Update

Hello again! It's Masha~
Now that our winter vacation is over, many of us are preparing to go to our spring host families.

Winter break was pretty enjoyable, albeit a bit hectic. Nonetheless, I've found that living in Seoul really matches my rhythm of life. Among the things that I did over this winter break, there are a few worth mentioning.

First of all, with less time in school and more time to focus on my Korean studies, I found that my language skills have really improved over this time. Just yesterday I went to see a movie with a good friend of mine, and could easily follow the dialogue- even tearing up a bit at the saddest parts and laughing at the funniest parts!

7번방의 선물(The Present in Room 7); I really recommend watching it!~

Secondly, I was able to enjoy Lunar New Years with my host family and their large extended host family. At that time I visited  the my family's ancestral grave and also had a large feast with all of the family members! The day before I even made mandu with my host mother and host aunts!~

They looked good, and they tasted even better!! 

Lastly, after all the initial business of our winter schedule, I decided to to take some quiet days to relax, have some leisure time, and enjoy. I even found a new cat cafe while walking around the other day! :)

Since my host family doesn't have pets, it was nice to play with cats again, and the coffee was pretty good too ^_^

Well, that's it for me, bye!!~

Winter winter winter

Hey everyone! It's DiMitri again!

January was definitely an interesting month. I found myself spending a lot more time at home this month, surprisingly. I spent a lot of time with my host siblings (who are ADORABLE), and I talked a lot with my host parents. I found that in the past month we've corrected a lot of the stereotypes we had about each other's cultures, and I learned so much about Korean culture and Korean people.

Daniel here! Sorry I have no pictures at this time because besides work I haven't  really been up to much. January is my favorite month. Not only is my birthday in January but it is also the first month of the year. This is also the time of the year when everyone makes their New Years resolutions. Obviously my first resolution was to lose weight. It's just got to go. Secondly, I told myself that I would work harder at Korean. Up until now, I realized I was taking this whole scholarship for granted. My mindset was" Oh, I'm in Korea for free I want to have fun!" But this isn't the reason for the program and it's surely not the reason my mom was thinking, so I have been doing my best to accel in Korean. Because it's January, I believe it marks the half-way point on our trip. It's hard to believe this much time has passed. By now, all of our Korean knowledge has expanded exponentially and we have a better understanding of Korean life and culture.

Now that we are on break, I hope we all get to have a fun New Years {again}. Anyone going out of town? My only plans are to get all this winter break work done and finally have time to get together with a friend and go to the movies and practice my Korean. One more thing. I'm really excited about our song activity. I think it is cool that we are creating a song that will set the tone for future NSLI-Y Korea programs. AndI also like how we picked out group names! How cute. So I guess that is all for now.

3NIGMA OUT!     

Winter Break Update

Hey guys! It's Masha ^ㅂ^
I just wanted to give an update of what I've been up to these past couple months.

Christmas for me was spent quietly with a new host family, eating cake. As crazy as the entire moving process had been prior, it was pretty good to just kick back and chill for the holidays~

얌얌~~~

Then, shortly after New Years, I moved to my winter break host family in Seoul! That weekend we went and visited Chang Gyeong Gung Palace :)

Arlyss also showed me a cute bakery in Hongdae, where I ate my first macaron ^^

맛있었어요 *_*

 Other than that, I've mostly been busy with Korean class and our winter activities.~
Bye!!

Seoul

Hey, it's Ashleigh posting! Just a few weeks ago I moved up to Seoul for winter break and figured I'd just give my own point of view, having lived in a smaller city the first semester. First of all, the transportation. Back in Iksan, the buses stopped running around 9:30 or so making it difficult to stay out late at all. Also, it was about a 45 minute walk from my apartment to the area I used to frequently hang out with the other students so it was quite small in relativity to Seoul. You could also almost guarantee if you left your house to play with friends you'd see someone you knew on the streets whether it be a classmate or a teacher or a friend you met elsewhere. Another thing was the proximity to Jeonju, the capital of Jeollabuk and the food capital of Korea. It's famous for bibimbap and a traditional Korean village among other things. We could hop on a train and be in Jeonju in around 15 minutes, whereas in Seoul it'd be quite a bit longer and more expensive. And of course, Seoul has the famous tourist areas (none of which I've been to yet) that almost everyone visiting goes to. Though I haven't gone to them yet, I'm definitely planning to soon! I also haven't been taking many pictures (which I'm sure kick myself for later) but here are a few from when Daniel, Arlyss and I went to buy a few k-pop albums and met an adorable ajumma who gave us her favorite artist's album for free because she wants to share his music. Bless her soul, she's such a good fan <3

