Hongdae Free Market

Portrait Artist, a photo by blueoceanpalm on Flickr.

I visited the Free Market at the playground just outside of Hongik University today for the first time. This is where I saw this cute little guy getting his portrait done. :)

The Free Market has been a place for artists to come and sell their works since 2002. It is every Saturday from March to November from 1pm to 6pm. I'm looking forward to checking it out more often. I didn't buy anything this time, but I probably will next time.

Korea 2011

Korea 2011, a set on Flickr.

I'll put photos I take during this trip into this set on Flickr. Enjoy.

First Full Day in Korea

Greetings from Korea! I got to Korea on Thursday, June 16th at about 3:45pm. Ugh, that flight from home was KILLER. It took approximately 24 hours for the whole trip, most of it spent on a plane. I didn't get much sleep on the plane, but luckily, on my longest flight, I had a really cool person sitting next to me and we chatted for most of the flight. This guy was recently retired in the Air Force and he spent 2 years in Kwangju. He was going to go on a tour in China for a week and spend the rest of his month in Asia backpacking around Korea. Sounds fun, right? I wish him the best of luck.

I was so glad to be off the plane. After I got my rental phone and stuff at the airport, I boarded the airport bus to Ehwa University Station. The bus ride wasn't as bad as I thought...last time, I almost got car sick, but I was fine this time. It took no time to find my hostel and I checked in at about 5 pm or so. The hostel that I'm staying at is pretty new. I've got a private room with a separate bathroom, and it's pretty nice. I wasn't very tired when I got here, so I went for a walk around the area to get rid of the rest of my energy. When I returned to my room, I was ready for some rest.

The next day, Friday, I woke up at around 5:30am. I hung around my room for a few hours and I watched my drama that I missed while I was flying. At around 8, I left my room and headed to Yonsei University, about a 20 minute walk. I heard that I might be able to open a bank account on campus, so I headed there first. The bank didn't open until 9:30, so I had to wait for a little while. While waiting, I got some kimbap from the convenience store for breakfast. When the bank opened, I found out that I at least had to have a passport and a student ID to get a bank account, so I'd have to wait. I changed some money anyway and then headed toward the KLI. Last time I was there, there was a lot of construction because they were building a new dorm, and now it's finished.

After stopping by Yonsei, I figured I had better start looking for a place to stay for the rest of my time in Korea. I had done some Internet research on several places, and called one of my first choices. The guy said that they did have rooms available and I could go see them, so I walked through Ehwa University from their rear gate to their main gate and found it pretty easily. It's only about a 15 or 20 minute walk from the KLI and maybe a 5 minute walk from where I'm staying now. The rooms were super small by American standards, but there is a private bathroom, bed, Internet, cable TV, air conditioning and some storage in the room and they provide free rice, kimchi, coffee and laundry facilities. I know I shouldn't pick the first place I look at, and I planned to look around at other places, but this seemed like a good place, so I paid the guy a small deposit and I move in on Sunday.

I went back to my hostel afterwards and dropped off some stuff before heading out again to Gwanghwamun. One of the places I was looking forward to seeing when I got to Seoul was the newly-renovated main gate to Gyeongbokgung, the largest palace in Seoul. The area around Gwanghwamun is the heart of old Seoul, and Gwanghwamun is the center of it all. Gwanghwamun Square, right in front of the palace, opened in 2009, almost right after I left. People were playing in the fountain in front of the statue of General Yi Sun Shin and it was generally a really nice area.

I then headed toward Bukchon, a neighborhood with a high concentration of hanok, traditional Korean houses. The streets there are very, very narrow, but it's a really nice place for a stroll. I would have stayed longer, but my camera's battery was dying. I will definitely have to go back there. On the way back to my hostel, I stopped in Insadong for dinner. Insadong is a traditional area with a lot of shops that sell traditional crafts. It's probably one of my favorite places to shop.

I don't know what I'm going to do today yet. There's so much to see and do, it's sometimes overwhelming.

