2013

Hello Friends,

First off Happy New Years! As I am writing this the time in Minnesota is just before midnight, so most of you will probably be too incoherent to read this. Therefore, I have given you the opportunity for some excellent reading while you are hungover in bed tomorrow. Last night we went to City Hall and watched the celebration for the new year. We counted down in Korean, and then they rung the big Buddhist bell in one of the temples in the City Hall area. I celebrated the new years with a bunch of Brazilians and made the last night of 2012 a truly unforgettable one. My Christmas was also very memorable. On Christmas Eve, Jack, my roommate Michael, and myself went to midnight mass at the famous Myeong-Dong Cathedral in Seoul. This was the site of the first Christian church in Korea (later prosecuted) and was very beautiful. What we were not aware of was that the entire mass was in Korean (my fault). However, this was easily the best part of the mass. By not knowing exactly what they were saying, we were able to focus much more on the spiritual presence of God and what this mass and holiday was really about. It truly was an inspirational experience and one of my favorite parts of this semester. While the holidays have been tough being away from ya'll (Monica) I have been very thankful for what has happened to me.
This semester has completely flown by. I remember the beginning of August coming up and thinking, "wow I am going to be in Korea for a long time." Now it almost seems too short of a time. I went into this experience with the expectation that I would really enjoy being abroad, meeting new people, and living in a new place. What I was not expecting, however, was how much I would love living in Korea. For anyone interested in traveling to Asia you must make Korea/Seoul a must stop place. And if you are also interested in studying abroad, Seoul is a great option to live in a completely new culture but one you can easily assimilate into. The people, the food, the nightlife, the atmosphere, the attitude, Korea has been everything I have hoped for and then more. While I am excited to come back home, the prospect of living in St. Peter for another year seems terrible. Seoul is just a city of endless opportunities and is open for every type of person. And the people here make it 1000x times better. Everyone is so friendly and willing to help you out/show you a good time. This is a community where you can clearly see the greatness of humanity at work. I have been so thankful to have studied here for a semester and look forward to another great semester and a fresh four months. But before that, I have two months of extensive traveling to do!!
Tomorrow I am heading to Japan, one of the most unique cultures in the world. I will be staying with my boy J Kess and his gracious host family in Osaka. While I have not been able to stay with a Korean family, this will be a great chance to stay with a Japanese family and the experiences that come with it. Jack and I are both studying in Asia, but our study abroad experiences have been quite different. This is one of the experiences that I have been truly jealous of Jack for and it will be nice to get a taste of it. We will be going to a couple different towns around Osaka (including the ancient capital of Kyoto) and then we will be heading to Nagasaki for three days and stay in a hostel. I believe this will be very rewarding yet an emotional trip for obvious reasons. Then we will be going to Okinawa to stay with his grandfather for 5 days. These five days will probably end up being a bit more relaxed and include some fun actives. Then I head back to Seoul on the 16th, but only for two days until I go to...

Indonesia! This was kind of a surprise trip that I decided to take. A friend of mine that I met in Korea told me he was staying in Indonesia for a month after the semester and ignited the interest of visiting here. Unfortunately I will not be seeing him, but it will be very fun to lie out on the beach for nine days and get caught up on the 5th Game of Thrones book. This trip was made possible by my frequent flier miles (thanks Swimming training trips) so it will be quite cheap for me! I return back to Korea on the 28th, along with the arrival of my mother! This will be very nice and I am quite excited. I will be showing her the sites in Korea for a week and give her a run down on what my home has been like the past five months. Then we embark on probably the most exciting adventure.

On Feb 4th we will be flying into Hanoi, Vietnam. I have been fascinated by Vietnam longer then I can remember (ehh History) and actually considered studying abroad here for a very long time. For a week my mother and I will be exploring Hanoi (the capital) followed by a trip to Hue, which has the majority of historical war monuments. Unfortunately, she has to go back home (stupid real life) and I will be continuing this journey on my own. While my trip isn't exactly set in stone, I plan on being in that area for a couple days followed by a trip down south to the famous Saigon (Ho Chi Menh City). I will spend about five days there. From there I will cross the border into Cambodia, spending a couple days in the capital (Phnom Penh) and then travel up to Seim Reap to see the famous Angkor Wat (google it). Afterwards back to Saigon, then catch my flight out of Hanoi on March 1st. Bam, just like that it will be done and I will be starting my second semester on March 5. Of course after all these trips I will be writing blogs and posting pictures, but I thought I should make this post before I leave to get everyone back home an idea of what my winter travels will be like and also an overview of the semester.