Under the Sea

Hey! It's Ami again back for my second blog post! This time I actually have pictures to use although the quality isn't the best and they are of sea animals...But still! I have pictures :)

Today I went to the Coex mall for the first time which is a pretty big touristy stop. Although I did sight see and window shop for a bit, the reason I went in the first place was to go to the aquarium! I had told my host mom I like aquariums and so she took me today! Yay!
It's a pretty big aquarium and it took about over an hour to see the whole entire aquarium from start to finish. It was just a regular aquarium except all the explanations and such were in Korean (although there was also a lot of Japanese and English). The fishies were really cute and the place was packed with little children. Yes, I was like the oldest person there besides the moms and dads, haha.

Now here are some pictures of fish and such!

Seoul has a lot of cool places to visit and this past week (the first week of our winter break) has been great and I've already hit a few of the touristy areas of the city.
That's about it... It was a short post but I remembered pictures this time! :)

Until next time,

Ami

Makeup and Skincare

It's Ami posting!

Today I've decided to write about something that has become a huge (exaggeration...maybe) part of my life since coming to Korea: Appearance. 

Now, to improve appearance and not look like a hobo when going out, all of it has to do with presentation of your face. 

This is where makeup and skincare comes in and helps save me from looking like a monster when I go out. :)

All jokes aside, the skincare and makeup industry is pretty big in Korea because appearance is definitely important to Korean society (it's important everywhere, let's be real) and the country is well known to pay special attention to how you look. And this doesn't apply to just females, it also applies to the guys too, of course.

So I'll just give you a rundown of what's popular (or what I perceive as popular) here and the things that have left a unique or particularly good impression on me. 

1) BB CREAM

You can NOT write a post on makeup and then not write about B.B Cream. Literally, it's sold in all makeup/skincare stores and everyone wears it (even some guys) and just yeah. It's a huge thing here. It's supposedly becoming a trend in America, too, but if you come to Korea, you're (girls) are probably going to end up buying B.B. Cream...Even if you don't wear makeup. Why? There's no reason, you just will haha. By the way, if you somehow don't know what the stuff is, it's basically kind of like a foundation but it's said to do all these different things at once and usually has a grey undertone. Funny, because I've never met anyone with gray colored undertones...

2) The stores

There are SO many makeup stores it's ridiculous. The ones I can name off the top of my head are: Tony Moly, Nature Republic, Aritaum, The Face Shop, Etude House, Holika Holika, Skinfood; the list goes on and on and on! Just by the number of different makeup companies shows how important appearance. I personally like Nature Republic the best because they have awesome $1 nail polish and their skincare stuff just feels good on my face. :) 

3) Quality

For the price, the quality is pretty good. Obviously. there will be bad products (namely with BB cream) but if you just simply youtube or google the items or Korean makeup in general, you can generally figure out what you should buy and what you shouldn't buy. But, it's always fun to go first-hand into the stores and try out the stuff, especially because they're not pricey. It'll kill time, too!

4) Olive Young/ Watsons/ etc

There are some stores that sell a lot of international brand makeup and skincare. If you prefer to use American or Japanese products in particular, you can go to these stores. However, they're obviously going to be overpriced and the Korean brands aren't bad so I suggest going to explore the Korean stores first! But, if you have a favorite Maybelline mascara you like, you can go to one of these stores and buy it.:)

5) Service

In Korea, the salesladies and people don't let you simply look around; they ALWAYS come up to you and ask if you need any help, what you're looking for, and such. It's a nice gesture but sometimes they can get in your face. They are helpful when you're actually looking for something, though, so that's good. Also, you get samples most of the time no matter how little you buy at a given store which is always fun because you can try out cool and quirky samples. 