Two songs that are currently stuck in my head and won't get out

Here's a couple songs that I just can't seem to get out of my head:

This is "Americano" by 10cm. It's a simple, lighthearted song that is SUPER catchy. Can you blame me for spontaneously singing the lyrics out of nowhere? This song is so catchy, I've even made it my ringtone. Ugh...maybe it might never get out of my head. :)

The other song is "나를 잊지 말아요" (Please Don't Forget Me) by 허각 (Huh Gak). It's from 최고의 사랑 (Best Love), one of the dramas I'm obsessing over right now. This isn't the first time Huh Gak's got one of his songs stuck in my head. 언제나 (Always) is an awesome song too. Both videos are below...





Damn, maybe I should have put the happy song at the end. Just listened to 나를 잊지 말아요 again and now I'm a blubbery mess. Hand me a tissue, somebody! :)

Perpetual Writer's Block

It takes a lot to get me to write. Especially in length on a particular topic. I'm pretty good at spelling and grammar, but there's just something that keeps me from getting my ideas out. It must be some kind of inner insecurity that I have and just haven't figured out how to break it yet. Many times, I start to write something, but when I go back and read what I've written, I see it as stupid and end up erasing it all. There are a lot of posts on this blog that ended up that way. When I absolutely must write something, I usually get to a point that I just absolutely can't go on and have to stop. Then I usually just have to click send if I'm working on an email or just turn in the paper I'm writing.

My perpetual writer's block is so frustrating. What do I do?

Cell Phones in Korea

I leave for Korea in less than a week. Leading up to my trip, I joined a couple groups on Facebook about the Yonsei Korean Language Institute and I made some contacts who will hopefully turn into some cool friends. What to do about getting a cell phone seems like a recurring conversation.

One of the things that you must have when you're in Korea is a cell phone. I know it sounds like peer pressure, but it really is hard to connect to people without a cell phone and public phones can be hard to come by sometimes.

So what does a foreigner do to get a phone in Korea?

First, you must know a little about cell phone network infrastructure: Most of the world uses GSM cell phone networks, which uses SIM cards. SIM cards hold all your subscriber information, can be removed from the handset, and theoretically you can switch SIM cards around in multiple handsets without changing phone

numbers. I say theoretically because in order to successfully switch SIM cards around in different handsets, you've got to have unlocked handsets. The difference between locked and unlocked is that GSM providers normally sell phones that are "locked" onto their specific GSM network (i.e. AT&T or T-Mobile). Unlocked phones can be used on any GSM network. Unlocked handsets are usually more expensive than locked handsets that you get when you subscribe to a provider. Don't worry too much though, you can usually unlock your handset by calling your provider and punching some codes in your phone. They might charge a small fee for unlocking your phone, but once it's unlocked, you can use different SIM cards in your handset. GSM phones are convenient for world travel because you can either get a prepaid SIM card in the country you're visiting and use your own handset or you can rent a handset and use your regular SIM card.

CDMA, on the other hand, is a different type of network entirely. It is not as widespread around the world as GSM, but it is the most widely used in the US and Korea. CDMA providers sell phones that are locked and it's very difficult or impossible to unlock them. CDMA does not use SIM cards to store the subscriber's information, instead the information is stored directly on the handset. In order to travel internationally with a CDMA phone, you should contact your provider to make sure there is a roaming agreement between

your provider and a provider in the country you're visiting and find out what fees are like and what features will not work when you're there. For example, Verizon and Sprint have roaming agreements with Korean providers, but while you might be able to send/receive text messages using Verizon, you can't on Sprint.

I imagine Korea only really has a GSM network in order to please foreigners because it's the most widely used type of network in the world.

There are many options now available to foreigners visiting Korea.

