Today I got my first taste of Myeong Dong! It’s this packed, crowded, but totally awesome shopping center in Seoul.
Our day started out with 빵 (bread), 바나나 (I think this is how you spell “banana” in Korean…), and some baby tomatoes as our breakfast. Then, we went drove to the U.S. Embassy. There were speakers from the embassy there, and the semester and year long students met their teachers. There was also a very special musical performance by 4 students from Ehwa Women’s University.
After that was over, we went to this cafeteria in another building and had some bibimbap. I’ve had bibimbap in the U.S. before, but this stuff was legit. The rice was soft, the meat was juicy, and everything together just made it melt in your mouth.
By the way, driving to the cafeteria place, we passed by so many advertisements with Kpop stars on them. At first I was so confused, because I’m not used to seeing them on regular ads! It made me happy. We even took a picture with a cardboard cutout of KARA; we were that excited haha.
Afterwards, we went to another meeting type thing, and we got into smaller groups with our supporters. We also got our stipends, T-money cards (for public transportation), and our cell phones. We then went out with our supporters and I was lucky enough to get my supporter. She made us figure everything out ourselves and that was really, really helpful because now I know how to go on the Korean subway by myself! 😀 She also taught us Korean, but she mainly focused on teaching us the words for left (왼쪽) and right (오른쪽). She told us which way we were headed in English and then we would have to repeat the direction, but in Korean.
Our “city tour mission” was to go to the fish market and take pictures of Korean’s favorite fish. We had to ask, “한국인 무슨 생선 좋아해요?” (“Korean person, what is your favorite fish?”) I’m not sure what it’s called in English, but the fish turned out to be long and silver.
Our supporter took us out to eat cold noodles, which were amazing, especially after a hot and humid day. It was basically noodles in crushed ice, and it came with broth (very spicy and tasted like ramen soup) on the side and some meat. She took us to get dessert afterwards. I forget the name of the dessert, but it was crushed ice, fresh strawberries, and frozen yogurt.
As a side note, you can see Namsan (Seoul) Tower from most spots in Myeong Dong, and it’s prettily lighted at night. I hope I’ll get to go there someday during my 6 weeks here. (:
So yeah! Since I don’t have a computer to upload my pictures onto (I’m typing this with my iPod), I’ll update these blog posts later with pictures I took!
-Elaine
Elaine Muses... 