AKARAKA Sarah Monday, May 14, 2012

Last week, Wednesday through Friday was the annual AKARAKA festival (아카라카 축제) on campus. Since the start of this term, it has been an event I have been looking forward to, especially after the cheering orientation (you can read more about it here). I can say that every Yonsei student highly anticipates for this event, even students from other campuses do (many students from Korea University came to Akaraka). In Korea, their Spring term is their first term of the year, so Akaraka has been a traditional cheering event, and it usually happens to land following the end of midterm week, which calls for a massive celebration.

It was a huge event alright. I actually didn't know this event was three-day long because for the longest time I thought Akaraka only referred to the cheering event at the amphitheater on the last day where celebrity guests are invited to perform. That is one major reason why so many students compete and claim their Akaraka tickets, because for the price of 10000won ($10), you pretty much receive a line up of singers (unknown until the event starts), and a party full of proud fellow students dancing, singing, and cheering for their favorite artists and of course, one another.

Lets start on Wednesday. 

So one of my friends in my Korean class had told me she was part of the IYC food festival. I decided to help out the day of as I wasn't able to commit to the meetings they had. We were assigned Saudi Arabia and we made Saudi Arabian style fried rice and chicken. It was similar to curry and rice, but with more seasoning and flavors. Our group leader, a Korean, had actually contacted the Saudi Arabian embassy and they provided us with more than we asked for, giving us packages of dates, pamphlets, books,  traditional costumes,a large flag for decoration, contacting a Saudi Arabian international student studying on campus to lend us a hand, and even contacting a restaurant which provided 20 boxes of the dish we made-for free! However, our version of the dish was tastier than the ones provided by the restaurant since we made our own sauce from scratch and our rice wasn't bland tasting like theirs was.

It was a great experience to be part this cooking event and share the taste, sight, and smell of culture with exchange and local students on campus. Koreans don't usually get the opportunity to try food from other countries as there aren't much options available and foreign food tends to be more expensive, and secondly they tend to just stick with what they know best, Korean food.


Moving on to Thursday.

 

This day was called out to be a day of missing classes, standing in line, and waiting. Most, if not all local students had already had their chance in obtaining their Akaraka tickets. Unfortunately for us exchange students, we had to wait in line to buy ours today at a certain time. We were told there was only 220 available tickets and keeping in mind that there were over 400 exchange students this term, this seemed to be quite a problem. We were forewarned in advance via email that not everyone was going to get a ticket, and that last year, those students who waited two hours earlier, didn't get a ticket either. So even though the time set for us to buy tickets was at 7pm, my friends and I were already lurking around the area at 1pm. Actually, other exchange students were too, just that no line was formed yet. We ended up being part of the first few students at the front of the line, and thank Global Lounge that after three hours of waiting in line, they decided to pass out numbers so we could do leave and come back at 7pm to pay for our actual tickets.Waiting wasn't actually that bad though. Time passed pretty quickly as we took turns exploring the booths, activities, and food stalls all lined up on the main street from main gate of Yonsei.

Prior to lining up again to pay for my real ticket, I grabbed grub at one of the food stalls, a giant $5 seafood pancake and took a look at everything going on. There was a LOT going on. Everywhere I looked, I would see someone singing, performing, playing drinking games, eating, getting freebies from sponsors, etc. There was rows and rows of tables set up (aka inverted boxes) and people sat around them drinking soju, eating snacks, and playing drinking games. It was quite a sight, everyone was so happy and crazy. It felt like the whole Sinchon had displaced itself into the heart of Yonsei haha. It didn't feel like it was a school setting at all. When it got later, Mentor's club had organized an outdoor party for exchange students right by Global Lounge. Their theme was 'MIB', Mentor's in Black and it was so amusing to see all these mentors in black with their black shades and water guns dancing around... oh Koreans.

 

John Park, apparently an American Idol contestant turned famous American Korean singer in Korea after being on a Korean show,  sang on a stage set up in the "forest" on the way back heading to dorms. The energy was crazy and the lighting from the concert took my breathe away as I gazed around me to see the trees lighted up in a beautiful array of colours against the night sky.


The day we've all been waiting for.

Heading towards the amphitheater at 2pm,  lines were already formed and making their way in. Earlier in the term, each department/faculty had already divided up the amphitheater into sections and had drawn out of a hat where they were to  be situated during the event. Mentor's club had designated seating at the top and center section of the theater, but it was a tad far up for our liking, so we joined our other friends who had squished in with the nursing faculty towards the right and middle side of the stage. We ran into some trouble as the nurses weren't too happy that we were sitting there... though there was an unwritten rule that if students from the faculty didn't take their seats by 3:30pm, anyone can sit there, and it was just a few minutes prior to 3:30.

