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South Korea - Fall - 2021

Hi!

There’s a few different ways to say this;

저는/나는 아파요 is the most simple way. 저는 being more polite than 나는. Depending on the context you can also just say 아파요. Meaning “I’m sick”

아플 것 같아요 or 아픈 것 같아요 are more specific as in “I feel sick”

There’s also 몸이 안 좋아요 which is closer to “my body isn’t (feeling) good”

Guess who’s back, back again! 🎶

Well, sort of at least. My last post was in goddamn April. 

So first of, apologies. After I came back from Korea, my life fell into a hole. I am a person who loves studying, the person who will answer “studying” when someone asks what their hobbies are. I graduated uni and went to Korea to continue studying. My time in Korea was ab-so-lu-te-ly lovely. I felt at home, at peace, and like I was where I belonged. 

As you can imagine, coming back into a life where you don’t feel home, and no longer am able to do your “hobbies” aka studying, things go badly. I fairly quickly got a job after coming back, which was nice. I love my team, I love the company, but here too, all good things come to an end. I had a temporarily contract, which means that I too have to leave this job. Everyone wants me to stay, including my manager, but the higher ups disagree because there is no budget to keep me. So from September 1st, I am back to square one.

During these months I have been living with my parents, brother and sister in law. Don’t get me wrong, I love them dearly, but after living on my own during my whole uni-life and then moving to the other side of the world, and then having to move back in? no thanks. Mental health, gone. 

“But Cait, you have a job, why didn’t you move out?” In this housing market? under a temporarily contract? Im-fucking-possible. I’ve been searching for places to rent, but as you can imagine, not having a permanent contract makes that very hard.

So, I’m still living at home, soon without a job. I’m sure I will be able to find a new job soon enough, but it’s still going to be a struggle. I really want to get back into Korean, but I simply do not have the energy or the mindset to be able to do so. 

What’s next? I don’t know.

I do know that I do not want to stop this blog, the place where I feel like we all study together. The place that kept me going and got me more and more excited to study. The place that motivated me to actually go to Korea. 

I guess my life just went from a really really high, to a really really low. I slowly have to get back up, but it might take some time so I’m going to ask you to be patient. I hope to be creating content soon, to get back on track. 

Tomorrow is the midterm for the second semester. Meaning it’s also my “last” midterm I will be doing while here. I’ve been in Korea for ~4.5 months now and in less than 7 weeks I will be flying back to the other side of the world. Time is going way too quickly and I really wish to stop it.

The way I fell in love with Korea is insane. The culture is literally the opposite from what I’m used to, but this feels more like home than my actual home.

✈️ IT IS ACTUALLY HAPPENING ✈️

Some of you might know, some of you might not know… but last year I was supposed to study in South Korea as part of my graduation program. But then Covid surprised us all and took away this amazing opportunity for me. Quite literally my whole last year at university changed because of Covid. I couldn’t do my internship abroad, I couldn’t do my minors abroad. BUT I managed to graduate from university! I now have my bachelors and was already offered a job. However my dream to study abroad was still there, so I went ahead and made it happen.

In less than two weeks, I will be moving to Gwangju, South Korea to study the Korean language and culture for 6 months! 🇰🇷

I will quarantine for 2 weeks despite being fully vaccinated - but honestly, I don’t mind because it gives me a chance to get used to the different timezone and just prepare my mind a bit before starting classes.

After quarantine I will move into the uni’s dormitory, where I will share a room with another person. As of now I have no idea who this person is. I don’t know whether it’s going to be a foreigner or a Korean student. Either way, it will be hilarious as I have never in my life shared a room with someone.

I will study the Korean language and culture for four hours every day. It doesn’t sound that intense, but I’ve been told it’s actually VERY intense. I am planning on sharing my learnings and journey on here, but as I do not know what is ahead of me, we’ll have to wait and see if I’m even able to do so ㅋㅋㅋ

I AM SO EXCITED! (and very nervous)

Today marks the 12th day in quarantine. Tomorrow I will be able to set some steps outside as I have to get tested once again. If I receive a negative test result, I will be free the day after!!

I’m sure some of you wonder what quarantine is like in South Korea. So here’s my experience!

First, let start with my room. My quarantine facility is at my universities dormitory. Normally this room is shared with another person, but not now. The uni provided me the bedding, however I still brought my own pillow and blanket for comfort. The other side of the room looks exactly the same, except now filled with my mess (aka open suitcases). The bathroom is quite what you expect from a Korean bathroom. However I still do not understand where Koreans leave their clothes without them getting all wet.

Three times a day (9am, 1pm, 6pm) I receive meals in front of my door. Assigned students bring the meals to my front door, knock, and basically run away. I had it happen once where I opened the door and three guys were standing in front of my door. Very awkward. Here’s some of the meals I received:

The snack package was given to me on the 10th(?) day, almost like a “Come on!! Almost there!!” Package. Very cute.

The government also send me a package filled with food. Unfortunately I cannot cook at the dormitory so I’m not so sure what to do with this…

So how have I been surviving quarantine you wonder? Quite simply: a lot of naps, my laptop and simply staring out of the window hoping to be freed from these four walls. No just kidding, it wasn’t that bad. As an introvert, sitting in my bedroom is basically all I do normally anyways 🥲

I am very lucky to have a tiny balcony with big windows, so I do get a lot of natural light. I think it would have been a lot harder if I only had a small window. I have a gorgeous view over the uni’s campus and mountains

The weather in Korea is really a mood. One moment the sun is out and about and the next moment there’s a thunder storm causing streets to flood. I absolutely love thunder, so I feel like a child getting candy when I see the dark clouds coming.

