Life here is interesting. I’m not sure if it’s still novelty or that I just really am suited to city life. It doesn’t bother me that Seoul is so busy, that traffic laws seem not existent, that the city changes smell every 20m and so on. I think I like the city because everything is so convenient. I mean everything is open pretty much all day and well into the night. I can go out and get whatever in the evening after studying and not worry about everything being closed by 5pm. Public transport is another joy. It’s simple to use and the small card can be used for subway and bus routes. Taxi’s are around all night long so there’s no need to worry about going to another area in Seoul and not being able to get back until the subways start running. Taxis are so cheap here that between four of you it’s pennies.
I think maybe the only thing that bothers me a little is that I haven’t had any time to just chill. I’m always busy. I have class 9am until 1pm usually but that can go over. After we found a place to eat and talked for a little while, it’s 2:30pm. Then there’s 3 hours of self study, an hour or two of design time (no ftp is a bitch right now for my web stuff); oh no kitchen in dorms so evening meal means a trek into the restaurant/bar district so that’s at least 1.5 hours gone; then there’s all the little things that pop up; of course checking out the culture and history of Korea; so I’m very tired by the end of the day but look forward to the next. I think I’ll wait another month and see if my enjoyment of this life style is just novelty or that it is really how I want to live. If the later then I think I should get a job teaching English in the afternoons and continue my studies out here for another couple semesters. Ah I just realised I kinda said all this already in a previous post but this post is a little more filled out so I’ll go with it.

I added more pictures recently (yay for a CMS). Check them out. Oh I should explain that they aren’t all my pictures. A few of us just empty our cameras into my iPhoto. Then someone makes a set and picks a weird title and whacks them online via my web interface. Strangely a few of us have the same camera too hence similar colour/detail characteristics etc in the pictures. It’s cool though we are getting so many pictures.

8pm. Okay I’ll set the scene. I was in a bar (amusingly titled “Ho Bar”) having a few drinks for my friends birthday. He’s turned 23 so we had a big night planned for him. So after a few drinks, I needed a pee, like you do. I wandered over to the toilets but there was no markings to say men or women. I just walked into one entrance not really looking and straight into a cubical. Next thing I know I can hear female voices! “Shit! I’m in the girls toilet. How do I can get out of this?”, I thought. I had to wait until I heard no footsteps and made a dash for it. Luckily I bumped into no one on the way out. If I had I could’ve just played the “white foreigner card”. You know, pretend I can’t read or speak any Korean so made an honest mistake! Yeah so the lesson is: look carefully before you enter.

Last night just went on and on. After the bar we went to a club. It was a hip-hop club which potentially could be a good thing but it was all mainstream stuff that they had promo videos for. The DJ didn’t mix either, he just did transitions between the music videos. Using promo videos like that is pretty limiting but an easy job. We bust a good few moves on the dance floor and as the novelty white guy I had to throw down a few over the top moves in a circle of Korean people. I’m kinda shy so that was terrifying but fun at the same time. The rest of my friends were pretty drunk after this. I was taking it slow due to a reaction to alcohol I had last week that knocked me out. Sometimes I react to even a little alcohol that knocks me out for 24 hours, throwing up every 20 minutes, shaking and changing temperatures. I should go and find out what it is, maybe an allergy to alcohol? It’s a risk it might kick in every time I drink. Anyway, in the club we had picked up some girls not really expecting anything beyond dancing in the club. As we left they tagged along and wanted to drink more. Hunger kicked in though so we went to a restaurant and ate some kimbap. This was 5am or so. They finished up there food and dragged us to another bar: “Ho Bar II”. I kid you not. After an hour they stopped serving alcohol so the girls dragged us to another restaurant. We ordered more drinks and some bugs in soup. Never eaten that before but it was okay, kinda tasteless really and didn’t feel like meat so I could eat it (the texture of meat makes me feel ill so I don’t eat meat, not sure of the medical term for it). 8am soon came and it was incredibly bright. My friend stood up and collapsed into a mess on the floor. I had to get the girls to let go of our arms so I could get these guys home. I had to give phone numbers to give them ease of mind. I managed to prop two of the guys up on me and got them into a taxi. The one was okay after a little and could walk properly. The taxi driver was cool and spoke a little English, I amused him by answering in Korean. So we both got language practise in. He soon threw us out of the cab though when one of my friends was throwing up out of the window. I faced a challenge of guiding these guys a 30 minute walk from where he dropped us. 45 minutes later, a fall on the stairs, drunken phone calls from the girls and the longest piss I have ever witnessed, we made it back. I made sure they got into their rooms and hit my bed. 9:30am. 13.5 hours of partying. Geez, I have to admit that was too much and needed to write this down for the memory.