I think that's basically it- I'm sorry there are no pictures but yeah... Hopefully this gives people sort of a look into Korean makeup (but probably not...)

Bye!

Hello! This is Andi posting. 

I cannot believe that it's already December. Pretty soon we'll be switching host families and although I'm looking forward to winter break, I'm not too excited about having to come back to school with a new school year and new homeroom. I feel like my class has fully accepted me as their classmate now and even the ones who shied away and avoided me at first now comfortably talk to me. I finally have everyone's names memorized and know what makes them tick, what they like, what they dislike, and their hopes for the future. I only have a couple of more weeks with them, but it would be really nice if I could spend the next semester with them so that our relationship could continue to grow. But because of how the Korean school year goes from March-December, 어쩔 수 없어 (it can't be helped).

At school the teachers now enforce all of the school rules to me, and apply the same consequences to me as they do to the other students. For example, I had to sweep the floors when my host sister and I came to school late; I have to pay 1,000won for every minute I'm late for school; I got called out by a teacher for wearing makeup (in my defense, it was only left over mascara that I couldn't completely remove…not sure how he was even able to tell); and during after school study hall a teacher said he'd only give me one warning before smacking me with a ruler the next time he sees me talking with another student.

However, obviously since my life as a student here is pretty different from that of my classmates, they don't exactly see me as one of them. Something that's getting annoying is how often they'll say "ohh 부럽다! {I'm jealous} I wish I could have it easy like you." like whenever I leave school early three days a week or when I don't have to come to school on major exam days. I leave school early to go to Korean class! And how am I supposed to take the same tests when they're in Korean and when I haven't studied for them? Being a foreign exchange student here isn't exactly all fun and games. 

Emma and I don't have school tomorrow because of final exams so we'll be going to Namsan Tower!

Happy December!

Bucheon. NSLIY.

Hey everyone, it's Emma. Sorry this post is a bit late...

So one thing I've been noticing over the last month is how rapid the rate of change is in Seoul. For example, we were walking around the Hongdae neighborhood last night and the Starbucks that had definitely been there a week or two ago was completely gone - no "We're moving" sign or anything like that, just a sign for the incoming Mr. Pizza - so now I have to figure out where the Starbucks went! And this happens quite often - it seems like no stores are ever guaranteed to stay for a long time. My friend gave me her punchcard for a cafe that we went to all the time last summer, and I went back and the cafe was gone - it was a big cafe too, not some tiny little hole in the wall. When Andi and I walk down the street to go to our Korean class we frequently find ourselves asking each other "Was that there before?"

So anyway, what does this all mean? I feel like since Seoul is such a newly prosperous and thriving city, everything's moving at a much faster rate than longer established cities. Old businesses get pushed out, new people move in to try their luck, businesses move to better locations. I've heard this rapid motion is a phenomenon with apartments too. My host family has moved at least 3 times since my sisters were born, and my classmates talk about moving a lot, certainly more than my friends ever moved in America. I heard that it's common for families to move to Gangnam and other more expensive areas while their kids are in school because the schools are better, and then move to a less expensive area when their kids graduate.

Most things about Korean life, at least in Seoul, seem very fast paced. This gives an exciting feeling to life here, and I wonder if and at what point all the change will start to slow down.

The Family Unit

DiMitri again.

So, it's December and I'm hitting that W-curve hard. This will be my first Christmas away from home, and sometimes it doesn't feel like a big deal...other times I wonder why I decided to come on the program in the first place. BUT it's all a part of the experience...and growing up, because this is the first of many Christmases that I will be away from home.

The hardest thing I've ever had to do...

Hey everyone,

It's DiMitri again. I hope all is well with you guys. Before I start my post I'd like to give a little update on my life here in Korea: School isn't getting any easier, French is still hard, and Korean classes have gotten significantly more fun in the past month or so. There you go. That's pretty much all that's happened since I last posted...

Thanksgiving in America (sort of)

Before I start writing, let me apologize for the lack of pictures this post is going to have.  Since coming to Korea, both my ipod and my camera have died, and my netbook is well on its way to being next. -_- I will make sure that future posts have lots of photos! 