Soon I will be moving to my actual dorm room, which means I will no longer have this amazing view. But I’m sure the other side looks amazing too. I can’t wait to be freeeeeee~~~

Whew what a rollercoaster. Traveling during covid times is really something else. I’m sure a lot of people wonder how the getting into South Korea process goes, so here’s my experience✈️ it’s going to be a long one, so get ready.

Because of covid, waiting times are a pain. This caused my visa to be ready on the day I was flying. And boi let me tell you, that stuff made me nervous. Flashback to the 23rd of August, I had to pick up my visa at 9:30 in the morning. Now mind you, I do not live near the big cities, so it was a 2,5 hour ride. I woke up at 5:00, got in the car at 6:00 because traffic. And even then we still got there late.

Either way. I went in to pick up my visa, and thank the heavens everything was fine. My flight was in the evening, so I had a whole day to spend at the beach with my family. Sounds fun right?! Well not if you are wearing your new boots because they’re too heavy to go in the suitcase. So here I was, with multiple blisters even before I got to the airport. (Had a lovely day tho!)

I ate wayyyy too much food at the beach, so I was stuffed to the brim. Which was not my smartest move. Either way, evening comes and I get dropped off at the airport. My check in opening was supposed to be at 18:55, but when I got there around 18:00, it was already open. Lucky me could go straight through!

At the check in, the lady was very confused about the Korean procedure. She checked my visa and my negative test and I was good to go. Whew. Security was a whole other surprise. I did not need to take anything out of my backpack, including laptop. I even got to take my water bottle?! I was through security within minutes, so bizarre. Also, there was only me and one other person in the whole security area.

I was sent to a gate to do my medical check up, I figured they’d check my test and documents here, but nope. They took my temperature and I had to sign a doc, that’s it. Also took me less than 5 minutes. Amazing! Then the 3 hour wait for the plane began…

Once on the plane I had to sleep. If I didn’t sleep I would be awake for more than 48 hours. So the first hour I mainly tried to get comfortable, but then suddenly the crew showed up with dinner. It was midnight?! Cool, I ate dinner, and got comfy again. Nope, crew came again, this time with more documents to fill in. I can easily remember my Korean phone number and address by now.

Finally the lights went out, and I was so close to falling asleep, when someone dropped something and woke me up completely. After this I could not fall asleep anymore. I took tiny little naps here and there but definitely no proper sleep. Big yike incoming.

After 10 hours I arrived at Incheon Airport. Let me tell you, it took me over 4 hours just to get out of the airport. First, you get checked if you have installed the quarantine app and if your mobile number works. Then you get checked on your negative test. Then you have a passport check. Then you have a document check (visa, location, quarantine etc.) and then you have another passport check. Just this process took me 3,5 hours. Especially the document check takes a long time, because of the quarantine rules. However, it may have taken a long time but it was a fairly easy process. Everything was very straight forward.

One thing that really bothered me was that at this international airport, the staff really does not speak English well. So if there’s a problem with anything, they cannot explain it to you.

After all the checks I could finally go pick up my suitcases. They must’ve done a lot of rounds on the belt ㅋㅋ. After picking up the suitcases, you have to pass item declaration, which is simply handing over one paper and then you’re good to go (if you have nothing to declare at least). Then I went to the arrival hall (finallllyyyy) and my smart ass had put everything away when I picked up my suitcases. But no, another passport check.

At the check I got guided to the “international students” table. Got some more paperwork done and then was told to sit in the waiting area for the bus to 광명 station. I was holding so many items and my two suitcases, so I was glad I could sit for a second and reorganize. Ha. Joke. As soon as I went in, the group was told to go. So I was holding documents and trying to drag two full suitcases. My hand burned. Either way, put my suit cases in the bus, got my seat and off we went.

Apparently I landed at terminal 2 (I legit had no idea where I was this whole time, I had to walk so much and go through so many rooms), so the bus went to terminal 1 to pick up more international students. It was a comfy ride. It took us about an hour, maybe a little longer, to go to the station.

Once arrived at the station, I had to buy my ticket to 광주성정 and pay the bus fare. Together it was around 60.000 won. After buying the ticket, I had to wait in a seating area made for the international arrivals. As all of us had to go into quarantine, we’d get special places on the KTX trains. 10 minutes before my train left, we were picked up by the police to escort us to our train. It was very smooth. There even was someone ready to help us lifting our suitcases into the train. The train ride took about 1.5 hours, the ride itself was pretty comfortable. All our suitcases were located in the walking path as there was nowhere else to put them. There were only like 10 people, so definitely doable!

Once we arrived at 광주송정, all of us had to go get tested again. So we got in a very tiny bus and went to the 518 center. After another round of document checks, we got tested and had to get in another very tiny bus. This bus brought us to the university.

After arrival at the university, we had to sign some more paper work and were then escorted to our quarantine rooms. I am on the 10th floor and have a great view of beautiful mountain and the whole campus. I took a shower and went straight to bed. Let the adventure begin! ✨🇰🇷