Hanboks

This week's Friday event was wearing Hanboks at a place in Insadong! A Hanbok is the traditional Korean costume. A long time ago it was worn more, but nowadays children will wear them for special occasions and then adults for when they get married. All of the Korean buddies I talk to said they haven't worn a Hanbok since the were 10 years old. 

So at this place (store?), you pay to try on the Hanbok and then you are free to take pictures in their photo room. You also have the option of getting professional photos done, but they cost a lot more. 

The best part was choosing your style and colours! There were so many pretty options is was hard to decide! They had 4 styles: original, princess/queen, geisha, and some-other-one-I-don't-remember-because-no-one-picked-it. Then once you've chosen your preferred style, you go into the closet and have to pick out the colour combination you want. This is the tricky part, because you go in there and become so overwhelmed because everything is so pretty, and you want to wear it all. I chose the geisha style Hanbok because it had nice detailing on the skirt. 

Then the workers will also style your hair! There are a few options to choose from for each Hanbok style. They also had big headpieces you could wear too, but since they were black it wouldn't have matched my blonde hair well.

So here are the pictures of me and some of my friends in our traditional Korean Hanboks!

Belle and I. Haha, the lady taking our photo made us do funny poses.

Haha, now the camera lady made me do this touching pose.

Belle, and Gyeongeun. Gyeongeun is our ItaeOne group leader! <3

<3
Gyeongeun is wearing the princess Hanbok and I am in the geisha one.

Kevin and Chris! They really liked their hats.

KUBA buddies Hong, Irene, and Gyeongeun.

Top: Emily, Kevin, Estelle
Bottom: Gyeongeun, me, Irene, Hong, and Belle

Ah it was so much fun! Thanks for reading everyone!

Changgyeonggung Palace

For our Friday event, our KUBA group went to Changgyeonggung Palace! They were holding a festival there because all of the flowers were in bloom! We were able to get there by bus, which in itself is a crazy experience. You really have to be on your guard while riding the bus because the drivers are crazy! If you are not 100% focused, you will go flying across the bus!

But anyways, the Palace was beautiful! According to my pamphlet, it was build in the Joseon Dynasty in 1483. It was however destroyed in 1592 by fires during the Japanese invasion, later restored but destroyed again by fires in 1830 (restored 4 years later). One of the KUBA buddies, HyunJin, also told me that one time when the Japanese invaded, they turned it into a zoo!

It was so pretty to see the buildings, especially among the flowers and lanterns. Here are some of the pictures I took!

Guards at the palace entrance.

Me and one of my best friends, Tierney!

Main building!

Using fancy-schmancy camera settings.

Gyeongchunjeon building. For crowning queens and princesses.

Yanghwadang: guest receiving hall.

:D

Lake and lanterns!

Me and Irene, one of the KUBA buddies! :)

Main square lit up! Also you can see Namsan Tower (its red now!)

Also, today (Sunday) is Children's Day here! I find this amusing because I always wondered why we never had that in North America when we have Mother's Day and Father's Day ("everyday is children's day..." -Mom). Well I guess that is just another reason why Korea is awesome!

I am off to go see Iron Man 3! I think it only just came out in the US/Canada, but its been out here for a week and a half already! (Go Korea!)

Thanks for reading! Miss you~ :)

Hannam Bridge Cafe

On Monday my buddy Cecilia took me and some others out to Rainbow Cafe to celebrate the end of midterms! This cafe is super cool because it is located on a bridge and has awesome views of the Han River and Seoul skyline. Besides coffee and desserts you can also order fancy dinners! Here is a picture of the cafe:

Rainbow Cafe (plus Cecilia, Julie, and Melisa)!

The inside was really nice and we ordered cappuccinos and lattes (and shared a slice of cheesecake!) But of course, the best part was the views! We were able to go up to the roof patio to take some good pictures!

Han River!

The little green stick is the Namsan Tower. Korea University and where I live would be straight ahead and slightly to the right. 

It was a really nice night and a great way to relax after the stress of midterms! It's weird because for my Korean Language class our prof told us that we will not find out our midterm grade until after the finals :S. So I guess that is good and bad (you are forced to study very hard again for the final).

After the cafe we went down to the area of Gangnam to celebrate Hamza (exchange student from Morocco in our ItaeOne group). Gangnam is pretty awesome because it is like the "Tuxedo area" of Korea. There are lots of fancy shops (evan a Ferrari store-like selling real Ferrari cars, not just merchandise) and cool restaurants.

Gangnam is world famous now, thanks to PSY (again: click this if you haven't the other times I've posted this video). They even have a statue/set up/ touristy thing set up on one of the sidewalks to commemorate this feat:

"오빠 강남 스틸르!"
"Oppa Gangnam Style!"

Action shot of us dancing Gangnam Style.

Yeah! So that was pretty good for a Monday evening! :) (Don't worry mom, I didn't have an early class the next day and I got home at 11!). Love you and miss you all, thanks for reading!

Dog Cafe

Estelle had her birthday on Thursday, and since we all finished our midterms we went to Hongdae to visit a dog cafe! It is basically a cafe where you can order a coffee and just hang out with some dogs! There was an area for small dogs and another for big dogs. Besides dog cafes, Seoul also has cat and even sheep cafes! I really want to go to a sheep cafe next :P

Area for the big dogs.

Haha, they go where they please!

Awe, Celine making friends.

This dog was shaved to look like a lion lol.

Belle and the smallest dog I have ever seen.

Haha she had dog treats.

Sorry for the lack of updates. I was busy studying for midterms so there was nothing interesting to post about! Thanks for reading!

Coex Aquarium

Last week some of my friends (Belle, Chris, Joe, Tierney, Leslie, Emily (who are all American), and Estelle (France)) and I went to the Coex Aquarium! This aquarium is located in the Coex mall complex, which is owned by (of course) Samsung. This aquarium is awesome! They have 650 different species, with 40,000 animals in total. Besides fish they had seals, manatees, penguins, an alligator, otters, and even a monkey.

I thought it was pretty cool that there is a huge aquarium in a mall. That should be a staple of all malls.

Koi

Turtle!

Hahaha! My favourite fish.

Piranha's! They swam so fast I couldn't get a clear picture. They have crazy point teeth though.

TYLER! I took this picture for you. Fish in a Coke machine! 

Getting my hand nibbled on by little fish with the other kids. It tickled!

Haha, these ones looked constantly surprised.

Electric eel. It was so huge.

Otter!

Unfortunately my camera died about halfway through, so the following pictures are stolen from my friend's Facebook :)

Shark tunnel!

The seals spent more time swimming upside-down than right-side up.

Manatees. Almost as cool as narwhals.

Haha. Another small, yet hilarious fish.

Jellyfish

Lately nothing extremely noteworthy has really happened because everyone has midterms coming up next week. I have one on Monday (Korean Language) and another on Wednesday (Biological Psychology). Good luck to everyone else who is studying for finals! Thanks for reading.