I hope everyone has a great winter break and I look forward to sharing my travels with you and hearing about all of your news soon enough! Raise your glasses high tonight because while 2012 was a wonderful year, 2013 promises to be even better.

My best,

Sam

Taiwan and Temple Stay!

Hello All,

Three weeks left, cannot believe it. The next couple weekends will consist of boring studying and saying goodbye to friends. The latter will probably be much harder than the former. This will be my last post until the end of the semester. So this past month has been pretty eventful. The 10th-11th we spent the weekend checking out the club scene around Hongdae. Some of them were really cool, while others were pretty sketchy. On Friday night we went to a couple bars and then went to our first club called "Club Naked". That should have been our first sign. It was banging some good hip hop so we thought we'd give it a shot. What we witnessed was something none of us were prepared for. It looked like a scene out of a rap video. All the American military personal go there to party, and this was very apparent with enormous black men. Like six and a half feet tall. Since I have been in Asia, I have forgotten what tall guys look like so this was a wakeup call. We quickly left the club haha. Then we went to this club called gorilla or something like that. It had 3 different venues so we stopped at all of them to get our free drinks. They were pretty good places. Small, but good music and a good vibe. They club life in Hongdae is pretty popular and luckily we live right next to it. Saturday night we went back to Hongdae but this time went to FF Club. This was a little different in that it was more Indie and rock music. They initially had a live band which was really cool. Then they started playing some great rock and punk rock throwback songs. Even played "cant stop" by RHCP. Really good night and we have been back to that club a couple times sense.

 

The weekend of the 17-18th I went to a temple stay with my Swedish friend Per. This was a fantastic experience. We arrived there on Saturday afternoon and had lunch with our group of about 20. Everything was vegetarian and made at the temple so it was a nice change up. We followed that with an hour and a half meditation hike through the temple mountain. This was very relaxing. After arriving back at the temple, we walked around the temple grounds and what the specific temples and areas were used for. After dinner (at 5:00!), we learned how to properly bow like a Zen Buddhist. As I have bad knees, it was very painful for me but I managed to do it! I have no idea how they manage to do it 108 times in one time period. Then we learned how to properly meditate, Zen style. By the time we were finished it was time for bed, at 8:30. I don't even remember the last time I went to bed on a Saturday night at 8:30. But this was because we had to wake up at 3:30 on Sunday morning. Surprisingly this was easy for me. We started the morning with some Zen meditation, and then we participate in morning chanting. This was very interesting to see how all the monks chant and a true Buddhist religious ceremony. Afterwards we had breakfast and a chance to talk with one of the monks and ask him some questions about his life and Zen Buddhism in general. Quite the weekend but it was very interesting to learn about the culture and be able to take a chance to relax for a weekend in a temple in the mountains. Highly recommended for anyone who travels to Korea.

 