Another reason of studying in Korea was that I’d be located in a busy area of a city. I live in a city in Wales but our cities are small. I always said I wanted to live in a city but people said a “proper city” would be too much with the noise and the pollution. However, I’m really enjoying city life. It’s so convenient. Everything is open all the time. If you get stranded at 4am in the morning you can go watch a film or something until the subways start again at 5:30am, you can shop in the evenings, there’s always plenty to do and so many people to interact with. All good in my opinion. Is it a novelty? I don’t think so. I guess the one thing that is making life great here is that the people I hang around with are really cool and that I have made a lot of friends from various cultures. I’m definitely enjoying the Japanese peoples company because I get to use another language I have been learning for a long time and that they have similar interests. The Korean natives I have made friends with make every effort with me and actively seek to hang out with me despite communication struggles. Ohh pictures are better than words right (especially when I’m writing in this simple family English)? Well then, check out what’s been going on so far here.

So I’m in Korea, all set up and classes have started. It’s been an interesting two weeks with getting used to a language I’m not great with and living in a different culture. In general Korean people are very friendly. They have all these applied social rules that help the place run smoothly. The city is clean, the transport is easy enough to use and getting by with little Korean is okay. I haven’t had any trouble or any race issues. I’m just accepted and live like anyone else does here. They speak to me in Korean first and English when I struggle. It helps. I wish I was here a little longer I’m not sure three months is enough for me to get all I want out of this.
Yeah so I’m staying in dorms. They are kinda strict. The rule list is pretty cruel (including no going to the girls wing) and the punishment is harsh (expulsion for some breaks, one chance then expulsion for others) . There is no curfew or anything though so it could be worse. My roommate is a guy from New York and he’s pretty cool. We don’t see each other much because of different schedules and that. The other guys on my floor are okay too. There’s a bunch of Europeans (strangely I have a hard time accepting some of their cultures), a bunch of Asian-Americans, and a ton of Japanese. I haven’t let on I can speak a bunch of Japanese yet. I’m listening to see how much I can pick up, so far it seems my Japanese is way too formal. My Korean is a little lower than most peoples on my course though. I’m in the 2nd toughest group and I think they are going to lower me. I hope not, I like the learn fast approach. I’m keeping up with the class but can read no where as near as fast as the other students and my writing is definitely too slow for the class. I can fix that in a couple weeks if they haven’t moved me by then.
There is a big drinking culture here. Unlike the UK, drink doesn’t equal end of night violence. People just seem to go home and not really bother anybody. We have hit some clubs and partied until 5am when they close but no trouble. That’s a very welcome change from back in Wales. Walking home feels safe too because of the low crime rate here. I feel very relaxed here. I guess the only worry is I’m losing quite a bit of weight and I’m already skinny. It’s just the food here is pretty healthy and I’ve only been eating twice a day with minimal snacks. I have this problem where if I bite into meat I feel sick so I avoid meat dishes. I thought that would be a major problem since Korean food seems to have a lot of meat dishes. However, where I live there are so many food establishments I have a good choice of non meat dishes especially at the Japanese ramen/noodle/fish places. I’ll write more soon.