First week in Korea#
In this article I talk about my language course in Korea as well as my two short trips to Japan. This time I split my trip into multiple parts to make the article more digestible and also to reduce the amount of images and videos that have to be loaded. I hope you enjoy reading my article.
Day 0 - Another departure from Frankfurt#
It was finally Saturday, the beginning of my Korea trip. This time I slept considerably well. I wasn’t as excited as last time, probably because I had worked normally and I haven‘t fully realized that my vocation had just begun. We started the day with a nice German breakfast. A bun with salmon and red onion is the best. I took a shower and made final preparations before me and my dad sat off to Frankfurt. We arrived about 3.5 hours early. I handed in the luggage and exchanged some Korean Won. We then strolled around and checkout out some of the stores before my dad brought me to the security gates. I said good bye to him and proceeded. I must have chosen the right time slot since I didn’t have to wait neither for the luggage nor the security check, so it just took me a few minutes to be inside the travelers area. I bought some souvenirs in the duty free shop and then waited at the gate. It didn’t take too long before I could board the airplane.
I was sitting at the right seat of the center row. Unfortunately for me the whole center row had issues with the entertainment system which was unusable for the whole duration of the flight. Luckily we were said to get compensation. It wasn’t a big issue for me since I had downloaded the TV show Silo beforehand which I watched for a while. The flight was mostly eventful, I fell a couple of times but I think I‘ve just dozed a few minutes to half an hour. For the dinner we were able to choose between a pasta dish and a beef dish. I took the beef dish which had kimchi stew and beef with rice. The dinner was big enough and tasted quite fine. For the breakfast we only had one option which was a German breakfast consisting of a bun with jam and a Joghurt. About half an hour later we started with the landing procedure.
Day 1 - Arrival in Hongdae#
I went straight for the baggage claim. There my luggage was among the first ones, so I could leave through the gate to enter the departures area. From here I walked to a CU store to buy a transportation card. Unfortunately, all transportation cards were sold out, the store clerk said that it can be bought in the subway station. Thus I made my way to the airport line. There I found 3 machines to charge your transportation card, beside them was a machine where you could buy transportation cards. After charging my transportation card I walked towards the platform of the airport line.
At the same time, I contacted the owner of the Mini Studio that I’ll be staying in. He told me to contact him once I’ll arrive in Hongdae. I just missed the subway thus I had wait for the next one. At some point I heard two guys talking in German with each other. They weren’t sure if they were at the right platform. I asked them where they want to go and they explained that they want to go to Seoul station. I confirmed that they were indeed at the right platform. A few minutes later the subway line finally arrived. I sat down besides them and we talked a while. They were a couple and for the first time in Asia. Apart from South Korea they also planned to travel in Japan as well. I saw that the next station was going to be Hongdae Ibgu (Hongik University Station), which was my destination. I said good bye to the couple and got ready to exit the train.
There were multiple exits, I checked Kakaotalk again to see that the landlord already sent me a guide on how to reach the Mini Studio. I got off the right exist and took the escalator to ground level. From there I turned left and walked down the road. At the end of the road was a Holly Cafe on the corner between this road and the crossing road. The entrance to the Mini Studio was in the same building but on the other side of the building. There I was greeted by the landlord that introduced himself as 인상 (Insang). We walked up the stairs and walked through the main entrance on the 4th floor. In there were probably 6 different Mini Studios. Mine was the second one on the right side directly after the shared kitchen. I got a short introduction on how to set up a password for the door lock and then was shown the kitchen and the drying rack on top of the building. After that 인상 left and I went back to my Mini Studio.
Since I‘m a big fan of taking photos of my hotel rooms, I also took a 360 photo of my room just to give you an idea of how tiny my Mini Studio actually is.
At that point I was a bit hungry and needed to buy some necessities. Thus I walked around the area and bought some things in a GS store. I passed by a vintage looking hair dresser. Since I haven‘t had the chance to get a haircut before the trip I made an appointment at 4 PM. Since I had about 2 hours, I decided to have lunch in the meantime. I found a nice Chinese restaurant that served food from Hangzhou. The waiter was the daughter of the owners of the restaurant. I talked with her a bit in Chinese. She told me that they came here so she can study in Seoul. I had my favorite Mapo Tofu. The waiter suggested me to also take the Baozi since it was their signature dish. The food was tasty and not too spicy. I finished early so I decided to go back to the apartment before going to the hairdresser.