Now this past weekend I went to Taiwan! We went with 3 of us guys and 4 girls, all from Yonsei. We arrived last Thursday night and got lost on our way to the hostel. Luckily a Taiwanese girl managed to help and point us in the right direction. We finally arrived at our hostel and ready to start the day bright and early. We woke up to a cloudy day, and unfortunately stayed that way all day. This was okay though because most of our activities were inside. We started off by going to the National Palace Museum. This is one of the most famous museums in the world because most of Ancient China's artifacts are located here. I could go into a long history lesson but basically they were no longer safe in China and had to be moved to Taiwan to be preserved. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take pictures in there but wow it was cool, probably my favorite part of the trip. We then went to a temple and memorial place. Pretty cool touristy areas and got some great pictures. At night we went to Taipei 101, which is now the second tallest building in the world. The inside was really well done but the view from the top was amazing. We could see the entire city skyline. We were pretty tired afterwards and went back to the hostel for the night. The next morning we went to the Taipei Zoo, which is the largest zoo in Asia. It was so cool and we got to see Pandas!! We then went on the gondola ride which went for about an hour around the mountains. At the top we went to a tea garden and had authentic tea from the locals. That night we went to the Shilin night market. Taiwan is very famous for its night markets with cheap merchandise and great food. The dumplings I had were absolutely amazing, best I have had in Asia so far. I really enjoyed my trip to Taiwan as it was much different from Seoul. You can tell it’s in the process of "westernizing" but still has a bit ago. I enjoyed the more "Asian" aspects of the city though. Well I think thats it for now. Just sent out a bunch of postcards today so hopefully you get them soon! I'm done with school the 22nd of Dec and leave for Japan Jan 2nd, so in that time period we should Skype as you will all be home and I have a lot of free time! Hope to hear from you guys and have a great holiday, miss you all!

Sam

Another week of Korean adventure!

 Hello all,

Another week done. This semester is just flying by and now it’s already November. I will not be participating in no shave November this year, but during winter break I will be making up for it by letting the beard going loose. Anyways this week was pretty fun. School-wise it was pretty easy with nothing too difficult. The next couple weeks I will be getting my midterm results back which I am pretty anxious about. We went out for Halloween on Wed night but I did not stay out too late because I had taekwondo early the next morning. Either way it was pretty fun, but just not the same as American Halloween. During the week my roommate and I also watched the Lord of the Rings extended edition, just finished the last one today. Good way to spend 12 hours of your life. The weekend was jammed packed with man Korean activities. Friday morning I walked around taking pictures of my University for all of you to enjoy. Our campus is beautiful and it really shows its beauty with all the fall colors.

That afternoon I went to Dongdaemun, which is a traditional Korean market. They have a lot of fake brand name clothing which is pretty interesting to see. Also everyone tries to lure you into their shop with their "cheap" prices. Some can be pretty nice and like to ask where you are from, what are you doing in Korea, etc. I am trying to figure out gifts for everyone but so far turning up short. Don't worry though it will come through in the end :). That night we saw the new James Bond movie which I highly recommend. It was shown with Korean subtitles which were interesting to read because I can now understand some of it and it’s cool to see how they translate some of the English into Korean. Saturday morning we went and hiked Bukassan Mountain. Hiking is one of the most popular sports in Korea since the landscape is full of mountains. We took the bus there and it was packed with Koreans ready to start their day with a hike. The little hiking town just at the base of the mountain is full of little food shops to bring with you up to the top of the mountain and mountain gear stores. They not only have The North Face, but they also have The Red Face, The Black Face, and TheNobleFace. It’s pretty funny seeing all of these brands copying the popularity of North face but they seem to be doing pretty well. The hike itself took about 6 hours total, but we stopped for pictures and it was quite crowded at the top of the peak so there was a lot of standing around. The views from the top were amazing. We went on a beautiful day and you could see so much of the city landscape. The fall scenery was also amazing. After the hike we went out to Hongdae and stopped at a couple different bars and clubs. The last club we went was called Club Naked and was a very hip-hop club which included a very ghetto crowd mostly of American soldiers. It was pretty fun, although not the type of club I would go back to multiple times. Another fun-filled week of Korean adventures. Make sure to check out my new albums on facebook and I look forward to talking to you guys!
Cheers,
Sam

Midterm and Halloween

 

Hello Everyone,

 

