Today was a more expensive day. But I felt like it was totally worth it for what I did throughout the day today!

I’m super glad that Marcius told Stef and I about today’s event. And I’m really happy that I went as well – I think the most important lesson that I’ve learned today is that money is not always the most important thing. If it gets you a good experience, then every dollar (or won, in this case) is worth it.

This event was hosted by the Sayul Korea Club, and even though I’m not actually part of the club I still went to the event :’) The people there were all super nice and welcoming, and our ‘tour guides’ were really friendly as well.

We got to rent out hanboks for the entire day (15 000KRW) – very worth it in my opinion since we wore them for at least 9 hours! And it was super fun (although also a bit strange) to take the subway and the bus while wearing the hanbok. Since we were in a large group it didn’t matter as much, and we also got compliments from the people we walked past – some people even wanted to take pictures with us.

The Korean Folk Village in Yongin was really amazing, and the atmosphere there really matched the clothes we wore. We saw lots of things, like the traditional punishment methods, traditional games, and what the housing used to look like.

After the Folk Village, we went to eat 닭갈비, stir-fried marinated chicken in red pepper sauce, in Sinchon. I was not the happiest with this since I can’t really eat spicy food and I’ve already had this before (and I know it’s spicy), but after washing off the red pepper paste it was tolerable. I like the Sinchon store more than the Hongdae store because the sides are self-service, meaning I can eat as much of the salad as I want (free veggies!).

Plus it’s Heather’s birthday – Bianca and Marcius were nice enough to buy her a cake and we all sang Happy Birthday to her!

Then we ended off our night at 설빙, a popular Korean style shaved ice shop. Tonight we tried the chocolate one and the injeolmi one, and we all agreed that having 2 dry shaved ices at the same time was not the best idea. I really want to try the mango one soon!

I’m really glad that I decided to go with Stef today to the Korean Folk Village and wear the hanbok, even though I know that there are a lot of other places where you can just try it on for free. The experience about Korean culture was really awesome, and being able to spend time with all my new friends was really great as well. I really like the people that I met today and I hope that I’ll be able to spend more time with them while we’re all here in Korea!

Being on exchange is about building relationships and finding who you really are through interactions with other people while trying to have fun and study at the same time. I feel like today was one of the best days that I’ve had so far, which (again) goes to prove that having fun in Korea is not all about drinking and clubbing.. although it sometimes can be about that! Simply spending time with people that you can connect with on a personal level is really rewarding and fulfilling as well.