South Korea, Arrival: Incheon - Ansan - Seongnam

     Here I'm writing what I've promised you restizens earlier, days in the life in South Korea. This happened last year when I got my scholarship in The Academy of Korean Studies (AKS) which is located in Seongnam, Gyeonggi province. There were two students from my university who actually got picked by the AKS, me and Ayum. Ayum was from Korean Literature Department ("was" because she's graduated and at the moment is working in Samsung Electronics). The grantees of this program mostly majored Korean Literature, only less than 5 students majored other studies (including me). There were 28 grantees from around the world in total. Early warning: this post is gonna be kinda long because I actually had a very long yet exciting day even in the first day I arrived in South Korea. Thank you for staying still~^^

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Incheon

me at Incheon airport (excuse my bed face)

     After the not-so-long flight from Kuala Lumpur (6 hours), me and Ayum finally touched down in Incheon airport. As you see at the picture above, it was around 8AM. We were sleeping like beggars at the plane since our flight departure was at 2AM ㅠㅜ Once we arrived we were like, "oh so this is one of the best airports in the world... definitely deserves the title!" Everything is so fancy, well-managed, and sophisticated in Incheon (well compared to the airports in my country lol). We were picked up by Jinho (read: Jino) oppa (was a student of Hanseo University). We talked a lot inside the car whilst our car passing thru Incheon bridge. As a Korean, Jinho oppa speaks good English. Maybe that's why he could pass his pilot academy. My Korean ability was not so good that time, so meeting Koreans who speak English was such a relief.

     This might be personal, but there was this sweet moment when Jinho oppa asked, "you wanna listen to any song?" then Ayum answered, "어떤 노래도 괜찮아요 (any song is alright)," since we couldn't think of any song in head due to tiredness. Jinho oppa started to scroll down his playlist and then Seoul Song was played. Omg Jinho oppa got so much sense! Once I stepped my feet onto the Land of Morning Calm, the first song I listened to was a nice song that describes dynamic Seoul very well. Frankly, I'd never listened to that song before, but now every time Seoul Song is heard somewhere my brains abruptly think of that sweet moment.

it was raining in the infamous Incheon Bridge

Ansan

     Jinho oppa lives in chilly Ansan. A little trivia about this city, it lies south of Seoul, not so far from Incheon. But since our university is in Seongnam, it's nearer if we go from Incheon to Seongnam thru Ansan.

Incheon - Ansan - Seoul - Seongnam all in one map

      Jinho oppa is Ayum's friend who was an exchanged student in our university. He is now a pilot of Asiana Airlines. He was sooo nice, spent his time to pick us up, brought us to his house and meeting his parents, bought us lunch in Ashley, and brought us to watch movies in CGV. Couldn't ask for more ㅜㅠ His kindness was over the top. His family was superb! His mom was sooo pretty!!! This is not a compliment, this is a fact~ xD

     Unfortunately Jinho oppa couldn't accompany us to watch the movie due to his class schedule. He asked his younger brother Jinkyu to "substitute his presence" though! xD So me, Ayum, and Jinkyu headed to a mall in Ansan. Jinkyu also showed us his campus (Hanyang University) in the middle of journey to the mall. Oh btw, Jinkyu is two years younger than me and Ayum, so we banmal-ed* him. Lol.

CGV (and a slight of Jinkyu's face xD)

      We lined up for the ticket but the movie started in 2 hours so we decided to grab some lunch in Ashley. Ashley is a very nice restaurant (one of my favorites!) in South Korea. Its franchises are spread all over South Korea, I guess. If not, then probably only around Gyeonggi province.

Ashley!

     After loaded my belly with delicious food in Ashley, we went back to CGV to watch the movie and spent couple hours there until Jinkyu ringed us saying that he needed to do alba (part-time working) so his relative would pick us up in CGV. We waited in CGV lounge around half hour until a guy with plain white tee and wide smile approached us. This guy was none other than Seungyong oppa, our other angel. He was the one who then drove us all the way to Seongnam.

Ps. in case you restizens are curious on what movie that we watched that time, this is the answer...

The Amazing Spiderman ticket

Pps. it was kinda weird because that was technically the first time of me watching an English-spoken movie with Korean subtitle in a huge screen.

Seongnam

     The stupidest thing we've done when we were in South Korea was we forgot to change our USDs to KRWs because we had no time. Everything was in hurry. We wanted to change it once we arrived in Incheon but that was Saturday so most of money changers were closed. That led us to get treated by everyone and made us feel so bad for them. Even when we arrived in our university, we were so worn out and hungry. It was 9PM when we were planning to borrow some money to Shoghik, a participant from Armenia (whom I got close even before the program started), but I guess Seungyong oppa saw the hungry faces and pitied us (what a shame ㅜㅜ) so he offered us to grab dinner with him.

ddalkkalbi for the first dinner

    We had tasty dalkkalbi near our university and nice chitchat time. I learned that Seungyong oppa is a very shy yet sweet guy. He talked a little but smiled a lot! xD We headed back to the dorm and handed some gifts for Seungyong oppa before he drove back to Ansan. He looked so happy that he couldn't stop thanking us. This guy is so cute~^^

*banmal: casual/informal ways of speaking like you would with a friend or those younger than you

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     So yeah that was how my first day in South Korea, more or less. I think it was the most intense first day you restizens ever read. Lol. This post only talked about the first day, based on the duration I've spent my life in South Korea, means I still have gazilion stories to write. Please anticipate it a lot!^^*