Anyhow, fast forward and the show began with rappers that I do not know the name of opening the stage. Most of the artists seemed to be of the older generation, like our equivalent of Backstreet Boys. When Psy from YG came out thought, the crowd went crazy. I never heard of Psy before due to my lack of Kpop knowledge, but wow does he have energy for a 40+ year old. His singing and dancing got the crowd asking him to encore at least three times. The most well known band must have been SNSD, and  even though only 3/9 members performed, they tried much harder than when I first saw them at Fashion Collection (read here).

Besides the celebrities, Miss Korea was one of our MCs of the night, you know your an Ivy League school when haha. Yonsei also had their version of a singing contest, Yonsei Idol, where the top 3 finalists performed solo and as a group. The winner was revealed later on that night and he totally deserved it as his voice was so strong and beautiful. Also, something that took everyone by surprise was that an alumni from Yonsei made a video of how he met his girlfriend back in the day and when the video ended, the MCs brought him and his girlfriend out and he proposed to her in front of the  crowd of squealing girls and guys shouting "KISS". How sweet is that? That just brought proposal ideas to a whole new creative level.

At about 8 or 9pm (I think, lost track of time), fireworks lighted up the sky (whattt!) and this crazy green light show was projected onto the stage showcasing a moving eagle (Yonsei's mascot), the words "YONSEI" itself and other pretty cool stuff. I thought it was the opening of a crazy popular band such as Big Bang or something to end off the night (as rumored), but turns out, the Blue Knights (Yonsei's cheering team) came out in their costumes to kick off a series of consecutive cheering. I couldn't ask for a better way to end off Akaraka. I felt so much school spirit and it brought me so much joy to see all of us students jumping up and down, cheering and singing together, dancing like no tomorrow, and having such a happy time as one school body.

It felt so surreal and unbelievable to be there in that moment and I didn't want it to end. Though, the reality of it was that the event wrapped up at 10:30pm, after 8 hours worth of celebration. When will you ever have this experience in North America?

Yonsei students know how to throw a party.
사랑하다 연세!

Official Schedule Sarah Thursday, March 08, 2012

Decisions made.

Korean- got into beginner 3! I went to the office to inquire about it and so they looked at my test and said I actually scored in between two levels. I thought I sit through beg.2 class one more time just to make sure I wanted to switch, because once I switched, there was no turning back. However, half way through class, my teacher asked if I had wanted to switch or stay in class, so I took this as a sign and switched. I don't regret, beg.3 is already more challenging, but I rather work harder than sit in a class that is repeating grammar lessons I have already learned just so I could get a better mark.

Taekwondo- I got in with approval and the teacher, Master Kim, has taught in Edmonton before!!! Imagine how excited I was to find out that someone knew where Edmonton was! WOOT! I didn't have to tell him that it was 'next to Vancouver,' as I have told everyone who has been clueless about my hometown...not really 'next to' but close enough, how would they know anyways right? This class is only once a week and I'm quite nervous about it as I have never done anything like this before, but I'm sure it will be fun and there are locals in the class too!

International Business- keeper

Human Factors-keeper

I really like my schedule now. I only have one class Monday and Friday, which is Korean from 4-6pm as it is everyday. Yonsei's class scheduling is different from U of A; instead of a set block M/W/F and T/R, you can have two hours of classes on Tuesday and a one hour block on a Thursday, or three consecutive blocks back to back, such as my design class. Thus, the bulk of my work load is between Tues to Thurs. I'm more relieved now that my classes are set in stone.

Today is Friday and I'm ready for the weekend!

Yonsei Sweet Yonsei Sarah Thursday, February 23, 2012

I believe this is the first year Yonsei set up a Foreigner Alien Card office on campus. Thank God for that because the process was much quicker not having to trek to the Seoul Immigration office elsewhere and wait among other non-students in order to get our alien card application done.

In between the pre-registration (handing in paperwork and getting a number for later on) and the actual registration, we went to Sinchon and ate at a place known for their 만두 (Korean dumplings, "man-du"). I ordered a mandu soup and it was filled with these giant dumplings! About double or even triple the size of Chinese dumplings. Nomnomnom. I couldn't figure out what was exactly inside, but its some sort of meat, flour, and chive/leek concoction. There was an ajussi (middle age man) and ajumma constantly making them non stop (super fast too) in the back and I went to ask how much they make per day. I couldn't remember the exact number they said, but it was a LOT!

Chloe brought us to the Hyundai Department store to get some macaroons after lunch. Ann was craving them since abandoning Duchess back home and they had so many more flavors here to offer. The price point was about the same as back home with some flavors being 10-20 cents more, though they looked just a teeny bit bigger than the ones at Duchess.

