FOOOOOOOOOD!!! :D

Since I've been in Korea, I have obviously eaten a lot of Korean food. I made this post to show you some of the foods that I've eaten so far (sadly I don't remember the names of all of them, but I try).

The first dish I had is still one of the spiciest things I have had while here! It was a chicken dish with chili paste, veggies, rice cakes, and much more. We got it at a shop in Myeongdong:

And now this is something that I usually have for breakfast (milk and samgak-gimbap). There are a whole bunch of different flavors of milk and of the gimbap. I usually chose between choclate milk, strawberry milk, and caramel macchiato milk. For the gimbap, I usually choose tuna and mayo or bulgogi flavored (though the kimchi flavored one is good too).

This next dish was just simple Korean BBQ. We went out one night and thought it was a good idea...and it was. Cooking your own meat and drinking with friends at the same time is a lot of fun.

One day, it took us an hour just to convince ourselves to walk into a random restaurant because we were too shy about just walking in. We ended up at a really good place that had a lot of seafood. The dish shown was cabbages and chili paste/sauce mixed with a whole bunch of seafood (oysters, shrimp, octopus, etc.). It was spicy, but it was just mild enough that I really enjoyed it.

Two of the biggest meals I've gotten are from going out with the school/ISA. The first picture is of what I had for lunch uesterday: two bulgogi sets and a duck set. There were six of us a the table and we split the bill at the end of the meal. The second picture is of only the first portion of the meal we got while out with the school. They later added on this fluffy egg dish, and bowls of soup.

The last dish, that was actual 'food' was a kind of hotpot(?) that was served to us when we went out drinking with our groups.

And finally, for the main event, we have three different types of bingsu that I have had while here. The first one is a mixed berry bingsu that I had yesterday with one of my suitmates and a friend. The second one is a mango/cranberry bingsu that I had two days ago while we were exploring the city and the last one is a coffee caramel bingsu that we ordered with injeolmi toast (white bread toasted with sticky rice cakes inbetween).

These were the only foods that I took pictures of so far, but if I have anything else that's different from these, I will take pictures and make a post about it as well! :D

Mini Post about my room! :D

I share a suite with four other girls; we have one bathroom and three rooms total. I share a room with a girl named Maria (she's super sweet) who was born in Mexico, but now lives in California. The room next to us is inhabited by two girls named Zara and Kaitlin (who is from Florida as well!) and then the last room is a single bedroom for a girl named Charene (if I'm spelling that right).

All of us are pretty quiet people. We usually don't talk much, even if all of us are in the suite. Though anyone is usually up for adventure or food if you ask them.

(I don't have a picture of my other two roommates, but these two are Maria (front) and Kaitlin (back))

The view from my room is fantastic though! I can see the city at night and the moon also just became visible the other night!

The room itself is pretty big. We each get out own desks, dressers and chairs. We have a balcony that connects to the other double room and we have bunk beds (I sleep on the bottom one).

Sometimes it's just nice to stand on the balcony at night and listen to the city while looking at the lights. I never knew I would love living near/in a city so much.

P.S.

Here are some pics of the people I've become friends with!

The Start Of My Adventures!!

On August 22nd, I flew into Incheon, Seoul. I have now been here for a week and am finally getting used to the atmosphere and food!
I came to Seoul from a study abroad program from my home university. I will be studying at Korea University until December 20th! I start classes tomorrow and am a little nervous about what's to come, but at the same time I'm really enjoying the adventure!

For the past couple of days I have been touring around Seoul with my school, with ISA, and with friends. I have seen a lot of tourist places and a lot of markets. I've tried tons of food and have had a bunch of fun so far!

Also I love my roommates so far. We don't really talk that much, but at the same time we are all nice and relatively quiet lol

(The girl in front is my roommate, Maria, and the girl in back is one of my suite-mates, Kaitlin)

From here on out, this specific post will be about the places I visited. After this, I will make a post of some of the things I have eaten so far since I've been here!

-One of the most notable places I visited (I have been there twice now) is  the Gyeongbokgung Palace. It was the main royal palace of the Joseon Dynasty (built in 1395).

I went here with just the school group and then I went again with the ISA groups of KU and Konkuk.

This first picture shows the ISA group and the second picture shows the group I went with the first time. 

-Another place we visited, which I have come to absolutely adore, is the Cheonggyecheon stream. It is the largest stream in Seoul and it is really beautiful and peaceful. We sat under a bridge for a while and kept our feet in the water to cool down from the heat. 

At the end of the stream was the plaza and on that day, they were holding the Thai Festival. We got to see a couple of performances and enjoy the atmosphere for a while before moving on.

- We also traveled to Gwanghwamun square so that we were able to see the statues of King Sejong (the creator of Hangeul) and Admiral Yi Sunshin (naval commander noted for his victories against hte Japanese navy during the Japanese invasions of Korea).

- One of the most fun/comical things I have seen since I've been here is the performance of Cooking NANTA. 