First of all, there are convenient mobile phone rental kiosks in the airport. There are at least three companies that rent phones to foreigners and they have several options for rentals. You can rent a prepaid phone, have a temporary account which you will pay at the end of your trip, or you can even rent a Korean GSM handset which you could put your own SIM card in. Here is a site from the Korea Tourism Organization that will lead you to the rental companies. If you make a reservation online, they usually give you a discount.

If you have a family member or friend in Korea, it might even be a better option for you to get them to put you on their plan, like adding a line.

The other option is to somehow get a Korean SIM card and put into your unlocked GSM handset. This likely involves getting an actual contract with the cell phone provider, and I'm not real sure how that works because when one of my friends tried to buy a SIM card, she was unsuccessful.

I have Sprint (CDMA) service in the States. Last time I visited Korea, I was only there for about a month and a half and I didn't know anybody there, so renting a phone was my best option. I could use my BlackBerry Curve from home there with no big problems, but it was expensive to make calls and use data, so I only really used it when I had to. My Korean phone was just a simple phone and it cost me about 2,000 won a day, which included rental fee of about 1,500 won and the little bit that I used the

phone for calls and te

xts. This time around, I'm going to rent a prepaid phone for about 50,000 won plus how much ever I want to prepay. I have an Android smartphone now (the awesome HTC Evo 4G, pictured left) that I can use to get on WiFi networks, so I can hopefully keep my Sprint bill from giving me a heart attack.

At any rate, it pays to do a bit of research before you get to Korea.

Preparing for Korea

Namsan, a photo by blueoceanpalm on Flickr.

In about 8 days or so I'm going to be hopping on a plane for the first time in well over a year and going to Korea for 3 months to study again at Yonsei University. I'm super excited and I'm pretty much already packed.

This time I'll be attending the summer regular program instead of the summer special program, so I'll be in Korea for the whole summer instead of just a month and a half. This summer is probably one of the last free summers I'll have because I am planning on getting my associate's degree in the winter or spring of next year and beyond that is a big, vast plain of uncertainty. Better take this opportunity when I can, yeah?

When I get to Korea, I'll be staying at a hostel for the first four days or so, and in that time I've got to find somewhere else to live for the rest of my time. I'm thinking about a goshiwon-type place, which is kind of like a dorm room, but off-campus. I'm hoping I'll have a more authentic Korean experience at this kind of place because when I was staying at the dorm the last time, I spent WAY too much time speaking English. I probably won't be able to distance myself too far from my mother tongue, but I can try my best.

At any rate, I will probably have better Internet access in Korea than here at home. That said, I will try my best to post stuff like blog posts, pictures and videos while I'm there, but I will be pretty busy going to school and traveling around as much as I can, so there is a chance that I might not update very often. We'll just have to see how things go.

One time when I went to San Francisco, I stopped periodically and wrote what I was experiencing in a notebook. I tore the pages out of the notebook after my trip and sent it to my mom. I wish I still had those pages, but it was so relaxing to just stop every once in a while and write about what I was doing. I've gotten myself a notebook and I've been writing in it a lot lately. Maybe while I'm in Korea, I'll share some of my notebook entries. This blog is called blueoceanpalm's notebook, after all...

Nancy Wood Poem

Hold on to what is good
even if it is
a handful of earth.
Hold on to what you believe
even if it is
a tree which stands by itself.
Hold on to what you must do
even if it is
a long way from here.
Hold on to life even when
it is easier letting go.
Hold on to my hand even when
I have gone away from you.

- from Many Winters, 1974

I wrote this in one of my notebooks so long ago that I don't even remember when. I should read some more of her work.

Song of the Day: Three Little Birds

It's been a while since I had a song of the day, but I thought I'd post this anyway. This video is cool, but the song is awesome.

I heard this song today on my iPod and I thought about destressing.

"Don't worry about a thing, 'cause every little thing is gonna be all right..."

One of my friends recently quit her job and she's having a lot of changes in her life all at once. A stressful time indeed. She wondered how I managed to not get stressed out over much. I do get stressed out a lot, but I guess I'm just good at hiding it or naming it something else, like sadness or hopelessness.

