So, I’ve done a lot of things the past week. I met up with several people to say goodbye. I’ve went to Busan and experienced a totally new culture and city. I’ve ate ALOT of sushi and sashimi. I’ve experienced amazing art and exhibitions, specially “Dialogue in the Dark,” an exhibition where you are in complete darkness and have to navigate through various rooms like forests, streets, etc. by using your other senses. All I can say is that Korea was an amazing experience and I wish that I could have stayed longer. In about 6 hours I will be riding the plane to go back to America. Please see the pictures section to see all the things I’ve done for the past week. I’ll update you guys as soon as I return back in the states! Thanks for everything!
So yeah…..I had a really busy month with final exams and meeting up with friends and going places. And mostly my laptop just being stupid and crashing whenever it wants to. Sorry for not updating sooner, but hopefully for the last few weeks I’ll be able to update more consistently.
To start off, I had fun hanging out with my church friends. We did a whole bunch of different activities like bowling, singing, playing outside, etc.
Church Friends.
I also got to hang out with my classmates and professors outside of school and spend some great quality time with them all.
My US History Professor!
Our Professor!
I also went on a MT (Membership Training) for HOW (Hanyang One World) Club. It was an amazing experience. We made tofu and ricecakes and played lots of games, ate lots of meat, and DRANK LOTS OF ALCOHOL. It was a crazy night and I think I had the worst hangover the next morning. I need to remind myself that I shouldn’t try to keep up with the German exchange students when it comes to drinking. Lol.
AND EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN!
I celebrated several Birthdays, including my Uncle’s and Aunt’s. They were festive and great!
Birthday Cake and song!
Birthday Cake!
I also ate ALOT of meat and sushi and other wonderful various kinds of food. There are too many for me to post in this blog but please do visit the pictures section to see all the scrumptious treats I’ve had for the past month! Lol.
I also saw lots of theatrical plays, shows, and movies. They ranged from school plays to IMAX theatre movies.
Inspector General in Korean!
Interstellar!
This was REALLY fun!
Cool.
I also got to experience snow, cool sushi conveyor belts, and ice skating!
I’ve had an amazing Christmas party with Church members, visited Namsam Tower, and most importantly spent quality time with my grandparents.
Present!
Cool!
My Grandma and Grandpa!
Well, that’s what I’ve been doing lately. I’ll be leaving in approximately 6 hours to ride the KTX to go to Busan. I’ll update you guys soon on my adventures in Busan and the wonders it offers me. Thanks for taking your time in reading and looking through this post and my blog!
So yeah. I guess I’m pretty bad at keeping this up in Korea. Something always seems to be coming up. Also, my laptop has been crashing a couple times for the last few days so I had to get it fixed before even thinking about writing a blog. Well, anyways, the last three weeks were pretty intense and there’s so much I could talk about, but for your sake, as well as mine, I’ll try to keep it relatively short.
Well, first off, I went to Hong Kong with my aunt and uncle for about 4 days. It was an amazing experience, and I’ll definitely recommend for anyone to visit Hong Kong sometime in the near future. I’ve went to Repulse Bay, a beautiful bay area with temples and hotels surrounding it.
Repulse Bay. Beautiful
I’ve also went to Victoria’s Peak, where you can see all of Central Hong Kong. Also at Victoria’s Peak you can ride a tram up and down the mountain. It takes about 15 minutes to go down and the funny thing is that since the incline angle is so steep (sometimes at 60 degrees), you have to sit facing towards the peak when the tram goes down. It’s a weird but fun feeling to experience.
Cool.
I’ve also rode the Star Ferry several times, since Hong Kong is actually split into two main bodies of land (one an island and the other connected to mainland China).
Cityscape from Ferry
And I saw the Symphony of Lights Show. Pretty much every night every major building in Hong Kong coordinates with one another to do an amazing light show the is synchronised to music. It was amazing, but I could only record the very beginning and had to stop recording due to storage space issues. The finale was amazing and I wish I could have gotten it on video. We’ve also walked around the streets and shopped around Tsim Sha Tsui province.
Harbour City is probably one the biggest shopping malls in the world. I literally got lost while walking around for a couple hours inside. Just imagine Mall of the America, but instead of it just being huge, it also has thousands of different pathways and a very confusing setup of stores. I can understand why people shop so much at Harbour City, it’s because I couldn’t find their way out. Lol.
