My Travels

Barcelona!

2009-02-16T01:59:00.001-08:00

Just got back from Barcelona! We had a wonderful weekend there! It's a very, very cool city, but i'm definitely glad i'm studying in Sevilla! Barcelona is HUGE and there are TONS of foreigners. Everyone speaks english!!

Hm so friday we left sevilla at about 9:30 pm and my friends Chelsea, Walker and I flew into a city called Reus, about an hour and a half outside of Sevilla. So we had to take a bus to the city. Then we tried to take a cab to where our hostel was, but the cab driver, i think, was driving in circles and screwing us over pretty much. and he pulled over and was like, okay get out and go straight! so we get out and walk around and realize, we have no idea where this hostel is, so we start asking around for the street that it's on and NO ONE knew. After a LOT of wandering aimlessly, we finally got to our hostel. The hostel was pretty cool, a lot of random paintings on the wall and stuff haha, but i decided i love hostels! just a bunch of like.. 20 somethings in one place, traveling.. pretty fun. Our room probably had like. 15 people in it? Me and 3 of my friends were all in there together. each bed had kind of like.. walls around it and a mattress and a locker for your stuff. obviously not a really nice place, but good enough to come back and sleep. oh yea and we had to pay 3 euro for a blanket!!!! stupid.

On saturday, julia and i woke up at 9 am and got complimentary breakfast at the hostel. then we walked to the sagrada familia. we got really lost a couple of times but managed to make our way there.. it's a really awesome temple that was designed by gaudí and what he dedicated the later part of his life to working on. BUT the annoying thing its STILL under construction! it was started in 1882! so it was hard to get good pictures cuz there are cranes and stuff all over the place. but it was still really cool, i want to go back and see it if it ever gets done!
then we met up with my friends kelly and hannya and we went and saw some more gaudí houses! i wish i had my camera, but i'll steal pics from my friends and put them up on picasa or something.. so interesting and unique!! then we ate lunch and took a siesta and went to the picasso museum. it was a pretty extensive museum that had paintings from all the different periods of his life so it was cool to see how his art developed throughout his life.. except it went from like his late works to his earliest works and then to like the middle. interesting. very cool.

sunday we got up, ate breakfast and went back to sleep haha, and then we tried to go to the olympic stadium but we accidentally just went to the olympic port cuz we didnt have the map unfolded all the way so we didnt see where the stadium was and thought it was at the port.... yeaa anyway tho and then we got DELICIOUS lunch.. steaak!! mmm. then we went to Parque Guell which is an absolutely gorgeous park designed by gaudí. i cant really describe it, but i'll put pics up when i get a chance!!!

for dinner we had chinese food at this place called Wok to Walk and it was AWESOME .. reallly good, maybe just cuz we'd been craving chinese food all day haha. then we stayed up late just wandering the city and got up at 4 am today to take a cab to the airport to catch our 7 am flight. i couldnt sleep on the plane either so i'm sooo tired right now but i have to go to class and do a bunch of other stuff today blaaahhh!!!

but yea it feels soo good to be back in sevilla! barcelona is awesome but it doesnt really feel like spain.. i definitely want to go back sometime though and see some of the stuff we didnt have time for and go to parque guell when its warm and sunny out!! =)!

kk well i have to head out for class! its the first real week of classes cuz last week we just went to whatever classes we felt like and got syllabi and stuff, but today we have to finalize our schedules.. eehh i am still deciding between 2 lit classes!! so i have to figure that out!

hope everyone is doing wellll

Week 3

2009-02-04T14:02:00.000-08:00

Weird to think i havent even been here for 3 weeks yet.. just about.. but it feels like i have been here for a couple months or so haha.

not much goin on over here .. i started class last monday and my class is Social History of Contemporary Spain.. and i really like it!! its sooo interesting, and like we have lecture for 1 hr and a half and then for the other hr and a half we go see historic sites around sevilla, so that has been REALLY cool. my camera is broken, so obviously i dont have any pics, but i will go back and take pics of a lot of these places or just steal them from my friends haha. its been really fun tho, my prof, carlos sanchez, knows everything!! seriously. really smart and fun. i like him a lot.. i was thinking about taking his class during the regular semester, but he teaches history, and i´m already taking 3 hist classes.. so.. i dont think so. but we´ve seen some really cool stuff, like the catedral is the 3rd largest cathedral in the WORLD and it is absolutely awesome.. i won´t bore you guys about all the cool stuff i learned about it haha but its really cool. and then we saw the alcazar which is pretty much a bunch of old palaces that are all diff styles of architecture from different time periods. tomorrow we´re goin to the art museum! so that should be pretty cool. the only thing i dont like is that i have to write a 10 page paper... i have to interview 12 spaniards and then write about what they say for 10 pages.. blahhhh oh well though

also, i am sick. which is no fun. but sevilla is having an unusual amount of rain this season, apparently.. and i think going from cold and rainy to humid all the time is making me sick... also, a bunch of my friends here got sick in like the first week so i could´ve just got it from them, too.