Trying to be a little more consistent with my posts, so here is a decent update after two weeks. The week of the 15-19th was pretty uneventful. Spent most of it studying for midterms. School is a lot different here mostly because the midterm and finals are so heavily weighted in the grade. Some classes that is the only grading criteria! The library was insane during this time. Our library was recently built and is probably my favorite building on campus. I wish I could take pictures but no cameras are allowed. You check into a spot using the touchscreen sign in computers located around the library. There are 8 floors, with about half of them just for study areas. The 8th floor is a cafe and has one of the coolest views of Sinchon that I have seen so far at Yonsei. The main area I was studying was on the 4th floor and had 6 sections with a little under 2,000 seats. One evening I went to the library to check into a spot and there were only EIGHT spots left. Eight. And it is so quiet that when you turn on your computer and it makes the little start up sound everyone stares at you. This was probably the first time that I really noticed how different I am haha. I walk into the room and everybody looks up and sees you and you get the stare that says "woah a white person!". It is a very eerie feeling but something you just have to live with being a foreigner. I studied very diligently, mostly for Korean which I ended up getting a 91% overall! yay. The weekend of the 20-21 was then pretty uneventful. We went to Anam to visit some of our friends and check out their place. They live off campus and in apartment, which is being nice calling it that. It basically is a room with a bed and a desk and a dresser. But they get to live on their own, and they have a rooftop they can hang out on that has a very cool view of the city. It is not as "lively" as the Sinchon area that I live in so it was interesting to see a more city like area of Seoul. Midterm week proved to not be as stressful as I was expecting. The Korean exam went well and I did well on it. We will see my other midterm results, but I am confident I did just fine. This past weekend we celebrated with the casino on Friday (lost too much money) and then ended the night with some nice Cuban cigars. You can get a Montecristo for around 20 bucks, which is extremely cheap. Saturday we went to the Halloween party which was a lot of fun. I went as a "white gangster" or "ghetto suburbs white kid" or "white trash" didn’t really know how to define it. It was a pretty awesome getup with an USA michael jordan jersey, these super ghetto jeans, a mohawk, and kanye west sunglasses.

I got a lot of stares for it but it was pretty funny all the same. Halloween is relatively new to Korea so not as many people were dressed up. Hopefully this Wed (real Halloween) there will be more people dressed up. Well I took my last midterm an hour ago (Asian philosophy) and hopefully did well. Been keeping busy trying to figure out my trips for the winter semester and what not. Right now I am tentatively planning on Japan two weeks, Indonesia a week, Thailand a week, and then Vietnam for at least one, maybe two weeks. But in the meantime the next couple weeks I will be doing some mountain climbing and apple picking, and hopefully a temple stay! Oh and working on buying some gifts for you guys. Well that’s it for now, hope all is well. Tell next time,

Samwise

Hello All!

Sorry about the long time between posts. It's hard to find time and I also wanted to wait tell I could upload my pictures as well. Life here has been pretty good. I am about to start studying for midterms, which are in a week! Ill start off with explaining my living situation. We live in a new style dorm. I have a rommate from Australia and it has gone very smoothly so far! Our room is a little bigger then the typical American dorm and we get our own porch. We also have our own bathroom and shower in our room. The best part is we get air conditioning and heated floors! Our dorm is connected underground to our main study abroad building so all my classes are very close. We also have some great resturaunts and coffee shops close by (including the best sandwich place I have ever been to!) I will give a kind of run down about my typical week. I have class 5 days a week, but on Fridays I don’t start tell 4! The other classes I start at around 11 or 12, except Thursdays I start at 9 for Taekwondo! Taekwondo has been a very cool class and a good workout at the same time. I am thinking that next semester I am going to join the international taekwondo club and improve even more. My other classes are all relatively easy. I have a class titled "Comparing East Asian Cinemas" and we typically watch movies from different Asian countries and discuss how they express the culture and relate to other Asian movies. I am also taking "East Asian Philosophies" which is pretty self-explanatory, and Pre-Modern Korean history which unfortunately is my most boring class by far, but oh well I guess. My most difficult class is easily Korean Language. I was preparing for that so it’s not such a surprise. It is every day for two hours but it goes by fast since I am paying attention the entire time. Learning another language has easily been the most difficult thing of my educational career, but I am working on it each day so hopefully it gets better. Other than class during the week I work out and actually have been playing a lot of soccer. That’s always a fun time and its usually small games like 7-7 but it can get pretty competitive. It is also an easy way to remind me how out of shape I am haha. On Tuesday nights I usually try to attend Emmaus, which is a Christian Youth group on campus. It is very interesting and something I have never done before, but I have enjoyed it so far. Since I don’t have class tell 4 on Friday we usually go out Thursday nights. A popular area of Seoul that we go to is Hongdae, which is a quick subway ride from Sinchon (where I live). Every weekend has been a different adventure, and I will kinda break down what I have done each weekend.

