It's that time again, to apologize for not updating earlier. But who has time for blogging when you live in a city like New York?!

So the past 7 weeks (YES, I'M HERE 7 WEEKS ALREADY), I've been on my survival mode taking care of all the things I need to. So I am happy to announce that I have an American cellphone nr and an American bank account and I've finally received my first paycheck last week (Yes I'd been harassing my savings account for 6 weeks). I'm also very humbled to announce that I've moved another place to move to this past week. Which reminds me, I haven't updated you in so long and so many things have happened. Which reminds me, I'll be uploading something in the next days that shows you the place that I lived in when I came here. Which also reminds me, to remind you, that this is probably how things will go down: I will go MIA on this blog for a while, and then upload a bunch of stuff spread over a few days for you to figure out your life. Though I'm obviously trespassing the laws of blogging 101, I will not apologize for living my life. (Just to you mom: Sorry I haven't uploaded sooner. I know you are looking forward.)

My view from my old building

View from my old building: looking down 34th street, the Empire State Building and the New Yorker Hotel.

Anyways, back to the moving part. So basically I moved, because New York has insane rent prices. And anyone here knows that there is no way you can live on 34th street unless, well, do I even have to explain? So I have been blessed with another room in Lower East Side for a price that would probably still get me a place in the centre of Amsterdam but hey, then again I'm still in the centre of NYC. This gives me room to not spend ALL my salary on my rent, and do more stuff while I'm New York. And with stuff I don't mean "stuff", I mean activities, shopping sprees and take more dance classes. So for my first 6 weeks, I lived in Hell's Kitchen, which is only cool to say when you live in New York. And the move is great. I live with an older Chinese lady now who welcomes me everyday with "did you eat already?, "are you full?" and "here eat this". My first night after moving, she practically forced me to eat midnight noodles, and in my mind I was like "girl, I can totally hang with you". It was just another confirmation that this was meant to be.

To emphasize on the size of my blessing:

• I still get to live in Manhattan
• I get to live in Downtown Manhattan
• I live with a very nice middle-aged Chinese lady (she might be elderly, couldn't tell - Asian don't raisin)
• It's a few stops from my church (Yes, found a perfect one for me!)
• It's 3 minutes walking from the water with sights from the Manhattan bridge and Brooklyn bridge
• It's one stop from Brooklyn (which apparently is the new "it" borough)
• It's a safe family-friendly neighborhood (number one priority ever when traveling solo)
• These are just the perks that I know of now.

Hells Kitchen (Red): Middle ish, Westside. Lower east side (Purple): Lower ish, East side (duh). Turtle bay (Purple): Middle ish, East Side - this is where I work.

Grand Central shot from Park Avenue. And yes, I  know what you're thinking (if you're anything like me), I was so siked about this: this is the street/location where the Avengers kicked alien creatures' ass!

I love that I get to choose this as my daily exit.

Things I do on a regular?
My favorite activity up until now must be going to Central Park to take a walk, see all the street artists or read a book (Yes I read). My favorite neighborhood to go up until this moment is definitely West Village (Greenwich Village) and Williamsburg in Brooiklyn. But more on that later. My co-interns have provided me the warmest welcome, helped me out with settling and taking me to different places.

People are mad serious about base ball, and they have base ball teams playing in the park every weekend.

Central Park

Meet my lovely friends that I get to work with: Alisa from Russia, Fed from Italy (who unfortunately left for home last week :( ), and Angela from Italy. The best Welcome I could ever wish for. Yes this was taken at a Yankee game.

There is just no way to avoid getting overwhelmed by this city and fall in love with it. I was afraid that I would feel at home, but it has already conquered my heart and I'm actually proud to say that New York has become my home.

Love,
Nin

Spoiler: My rooftop view with the Empire State building. SURREAL.

I can't believe I'm actually here. Even though I'm constantly reminded by the sights around me, it's such a dream to be here.

I had spent my first day in Tokyo, to leave for Kyoto for 3 days and come back to spend another 3 in Tokyo again. I'll be honest, when I planned my trip to Japan,

Sights and Sounds is where I compile shorts of my video content for me to reminisce and for you to enjoy. Even though photography means so much to me, capturing video moments seem to have increased in joy over the last travels. This one has a little bit of everything from my last two months in Korea.

I can't believe this is it. I am actually leaving beautiful Seoul. 4 months flew by so fast. Seoul has been amazing. Just because it's over, doesn't mean there is not more to tell. But what made this whole experience to the level of amazing are the people that I was surrounded with. Korea is great, the culture is so interesting and so present and the city/country looks amazing, but nothing brings it to a better level than having loving people around you.
I can honestly say that I made dear friends for life. Those who are, know it. Thank you all for making this Seoul experience even better. My heart is full, and I am so thankful to have met you guys.  I pray blessings over each and every one of you and I hope that we all will cross paths again in the future. To my dear dear friends, know that you have a home in the Netherlands.

Saying goodbye is so hard. Of course there is social media. Of course we won't talk to each other every day anymore. But for 4 months, these are the people I've spent my days with. You can't describe having to say goodbye to such moments.

