Hello everyone! Wow it's been a while. I've seriously been slacking with writing posts. Now that I've been living in Korea for about 4 months and teaching for 3, I wanted to write about things that I have grown to love about this country. So, without further ado here are 7 things I love about Korea.
1. The coffee and cafe culture- So coffee shops and cafes are super popular here. They are everywhere and there are all different kinds; some are classic, some are more modern, and some are just crazy and have fun themes. This is perfect for me because I LOVE finding coffee shops and spending too much money and time there. It's one of my favorite things to do which is great for de-stressing and reading, but lets be honest, not great for my bank account. I have found a few personal favorite coffee shops around Busan and usually spend a good portion of my Saturday mornings there. A few that I like are: 1.) Coffee Place- right around the corner from my house, little and cozy and the owner speaks good English. He has decided that he is going to get almond milk for me since I can't have regular milk: an actual godsend. 2.) Starbucks- I know, I know.. but it's nice to have the comfort of home everyone once in a while. Plus it's one of the only places to find chai here so a girls gotta do what a girls gotta do to get her chai. 3.) Ediya- a coffee chain like Starbucks but the one in my neighborhood is really cute and the coffee and tea is pretty good! I can continue to list more, but this would become a really long post just about coffee shops and that would be a bit much. So anyway, there are plenty of coffee shops and so far I have loved exploring them and finding new ones, but the only issue I have with Korean coffee shop culture is that nothing opens before 10:30 except for Starbucks and Paris Baguette. Like nothing. Nothing is open. At all. And it drives me crazy. Especially on weekends when I usually start my day around 7am and want coffee. But other than that, the coffee culture here is amazing and I have a list of coffee shops on my phone to check out in the next few weeks so I'm sure i'll be adding to my favorites list.
2. Clothes and shopping- While they're (for sure) not ethically made, a lot clothing here is cheap and fashionable. I feel like fashion is a big deal here, people are usually trying to look their best and put a lot of effort into their outfits and so it does make sense that clothing would be cheap as people are always changing their style when new things become trendy. There are tons of clothing stores all over, and there are a lot of underground shopping malls that are connected to the subway's where clothing is pretty cheap. The big downsides though are that clothing found in the underground malls are 'free size' (or one size "fits all") and are usually poorly made. Aside from that though, shopping can be fun because the style is so different than it is from America! And one other fun thing I want to mention is the t-shirts. They usually have random phrases written on them and often times they don't make any sense: they crack me up because they're so funny. Like it'll be in English but it won't be like totally right. For example, I bought my friend one shirt that says "I'll be with you in the squeezing of a lemon"... like alright I guess.
3. Living near the beach- This one is more tailored to Busan. I'm super lucky to get to live close to the beach; it only takes me about 20 minutes on the train to get the beach which is one of my favorite things about living here. The weather is just starting to get warm enough for the beach so I haven't been able to actually go swimming or anything yet, but I do tend to spend a lot of time at Gwangali beach and I am so looking forward to spending weekends tanning at the beach!
4. Public transportation and the ease of getting around the country- Korea makes it super easy to not have a car and to get around the country. In Busan, I take a train or a bus and can get just about anywhere I need to and it's fairly cheap as well. I prefer to take the train because bus drivers in Busan are crazy and if you're not holding on you will be flung across the bus to your death. The public transportation system makes also it easy to get around the whole country as well. The KTX (high speed trains) run all over the country and I can get to Seoul from Busan in a little under 3 hours while relaxing on the train. It is a little pricey but honestly it's worth it!
5. Food- Gonna be honest, I am having a bit of a hard time finding food I can eat because Koreans LOVE their meat. Korean BBQ places are all over and are popular because they're good, you cook your own meat, and you get tons of banchan (side dishes). When I go I usually just eat the side dishes since there are usually things that I can eat like kimchi, japchae, kimchi pancakes, etc. But other than having a difficult time finding non beef and pork items, the food here is really good! There is also some good foreign food that I have found as well.
6. The people and culture- Like any group of people, Koreans have their moments, but for the most part they are wonderful and welcoming, especially to small foreigners who for sure stick out in a crowd. Most people here have been extremely helpful, friendly, and very welcoming and at times it can be almost over whelming because people are so nice. There have been countless times when I have been out and someone has just started talking to me (partly to practice their English) and partly because they are interested in why I am in their country and if I like it here- I am almost always asked if I like Korea and what I like about it. While not everyone has been friendly or nice to me, I have found that Korean people in general are friendly and nice and surprisingly patient with my lack of Korean.
7. Safety- Korea is so extremely safe. Despite with you might think or hear on the news, Korea is very safe and honestly, I feel safer here than I did while living in the United States. When living in Chicago I would always be super conscious of my surrounds and while I still am here, I don't really worry about things like walking around alone late at night, or even bigger things like guns and what not. So while things can happen anywhere, Korea in general is very safe and I love that I don't have to worry about all the things that I had to at home. Along with this, people are pretty trustworthy and you could leave your stuff anywhere and they'll most likely be there when you get back; If you left your computer and bag on a table in a cafe for hours it would probably be untouched by the time you got back. Very different than home and something I love about Korea.
So, those are 7 things that I love about Korea and honestly i could write more but I had to narrow it down to the ones that stood out the most for me. Anyway, I wanted to give a few life updates since I haven't done that in a while. The past few weeks have been sort of slow and uneventful. A few weeks ago I went to the Haeundae Sand Festival where artists made these huge sand sculptures which was crazy impressive and cool to see. Last week I went to the Ulsan Rose Festival with my school. It was absolutely gorgeous and there were tons and tons of different kinds of flowers in a huge park. If I'm here next year I will be going back because it was just so lovely. One exciting thing though is that this past weekend I went to Seoul for the first time! I LOVED it so much. I had a feeling I was going to love Seoul but man, it was kinda hard to come back to Busan cause I seriously loved it. While I was in Seoul I went to the 5th Seoul Vegan Festival which was super fun and awesome to have so much food I could eat, I also got to explore a few neighborhoods and ate some great food. I definitely think I will be heading to Seoul again as soon as possible and hopefully I'll get to explore it even more!
Well thats about it for now! I do want to mention though that a few weeks ago I decided I would record what I did during the weekend and I have decided to make it into a vlog so be on the look out for that in the next few days!
That's all for now!
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