Eating in South-Korea

Hello!
This time I'm going to talk bit about the eating culture here in South-Korea. It's quite different from Finnish one, but I really like it!

So, in Finland we do not share food when we eat at restaurants, it's considered bit rude right? But here it's completely normal. In most cases the waitress' don't ask you if you want to share: It's a given. Unless you specifically say so, or order for example 2 bibimpab plates they will assume that you will share the food. And I like it, since that way you can order multiple dishes and share them with your friends instead of eating just one dish.











In South-Korea, they give lots of side dishes for you, and it's included in the price. And if you run out of something, for example lettuce, they refill it for you with no charge! And if you go eat samgyeopsal they ask you if you want rice, and once again it's included in the price! A lot fo the dishes also come with a soup, and although the soups are sometimes bit spicy they're really tasty. In Finland this all would cost extra..




Now in South-Korea they do not use fork and knife, except for some places like fried chicken. They use chopsticks! I practised using chopsticks back in Finland with wooden and porcelain ones, but Koreans use metal chopsticks which are really slippery! I've been using them since I got here and I have not mastered the skill yet...I doubt I ever will hahaha.

One of the biggest differences in eating culture between South-Korea and Finland is that in South-Korea you're supposed to wait until the oldest member of the crew starts eating whereas in Finland anyone can start eating first. I do have to admit that I have not remembered this rule as I've been out eating with other exchange students and my buddy group, but I hope I am forgiven for it.

Now about the food? It's really good, everything I have tasted has been very delicious (except that weird seafood pizza but that was good too) although sometimes it's bit too spicy for me as I cannot handle spicy food well. Teokbokki has been the spiciest, I have not been able to try it again after first try because I'm too scared it's too spicy again haha. But I'll miss the food so much once I leave here as there's no way I'll be able to cook anything but maybe kimpab and bibimpab correctly on my own.

And now I'll eat this ready-to-go meal I bought from convenience store, it's tasty too!


See you~!
P.S. Please click the images to see them in better quality!

ISO Buddy Program!

Hi, and my apologies for being so inactive with the blog. I have been both busy and lazy to write anything, and to be honest, sometimes there even isn't much to write about, as I have my daily rutine and I don't do something exciting and big every week. But I will try to write more often, and not abadon this blog like I did for months..sorry for that!

I have been busy these past weeks, as I have a lot of school work, which sometimes makes me wonder why I chose six courses haha. I have had leisure time too of course, and done some nice stuff! The latest one was last Saturday, it was ISO Buddy Program's Field Day 2!

Now ISO (International Student Organization) has multiple activities throughout the semester, and one of it's program's is Buddy Program. In this program, a Korean student and international student get paired up as buddies and they then spend time together during program activities and outside of it. Several pairs of buddies also form a buddy group, with whom you also spend time with during activities and outside them. The program has four official activities: Orientation day, field day 1, field day 2 and ending day. I chose to join this because I wanted to get to know Korean students and other international students and I thought it sounded fun. And it has been fun!

Field Day 1 was a sports day, and we had multiple sports games: Tag flipping, couple dodge ball, relay and football. I participated in couple dodge ball and it was fun! It was also fun watching others do the other games and cheer for them in Korean style. I have no pics of the day since we had someone taking pics and I thought I'd leave it to them haha. And our buddy group won the whole thing yay~!

Field Day 2 was last Saturday, and it happened in different museums due to rain. Our group decided to go to National Museum, and that place is so big and so nice and I am definitely going there again to spend some quality time. Because we started 30 minute late, we had only 30 minute long tour with a guide. The tour was interesting while quick, and the tour guide was good in her job. After the tour we had a mission: To find items we were told of, for example bowl, take a picture of it and of it's description, and the one who got the most in the time limit won. Now our team, my buddy and me and another buddy pair, got to 2nd place because we did not find the last item, which only the winner team found. After the mission we went out to eat Samgyeopsal with all of the buddy groups and to drink after it. It was very nice and funny day!

As ending here are some pictures I took!~

The start of September

Hello everyone~
I have been both busy and lazy this month, hence no update until now. My school has started, and boy how much we have to read! I have 6 classes and I have to read 1-2 chapters (around 60 pages) for every single class. And you have to read the chapters, because the lessons are less of the teacher teaching and more of a conversation and small debate between students and the teacher. In most of the classes the teacher does teach a bit, but the point is in the discussions. While it is quite different from what I'm used to, it is kind of nice. I do get bit panicky if I have to say anything since I don't wanna say something completely false, but I trust this will go away after a month. I hope.