This was a musical type performance that reminded me, somewhat, of STOMP the musical. They used kitchen items and the 'kitchen' itself to make music and comedy skits. I laughed so hard at one point that I was literally crying. It was a show that really involved the audience and if you are to ever have the chance to see it, DO IT!

- The last thing I want to add on, is the experience I got have trying on Hanbok (traditional Korean wear). My ISA group got to try on Hanbok and get pictures taken. It was a lot of fun and we all looked really pretty with them on!

(please excuse my awkward stance in the full body picture)

All of us spent a good hour taking pictures of ourselves and others. It was hot to wear, but we all thought they looked gorgeous on.

Annnnd that's it for the post of experiences. I'll add more on as I continue to do more!

RANDOM UPDATE

I finally finished my third term of college so I'm halfway through my year as a sophomore!

I passed this term with three 'A's and two 'B's, which was fantastic because I swore I was going to fail economics.

Anyways, I got home from college last Friday and am now leaving for NY this Friday to spend Christmas for the first time in years with my father. 

I'll be posting pictures of my trip later when I get back <3

(Also, I put up the tree with my mom and sister)

Last night I was thinking, and I decided to make a list of kpop songs that I never get bored of listening to. These are songs that I can listen to everyday and sometimes on repeat, that never get old, and that I still love. I decided to share this list with you, because why the hell not? lol

(Also, most of these are from my top 10 groups)

Here we go:

• NU'EST
• Face
• Sleep Talking
• BTS
• We Are Bulletproof Pt.1 (and Pt.2)
• Just One Day
• VIXX
• Error
• Only U
• Eternity
• BLOCK B
• Her
• Be the Light
• GOT7
• Girls Girls Girls
• I Like You
• Just Tonight
• Forever Young (took me a long time to like though)
• Stop It
• EXO
• Thunder
• Black Pearl
• Miracles in December
• JJCC
• One Way (Bing Bing Bing)
• SHINee
• Replay
• Sherlock
• Symptoms 
• Super Junior
• Sorry Sorry
• Bonamona
• TOPP DOGG
• Amadeus
• Arario
• Top Dog
• Annie
• BtoB
• You're So Fly
• WINNER
• Empty
• I'm Him
• 2PM
• Go Crazy
• ADTOY
• B1A4
• Tried to Walk
• You Make Me a Fool
• Beautiful Target
• Glass of Water
• This Time is Over
• Solo Day
• Big Bang
• Fantastic Baby
• Bad Boy
• MBLAQ
• Be A Man
• FT Island
• Love Love Love
• GD x Taeyang
• Good Boy
• C-Clown
• Far Away
• In the Car
• Let's Love
• Boyfriend
• Obsession
• Witch
• Girl's Day
• Something
• Expectation
• HyunA
• Red

And that's about it. That's the list of songs I could listen to all day for the rest of my life lol Also, don't be afraid to go and check any of these songs out! I promise that you'll like at least one of them :D

Chicago- B1A4

~This is  gonna be one hella long post~

So this past weekend (10/3-10/6) I went to Chicago with one of my best friends and her boyfriend to go see B1A4 (which is her favorite kpop group of all time). It ended up being a 19+ hour drive to get there, so we ended up arriving around 8 in the morning on Saturday. We then proceeded to sleep until 7 at night before getting up to go wander around the city. We were going to go up in the Willis tower, but it closed an hour earlier than it said it closed online ;-; though I did take a picture of the building because it was super tall lol Also, it was like 40-60 degrees the whole time, and while I complained a lot at first, I really miss it now that I'm back in Florida...

It also ended up being the same night at the Chicago Fire Festival! So we got to experience that while we were searching for the Bean (I don't know if that's its real name or not) to take pictures with. We also got stuck on a bridge because there were so many people trying to see the parts of the festival in the river, so we ended up climbing over the guard rail and jumping into the streets to get over the bridge (we got yelled at by firemen)

We eventually found the bean after wandering the city for god knows how long. We even ended up going underground for a bit to get back across the city because there were too many people on the bridges. Guppy (my friend) complained the whole time we were underground because she said it smelled and there were homeless people sleeping everywhere, but she was okay with it once we passed a realllly attractive man.

That morning when we woke up, we had been planning to go back into the city, but we woke up too late. We found out later that half the places we walked around that night, B1A4 had gone to in the morning, which made Guppy really sad. Though I did have deep dish pizza for the first time ever and it was so freaking amazing! So that day, we ended up just driving around and exploring the area our hotel was in and going to an outlet mall, before finally arriving at the venue to go see B1A4.