We hunted down Lotte 999, which just happened to be right across the department store. This was another grocery store recommended to us and we wanted to check out their pricing. Fruits were a tad cheaper, with bananas being the cheapest. I have a feeling I will lose interest in this beneficial potassium filled fruit very soon though if that's my only choice. Chloe and I also got cereal and milk to share for our breakfast as she has her own room with a fridge in it for us to keep our food chilled and safe.

During the second part of the foreigner's card registration where we hand to do a fingerprint scan, there was a session on Korea's cuisine courtesy of the Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine going on at the same time. Basically, a group of ajummas came to demonstrate how to cook 떡볶이 (rice cake 'ddeokbokgi') and served us a mini set meal. It felt like a live cooking show with all these ajummas in their aprons and handing out food.

The highlight of my day and best post secondary experience thus far happened today. I never felt so much school spirit in my life-ever. The mentor's club organized tonight as a Cheering Orientation for us foreign students. Every term, Yonsei University and its rival, Korea University has a cheering competition that happens during the term. This isn't just your cheer leading squad tossing around and shouting with pompoms, this is EPIC. I never seen anything quite like it. There is a group of dancers known as The Blue Knights dressed in black and white with a royal blue tie on (Yonsei's school colour is a royal blue), who leads everyone to their dance moves (different for every song!) while other Yonsei students sang and taught us the song lyrics. I lost track of how many songs we did, but there must have been at least twenty; pop culture and classic songs that have had their lyrics changed. For example, the "We Will We Will Rock You" song was rewritten and titled as GO Yonsei, "Over the Rainbow" also had its lyrics changed to a Yonsei themed song. I had so much fun and I wouldn't mind singing and dancing each day with everyone to these songs despite not knowing what majority of the lyrics meant. Due to the active and involved crowd, a tentative hour of cheering turned into two hours as encore was a must. The auditorium in Baekyang Hall became a dance party mob of students! I will never forget this memorable experience I had tonight. The clip below doesn't justify this event at all, but it does give you a sense of the cheering culture-Yonsei style.
We didn't expect to sing and dance so much until our legs and arms were giving out, and as a result, we had to turn down our original plans to go 노래방 (karaoke). We were all so tired, sweaty, and feeling like our voices were about to give out from all the screaming we did. In the end, we decided to have dinner with a part of my cell group and a couple of new friends at a modern and simply chic eatery called The Cup, known for their fusion of Asian and Western noodles/pastas/rice that come in a take out box even if you eat in.

It's been exactly a week since I've been here and I cannot wait for what the rest of this term has in store! Go Yonsei!

P.S. The dorm electrical man came to fix my laptop connection today, hello access to the world again =)

Orientation Sarah Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Yonsei is such a huge campus and compared to University of Alberta, it's nothing. Orientation started at 10am in The Centennial Hall building. It started off with a one hour session of general first year exchange/visiting student university information from the President of the Office of International Affiars (OIA) and other important information regarding the academic calendar.

In between the three hour break until our FSK (First Step to Korea) orientation, Chloe, Ann and I headed to Sinchon to grab some more necessary items at Daiso. We all agreed that there would be many more trips to Daiso for future needs such as school supplies. At first, we wanted to find a kimbab (Korean sushi, but cooked) eatery we saw when we ate at the tofu stew restaurant a few days ago, but after a couple rounds of walking around the area and no luck (Sinchon can be a maze sometimes), we ventured into this place known for pan fried rice where they cook it in front of you. We ordered a galbi fried rice and a seafood pancake as well. Watching our high skilled server cook our galbi and rice was quite a sight, he didn’t get any out of the pan at all when cooking with the wooden spoon. I can’t even mix salad without something flying out, let along rice! The pancake was alright, it had a lot of chives in it that weren’t diced, making it hard to separate; it was quite doughy and didn’t have as much flavor as I thought it would. FSK started with once again, introductions from the President. Then it got more interesting as they showcased the abundance of clubs Yonsei has to offer for their students. There was even a Taekwando demonstration from the Taekwando club; it was amusing to watch some of them show their moves as they didn’t have the best skill and would do clumsy things or shout in very childish ways. So far I’m most interested in Emmaus, an English speaking Christian Fellowship club on campus, Global Angel, a group that volunteers and gives back to the community during the year, and KCE, which hosts three main events throughout the term: Nanta (an entertainment live show), Kite making & flying, and Korean food making class. Perhaps I might even take up the hiking club which is only once a month and you get to hike up mountains and other potentially precarious areas.The rest of the orientation was quite dry and I even fell asleep during one lady’s splurb.