I have sad thoughts a lot, and I worry about a lot of things. I worry a lot about my world crashing down around me. I worry about completely failing all my classes and not ever being able to find a decent job. I worry about going broke.

It's songs like this that help me remember to not sweat the small stuff (which all that stuff is) and just smile. Everything happens as it should and it will all work out in the end, so try not to worry so much and don't lose hope. :)

Spam Commenting

I've been neglecting this blog for a long time and it appears my commenting system was too lenient because I've had a crapton of spam comments on a few of my posts. I think I've cleaned them all up now and I've changed my settings for comments. Be careful out there on the Internet, folks.

Idea for a new blog

OK...I'm finally thinking about starting a new blog about Korean. Having a blog such as this with no real direction or topic doesn't really motivate me to want to write on it very often, and Korean is something that I've hated, struggled with, tried to give up, can't stop talking or thinking about and basically has just had me obsessed for the past 8 years. I'm planning on going back to Korea this summer and studying at Yonsei again, for a whole quarter this time, so I guess now is a good time to start a blog, a few months out.

Post topics I'm considering:

• How I started Korean and how my quest for language acquisition has become a full-blown obsession.
• Pictures and reviews of Korean stuff in my city. Korean close to home.
• My fascination with the entertainment industry to include dramas, movies, music and other art forms
• Learning vocabulary and grammar
• Technology I'm jealous of
• Awesome blogs
• Language learning aids
• Youtube videos
• Travel stuff

I haven't come up with any kind of title yet and blog design and I don't quite get along, so I'd love some help.

Thanks!

Alaska 5 Day/2 City

Day 1
Fly to Anchorage Airport (ANC)
Check in to hotel (Hotel Captain Cook)
The Hotel Captain Cook is Anchorage’s only luxury hotel. It is located downtown and has 547 guestrooms. It has three restaurants and separate men’s and women’s athletic clubs.
Explore Anchorage
Rent a bicycle and riding on some of the 120 miles of paved trails throughout the city. Stop at Earthquake Park and see evidence of the strongest earthquake ever to shake North America.
Return to hotel/Close for Evening
Day 2
Depart Hotel
Train to Whittier
Board the Glacier Discovery Train in Anchorage for your trip to Whittier. You can see glaciers, wildlife and other beautiful scenery on your trip.
Cruise Prince William Sound
Once in Whittier, you will take a day cruise of Prince William Sound and see glaciers and wildlife.
Return to Anchorage and Hotel
Day 3
Check out of Hotel
Train to Denali
Catch the McKinley Explorer domed train to the 6 million acre Denali National Park and Preserve.
Check in to Hotel (Denali Park Resort)
The Denali Park Resort is a full-service resort with 345 guestrooms. There are a variety of activities provided by the resort, including a dinner theatre.
River Rafting
Go on a guided raft tour of the Nenana River and view Denali National Park from the river.
Close for Evening

Day 4
Depart Hotel
Bus Tour of Denali
Board bus and learn about the history and scenic wonder of Denali National Park.
Train to Fairbanks
Check in to Hotel (Sophie Station Hotel)
Sophie Station Hotel is the #1 hotel in Fairbanks according to TripAdvisor. It’s an all-suite hotel and is known to have superior service.
Close for Evening
Day 5
Depart Hotel
Take Riverboat Cruise
Take a riverboat cruise on the Chena and Tanana rivers and learn about Fairbanks and native Alaska history.
Depart Fairbanks for home

Tumblr.

Was doing some updating to my Delicious and Yahoo! accounts today, and I decided to join Tumblr. Check it.

Introducing The Next HOT Blogger, SEAN!

Well, he finally did it. I have been trying to get Sean to start a blog for ages, but now he's finally done it only because it's a required part of his English class.

I'm in an English class too, but we haven't done anything that cool yet, and when I lament about how much work I have with English and all the rest of my classes, he always tells me, "You should have went to Ohio State instead."

