Time for update.

So I have not posted anything for about 3 and a half week .... Guess I have been pretty busy with school stuff and also just trying to do as much as possible, because it have kind of struck me that I only have about 7 and a half week left of my time in South Korea. I don't really like that and I envy those exchange students that will spend another semester here in Seoul. Not to happy about the fact that I will be going back to Sweden pretty soon ..... Anyways I am still enjoying everyday and will try to do as much stuff as possible before I go back. Tomorrow I will actually be going to the DMZ (demilitarized zone between North and South Korea) and next week I go to Taiwan for 5 nights :) 

But on to what I have been doing the last 3 and a half weeks .... Me and some friends where lucky to have been invited by Sam for a real home cooked Korean meal. It was really good food and cosy :) She served so many dishes and I do not remember what everything was now 3 weeks afterwards ^^. After that we went to an Arcade place and played some games. Played so much basketball so my arm was sore the day after.

That one so went in 

  Another day when I felt that the days where just running away I decided to take a solo excursion to a temple within walking distance from my dorm. I went to Changdeokgung palace, which is a Unesco World Heritage site. I actually thought that I had been to this place before, but that is because there are two temples right next to each other .... Earlier I visited Changgyeonggung and that is right next to this one. Anyway I liked Changdeokgung temple much more than Changgyeonggun, a lot more buildings and it felt more authentic than the other one. I wandered around there for almost 3 hours and soaking in the sunset. But I do need to go there again because they had already closed one of the main features of the temple which is a secret garden. Don't mind about going there again though :). Even do I went there by myself I had a lot of company from school kids that were running around the temple and talking and asking me stuff. Got attention from a group of 12 year old girls that kept addressing me as the "Handsome one" ^_^. Guess they were there on a field trip.

Found some friends

Another day I had the same feeling so I thought I would go to some Art museums for an entire day. 

First I went to Culture Station Seoul 284, which is the old train station of Seoul that is transformed into an art museum where different artist have exhibitions. Don't really remember the name of the artist but he was a famous one :) Then I went to Seoul Art Museum and on the way to the metro I stopped in front of the City Hall where they had an event. The yellow strips and everything there was in protest and memory of the ferry catastrophe that happen earlier this year. You can actually see these events all over Seoul. The people are not so pleased with what happen, and especially because no one knows.

Yellow ribbons for the ferry catastrophe 

Man with a grenade

    After that it was time for the long wanted World Championship Finals of LoL at the Seoul World Cup Stadium. South Korea is the country of E-games and of course they do it pretty big then. Think we were about 35 000 people watching the final. It was between a South Korean team against a Chines one. Imagine Dragons started and ended the event with some songs. When we arrived to the area we were so disoriented and tried to find the tickets office in order to collect or tickets .... probably wandered around for about 1 hour. But it was an awesome event and Final. 

Then I did have my birthday here in Seoul as well. It was pretty awesome :) I treated myself with some brunch and cake before I had a massage. Then during the evening about 35 people showed up with cake and some pimped up accessories. We went to a All you can eat and drink place before we went to Gangnam. It was a really good :) Awesome people over here!

Will make sure that I update the blogg more often now :) DMZ and Taiwan coming up next :) 

Trip to Busan and Gyeongju + Seoul International Fireworks Festival

Almost 2 weeks since last post, guess I have been quite busy. First I joined a group from the University on a trip to Busan and Gyeongju from the 25th to the 28th. Got on the slow train for nearly 6 hours to Busan, thought I could catch some sleep but there my seat was in the aisle and there were always Koreans sitting at the window seat that was only going for a couple of stops ..... But I had a nice Korean grandmother next to me for a little longer time. Don't no why but she gave me a small bag of nuts and dried fruits, didn't say anything, just stretched the bag over to me and then she got of the train ^_^ That was nice.

So Busan is the second largest city and metropolitan area after Seoul, it is located right at the south tip of the country and is quite famous for its beaches, fish and laid-back style of life. So we (19 people) checked in to our hostel close to the beach, and the first thing that happens is that one girl that sits in the upper bunk-bed bursts done to the lower bunk-bed :D Fortunately there where no one below her. But I guess that is hostel life? Have not done this traveling and staying at hostels that much so do not know what to expect till now. 

Well even though it was not as warm as in the beginning when I got here we had to get to the famous Haeundae Beach. Spent some hours here before we took a walk to find a nice view of the sunset with the city close by.... We totally failed this, the sun was already down when we got to the viewpoint but it was a nice walk anyway =) 

The day got finished with some drinks at the hostel and some dinner. The day after we had a long day planned, first with the Beomeosa-Temple. Old Buddhist temple up in the mountain were we got free vegetarian lunch. After that we had limited time so we we become two groups that went in opposite direction but ended up at the same place later. That was actually really nice, going from a group of 19 people to one of 5 :) So us 5 wanted to spend extra long time at Gamcheon Culture Village, which was a really cool place. After that we went to a fish market where some of us had dinner but I went to explore the street-food at Biff square. 

That was the end of the night for most of us, some went out but a group of us were planning on going to Haedong Yonggung Temple by the coast and see the sunrise. So got up at 5 and took a cab to the tempel. Even though I was pretty tired and a little bit cold I think this might have been the highlight of the entire trip :) 

After that we went to the next city Gyeongju, which is a quite small city but it has a lot of history because it was the capital of the old Silla Kingdom that was about 57BC - 935. We decided to rent bikes and ride between the different sights. Just the bike ride was nice. We only had about one day so we had to hurry to the different places. 

After that we went out for dumplings and some beers to celebrate one of the groups birthday. The day after that we had planned to go back to Seoul in the evening, but before that we wanted to visit a temple. 

Then it took me a couple of days to recover from that trip and also catching up with some studies. 

After that SKKU had their 616th anniversary at the campus. 3 dayd with free hoddies, beer and a lot of music. Saw my first K-pop performance by Dal Sahbet, was quite cool. 

Then I managed to go to the Seoul International Fireworks Festival down at the Han river. 1 million people gathered around the river on a blanket or in a small tent. It was truly spectacular, have never seen anything in that magnitude before.