Later, we were separated into three groups, according to what we studied for the partial campus tour as Yonsei is too big to be seen all together. My group consisted of science, human ecology and engineer students as those buildings were most close together. It’s similar how the human ecology department in Samsung Hall is at the far right side of campus and up on a hill (and I thought the hecol building at U of A was bad), and some things never change, majority of the students are female and the student touring us said it was the best place for guys to be, while the soccer field and area was the best place for the ladies haha.

The last part of today was the best part, as it was Mentor's club, where Yonsei organizes 3-5 exchange students with a local student from Yonsei, forming a Buddy group. Four buddy groups would make up a ‘cell’ and so our cell went out to eat tonight after brief introductions. I had my first samkeubsal (literally fatty bacon) dinner, basically Korean BBQ with the main grilled meat being the fatty pork. I met lots of new people from my cell and bonded with a group of girls. We ended off the night back at Ice Berry where we had a king size patbingsu and a regular one for the eight of us to share while other students hit Barfly, a popular Yonsei students bar. Apparently in Korea, there is no fees for females who go to the bars, only for the males. Overall, my mentor is super nice and friendly and I’m glad I can say the same for everyone else too. Everyone is so willing to help you and give tips on how to travel or what to know regarding academics, it felt so Canadian! The weather today reminded me of Edmonton too, the sun was out, it got warmer, and there was no snow on the ground as usual. I can’t wait for our next mentor session already.

Our Final Move Sarah Tuesday, February 21, 2012

My back aches.

We decided to set out for our big move to Yonsei at 9am. After dawdling a bit and having one of our hostel guys find the taxi driver to help them find their way to us at our hostel (as it’s quite hard to find the first time), we finally left by 9:45 ish. Our taxi driver got quite lost finding the East gate, which was closest to SK Global, our dorms, as he has never been through there before. Anyhow, we finally made the hectic trip to the sign in area. The process was quicker than I thought it be and something unexpected even happened. Apparently, I had signed up as a male when I applied for dorms and was placed on the guy’s floor (Yonsei separates floors according to your gender), but when I looked at the list of rooms to see who my roommate was, I didn’t notice because my roommate’s name was in Korean and I couldn’t tell the difference if it was a female or male name and had assumed it to be the former obviously. Thus, when I got to the front desk to grab my key, the lady looked flustered and ended up changing my room number on the card key and I was like to her why I was being moved to another floor. She told me they didn’t realize the mistake until they saw that my name was a female one, imagine if I had walked into my room with a male roommate already there…awkward.

I was ecstatic to settle into my room! It’s like the size of a small hotel room with a bathroom, shower and sink to share and a shelf, desk and small clothing and footwear closet to myself. My new roommate is from Russia and she has yet to arrive. I have noticed that the room I got switched into is not on the room list; I assume it’s probably a ‘just in case’ room if scenarios such as the one that happened to me occurred.

We decided to get some household items at Daiso in Myeongdong as we didn’t even have any necessities including toilet paper. The trip to Myeongdong was unexpectedly long as our dormitories are at the upper right hand side of the campus and the station was about a 20 to 30 minute walk, but the trip back was just horrendous. I was holding two big plastic bags that contained 12 rolls of toilet paper, a washroom mat and other toiletry necessities, a garbage can, slippers, tissue box, and a regular size shampoo and conditioner from Watsons (similar to a Shoppers Drug Mart). It so happened that the trains were packed so we looked so out of place and I felt so ‘see lai’/adjumma during the whole trip back (though you never do see older ladies holding large plastic bags of stuff). AND, we saw a Daiso and a Watsons on the way back in Sinchon, why did we go all the way to Myeondong again? Also, we decided it be shorter walking through the main gate, but not to our surprise, we had misjudged the size of Yonsei and the amount of trekking we had to do uphill; at one point it felt like a 45 degree angle walk. Never again will we venture on that route with bags of stuff weighing us down. Though, I must say it was a pretty good workout. In the evening, Ann and I headed out with the Australian exchange student we met, Chloe,to Sinchon for western food with the other Australian girls as they have been missing it in their diet. We were going to go to a place called Ashley's, but the wait was two hours too long, thus one of the guys from the hostel brought us to a place called Spaghettini Factory. This was a really fancy place and it smelled heavenly as we entered it. It was similar to The Spaghetti Factory, but they had a better selection of pasta and other dishes. I ordered a Fungi (mushroom) cream sauce fettuccine and it was so creamy and flavorful! Better than pasta back home I must say. Afterwards, we parted from the Australian girls as they (minus Chloe) were leaving Korea on Thursday, while Ann and I took the long dark walk back home.

I can’t believe that after two weeks, five flights and six moves, I finally have a place to call ‘home’ for the next four plus months.

Welcome to the official start of my student exchange experience. Tomorrow begins a long day of orientation.