Oh well. I wish him all the best with his new blog. Check him out here.

I Wanna Be Starting Something OR Thriller's Gone

So, I was thinking about a title to this post about me starting my first class at "real" college next week, and I thought of Michael Jackson's song from his Thriller album. And as I was looking up a video to post, it got me thinking about my vinyl copy of Thriller. I don't have a record player right now, but Thriller would have likely been my first record to play on a newly-acquired record player. I have a small milk crate filled with records, and I decided to go through it and pull out my treasured Thriller album that I payed maybe 50 cents for at a yard sale a number of years ago. Alas! After going through the maybe 30 or 40 records in my small collection, there was no Thriller to be found! Which means somebody must have taken it. I haven't played my records in years, and they had been in various states of storage, but all my records have always been together with each other. There are a few faceless suspects, but very little I can do to really prove anybody stole it. Oh well...I guess I'll just have to buy one off of eBay.

Now, back to my main topic: I Wanna Be Starting Something. That something is my "real" college career. I've had some limited experience with college, but it's always been studying Korean, and I can't imagine that my experience is much like the experience of college.

This week, I will finally be starting classes at CSCC. I am kind of nervous, but at the same time, I'm really excited. I'm nervous because I do have a slight aversion to studying something that I'm not entirely interested in and I have a very big fear of writing papers, thanks to my high school experience with writing papers. I'm also quite nervous due to my apparent ADD. I'll be studying and then, "Oooo! Butterfly!" and I can't concentrate anymore on my studies.

Despite these fears that I have about returning to school, I am very excited to start. I do really enjoy learning new things and I know it usually helps me to be in some type of structured environment. Since I moved to Columbus, I haven't made too many friends, and thanks to my experience this summer in Korea, I am sure that I'll be able to meet some really cool people at CSCC too. Starting classes will also help with my terrible case of cabin fever. Since I got out of the military in January, aside from my "travels," I really haven't gotten out much. All in all, I'm just really excited to be startin' somethin'.

P.S.

While I've been lamenting about my lost Thriller album, B.B. King's classic, "The Thrill Is Gone" came to mind. Cheered me up a little bit because, a) the blues always makes you feel a little less blue, and b) if you distort the words a little bit, it sounds like "Thriller's Gone" :)

Momo2 and the 노래방 (Song Room)

So, we just moved to Columbus and we just got our furniture and personal items out of storage, which included my bowling ball.

Sean's been nagging me to go bowling, and he apparently wants to try to get more than gutter balls now, so we decided we'd go bowling. At first, we were going to go to Momo2's, which is pretty close to where we live, but we decided we'd go to a "real" bowling alley across town, the Columbus Square Bowling Palace, that's open 24 hours and has 64 lanes of bowling fun. Unfortunately, they were bowling leagues on all 64 lanes when we got there and we were told that it'd be an hour before we could do open bowling. Ugh.

We decided to leave the bowling palace and just drive around for a little while to see what was in the area. From the looks of it, most of Cleveland Ave. is kind of crummy, especially after dark. We moseyed our way toward home and weren't ready to retire for the night, so we ended up at Momo2's after all.

Momo2 is located at 2885 Olentangy River Rd, next to Kroger. They've got four lanes of bowling, a cafe with free wi-fi, pool tables, food, and 노래방. They call it Karaoke to please the people that don't know better, but it is DEFINITELY 노래방.

Noraebang is translated to English from Korean as "Song Room," and it's a place that has various sizes of private rooms that you rent by the hour and the rooms basically include a karaoke machine and a couch. I think this is basically the only way karaoke should be marketed. You lock yourself in a little room and sing and dance to your heart's content with yourself or your friends, and the only people that will make fun of you are your friends who already make fun of you for other things. (Some 노래방 might not be suitable for those that are claustrophobic though.) You get a songbook that has songs in English, Korean, Chinese and a few other Asian languages. You punch in a song and sing away to the lyrics on the television.