hmm what else.. i´ve been enjoying lots of good spanish food.. oh man, u guys know how much i like potatoes, right.. so we have potatoes ALL the time.. like every meal just about .. potatoes in some form or another hahaha. its awesome. a couple of my friends and i went to tapas the other day and we all got something different and every single thing we got came with potatoes. LOL. but yea i really like everything mi señora has made me so far. tomorrow, we are having pasta! oh haha sometimes i have hot dogs for dinner and its funny, like mi señora gets out of some french bread and puts like 3 hot dogs in french bread, like a sandwich! its not bad, its just kind of funny and .. a different way of eating hot dogs. speaking of dogs, both our dogs are super cute.. and kiryu likes me now, he doesnt growl anymore haha!

soo in conclusion, i am loving sevilla so far! i start regular classes on monday so i´ll let u all know how that goes.

there are pics on fb and i added a couple more on picasa!

http://picasaweb.google.es/karasoo02

love you all!!

Sevilla Week 1

2009-01-24T09:45:00.000-08:00

so this week has been pretty hectic. i dont want to bore you by writing about every single thing i've eaten or done so i'll just stick to important things.

my host family is really great so far. i live in a nice apartment with mi senora, carmen, and her daughter, sandra, who's 27. they are both reallly nice. carmen is a surgeon, and sandra is a translator for english, which is cool. they both speak really good english, but they never speak in english to me.. and its helpful cuz if i dont know how to say something, i can just ask. but yea my spanish is not that great right now.. its hard to adapt to listening to spanish spanish and i havent spoken it in a reallly long time, but it'll get easier quickly i think, especially once classes start up and stuff.

oh yea i have 2 dogs.. a little yorkie or something like that named nala and a japanese enu? inu? or something.... named kiri-u .. nala is really smelly and small and she blends in with the ground so i step on her a lot and then she like wails... and she comes in my room and smells all my stuff while continuously grunting like a pig. lol but i dont mind, she is just funny. kiri-u(sp) is pretty ok but i dont think he likes me very much.

i live by a LOT of ppl in my program, so its really nice for like meeting up and going places together.. especially cuz sevilla is really fricken confusing. there is no logical order to anything.. but luckily its really easy to get to school and the ciee building from where my house is.

this week has been really long.. we've just had a ton of meetings and stuff.. informative sessions and that kind of thing. we've done a lot of touring and walking.. LOTS of walking. i dont think i'll lose any weight tho cuz i've been eating SO much. my host family is always like.. eat more eat more! and then they pile more stuff on my plate. and then they have dessert afterwards...

today we went to this town called italica where there a bunch of roman ruins.. it was ok.. there was like a big gladiator theater there, so that was realllly sweet!

tomorrow we're going on a carriage ride of the city so that will be really fun i think!

i dont really know what else to say.. i'm really tired a lot cuz of all the walking we have to do, but the siesta is awesome!! haha

i start my 'intensive' session on monday where i'll just be taking one class. its at 6 pm so i can sleep in every day!!!

its hard to find good internet around here though, i'm at like a cafe sandwich place right now and its just really slow.. and my computer wont connect to the wireless at my house so thats annoying. so i cant get on aim or skype too much, but hopefully i'll be able to find some good wireless soon

anyway i dont remember my address, but i'll post that soon, and i'll post pics as soon as i can

my phone number is 34 663 465 118 so if u feel like spending a lot of money u can call me ;) as long as u remember that there's a 6+ hour time diff... also u can leave me msgs on my regular cell phone and i can check them thru skype so just call it and leave a msg so i can hear all ur beautiful voices

love and miss u all!

2008-10-27T05:49:00.000-07:00

midterms are over!

