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Today in language class we spent a little over an hour trying to learn some Korean songs. Here is one of the songs they were trying to get us to learn.

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Also, you know those songs you hear on the radio that you get tired of hearing because you there them way too often? Well there’s a song like that here, except I don’t listen to the radio, stores have it on all the time. Every time I go out walking down the street I’m bound to hear it at least 2 or 3 times. It’s driving me crazy. Honey Honey, Honey Honey etc… etc…

I finished my last mid term today. Luckily that is well behind me. My Korean language class has started up. The class starts at 9am and goes till 1pm Monday through Friday. That ontop of my other two classes has really increased my work load. Also the American Football team is ramping up. We have our first game on May 3rd and we are nowhere near ready! We are going to be practicing a lot these next two weeks to prepare.

I’ll share a little info about my language class. I am glad I am in the class, much of the language that I had learned before is starting to come back to me now. Sure it sucks getting up for class every morning, but I think of the many things I’d like to take away from my experience here, picking up more of the language is definitely high up on the list.

The language class is pretty small, there are 14 of us in the class. There is only one other student who lives in the international dorm house with me and who is also a Yonsei student. The rest are just Korean Language Institute students. The KLI is part of Yonsei university, but many attend just the KLI. The girl who is in my class that is the other international dorm student is from Taiwan. There is one other American in the class, a guy from Canada, a guy from France and one other guy from Taiwan. The rest are girls, and all but one are from Japan. So I’ve made friends with several people from Japan now.

I am also now hoping to get the opporutunity to visit Taipai. The tickets from Seoul are really cheap, just over $200 round trip. I also intend to go to Japan at least once and hopefully twice. I will visit Tokyo and then visit somewhere more south later like Osaka. I will also go to Beijing, and if time and money permit I’d like to visit Hong Kong or Shanghai.

For now I am done with mid term exams. I think I did ok. Probably not stellar, but I think I did fine. Now it’s on to a tough couple weeks of practice.

I almost forgot, last Saturday I went to the horse races here in Seoul. It took me a little bit to figure out how to bet (it’s all in Korean of course). But I was able to do it. I lost $10 on my first bet, I then bet $15 on my second bet and won $15 dollars back… then I decided to stay for one more race. That race I bet $14 and I won $24! So I broke even. That’s about it for now. Hopefully I’ll have some more exciting things to share soon.

Sorry for the delay, my computer crash held me up. But back up and running again!

April 1st I went with several people to go watch the World Cup qualifying match between North Korea and South Korea at World Cup Stadium in Seoul. Earlier in the day I was able to buy a jersey to wear to the game. There was a large group of us, maybe 60 or so from the international house headed to the game. The subway was packed for people headed to the game. At one point on the subway my cell phone was ringing in my pocket but I couldn’t answer it because I couldn’t move at all.

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Phong and I with our jerseys. Phong has the white away jersey and I have the red home jersey.

part of our group at the game

We were able to sneak a bunch of bear and soju into the stadium. It just took a simple sneaky bag pass over the fence. We had over seven liters of beer for the four of us. We had finished it all by half time.

The game was pretty good. I imagined that North Korea (DPRK) would have bussed some supporters down, but it didn’t appear as though there were any North Korean’s at the game. I took some video of the game, it was interesting to see that during DPRK’s national anthem they don’t place their hand on their heart whereas the South Korean’s do.

North Korea in white, South Korea in red.

The game was a tie of zero to zero until the last three minutes of the game. South Korea scored a goal and the end of the game was 1-0. We then headed to a bar to go celebrate!

sporting the flag at the bar!

Check out this video from the game. Here you’ll see a bit of the opening, the DPRK national anthem, the ROK national anthem, and finally the goal that won the game!

North Korea vs. South Korea World Cup 2009 from Josh Dill on Vimeo.

Last Sunday I went with a group of friends to go see a fashion show in Seoul. You buy tickets and you attend the catwalk shows. They were pretty cool. I was looking forward to seeing what the Korean models would look like. I was surprised. They were really… really… skinny. In a not so attractive way. The show was pretty cool though. The first show of the day I really liked, it was dark and the music picks were great. It was much different than the rest of the shows we saw that day where the music that had been picked was pretty much all recognizable stuff. I felt like the first show had more character.

The mayor of Seoul attended the second show. I got to see him as he walked passed me about five feet away.

Here’s a little montage clip I threw together of the fashion show.

Seoul Fashion Week 2009 from Josh Dill on Vimeo.

Click to englarge – Myself and a few of the friends I was with.