The lyrics aren't the only things shown on the television while your song is playing. You get to see a video too! Some videos are related to the song, but most of them are just ridiculous! Imagine watching a video of someone sailing out in the ocean while you're singing along with the lyrics to Madonna's "Material Girl." Some of the Korean songs at least show videos of the singers performing.


If you ever get a chance, definitely check out Noraebang. I think I saw another 노래방 somewhere around Clintonville, so I'll definitely have to check that out.

Here's my new "signature" noraebang song. We'll go bowling some other time.

What have you done for me lately?

Was thinking of a title for this post, and this song just popped into my head. Not exactly the topic, but it's a cool song nonetheless...


Anyway, I've been home a little over a month now, and I've been pretty busy, and I continue to be busy. It's a pretty cool and hectic time, I'm sure you can imagine. Christmas is only a couple days away, and I'll be traveling to New York with a daytrip to Canada and back to Maryland before going back to Tennessee/Kentucky for a couple weeks and then onto my new life in Ohio. Sometimes I really wish I would have been able to get out of the military in July like I was supposed to so I wouldn't have to take care of everything right now, right in the middle of the holidays, but I suppose everything happens for a reason, so I will try not to fret about it too much. :) Something I really do miss about being in Iraq though is being able to study Korean. Hopefully, when everything settles down a bit in about a month or two, I'll be able to study Korean again. I know I'm going to have to work hard so I don't become distracted. 

I've been posting quite a bit on Twitter lately. It's really quick and easy to just write down what I'm doing and what I'm thinking or whatever. It's sometimes good for me to post what I'm doing to just keep track of myself too. I can barely remember what I did yesterday, let alone last week, so if I am trying to remember a date that I did something, I maybe could search for it on Twitter and find out when I did whatever I was thinking about. Twitter's also great to find out what's going on in the community. Weather, traffic and event updates, oh my!  

Now I've got to go to bed. Not many big plans for tomorrow, but I might do a little last-minute Christmas shopping. 

An instance where the Internet is NOT helping me.

Usually, I can do just about anything I want or need to on the Internet, although right now, I'm really starting to think that looking online for a place to rent is a bad idea. Although the Internet does serve as a good starting point to know where to look for a place, it's really difficult to just pick and choose from just looking at pictures or plugging in addresses to Google Maps. I guess I'm just going to have to physically go to my new city and do things the old-fashioned way. Just like I found my last apartment. Too bad it's going to be FREEZING!

Pharmacies are hellish

Pharmacies are one of those places that I dread going to. No matter
how few people there are, it always seems like you have to wait
forever to get your prescriptions. I would much rather self-medicate
than wait at a pharmacy. At least the one I'm at now has decent chairs
and there aren't too many people waiting. Then again, that is just an
illusion anyway.

--
Sent from my mobile device

This title has no inspiration. Sorry.

Well, I've been back in the states now for about two weeks. I had a lot of plans when I was in Iraq, and I still do, but the plans that I've put into action so far haven't necessarily went as beautifully as I had pictured them. Yeah, I know, pretty much everything is easier said than done, but it sure can get depressing sometimes when things don't go just right. I'm okay though. :)

I've got about a week left until I go to my new city to start looking for a place to live. I'm really excited about that. I've also got plans to visit one of the schools I'm considering applying to there.

I have just a little time left before they'll let me out of the military, so I'm trying to get everything squared away for that.

Gotta spend time with my family too. Haven't seen most of them in way over a year now and I've got a little army of new babies in the family to greet. They all look really cute in all the pictures I've seen!

Haven't really had much time for reading or studying lately, and I worry about that sometimes. Now that I'm back in the states, I really don't want to let myself lose focus and just quit studying and reading completely, but right now, I guess, those things are kind of being pushed out of the way. I really hope that it's just because I'm not really settled right now, and whenever I complete my move to my new city and start my new life as a civilian, I'll snap back into shape and be a good, studious student.

I can't wait for this week to be over so I can travel again!