__________________________________________________

~The Concert~

This was probably the best concert I have ever been to because of a number of reasons:

1. They are one of my top ten favorite bands
2. It was very well organized (unlike the Block B concert)
3. Everyone was super nice
4. We were the luckiest people on the face of the planet (I'll explain later)
5. The concert lasted a really long time

So we get in the door and we show the people out tickets (we had bought balcony because it was too expensive to buy anything else). When the lady checked our tickets she told us to go see another lady to get out new tickets and we started to get really confused. The other lady then hands us two new tickets and congratulates us because we were now going to sit on floor level. I was super shocked and really excited, but Guppy was really upset because she's short and was afraid that she wasn't going to be able to see them now. We then wait in line to get into the concert area and we are directed right down in front; like five rows away from the pit/stage. Both of us start freaking out because we are so close, and we didn't even pay for it...but the story gets even better~

(our view from the new seats)

A couple of minutes before the concert, a lady comes around asking if we had the tickets for hi-touch (getting to high five all the members) and we told her we didn't know, since we had just bee moved there, so she checks our tickets and sadly tells us that we don't have the right ones. We told her it was okay and that we were just happy enough to be where we were. So the concert starts and both of us are dancing and singing along when I feel a tug at my shirt. The lady is back and she is smiling with around ten wrist bands left in her hand. She tells  us that they ended up having extra and that since we were so kind she was going to let us have them. No lie, the both of us started squealing and jumping for joy. Not only did we get front seats, but we also now got to do the hi-touch event...our luck that night was so amazing.

One of the cutest moments during the concert was when Jinyoung wen to play his guitar so that they could all sing us knocking on heaven's door. Well, his guitar wasn't connecting and he was trying to play it, but we couldn't hear the sound and he played it off really well, but the other members were a little shocked. Baro and CNU ended up getting the crowd to yell and see which side was louder. They also talked to us and ended up just singing random songs to pass the time until the sound was fixed. But that whole time was just super precious.

We weren't allowed to take pictures at the hi-touch, but I remember it all so well (except for my hi-touch with Gongchan. I sadly don't remember that too well). Guppy was in front of me and they were lined up from Baro, then Sanduel, then Gongchan, then Jinyoung, and finally CNU. As they said thank you to me, I told them thank you back and they genuinely smiled back at me (it was pure heaven lol). So Guppy get's to Sandeul and she had planned out what she was going to tell him, but she blanked when she got to him because, in her own words, "he was so beautiful." Guppy ended up just saying what she was thinking and actually told him to his face that he was beautiful and his reaction was the most adorable thing ever! His face lit up and he looked so freaking cute as he thanked her again. Now for my own personal story, the two I remember the most were Jinyoung and CNU. I remember Jinyoung's hi-touch because he is soooo good looking in person and I ended up looking at his arms the whole time. Now CNU I remember because when I said thank you, I also intertwined our fingers together ( I wasn't going to miss the chance).

After the concert I had a personal talk with Guppy and we decided on our favorite things from each member during the night and she got mad when I joked that my favorite thing about Gongchan had been his pants (becuase they were zebra pants and I really want some for myself now). For the other members we decided that it was Sandeul's power vocals, Jinyoung's high notes, Baro's rapping and 4Dness, and CNU's godly hip movements.

As we were about to leave back to our hotel, we found where their van was waiting for them, so we decided to join the group of girls who were already waiting around it. We met some really nice people in that group and we all kept each other warm as we waited for them to come out. 

All in all, it was one of the best nights/trips in my life so far.

Photos from the concert (sorry for the quality of some, but the lights and fog made it hard to see their faces sometimes)

Now for some videos (It would only let me upload these two because of the file sizes, but I will be posting them n my tumblr, so you can see them there)

Anyways, this was seriously one of the best weekends of my life and in other news: I can't wait to go see VIXX next month in NY!!! :D

Random Update!

I will be going to Chicago this weekend to go and see.... *drum rolls* B1A4!!!!

I will post pictures here after the concert and describe whatever I remember from the concert here when it's over (like I did for the Block B concert I attended this past summer).

I'm leaving this Friday and will be back on Monday...It's a 16-17 hour drive and I can't wait for it! Most of my friends keep saying sorry to me for having to drive that far, but I have really like road trips ever since I was young. Plus it will be my first time in Chicago, which is really cool because I've traveled like 1/4 of the US already through car trips.

Anyways, this brief update is now over~

Dorm Room~ (for the time being)

So I moved into my dorm a week ago and things have finally started settling down. Though I wont be staying here for long. One of the girls who is living in the same 'appartment' as me is a girl that I had serious problems last year. Like, I am someone who just doesn't hate people; I will strongly dislike, but I dont hate people. Well, I hate this girl.

Anyways, I got to have my actual room with one of my REALLY good friends from last term and I wanted to share how awesome our room looks! It has a really chill vibe to it with some kpop added in. The girl I'm rooming with now (Cat) is the girl who is also going with me to South Korea next year!

So, the title says for the time being because I was offered a place at a good friend's apartment off campus and I would wayyy rather live there than here with the girl I hate, so I'm trying to get a car at the moment. If I can get a car, then I'll definitely move out...If not, then I have no idea what I'm going to do.

Well, here is the dorm~

Annnnd, here is a panoramic of the room XD

It really is a great room, plus we have our own bathroom, but it is way too stressful for me to continue living in the same apartment as the girl I hate. I don't need any stress at the moment, so I would rather just move out~

Also, of course I couldn't forget all my cute little stuffed animals at home <3