I brought back the stuff I bought and rested a bit. Then I went back to the hairdresser. The hairdresser was pretty nice and she understood what kind of haircut I wanted. The whole process took longer than my normal hairdresser appointment in Germany but I really enjoyed the whole process. I was still a bit exhausted from the flight and It felt so relaxing that I almost fell asleep. With a fresh haircut, I walked back to the apartment to relax and finally fell asleep around 1 AM.
Day 2 - Exploring the Neighborhood#
I got up around 11 AM due to jet lag. It was already Monday, normally the language course would have started already today, but due to two holidays, namely Children’s Day and Buddha’s Birthday (which took place today), the first class was moved to Wednesday.
I wanted to explore Hongdae as I haven‘t been here before. I walked through all small streets in my neighborhood in pursuit to find a nice restaurant where I can eat Garlic Chicken. I was very surprised by how many cafés there are, it felt like every third shop was a café here. The streets were full of people that were queueing in front of cafés, restaurants of photo shops, or simply were walking around. During my search I‘ve seen many Korean BBQ places but just saw a couple of shops that served fried chicken. One shop consisted of two floors but was pretty full, the other store was completely empty. I must have walked for over 2 hours before I had found a Japanese style restaurant that offered spicy chicken. It really reminded me of a tonkatsu restaurant that I‘ve been to the year prior during my Japan trip. The waitress helped me picking the sweet and spicy chicken together with some portion of rice and a beer. The food was pretty tasty and I really enjoyed the atmosphere there.
After my lunch I‘ve strolled some more around the area to reach 10.000 steps. I then bought some food and drinks before I walked back. I was still a bit tired from the jet lag therefore I relaxed the rest of the day.
Day 3 - Meeting an old friend#
On my second day in Korea I also got up around 10 AM and began my day slowly. I had some snacks and coffee that I had bought in a GS store the day prior. I took some notes regarding my trip so far and eventually took a shower.
Prior to my trip I’ve already informed Amy — a friend that I made during a CS conference in 2018 and that I’ve also met again in 2023 — that I’ll be in Korea during May. She told me that she will have time today and that we can meet up for dinner in a restaurant about 20 minutes walking distance from my Mini Studio. Thus I had some more time to explore my neighborhood and maybe grab some lunch on the way.
Thus, I finally got ready to go out. I walked along the big road in front of my building until I reached a plaza with mostly restaurants. This plaza was full of mostly young Korean teens. Some where sitting on benches other sat on some small walls that paved a road to a small park. In the opposite direction were even more restaurants. I decided to move in the latter direction. Todays weather was pretty nice, thats why it felt like everybody was outside, taking a walk or just sitting around and enjoying the holiday. Even though I’ve been to several asian countries before (including Korea two years prior) I am always impressed by the shear amount of colorful advertisements that fight for attention. I reached a cross road. No matter which direction, all seemed to boast restaurants of all kinds. I decided to take a stroll around the block and see if I find any restaurant that seems inviting. It was unfortunate that I haven’t made friends with any other students so far. It felt like Korean restaurants are made for group of two or more people. It least that was my impression. A character flaw of mine is that I am hestiant to enter restaurants that are already quite full, because I feel as a single guest I might take up space for a group of guests. Therefore I passed on several restaurants that seemed to have delicous food but were already quite full.
I must have been walking already for quite a while and were still unsuccesfull in finding a restaurant to eat. I still wasn’t too hungry and it must have been already 3 PM, so I decided to walk in direction of my meeting point with Amy. I walked along a big pedestrian zone with several small stalls that sold sweets, souvenirs or cheap jewelry. Several time I saw other tourists passing by me, maybe they were students of the Hongik University or other language students of one of the many language schools in Hongdae or maybe they just came here to enjoy shopping and eating.
Suddenly I get a call from my colleague from univeristy. He needed a file that was only on my computer. That was quite unfortunate since I didn’t bring my laptop to Korea. I told him that I will try to get hold of my dad and instruct him to hand over the files but I cannot promise anything. Luckily my dad was at home and after a few attempts to locate the file on my computer, my dad managed to find the file and send it to my colleague. I informed my colleague and he was quite happy since he really needed this file. While I was talking with my dad I already had arrived at my meeting point with Amy. She arrived just a few minutes later. I was very happy to meet her again.