As all you Americans know, last Thursday was Thanksgiving!  Unfortunately, it was just a normal day for us NSLI-Y students.  However, we were fortunate enough to have the opportunity to eat Thanksgiving dinner at the American army base, Yongsan Garrison, in Seoul, on Friday night.  Because we live so far away, those of us in Iksan got to leave school early on Friday to come to Seoul.  We took the train for the first time, which was fun because the scenery was much more interesting than what we usually see on the bus.

Hey guys! It’s Masha ^^

As I write to you, we have just a week and a half left till yet another month will have passed!

Day by day it gets a little chillier, and many of us have been trying our best to keep ourselves warm. It can be a real challenge, especially with uniform skirts. At first when people told me that Korean winters are crazy cold, I thought “Pshhh, it can’t be that bad!”. I was wrong. If it’s already this cold now, I can’t imagine how much colder it will get as the winter progresses!!

Oh The Things They Say

Hey everyone! It's Ami again! This is my second week posting and hopefully my blogging skills have improved, yay!
Okay, so I don't think I'll be posting any pictures because my laptop is dysfunctional since I only touch it like once a month and I don't know it's acting up boo. So yeah there won't be any pictures this time around but I swear I will make it entertaining!

I think I'll start with some updates first!

We had our Halloween party last weekend and it was so much fun! I'm kind of disappointed in myself because I didn't use much Korean... It's my goal for our next monthly meeting to use as much Korean as I possibly can! It's just so easy to use English when you're surrounded by fluent and native English speakers!
This week at school my class (1-4) is practicing the Gangnam Style dance! We'll be doing it next week for the school festival. Me and Ash are the centers for the dance (holla) so we've been practicing hard haha.
Speaking of school, school is getting better. Things were extremely tough in the beginning because of reasons but I think all three of us in Iksan are having a better time adjusting lately. Especially with the dance practices for the festival, Ash and I have definitely been spending more time with our classmates, and getting to know them better. It's really nice. :)
Korean is... It's going. These past two months I've been studying, but I know I can do better. I talk like a baby but for the most part I can spit out in broken, ugly fragments most of what I want to say in Korean but now I want it to become more fluid and beautiful-sounding. Also I have the vocabulary of a three year old child so I should probably study some more vocab. However, I think I'm progressing at a pretty good pace. Hopefully the rest of the kids are, too!

Moving on, so today I thought I'd take the time to write out a few memorable quotes that people have said to me while I've been here. I'm gonna write them out in English because my Korean spelling stinks and if you can't understand Korean well then it's not very funny.

My all time favorite:
Korean person: "Where are you from?"
Ami: "America"
KP: "No. Where are you from?"
Ami: "America..?"
KP: "No, no... Where are you from?"
And it just goes on and on until finally they either a) ask me where my parents are from or b) give up and walk away. Yeah, the people of Iksan don't really see me as American first, but Japanese. So a lot of awkward and funny moments stem from that. :P

Next,
"Hey! Have you gained weight?"
"Your eyes are really small"
"You're only pretty when you wear makeup"
They're just normal statements here but it's just so absolutely wonderful when people point out you're flaws!!!! JK, it doesn't bother me anymore but it was a bit embarrassing at first.

"You're Japanese so you must be really good at math."
Love, the math teacher. Clearly Asian stereotypes still exist...In Asia.

"Wow! You're English pronunciation is really good!"
I'd hope since you know, I'm American and all.

"Ami can't get a boyfriend because she's too passionate and loud."
Love, my homeroom teacher.

"Do American boys like Asian girls?"
Love, the Korean teacher (Not my Korean teacher but at my school's)

"You're so pretty! Why don't you have a boyfriend? Do you want a Korean boyfriend?"
Because every pretty girl needs a boy by her side.


Yeah, I'm really not used to hearing any of the above quotes (except maybe the math one...) so it was a bit startling at first. It just goes to show that you really have to keep an open mind and not let things like this get to you when you live in a foreign country. Just laugh it off and move on with your life!

To end, I will share a quote that I stumbled upon on twitter that should give every foreign exchange student the strength to get through life: "If Britney Spears can get through 2007, you can get through today."
Amen to that.

