Seoul at its best

Hello everyone,

Time for my second blog, and I have been thinking about what to write here for a long time because I have done and seen so much in the past few days here that it's way too much to write down.

So let me start by saying that I have been having the best time ever. The dorm where I am currently staying is an international dorm, and I have made many friends. I have met loads of people, ate the best foods, seen beautiful places and all in such as short time.



One thing that got me especially excited is that I got to meet my friend whom I had only spoken to on the internet. His name is Hoon and he lives in Incheon, which is the 3rd largest city in South-Korea and just next to Seoul. He suggested we'd meet in the area where Yonsei university is located, since that is a very popular area with many shops, restaurants, street-food, bars and many many noraebang's, but let me explain that later.

This is the area just near Yonsei, it's called Sinchon.

We shopped, not only in Sinchon, but also in Insadong, which is a famous street in Seoul. In Insadong, they sell traditional Korean things, like the traditional clothing, Hanbok, hand decorated fans or traditional tea sets. You can also find many tea houses here, where you can enjoy the tea in the full traditional style.

After shopping and having coffee Hoon's friend joined us, and we returned to Sinchon. By then it was Hoon and his friend, Minseok, and of course me and my two friends, who were both foreigners too. The entire day it had been hard for us to pay for anything. We didn't get to pay for lunch, or our smoothies. In Korea, guys generally pay for girls. Also, when someone is significantly older than you, they pay for you. Since I was both younger then both guys, and a girl, I didn't get to pay for anything. My two friends though, after they found out that they were older than the guys, got to split the bill for dinner.

We had grilled food for dinner called samgyeopsal (삼겹살), which, as you can see in the picture, is cooked on the table itself. They cut the pork meat with scissors, and you can prepare it yourself. The taste is amazing, you wrap the meat in a leaf of lettuce, and eat it as a whole.

During dinner, we drank soju, which is a very, very popular Korean drink. Koreans drink enough soju to make the most popular brand of soju the best selling brand of spirits worldwide. The alcohol content varies from 20 to 40 percent, and you can get the cheapest versions at the convenience store, where one bottle might cost around 1000 won (approx. 70 Euro cents).


Eating in Korea usually goes with drinks. So food with drinks. After that, they move to a bar, to order drinks with food. It always goes together. Just drinking is not common here, when you drink, you eat. The food served with the drinks is usually enough to be a meal in itself, so most Koreans eat light before going out.

As soon as everyone had enough to drink, its also a common thing (and loads of fun) to move to a noraebang. Which is Korean for 'song room'. It is basically a room you rent (1 hour is between 4000 - 20000 depending on how fancy the place is) with a number of people, and you sing karaoke. They have a wide range of songs, including Korean, English, Chinese and Japanese songs.

We did many things these past days. Classes have started, but more on those in some other blog, and we went sightseeing quite a bit. We even had an organised tour of Seoul, as an initiative of Yonsei university. For 10.000 won per person (approx. 7 Euro's) we got to see the main attractions of Seoul and we were even allowed inside the parliament building and the recording studio's of MBC, a major broadcasting company in Korea.

More about the sightseeing and classes will follow, I would love to write more but I have to finish my reading material. Even though its only the 3rd official day of class, we already have heaps to do.

Thank you for reading!