A lot had changed since last time. When we met 2 years prior she had worked for a company that organized events for important foreign guests but now she was working as a trainer in a crossfit gym. She explained that she liked working with people but she didn’t like the paperwork that she had to do in the old job. During that time she had started with crossfit as an alternative to the office work. She started to like it so much that she eventually decided to work as a crossfit trainer and it was showing since she was pretty buff compared to last time we met. The restaurant she chose was a fusion restaurant. I was glad that she chose something that she liked because I would never have chosen a fusion restaurant. This is because I tend to eat food that is typical for the country that I’m in. However this can also be a mistake since I might miss some delicious food like the one we had in this restaurant. We eventually paid and walked around the area. As it is tradition with Amy, we took some pictures in one of the selfie shops nearby. Before we said goodbye, Amy made me promise that I’ll meet her in the gym during one of her courses. A promise that I would unfortunately break during the course of my vacation.
I walked back to my Mini Studio but took a stop at a nearby GS store to buy some snacks and drinks for the night. I then took another shower and got ready for bed as I had to get up early on the next day.
Day 4 - First day at Lexis Korea#
I got up early since I didn’t know where exactly the school was. I took a quick shower, then walked out my room and got my shoes on. I walked down the stairs, and passing by the TV with loud music that advertises the Karaoke shop in the cellar of my building. I walked down the road next to my building. Passing by two cafes and a restaurant until I reached a big road with the Hongik University (홍대입구) metro station. I went down the escalator of the metro station, just to go up the stairs on the other side of the road. I then just walked straight passing by some big Samsung store and a AK Plaza department store. Next to the department store was a building with a Starbucks in its basement. I entered the building through the entrance next to the Starbucks und climbed up the stairs to the 4th floor. I only remember that there was a plastic surgery at one of the other floors. What was peculiar about the stairs leading up to the school is that they were not normed. Specifically one step of the stairs was a bit lower than the rest of the steps which would trip me up the following weeks.
I arrived at the entrance of the school. Around the same time one of the teachers arrived and pressed a button next to the door to make it automatically open up. I also walked in at went to the reception on the left where I was told to take a seat in on of the class rooms on the right of the entrance. I found the seat with my name tag and sat down. I was the second person to arrive. Somehow I felt a bit nervous. More and more new students arrived and took their seats. Eventually one of the teachers came a started a welcome video. While listening to the video I was studying the info material that was provided to the new students. Once the video was finished, two more teachers came and they would start to do a placement test with us, interviewing three students simultaneously. I was among the first students doing the placement test. I was quite nervous and made several mistakes that in retrospective were quite obvious. Because of that I was assigned to Beginner level. At first I thought it was a bit low, but in the end it turned out to be a blessing because I could review and improve my foundation. Below Beginner level was only Foundation, while above Beginner was the Elementary level.
We had a short break where I tried to get to know some of the new students. I got to know Evelyn, a linguistics student from London, and Juli from France. It turned out that both of them were my classmates. Apart from them we also had a younger and older woman from Mexico, a girl from Switzerland, a girl from the US, an older woman from Japan and a guy from France. The latter one was called Lenaick.
After the break we had our first class. This week our teacher for the morning and afternoon classes would be Daisy. Normally due to the flexibility of the students and classes the teachers for the morning and afternoon classes differ. Daisy is a motivated and energetic teacher, I really enjoyed her classes since she involved all students and made all of them practice the grammar she was teaching. She would also sometimes lighten up her classes by doing some games where the winner could get some sweets. Our morning class was quite big. In addition to Evelyn and Juli, as well as the other students that I’ve just mentioned, there was also a middle ages man from El Salvador, a guy from Czech Republic that I would not see again for the rest of my course and Gaines, an American guy that was living in Japan. I would also not see Gaines again until the second week as he was working besides the Korean course.
After the morning class we had a one hour break before the afternoon classes would start. Evelyn and Juli only took the morning classes and thus left after the morning session. Thus I went out for lunch with Lenaick. He knew a steak restaurant near the school where he wanted to eat so we went there. It wasn’t really the food that I planned to eat when I came to Korea, but it was fine for its price. One hour wasn’t much time, so we had to hurry back to school after lunch.
