.
I usually do.

I got the papers delivered to KELA for financial aid, no problem at all.
This of course means that my university in Savonlinna also has all the papers that were required.
…and last but not least, today I got a call and they said my visa’s arrived.
Safe and sound. ♫

Now all I’ve got to do is to wait for my ‘buddy student’ to contact me. This should happen somewhere around mid August.

Oh, and of course I’m gonna have to keep on memorizing the hangul. 8D

• Mint •

BOOHOOO!

Gah.
This is exactly what I’d call a paperwar.
No better word to describe it.
Absolutely none, nada.

I mean..how complicated can you make things? Get this;
> I have to send a few papers back to Savonlinna for my International Coordinator to sign them
> I have to get the signed papers and the Letter of Acceptance (which finally arrived, btw!) to KELA for my financial aid
> I have to get the financial aid papers and the LoA to work (travel agency) for my Visa (they’ll send the papers to the Embassy for me and hurry them up, this is the easiest way)

How long do you think all of this will take? I mean, jessus, it’s already the last week of June!
> 3 days for the papers to visit Savonlinna and get back (IF the IC’ll send them out as soon as she’s done signing them)
> KELA takes ages..a week?
> …how the hell do I get the papers to the travel agency in Mikkeli when I’m already working in Savonlinna?! (I leave for Savonlinna by 3rd of July)

Just when I thought the worst was over. -_-

Oh, and to add a little fuel…I’ve got nowhere to stay in Savonlinna.
I edited this post so that you can read aaaall about it here.

• Mint •