Chapter 11: 겨울 집중 기간 (Winter Intensive)
It’s already mid-February and something about that is NOT sitting well with me. Explain to me how time went by this quickly. I mean, I guess it would be more fair to say that up until now felt both extremely long but also way too short, and now I’ve just become a ball of confusion. What even is time?
Anyways.
Today is Saturday, February 12 and, as of Wednesday, I’ve just finished what I like to think of as quarter three of my Capstone Program. This third quarter consisted of three/four weeks of class a.k.a. the Winter Intensive Program (WIP), which was pretty much structured like its summer equivalent.
EXCEPT
This time, we actually had class in person!
This may not be shocking for a lot of you who may have kids, may teach, or may just know people who have gone back to school in the US, but schools in South Korea, at least the colleges, have been remote literally since 2020 (next semester will mostly be remote as well, I think), so I haven’t had an in-person class in TWO YEARS. And honestly, I forgot how nice it is to actually talk to people face-to-face, not have to navigate the awkwardness of talking over one another and trying to look for those social cues that just don’t filter through a computer camera, and just generally sitting in a classroom and being enveloped in that ✨academic setting✨
TLDR; I really liked this short class. 10/10
But aside from class, I also got up to some other fun and interesting things. Still can’t leave Seoul (boo), but luckily, as the most populated city in the country, there’s still a plethora of things left for me to experience and see. Although today the fine dust is quite bad and the country’s been hit by a wave of Omicron positive cases, so I’ve been pretty much confined to my room all day, but DETAILS.
Alright, let’s get into it.
First, I’ve gone to a surprising amount of museums over the last month. There are quite of few in Seoul, but I’ve only been to the most popular three.
The first one is the National Museum of Korea (국립중앙박물관) which, now that I think about it, doesn’t have a very descriptive name? The museum of what of Korea?
I digress.
This museum consists of three (or four?) floors filled with artifacts from Korean history which, if you know anything about it, is quite long. There’s a lot to look at and a lot to learn. I personally went there to find information and artifacts relating to hangeul, since I was doing another project related to that topic, and so didn’t get to explore everything, but I definitely am thinking of going back so I can see everything the museum has to offer.
The next museum was the National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (국립현대미술관) (See? That’s how you name a museum. Just saying). Honestly, I do not consider myself an “artsy” person by any means, and can admit that the deep meanings and messages of most things that artists attempt to portray just go straight over my head. Nevertheless, there were a lot of cool pieces and exhibitions to see. I went with my language partner, and we actually had some very interesting and somewhat deep conversations, so I’m proud of myself.
Again, didn’t take as many pictures as I could have because I didn’t know if it was allowed or not haha.
The last museum was the National Hangeul Museum (국립한글박물관). It’s definitely not as popular of a tourist spot as the other two, but since it consisted of content that I knew more of and had interest in, it was a very good time for me! I was surprised at just how modern-looking and interactive they made the space, and actually learned a great deal of new things. Also, all of these museums are free, so I can go back whenever and look around!
Okay, looking back through my camera roll, there is actually one more museum I went to! And that is HYBE Insight, a.k.a. the BTS Museum (and other artists, of course). Along with highlighting the achievements of the company’s artists, this museum really focussed on highlighting the importance of music in our lives and the many ways in which we can enjoy it. Not just through listening, but through sight, touch, and even smell as well. This is my really sophisticated way of saying I went to go see BTS-related stuff and buy more stuff.
Another thing I did with my language partner was go and see my very first play in Korean. The play was Albert Camus’ “The Righteous.” Needless to say, it was not I who picked the play.
It was a really good performance, and I definitely appreciated the actors for the emotional performance they gave, but man, this was not a light play. I’ll let you go and look up the summary if you’re curious, but basically the play is set during the Russian Revolution and follows a group of “terrorists” who are trying to assassinate…someone important. Not going to lie, I didn’t really catch the person’s name and the word they used for his title was a word I’ve never learned before haha. But basically, it gets into the discussion of what it means to be righteous, how do we determine right from wrong and all of that philosophical stuff. I read Camus’ The Stranger in sophomore year of high school, and even reading that in English was too hard for me. Honestly, the only word I learned from this was the word for “comrade,” and it’s not like I can just go out and start using that.
I’m making this sound more negative than it was. It was actually really interesting to see, and while there were definitely dialogues that sort of flew over my head, I understood the plot and even some of their deeper conversations, so I would also count this a success.
Also sort of related to fine arts, on our last day of class, our group went to go make pottery! Korea is known for having really good soil and clay for pottery, so it’s something that you have to experience at least once here. We went all the way to Icheon (이천) to “Pottery Village” (도자기마을) and spent an maybe two hours making our creations! I chose to not use the pottery wheel thing and instead played it safe and made a plate. Also, it’ll probably be easier to pack than a flower vase. Just my thought.
Afterwards, we went to go eat (what the dictionary translates as) Korean Table d’hote (한정식), which was basically lots of side dishes and bulgogi as the main dish. Absolutely delicious. And pricey, so unfortunately I can’t be eating this on a regular basis.
Sadly, I don’t have my finished plate yet, since they still have to bake it and ship it to the school. So maybe in like, a month, I can show you the finished product.
Now, let’s move on to the nature/outdoors section of this post.
The most memorable thing I did was another trek up another mountain. This time, a friend and I went to Inwangsan (인왕산), which is a mountain close to the center of Seoul and basically right next to Gyeongbok Palace and the Blue House. It was only around 300 or so meters tall, so definitely wasn’t the highest. But it was a surprisingly hard climb? As always, there were lots and lots of stairs, but also as you got closer to the peak, those stairs pretty much disappear and you’re left to haul yourself up some some uneven rocks and boulders using a rope. Scary. But also really fun? Honestly, going down was a lot harder.
Inwangsan is also known for having lots of cool rock formations, but none of them had any signs around them to indicate which rock formation they were? So, yes, I saw lots of rocks, but I can’t quite be sure if they were the “cool” rocks or just the “ordinary” rocks.
Here are the pictures!
Once the fine dust isn’t so bad, I’m definitely heading out for another mountain or two before the semester starts!
I also, as a spur of the moment decision, went to visit Seoul National University’s campus, which was a little more than an hour away by subway. For being the most highly ranked university in the country, it’s surprisingly in the middle of nowhere? But the view was pretty breathtaking, and I found a mountain by there that I want to climb.
And now for the food!
And finally, some random pictures that don’t really fit in any of the above categories.
I now have about two more weeks of break, so hopefully I can get out and do more fun things. This update ended up being shorter than I thought. I might need to get outside more and take more pictures when I go places. Although I think I’ve kind of reached the phase where I just go back to the places I’ve already been if I liked it a lot, and haven’t been out to as many new places as I could have. We will do our best to fix that over this next semester!
Until next time~