While we had the same teacher in the afternoon, the classmates differed slightly. Evelyn and Juli only took the morning classes, so I wouldn’t see them in the afternoon classes. Instead there were three girls from Taiwan, a girl from Germany and a young girl from Japan named Mizuki. The afternoon classes were more focus on grammar. In retrospective, I always enjoyed the afternoon sessions a bit more than the morning session. Maybe because I was already familiar with most of the vocabulary in the morning classes, but was eager to practice the grammar in the afternoon session.
After class I had dinner with Evelyn and Juli. Afterwards I would go back home and planned to take a short rest but then I decided to go to Holly’s cafe instead which was in the same building as my apartment. It was quite big as it had three floors. I ordered some coffee and cake and sat down in the second floor where I would do my homework and reviewed the vocabulary and grammar. I went back to my Goshiwon around 11 PM and got ready to sleep. I was quite tired since I still suffered from jet lag.
Day 5 - BBQ and Karaoke#
The second day at Lexis Korea felt already more comfortable since I knew what awaited me. The morning class went pretty well. And when it came to lunch I went out again with Lenaick. We walked for a while until we decided on a Korean chicken restaurant. We quickly ordered a chicken dish and some Tteokbokki but it took quite a while until our food arrived. We tried to eat in a hurry but it was way too much. In the end we were already quite full and hadn’t even finished half of the food. Regrettably, we had to leave the rest of the food and quickly hurried to the afternoon class. The afternoon class was pretty fun and the time passed by quickly.
After class Lenaick told me that some of the teachers wanted to do bbq in a park near the Han river. I asked on of the teacher if I could join as well and they said yes. Thus we waited for other interested students before we left the school. We took the metro to the park where the other teacher and some students were already waiting for us. They had brought two big picnic blankets. One of the teachers said that he will go to a nearby convenience store to get some instant noodles. I joined him together with a girl from Japan as well as two girls from Taiwan that I got to know by then. The older Taiwanese girl worked as a teacher in Taiwan while the other one named Joan was a bachelor student in laser optics.
We arrived at the convenience store. There they had several machines to prepare instant noodles yourself. Among the many instant noodle brands I had to go with Shin ramen. I also bought something to drink, then we could use the instant noodle machines to poor hot water into the instant noodle cups. When we came back to reunite with the other students, they had already ordered some fried chicken. The other teacher had also brought some Soju. By coincidence I heard that Joan and two other Taiwanese students are going to Tokyo over the course of the weekend, which is funny since I’ll also be in Tokyo from Friday to Sunday.
It started to get dark. Some of the students went back to their apartments or home stays. While the male teacher named Juho wanted to go to a Karaoke bar with some of the remaining students. I joined them. In total we were six people, me, Lenaick, the teacher Jusho, the Taiwanese teacher, a girl from Italy and a girl from Japan. Some people said goodbye to the Japanese girl as it was her last day at Lexis. She had to go back the next day after the class. It was super fun even though I didn’t know that many Korean songs. We probably stayed for an hour before we too went back home. I was exhausted but happy when I fell in my bed.
Day 6 - Last Class of the first week#
The last day of week one at Lexis Korea passed by quickly. This time me and Lenaick went to Shake Shack which was in a building next to the building my school was in. There we met some of the other students from our class like Kiara, the guy from El Salvador, the girl from the US as well as Juli and Evelyn. This week we would also have an afternoon class on Friday since our classes had just started on Wednesday, which would not be the case for the upcoming weeks.
The afternoon eventually concluded and I was ready to hurry back to my home to pack my bag with some fresh clothes and the chocolate I bought in Germany for my friend. I then left my Mini Studio and walked to the Hongdae Ibgu metro station, next to where I was living. From there it took me around 15 to 20 minutes to arrive at the Gimpo airport station. I was a bit early so I didn’t need to hurry. I wandered around until I found the security gate. Surprisingly, it was pretty empty, so I entered the inner area of the airport after just a couple of minutes. Here I had some coffee and cake and then waited for the flight. The flight was on time, so I could finally enter the plane and would soon be able to enjoy some delicious Japanese food…
Recap#
This was my first week in Korea and at Lexis Korea. Even though it was a short week, I already made many new friends and already had to say goodbye to Lenaick and Amy. The classes were a bit exhausting since we had longer classes to compensate the two missing days, but that meant that the next two weeks would be more relaxed in comparison.
I hope that you enjoy the article so far. The second half of day 6 continues in the next part of my article where I talk about my short trip to Tokyo in order to meet up with a friend from Münster.