Harbour City
We’ve also visited Won Tai Sin temple, which was an amazing temple that was just in the middle of the city.
Wong Tai Sin Temple Garden
Also, Kowloon Park, which was like a humongous version of New York’s Central Park, but just better. We’ve also visited Avenue of Stars, which was like Hong Kong’s Hollywood Street. There were hundreds of handprints on the ground but I only took pictures of the people I knew.
Bruce Lee Statue!
I also visited Diamond Hill, a district in Hong Kong where the only the best jewellery from around the world gather. It was amazing to see that when some other countries grade their gold as 99.9%, Hong Kong does 99.99 or even 99.999%. These people love their gold and jewellery.
Jewelry store
We’ve visited several other places, but I feel like it’ll be too long to talk about each place and experience. One thing I do want to talk about was the food in Hong Kong. If Korea is a great place for food, where you can comfortably eat a huge meal for about 5 dollars, then Hong Kong is the king of food. You can literally have a King’s feast for about 20 dollars. Have lobsters for about 9 dollars, and any other street food is extremely cheap.
Lobsters!
Overall, it was an unforgettable experience. I’ll love to visit Hong Kong again, and next time hopefully I’ll have time to visit Macau as well. Here’s a video of the beginning parts of the Symphony of the Lights Show in Hong Kong. Enjoy!
Then, I had to take my GRE exam. Where, finding the testing center was harder than the exam itself. A couple days before the actual exam I went to Gangnam to find the testing center, Kunjang College. Well, it literally took me about 3 hours to find this small place. Even after asking several people (where most of them never heard of it), searching the internet (where it wants me to travel 14 hours to a different college by the same name), and just countless looking and walking, I found myself completely lost and only then did I find this small testing center in a shady alleyway. I think I did alright on the exam, but I’ll be taking it again at the end of November, because this time I know the location of the testing center and how the room is set up for the exam. I feel like I can do much better this time around. Wish me good luck!
The testing center for my Gre exam
The next week, the Korean Yerang Church went on a church picnic to Chunnan. It was a fun trip and the meat was amazing! It was great meeting up with church members that I knew from the U.S, and also just walking around in the fall weather and looking at the scenery was pretty relaxing. I’m going to miss Korean autumn when I do return to Texas. The leaves, smell, and just overall feeling of fall in Korea is amazing.
Even more meat!
Throughout the week I made some new friends and even had lunch with a few people. I met up with Gunho and had Fire Chicken Feet, which was the spiciest thing I had in my whole life.
Nice to meet up with him.
I’ve also met up with some church friends and played bowling and just had a chill time with them all.
Our team won!
And one other good friend that I made was Grace, a classmate from my U.S History class. She’s a theatre student at Hanyang University and we shared and had several similar interests.
Loved my Greentea Chocolate Ice Cream!
I probably had my most memorable memories with her so far, and mostly because they were just plain funny or crazy. She invited me to go see “Rocky Horror Show” Musical at Itaewon on Halloween night. Man, that night has crazy. First off, this year’s Halloween was a record breaker in Korea. Never before did so many people participate in Halloween. And Itaewon was jam-packed. It literally took us about 45 minutes to get off from the subway train and exit the station. Once we got to the theatre pub we enjoyed the show, met some new people, and had a blast. Well, that didn’t last too long. I’ve got to thank Cory and Trent for drinking so much with me before. I was perfectly okay after having shots of whiskies and beers. But, Grace, well, she’s the definition of lightweight (what I used to be). She totally went out cold only after drinking one beer. So, I got hold of a taxi and her friend and I took her back home. It was a fun experience and Grace said that she’ll be taking a picture of me when I’m passed out drunk for revenge. I don’t think that will happen anytime soon though. Lol. She also got me some macaroons the next day, probably some of the best ones I’ve had so far.
Then, my aunt and cousin invited me to visit Olympic Park. I guess the simplest way to explain it would be that it’s Korea’s “New York Central Park.” It’s huge and we couldn’t even see all of it. I loved the layout of the park and all the cool things that were in and around it.
Cool Place
Afterwards, we went to a traditional Korean food buffet, which was amazingly good!
The last three weeks were amazing and crazy. I went to Hong Kong, made several new friends, experienced lots of new food, and visited new places around Seoul (Buchon, Anyang, Chunan, etc.). I’m looking forward towards the coming weeks. What new experiences and people will I meet? I’ll keep you all updated! Thanks!
Moses Travel Adventures 