A special shout out to my dear roommate, Kookkai. The one who had to put up with me in the smallest dorm of the complex. Bunk beds and too much stuff in an illegal small space, but I couldn't have been more blessed with her as a roommate. Ottokaeyo, Kookkai? Who is going to wake me up with a K-pop alarm clock now, which I ended up singing along to (and downloading on my pc)? From K-pop schooling and singing in Noraebang, sharing irritations about HRM, monday dance classes, hugs whenever someone needs it to contagious laughing: I will miss you incredibly much.
I've said it to most of you: Each year is another chance to see each other again. If it doesn't happen that year, there is another chance in the year after. You guys made Seoul a home for me and I carry each and every one of you in my heart and in my prayers.

Warning: Selfie overload (sorry if I didn't get everyone on it). Credits: Several Selfie kings and queens. Blessings and love,


Nina

P.S. As I said, just because I'll be leaving Seoul, it doesn't mean that there is not a lot to tell you. Past weeks have been crazy busy rounding up finals and having goodbyes. This blog has not reached it end yet when it comes to Seoul articles. There is a whole load of pictures, videos and thoughts laying aroudn to be posted. Bear with me.

P.P.S. Also this blog is not over yet since I'm continuing my adventure.. in JAPAN !

So with less than 2 weeks coming up and finally being done with all the dang projects I've been having the past weeks, I think it's time to introduce you to my university: Kyung Hee University (KHU). Yes, after 3,5 months I think it's time.

Hope you'll enjoy this compilation of some footage from Busan weekend trip in the first weekend of November.

Sightseeing, festivals, old people dancing, little kids playing, breathtaking views and delicious food: Busan had been good to us.

Don't judge the editing haha.



Enjoy my enjoyments,


Nina

We arrived on a friday evening/night that very rainy. Not quite the weather you want to arrive in when you're in a new environment and have no clue where your hotel is, but after a few hours long er than expected, we finally found our Hotel. To still have a feeling of having doine something on the night of our arrival we decided to explore the area around our hotel and eat something. So first that was quite strange is that we felt like there was a zombie invasion right before we arrived. I mean, Busan is supposed to be the second biggest city right? But there we were, walking around in the rain at 22:00/23:00 and only few people were walking on the street and only a few stores and restaurants were open.. Maybe it was because we're used to Seoul (Asian invasion), maybe it was the horrible rain, or maybe there wás a zombie invasion (it was Halloween night).

Yes, I did. I actually performed an Indonesian performance here in Seoul. This is how it happened:

It has already been a few weeks since this was relevant, but I don't want to leave this out. One of my goals was to go to a sports game in Korea. Baseball is the number one sport in Korea, and I think football comes after that. Since Baseball tickets are very hard to get, I still had an opportunity to go to a football game.



I didn't want to start off on a negative tone.. But dang that was one of the worst games I've ever been to. Which says a lot, because I've been only to one other game. It was a friendly match between The Netherlands and Ecuador last World Cup, which basically means that no one tries their best.

Look at us being so excited (Before the game)

Don't ask why they put all the foreigners on one flag. I'm still wondering the same question

So excited, so ignorant - definitely BEFORE the game

The game that I saw here was FC Seoul (yes, there is an FC Seoul) aginst FC Suwon (this place is just outside of Seoul). You'd figure that my lovely city, which I've grown to love and have become a proud citizen of, would kick some ass in their own stadium. Well those are LIES.  If the game wasn't bad enough, the practice before the game was already setting a standard: Shots at the goal and 90% is either missed or stopped. How in the hell are we supposed to cheer for a team that couldn't get their life together in the freakin practice. But ok, no need to be negative in a crowd of Seoul fans. The game was mostly carried by the few foreigners in the teams. There were a lot of gaps, missed opportunities, thus frustrations with me and my friends. Since we all come from either Netherlands or Germany, our standards of football are way too high. That's what we kept saying to ourselves to cut the players some slack. Anyways, even thinking about it wants me to stop talking about it.


The atmosphere however was amazing! Yes, just because the football game itself sucked, doesn't mean I didn't enjoy being there. Seoul was well represented by enthusiastic supporters. And not the violent type. People were dressed in red and black and sang all different kinds of songs. Obviously we shouted along, not knowing what the people said, and maybe even cursed without knowing, but hey, we were in it!



Their team spirit is the best, with drummers in the audience, setting up little concerts for people to sing and cheer along. Cheerleaders who could be living dolls because of the plastic surgery. And 2 mascots that supposed to represent flames (I guess?) that hype up the crowd.

I had a row of little kids in front of me, which was one of the most surprising thing. When we first sat their, there were 4 kids keeping the seats in front of us while their 2 dads were getting food or something. Now bear in mind that we're at a football stadium. Yes, I wasn't kidding about Korea being a safe place. There were so many kids at the stadium, which I thought was really cool. Usually I'd think that's either a waste of money and not to mention, could be very dangerous. But not in Korea.


The 2 kids in front of me had better English skills than the average Korean I've met and they were very nice. Their friends, who represented the shy (because they aren't able to speak English) average Korean were dressed up identically and had team spirit written all over them.
Oh btw in the video, before you wonder why people went crazy in the end. It's because they play this game show during the break and you have to get the camera's attention to win. The thirst was so real. But it was really funny though.

All in all, it was a great experience, just to experience. The football skills itself were disappointing.

I probably felt exactly the same as this little guy

Love and blessings,

Nin