My first weekend in Seoul and I was ready to explore.


But first things first, my roomie Kookkai, her Thai friend, Belle and I were on a mission to equip our not-so-equipped dormroom – or “cupboard under the staircase a la Harry potter” room, whatever you want to call it. I’m talking a dorm in a size that can be classified as “illegal” in some countries: with a kitchen but no kitchen supplies or utensils whatsoever. However I’m not complaining, it has everything I need (except the things that I actually need), it’s cheap and super close to the campus (and I’m talking ’10 hopscotches’-close). But more on that later.

So first, we went for breakfast, which ended up in a brunch, because boy, these people are not joking around when it comes to portionsize. I had Juk, which reminded me of good old “rijst met soep” meets bubur ayam meets porridge.

To get everything we need, we went to Daiso. It’s like the Dutch chain Action – or how my uncle likes to call it: A C Tión (*French accent*). The stuff in the average Korean store is colorful, printed and “cute”, which made it hard for me to find anything neutral. You see, it’s hard to feel like a woman while you’re doing your make up in a bear-shaped mirror.

I decided I wanted Hongdae to be the first place I visit in Seoul. It was supposed to be known for its young audience, art, street artists, cool stores and restaurants. And yet again, internet was not lying about this. It was student galore and you just didn’t know where to look: it was amazing!

Oh, by the way, I went with my Swedish friend, Malin, whom I spend my very first day with, and my Jordan-but-studies-in-Holland friend, Jean. I have a selfie of us on this laptop, but the stupid “beaty face” setting was on, on this Samsung camera. You see, the selfie game in South Korea is not new, so Samsung supplied its homies and the rest of the world with this setting which is like instant Photoshop. So, I won’t be putting up this photo because the result is a big fat LIE. Ok this was totally irrelevant, but hey, you decided to read my blog, so…. yeah.
We had dinner at Sorryfish, which was back in the area our campus. I must admit that I’m not sure if that was the actual name, because everything was written in Hanguel, but it was the name of the Wi-Fi and people were eating fish, so…. yeah. By the way. I know, Sorryfish sounds like a bad English mistake, but things is how Konglish works. If it sounds English, it’s probably good enough. I got used to it.

The restaurant had everything –even the menu- written in Hanguel only. You’d, expect that in this day and age of technology, common sense and English television; in an area near a university, people would take time to write their menu’s in English or atleast have PICTURES. But hey, “It looks Korean and there are a lot of Koreans, so it must be good and popoular among the locals” (We’re such tourists). So, we picked whatever was suggested (don’t worry, on a scale of 1-10, we only got scammed maybe at a level of 7), eyeballed the interior of the place, stared at our side dishes with a lot of confusion, peaked how other people ate the food, got help of a Korean girl on how to eat our food – We successfully blended in with the Korean people.

All in all, Seoul is A-MA-ZING!

Blessings and love,
Nin