2008-07-22T04:21:00.000-07:00

midterms are over~!!! in celebration, here are some pics of my life in korea!! yaaay

mi amigo david y yo

my friend anthony and i.. about to eat some bday cake!

hey mom and dad.. another piercing!!! cute, isn't it

about to get dirtier than i've ever gotten in my life.. Mud Festival! u basically go and dip yourself in this warm clay like mud stuff and then go on muddy slides and swim in muddy water. its pretty disgusting. but fun nonetheless

there was a semi formal dinner at the president's house.. my friend serena is on the left, the girl in the middle is chang ji-hae, she is a yonsei student!

serena anna and i getting ready to go white water rafting

i cant believe i have only a couple of weeks left here, time has gone by so fast! i'm definitely not ready to come home yet, but i do miss everyone from home and certain foods.. like mac & cheese and hot dogs.. but i hear they have hot dogs at the movie theater here, so i'll have to look into it. i realllly want some steak too.. i went to the outback here, but the steak was kind of pricey so i got something else.... korean food is sooo good though! and i've gotten 5008 times better at using chopsticks, its pretty awesome.

wooow i'm so behind!!

2008-07-13T00:36:00.001-07:00

my 'fam' here in seoul!

MAH NEW HAIIRR

wow sorry i havent written in awhile, i have had a lot going on!! super busy with class.. we have midterms this thursday! =( and this past weekend i went to the dmz and white water rafting.. both were amazing!!

this is at the DMZ.. this is in North Korea, it's called propaganda village. that nk flag is one of the biggest flags in the world.. i forget how many people they said it takes to put it up, but it's some ridiculous amount... no one lives in propaganda village but at night they turn on all the lights in the village so its super bright..

a south korean soldier in the jsa building where the south koreans and north koreans get together to talk

same building.. those little things on the table represent the border line between north korea and south korea... this picture was taken in north korea looking towards south korea! i was in north korea!!

a building on the north korean side.. there's a north korean soldier standing there if u look close... he was watching us with binoculars. the building to the left is the one i was in in the pictures above.

we went to a korean amusement park... they had some awesome rides.. and some random stuff.. like these giant animals u can ride around on haha

the library at my school is aaawesome! these are some touch screens that u can use to get articles and stuff i think

touch screen game table.. i've never actually played this wedding one.

one of the giant touch screens at the lib. u can do a crapload of stuff on this .. the other one is a touch screen memo board where u can write messages and leave them up for other ppl

the outside of the lib. it was made to look like a bookshelf. pretty sweet, eh??!

i'll try to get more pics up of my school soon, it's beautiful! but SOO hilly, it's so tiring to go from one side of campus to the other.

my apartment!!

2008-06-30T13:53:00.001-07:00

our living room

kitchen

entry way

the view

my room - anna and i had to push our beds together to get to the closet

back in seoul!

2008-06-27T01:11:00.000-07:00

okay i'm putting the pictures at the top because that is where the blogger puts them i guess and its a hassle to move all of them down, so here are pics

this is my roomie, anna! she's great!! koreans like to pose like this for pictures so we thought we should try it out

the bulguksa temple.. the stairs are a national treasure i think. there's another national treasure by my apartment but somebody burned it down!! so it is now under construction

view from saekguram grotto

making pottery.. the guy in the pic pretty much made my whole thing for me haha

my ciee group at the hyundai car place

water world at hotel in gyeung ju

view from hotel in gyeung ju.. did i mention

that korea

is absolutely beautiful? green green green! mountains everywhere.. covered in trees.. so its like a green wonderland. i havent been to many places but i have never seen any place so green

i have had a very busy week!

on tuesday we left seoul on a bus and went on a 3 day field trip

first we went to a place called yong in folk village where we saw a traditional dance performance and people jumping on see saws and doin

g flips on them and stuff, it was really cool! we basically just saw old houses and jails and hospitals in the village and how life was in korea hundreds of ye

ars ago.

an old lodging for women.. men and women had to live separately, but the men could visit the women

traditional dance and music

then we took a 4 hour bus ride to gyeong ju where we ate and went to our hotel. our hotel was really super nice and it had a water world outside it, so

i played water polo with a bunch of ppl and then we sang karaoke later at night, which was pretty fun.

the next day we visited the hyundai car factory and made pottery with help from a pro.. we later went to see saekguram grotto, which is like a place of worship where they have a giant buddha shrine.. we weren't allowed to take pics of the buddha but it was really awesome! after the grotto we went to the bulguksa temple where there were many buddha and boddhisatvas shrines. there is also a korean national treasure at the temple... i think its some ridiculously old stairs. then we walked around another folk village which was sort of interesting but we were all really tired and it was really hot and sunny outside.

i will be posting pics of my apartment shortly!!!!

hope u aren't missing me too much!