November, December blogger

<RD Posting>


Hi everyone,

This is the list of Bloggers for November and December.
Keep this list in you diary !

11월   3일부터    9일까지 : Arlyss, Ami
11월 10일부터 16일까지 : Ashleigh, Kelsey
11월 17일부터 23일까지 : Lizzie, Masha
11월 24일부터 30일까지 : Andi, Emma

12월   1일부터    7일까지 : DiMitri, Daniel
12월   8일부터 14일까지 : Arlyss, Ami
12월 15일부터 21일까지 : Ashleigh, Kelsey
12월 22일부터 28일까지 : Lizzie, Masha
12월 29일부터  1월 4일까지 : Andi, Emma

Daniel Posting

What do you notice?

<Daniel Posting>

As I said before, Korea is so different. Even more so than America. For this reason, I would like to identify these reasons in a tempt to illustrate to you, two different societies and their views toward foreigners.

In America, it is hard to tell the difference between Americas and foreigners. People all over the world come to America. So it is very diverse. Koreans see foreigners and are in awe. Foreigners stand out in Korea. For some reason I don't set why they do this. I guess it's because Foreigners don't come to Korea that often as much as America.

One big thing I like about Korea is the price of goods. Things are so much cheaper here than in America. And whats more, they have no taxes. This is the best, and so much simpler. You don't need to worry about having the right amount, and enough for taxes. Just exact, solid numbers.

Korea's Censorship is way more strict than in America. There are cameras everywhere, to make sure you are not doing anything illegal. There is little controversy surrounding CCTV. Do you agree with it's existance? Anyways, it's strict censorship prevents people from going on seductive webpages....
So I've heard. But really, America does not have this therefore have more access to do frowned upon things. These are just a fes of the differences between Korea and America. I hope you get the picture and understand that people and societies are different everywhere you go.

Daniel Posting

Expectations

<Daniel Posting>

Being in Korea is very new and different for me. I am used to going to different states and countries, but never like this. I have never been on my own for a year.
In the past I have either traveled with family or stayed short amounts of time by myself.

Despite the new environments, I am well adapting to Korea. Before I arrived here, I was so nervous. I wasn't sure if I would be able to manage and learn the difering subway routes. Now that I am here, I realize it is quite easy. I feel like all my expectations about Korea, when I was in America were all wrong or misleading.

One of my expectations was that Korea would be very high fashion. However, when I came here, I found that I dressed better than a lot of Koreans. I was actually surprised to see this.

Another one of my expectations was that Koreans would be very critical. This one was half true.
Although most of the natives are extremely nice and welcomming, there are few that you just now they are analyzing and fixing youy in their minds. Even if they don't say it, you know.
Especially the youth. They just stare me up and down thinking they wish they were me or what is this guy doing here.
Either way, the staring thing is starting to get on my nervous. Just take a picture, it will last longer.

2 Months of Korean Life

Hey everyone, this is Emma, one of the Incheon girls. I have a couple topics I want to talk about so here it goes.

First off is about my Korean language. I am speaking mostly in Korean though with my host sisters it's easier to slip into English because they're so good. However, most of my classmates can help me with vocab but their English isn't good enough to try to converse, so I'm forced to speak mostly Korean at school, which is really good for me. But I feel like the way I talk in school is like a baby, with really basic grammar and vocab because in a normal conversation you have to come up with stuff fast, especially when you're in a group with a bunch of Korean students and everyone is talking at once. I think the best Korean I speak is when I'm in Korean class with the other NSLI-Y kids where everyone will stop and wait for you to finish your thought, so I have time to think of more complex grammar and vocab. I'm learning so much in class and I love the way our classes are structured. I think if I had to sit in a classroom with 30 or so people in desks and learn Korean for 3 and a half hours 3 days a week it might get boring, but since I'm in a small class with really individualized attention, a great teacher, and a fast pace, the time flies by and class is fun! I'm not intimidated at all by speaking in front of the class, which was one of my problems when I took Spanish in high school. Some days I almost feel like my language skills are regressing, while other days I feel like they grow greatly, it just depends on the day. It also probably has something to do with how tired I am. (which is usually very tired! I could never take naps in America and now I put my head down on the desk and doze off for 10 minutes during break times just like the Koreans) My understanding is slowly but surely improving. For instance last night I was watching one of my favorite Korean rap groups, Epik High, perform a concert live through Naver (a Korean search engine). They did a lot of talking and I was sitting there thinking to myself  "They sure are talking a lot" and then I realized I was understanding most of what they were saying!

