Traveling While in Seoul

 If you guys are anything like I am, I imagine quite a few of you want to travel the world, visit multiple countries, meet new people- you know the whole traveling experience. You might not remember, but I briefly touched upon this in a previous post, not sure which, but being in Seoul is a great opportunity to travel to other countries. This is due to its central location in Asia. The following are some of the locations, and countries, that you can take a quick flight and visit over an extended weekend or after your semester ends and you go back home:

1.      Jeju Island – Jeju is an island off the southern coast of the Korean peninsula. Unfortunately, while I was in Korea I did not have the opportunity to visit this island, but you definitely should. While I was in Korea, basically any Korean friend I made recommended that I visit the island due to its natural beauty. The good news is that this island is definitely one place that you can get to, tour around, and come back over a single weekend plus a day or two. According to some of my friends who did visit Jeju, the flights there are very cheap, provided that you book well ahead of time. Round trip tickets, they told me, only cost them around $70 USD and the flight only took them around two hours.

2.       Japan- For those who have an interest in Japanese culture, studying in Korea is a perfect opportunity to visit Japan. Flights to Japan were not very expensive while I was there with round trip tickets running around $350 give or take 60$. However those prices were for flights to Tokyo.  If you want to visit a city like Osaka, you can look at Peach Aviation (httP://flypeach.com) for significantly cheaper prices, provided you book well in advance. I do wish to warn you that while I did not travel to Japan, I did have friends who did and from what they told me, while the flights may be cheap, other prices in Japan definitely are not. They further said that if you want to go to Japan be sure to have plenty to spend. Apparently the majority of their money was spent just on food, getting around, and, in the end, they had very little left over to spend to do much else.

3.       Southeast Asia- Fort those of you who like backpacking, Seoul is a perfect place to fly from to Southeast Asia in order to backpack the region. I had friends, who after the semester ended, flew from Seoul to Vietnam, to Laos, and a very popular country for backpackers- Thailand. Thailand, and its myriad of temples and beaches, is only about a six hour flight to Bangkok away from Seoul.

Basically, from Seoul, a whole range of Asian countries and sights are only a relatively short flight away. That and flights are substantially cheaper than going back home and then going back to Asia. If you do study in Seoul I do recommend you take the opportunity that this presents you and travel if you wish to.

Korean University Festivals

As a follow up to my post on Kpop, because Kpop is involved, I want to cover something incredible that you might be able to experience while studying at a Korean university. That is their university festivals. Now you may ask what is so special about these university festivals. Good question.

University festivals from what I saw, are usually three day long events held by each individual university. They’re not all held on the same days rather, from what I saw, each university festival was staggered after another university’s festival ended.  From what I understood, these university festivals are usually held during the spring semesters, but due to certain events that happened in the spring of last year, a large amount of university festivals were postponed until the fall semester. As such I was able to experience a few during my stay this past fall.

They may only be three days but they are absolutely packed with fun activities. During the day, a large majority of university clubs each set up their own stands where they run games and sell snacks and food that they make. Additionally, some of the clubs and associations also set up traditional Korean performances.

At my host university, throughout the entire day they had two stages with live bands playing through the entire day. However, the main draws of the university festivals happen after it gets dark. For those of you that are of legal drinking age, a lot of the clubs also each set up their own “beer tents” where, you guessed it, they sold discounted beer and served snacks to with them. These are incredible opportunities to get to make plenty of Korean friends by playing a few drinking games with them. However, only do so if you are over the legal drinking age, and if you do, drink responsibly.

At the end of each night, is when the main events of the university festivals happen. At mot universities, they bring in one or two big Kpop performers to perform at the university’s main stage. At a few of the university festivals I attended, I was able to see groups such as 9 Muses, Sistar, and Orange Caramel. These are awesome performances, even if you’re not very into Kpop, and the Korean students go absolutely crazy over them.

 Overall, these university festivals are amazing and if you get the opportunity, try your best to attend at least one before your semester ends.

Performers at different university festival.

Kpop- What it is and Why you Should Care

I want to take this time to cover a topic you will for sure experience during your studies in Korea- Kpop. I know it is likely that some of you, if you have done your research on Korea or are already into Korean culture, will already know what it is. If you do, please bear with me while I go ahead and explain what it is and why you should care about it if you study in Korea.

Kpop, much as the name implies, basically stands for Korean Pop, yet is more than that. The best way that I can describe Kpop is very catchy lyrics that are almost all fluff and sung to very upbeat and catchy tunes. Kpop as a music genre might be known to you due to the fact that it is part of the phenomenon known as Hallyu, or Korean wave, meant to describe the rapid popularization of Korean culture around the world. As such the entire scene around Kpop in Korea is astonishing. It is a weird mix of American music star fandom mixed with the hyper celebrity culture around movie stars familiar to Americans.

From what I saw while I was I Korea, Kpop girl groups, and boy bands for that matter, are usually attractive and are idolized to an incredible amount. Kpop is almost pervasive. You’ll likely hear it while walking around the city, you’ll see advertisements with Kpop stars and you’ll rarely go a day without seeing or hearing something Kpop-ish.

However, I must admit that, if you’re anything like me, Kpop music will annoy you at first if you’re not used to it. I know it annoyed me and some of my fellow study abroad students at first. Eventually, however, it will be hard to not get sucked into the whole scene and eventually you’ll find yourself humming along to some random upbeat Kpop tune.

Even now that I am back home, I find myself going to YouTube and watching some Kpop music videos every now and then.

Moral of the story kids- Kpop may be different at first but it’ll grow on you, so don’t dismiss it until you experience it in Korea.

Ps. This is based on what I experienced while I was in Korea and someone more knowledgeable will be able to provide more in-depth view on the subject.

Ps.s. If you wish to listen to some Kpop, look up Sistar, B1A4, and 9 Muses. These are just some of the groups I sometimes realize I’m listening to.