Seoul Day 2

2008-06-23T05:01:00.000-07:00

this morning my current roomie, jenny, and i walked around seoul and went and ate some sandwiches at a cute little restaurant... we had a view of the streets so i did a lot of people watching... all the girls are very fashionable and dressed up.. heels and dresses.. skirts.. occasionally some jeans with wedges or heels...

anyway then we met up with the rest of the ciee summer group.. everyone seems really nice.. no one really speaks very much korean.. jenny speaks a bit though and she taught me how to say "do you speak english?" "how much is that?" "how are you?" "i am well"

we went to our university.. yonsei university... and walked around a bit.. it's huge and very hilly. i haven't taken any pictures yet but i will soon.. then two ciee students who have been in korea for the whole school year took us on a tour of shinchon, which is the area around the university... it's totally just like a college town cuz there are like 5 schools in the area i guess... lots of cheap-ish food, shopping and bars. its so cute too, i will have to take pictures of it..

we went to a couple other neighborhoods too.... basically we just walked around all day long.

we ate lunch at this restaurant where we sat on the floor and ate with chopsticks.. it was realllly good i had bulgogi for the first time.. its amazing!

also, they have dunkin' donuts here... except they are like really nice inside!

in the evening we went to this show called Nanta and its like a drumming comedy musical thing. it was about some cooks, and it will probably sound dumb if i describe it to you.. but think of something sort of resembling stomp but with ridiculously awesome drumming, taekwondo, magic, dancing, fire and a lot of funny-ness.

now i am back in my hotel room and very tired so i'm going to go sleep.. we have to wake up at 8 to go on our field trip thing for 3 days... we'll be visiting some palaces and things so i'll post pics soon! I think the cities we're going to are yongin, gyeong ju, ulsan and andong.. so u can google map them or something if u are bored.... !

oh and one thing i have found really funny about koreans is that couples wear matching shirts a lot.. hahaha! so cute!

oh yea and korean traffic is even crazier than mexican traffic!!! cars and motorcycles like go up on the sidewalk to get around traffic and totally ignore stoplights sometimes... one of our guides said that they see traffic regulations as more of suggestions.. hahaha. one of the ciee students got hit by a car.. this car just did not stop at all at a red light and the guy, andrew, tore ligaments in his leg. and the buses are just crazy! but its fun gotta love public transportation

i have arrived

2008-06-22T03:13:00.000-07:00

i arrived in korea at about 4 o clock pm, which is 3 am for you.. so while you were all sleeping cozily in bed, i was arriving in a country halfway around the world.. where i can neither speak nor understand the language in the slightest...

so i will tell you about my journey.

i got on the plane in G.R., flew for half hour to o'hare, then got back on a plane. it is called Korean Air.. it is a huge plane... three rows of 3 seated section

. i dont know of that makes sense.

it was like this: - - - - - - - - -

we were greeted by a large amount of korean stewardesses who bowed and said greetings that i didn't understand so i just bowed back and smiled.. so begins my career in bowing.

anyway, so i have a window seat and there are already two ppl sitting in the row so the first guy gets out and then i climb over the other guy and literally fall onto him while trying to maneuver my backpack. oh man. he was very forgiving though.

at some point they brought us a meal... i can only describe it as Beef Tips and Noodles from phelps because that was exactly what it was.. only maybe a SLIGHT bit better. at this point i find out the guy next to me isn't korean because i asked him

what the stewardesses were saying to the row in front of us before they got to our row... and he was like ' i dont know, i'm not korean, i thought u were '

turns out he is from Hong Kong, his name is Jackie.. (chan?).. he was visiting his parents in chicago and he said he sort of liked it there... it was his fir

st time.. he said.. very different from hong kong.. a lot less busy!

anyway so we flew over canada and through alaska then a little bit over china.. they made us put the blinds down for awhile so i didnt really get to see much.. but a lot of parts of canada were really beautiful! and i took some pictures of russia...

So isn't that preettty. china! wow

anyway so i'm in a hotel at seoul right now. it's nice. we are staying here for 2 nights, then going on a little 'field trip' then we're moving into our apartments... yeaaaa!

i dont think anything has really sunk in quite yet..

but i'm tired and just thought i would make a blog so my parents can read it and be happy. =)

you guys should call me!

my number is

82 10 8659 9216

its free for me, long distance rates for you

keep in mind.. 13 hour time difference here.

lots of love!