Sept 8-9: That weekend we stayed around Seoul and partied. I think Saturday night we went to Mansion, which is a great place. One of my friends sister works at Mansion so we can get in for free. The Koreans seem to love when foreigners come to their clubs so I usually work my way up to the front and dance on stage haha. The nightlife is definitely different then back home. First off it’s legal to drink and you can drink anywhere (including the streets). Second they party for the entire night. We usually don’t get back tell around 4-5 in the morning. I've only been to a handful of clubs back home but the clubs here are really different. Some of them are very spacious and you can dance your heart out, otherwise some are super packed and it feels like you are at a house party. It is a ton of fun though and we try to go out at least once during the week.

Sept 15-16: This was a very fun weekend because it was the weekend of the "Yonko" games. The yonko games are a competition between Yonsei University (mine) vs Korea University in 5 different sports. They are baseball, ice hockey, basketball, soccer, and rugby. We watched the baseball game (okay), the rugby game (okay) and the soccer game (not very good at all). I was pretty disappointed with the level of play, but the Yonko games are not about the actual games but the cheering and school pride. We were literally standing and cheering the entire game. They have their own cheering squad that leads different types of cheers. We even had 3 different cheering "practices" before the games so we could learn the chants and such. It was a very different experience from back home. I thought college sports had school spirit, but it was nothing compared to the Yonko games. Afterwards on Saturday the alumni hosted a party at Yonsei. They had free food, free beer, and a live concert.

 

This was also very fun. Oh we also watched an Australian rules football game "footie". One of my buddies is a very big supporter of one of the teams playing (Collingwood) and got us all to go and watch it with them. Footie is actually a very fun game and much more exciting to watch on tv then American football.

Sept  22-23: This weekend we went outside of the city to a small village called Namhae in the Southeastern corner of Korea. This was a ton of fun and nice to finally get out of the city. The group consisted of about 40 people around the ages of 20-30 so that was nice, but the majority of them were English teachers. I really enjoyed talking to them and hearing their experience so I can prepare myself and figure out where I want to teach English after undergrad and before I head off to grad school. We stayed in traditional Korean houses and slept on the floor (more comfortable then you would think). On Saturday we went Coastering (kinda like cliff diving) and snorkeling. That night we had a traditional Korean seafood dinner and a bonfire on the beach. The next day we went sea kayaking which was a ton of fun and a great workout. We ended up getting back to Seoul around 10 that Sunday night. It was a great trip and very nice to finally see the Korean countryside and go to the ocean.

our house!

 

Sept 29-30: This weekend was not too special, as most people were gone for the Chuseok Holiday (Korean Thanksgiving). I know we went to the casino which was a lot of fun. We also smoked Cuban cigars there and basically felt like bosses haha. Another night we were in Hongdae and ended up accidently going to a singles party. This was very entertaining because one of the guys there kept inviting me up on stage. I was dancing up there and having a great time while all my friends were dancing and laughing down below. I didn’t realize tell after that they were laughing AT me because the guys that invited me up there were gay and dancing behind me haha. So here I am the dumb American dancing up front while I have these gay Koreans dancing behind me and having no idea that they were trying to hit on me haha. My roommate has some great pictures of me dancing like an idiot while these Korean men are dancing behind me.

The following week we had three days off of school for holiday. One of the days I got a full body message, which felt amazing. Another day we went to a Chuesok festival where we got to experience old Korean culture and sightsee some more. We also went to the free Psy concert (Singer of "gangnam style")which was amazing. On Saturday we went to see the fireworks which were really cool. They had four different countries do their own separate shows, so the firework show lasted about 2 hours. The best part of it though was going to the actual firework show. Everybody in Korea it seemed was trying to go so people were fighting to get on the subway and walk through the streets. We were walking through the streets to the fireworks and it felt like we were walking through a house party since there were so many people.