The Koreans with whom I have talked with are really nice, and speak English really well. One guy even asked after our first class together if I wanted to become friends with a Korean girl, and called his friend. I have talked with both in class and out class, and we even went out to eat 삼겹살 (Korean pork belly) with a Mexican girl and Korean-Chinese girl. 삼겹살 was really good, but I forgot to take a picture of it! I'll probably eat it again at some point, and post a picture then! After our meal (which also included fried rice since it's a custom to eat it after 삼겹살 if I remember correctly) we went out for a walk. The Koreans wanted to show me Chenggyecheon stream, so we went to walk next to it. On our way to a wine bar where the guy wanted to go we saw a gate close to Gyeongbok Palace and the memorial spot of Sewol tragedy. There was a statue of someone too, but I was not informed who's statue it was.
The wine bar was nice, and the wine we drank was the nicest wine I have ever tasted. It still wasn't good though haha. We also ordered a cheese plate, and it was delicious. I'm seriously thinking of going back there just to eat that cheese plate.

 I actually have not gone to any proper tourist places yet, as I do not want to go alone. I hope I can go see them with a group of people this month, since the weather is still so nice. It's still 22-25 Celcius degree's yet I've heard some people say it's getting cold. I do not understand them.

 Since the only microwave I can use in here is 2 floors above me, and I am lazy, I do not buy meals that I could just warm in a microwave. So far I have either eaten kimpab, at school cafeteria, gone to a reasonable or cheap priced restaurant or went to Ho's Chicken to order take-away. Korean Chicken is delicious by the way. You can also eat a good meal for less than 6,000 won (around 5 euros I think?) at a restaurant if you do not eat barbeque, which is also extremely delicious.
I will do a post of the Grand Kpop Festival soon(ish) and some of the Korean cosmetics and clothing. Until then, see you~
P.S. I still haven't had any kind of a cultural shock, so nice.

1st week in Seoul!

Hello everyone!
I have successfully landed in Seoul (the flight went well tho I didn't manage to sleep much) and now the 1st week in Seoul is coming to it's end. And the 1st week in Seoul has been a very nice one indeed!

I have slept well, managed to almost get over jet lag (or completely I'm not 100% sure), learned how to use the subway (I did get lost once tho hehehe), met my two friends who're here too at the moment, eaten good food, shopped, and managed to get lost twice, once in a shopping mall (they're HUGE here) and once when I was going to my level test for Metro Korean Academy. I suspect more cases to happen in the future, this is a new city for me after all, and Seoul is huge. And hot! It's been 28 and 30 degrees of Celcius every single day, and it will be around the same next week too. Not bad, except I don't have airconditioning in my room...

I have not been to any turist spots, yet, and I'm going to start going to those either tomorrow or Thursday next week. And I'll most likely spend days while going through them all, there're so many of them! And riding the subway takes time, tho it is the easiest and cheapest way to move around Seoul, since one ticket costs about 1 euro. Cheap compared to Oulu's prices huh?

There's also no sign of a culture shock happening to me soon, although I do suspect it'll happen at one point. But maybe I've been too tired for it, or I've studied enough of Korean culture to avoid it. But that remains to be seen.

To be honest, I didn't remember to take many pics this week, but hopefully next week I do! But here are the pics from this week~
Coffeetime with Eki in Hello Kitty Coffee (don't judge me, I had to see it)

Very tasty dumplings ♥

The best strawberry smoothie I have ever tasted!

Korean chicken! Very good!

I've eaten this twice now, it's good!

My best friend in my non-airconditioned room

My very tiny room that doesn't need much, except that airconditioning



Body lotion and makeup remover tissues from Nature Republic ('cause I forgot my makeup remover home...)

Elbow mask from Etude House, I wanted to try it since I have really dry elbows
Concealer brush from Etude House, I needed one!
Samples I got from Etude House and Nature Republic!
A street in Myungdong at 8 am on Sunday. It wasn't quiet anymore after couple of hours!

Dry shampoo which I found had Finnish text in it! Made me laugh, it was so unexpected

I'll move to my dormitory room next Wednesday, so I'll post lots of pics of the room and the school next week! Bye until then~
P.S. My instagram still has daily updates, tho they might not be very informative (sorry about that).
PP.S. If the pictures appear blurry, just click them and you'll see HQ full pic. Blogspot is being annoying with them.

D-Day is almost upon us.

Hello and welcome to read my blog Into the New World, which is about my student exchange in Seoul this autumn. Which will start tomorrow, as I leave Finland tomorrow and travel towards Seoul.

Into the New World, or INTW as a shortened name, will most likely be updated at least once a week. I may update multiple times a week if I have time and if the week has been something else than hey-I-just-studied-for-7-days-and-nothing-else-happened. INTW will also be written in English, tho I might occasionally write a summary of a post in Finnish. My instagram (@_hhenn) on the other hand is updated on daily basis.

Lastly, because I am a fan of kpop, INTW will have pics and fanaccounts of my possible meetings with my favorite groups and biases. Into the New World is not only meaning that I am stepping into a new world aka Seoul, but it's also one of my favorite tracks from my bias group, Girls' Generation. This has been a quick explanation of the name, haha.

Now I'll go finish my packing, so I'm ready to travel into the new world tomorrow.
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