Next, going to an all girl's school. Most of the time I complain about going to an all girl's school - I literally haven't met a single Korean boy my age since I got here! But tonight I was sitting in my classroom at dinner time and I watched one girl walk into the room in her baggy gym sweatshirt with the hood up, a fleece blanket tied around her legs, and a toothbrush in her mouth, and I thought that there probably wouldn't be such a comfortable environment in a co-ed school since boys and girls would be trying to impress each other more. (Is this true co-ed people?)

Also, the 3rd years are going into hard core study mode right now to prepare for the 수능, the national college entrance exam, which is in a few weeks. I don't know any 3rd years, and I wish I did because they're actually my age, but maybe I can meet some after the exam. Anyway, I can only imagine the stress they're going through right now. But what's really nice is that the whole school is supporting them, like my class each wrote a little letter to one "언니" (older sister) in the 3-9 class (We're 1-9). And also the amount of respect that's allotted to age in Korean high schools is way more than in American schools - this goes with Korean culture and the respect for age, of course, but I was expecting that if you were all in the same school and only a year or two apart in age, you would act more casual. But my classmates full on bow and say "안녕하세요 언니" when they see 2nd or 3rd years they know, and my sister brought snacks for the older girls when she joined a school club and it sounds like the older members of a club have considerable authority over the younger ones. I kind of wish seniors got that much respect in America!

My entire homeroom class on a field trip to the DMZ (read more about it in Andi's post) - I love my class!

안녕하세요~

Hi everyone! This is Andi, one of the four girls living in Incheon J.

For this past week, my high school (Munil Girls School) had midterm exams so Emma and I didn’t have to attend school on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. Because of this, we spent all of Tuesday going on cultural excursions. We went to the Bukchon Hanok Village, Changdeuk Palace, and Insadong.

The hanok village is exactly what it sounds like: a community of traditional Korean houses that used to be inhabited by the upper class and to this day are still inhabited by people. Although we had a map, we felt like we were walking through a maze. We’d decide on which alley to take based on how many tourists were coming to or from that pathway. Some of the hanoks are renovated into restaurants, art gallerys, shops, or cultural workshop facilities (like for making hanboks, Korean knot art, and hanji paper).

At Changdeukgung we marveled some more at Korean traditional architecture. There, we also went on an English tour of the Secret Garden—which our hilariously sassy tourguide made very clear to us that there is no secret to the garden and that we shouldn’t ask her about the name if we want to continue the tour. The garden was used as a resting place for the royalty, a serene setting for creating poetry, and a venue for banquets.

After walking up and down hills for 5 or so hours, Emma and I happily rewound ourselves over coffee at Starbucks in Insadong. Then we had dosirak for dinner at this adorable restaurant where customers leave notes and hang them anywhere inside. Unfortunately we were too sore to thoroughly explore Insadong.

On Thursday we went on a school field trip to the Demilitarized Military Zone. Since midterms were over and there was no after school studying, everyone was very excited. We went to the 3^rd war tunnel, Dora Observatory (where you could see North Korean land), and the Dorasan train station (which was built in hopes of one day transporting people to North Korea and China). The entrance—and exit—of the tunnel was extremely steep and long. Some of the students didn’t go all the way to the end because they felt too tired, yet there were many elderly Korean people completing this strenuous walk. At the end was a small, open window to the other side of the wall: North Korea! There are currently four known war tunnels made by North Korea; and it is believed that there are at least twenty more of them that have yet to be discovered.

On Saturday I went with my school classmate Hyunah to Hongdae. There we went to the Trick Eye Museum and walked around. At night Ellen and I had dinner at this Korean BBQ place, where we realized that it was a bad idea to go by ourselves when we burned our meat. The waiters there ended up cooking our kalbi for us…it was super embarrassing, but they were very nice about it. Before we left, they asked to take pictures with us!