 

Oct 13-14: This past weekend we went on a trip through the international program at our school. It was only 20,000 won (about 18 us dollars) and boy was it only worth that much haha. It was very disorganized and we ended up being on the bus much longer than we thought, but it was still fun seeing a different part of Korea and getting free food.

Studying abroad has been an amazing experience already and I still have 8 months left. I miss everyone back home but being here is a truly once in a lifetime experience. The coolest part about the trip is living in a different culture and meeting people from all over the world. It is fun sharing cultures and seeing what is important to other people from different nationalities. Just today I had to explain to my roommate what "homecoming" is haha. (after trying to explain it I realized how weird it probably sounds to people who have never heard of homecoming). Like last Saturday we were talking politics and it was so interesting to hear other people’s perspectives from different areas of the world. That would be the main reason why you should study abroad, to meet different people and live in a different world. The culture shock has not been too overwhelming. I am living in the second most populated city in the world, so it is very capitalistic. There are the usual fastfood areas and popular fashion sights. The biggest culture shock has been learning other cultures and also going outside to rural Korea. I am excited to get back home and share my experience with other friends of mine that are also currently studying abroad.

I think that is it for now. I will try to be more consistent with my blog posts so the week’s events are fresher in my head. If you have any questions about anything please comment on the blog or message me and we can have a conversation! Next week is midterms so I’ll be spending the week/weekend studying unfortunately :/ but after that is Halloween and we are going to a Halloween party in gangnam which should be pretty fun!

 

 

Well that’s all for now, hope to hear from you guys soon!

Love,
Samuel Michael Luby

My First Post

Hello Friends,

Finally I seem to have the time to create my first blog post. I can't believe I have only been here a week, it seems like I have been here for at least a month. I started off with the most uncomfortable plan ride inbetween two men that lasted for 14 hours. Finally I got off and sought to be picked up by the Yonsei services. It took almost an hour to drive to the University, but in that time I got to talk to a Korean student and see some of the landscape. Mountains, rivers, and of course millions of people. I have never lived in a city before so this all seems so new to me. Everyday you see so many people and walk along streets that you swear you have never seen before. There is so many shops and resturants and they all seem to be open 24 hours a day. The first night one of my new friends bought a tshirt in a department store at 11 at night! The following next couple days consisted of orenitation and getting situated into my new home. We went to Itaewon, which is a very touristy area, and got the mundane shopping needed to live in the dorms. The dorms, by the way, have air conditioning! and overall much nicer then the ones back at Gustavus. Each room even gets their own personal shower and toilet room. We spent our first Saturday night in Itaewon and went to a very traditional Korean resturaunt. We had to take our shoes off and sit cross legged as well.

This picture is a very broad picture of what the seating looked like. That night was the first night that one of us felt the wrath of Soju! It is basically vodka mixed with water and lemon, but it is cheaper then water. The weird thing is that Koreans drink it every time they dine out for lunch of dinner. It is almost disrespectful to not have a bottle of soju during the meal. My roommate was the victim of soju this night, and many good stories were born from this experience. Since then I have made more friendships and gone to a couple of other different places. The nightlife here is unbelieveable, and all the prices relatively cheap. There is always clubs you can go to and bars that serve beer for less then 2,000 won (less then 2 US dollars). School doesnt start tell the 3rd so we have been taking advantage of the free days by going out at nights. The campus itself is very large, but extremely beautiful. Come fall time and I will be taking many pictures to post for you guys to see. This blog will be mostly for updating on my daily travels and what not, but if you want to see my pictures go to my facebook page. Please, do not judge my writing skills. I will not be reviewing each blog nor correcting the puncation nor the spelling. I'm sure some of you will have fun doing that on your own :). Well thats it for now, I'm not too sure how often I will be doing this but if something significant happens or if im bored ill make sure to update it. Remember, my skype name is samwise.luby and you can IM me on that so we could text that way if you would like. Literally everywhere in Korea has wifi so its super easy.

Until next time!

 

Sam