Friday, May 31, 2019
Today was my last full day in Seoul (I will be posting for day 14, so be sure to check back). Today was my last time meeting with my class. Today was my last time wandering Ewha’s campus and surrounding shops. It would be a lie to say I’m not excited to go home. I’ve missed it and the people a bunch. But Ewha has been a pretty cool place.
Our class went well, and I think my in-country project went well too. All that’s left between me and the end of this class are two papers due at the end of the month. Then two more classes (one in July and one in the fall) till graduation. I’m doing quite the happy dance over here.
After class wrapped up I strolled through our alleys filled with shops and food stalls one last time, and finally tried the dumpling place I kept noticing and thinking, “maybe later.” This was my last chance! I carried them back to campus and failed at finding a shady spot to eat them in. Ewha’s campus is beautiful, but shady spots and outdoor seating with tables are hard to come by. Our downstairs patio of my building had some nice building shade, so I camped out there with dumplings. It was a good camping trip.
Today has been the best temperature so far in my opinion, around 75 ish. The temperature I packed two weeks of clothes for. The 80+ degree weather had been a surprise and I was happy I “over packed” and brought those 2 pair of shorts with me. Funnily, this happened to me in Denmark too. They had an odd warm spell during my month there. I guess this goes to show that when I travel somewhere for long distances, expect the weather not to match the weather app, by a lot.
Over the last two weeks, we didn’t have a lot of free time during the afternoon hours, which meant I kept missing my opportunity to stop into the Ewha Welcome Center, so today it turned into the Ewha Goodbye Center. It’s a cute museum on the history of the school. I knew some of the facts already, but it was nice to learn more about the place I had been living in for the last two weeks. For instance, Ewha means pear blossom, and there is no apostrophe in womans on purpose. It’s still unclear if it was a misspelling at first, but when the school opened in the 1800s there was only one student, hence “woman.” When Ewha became a university in the 40s, they added an “s” but didn’t change it to “women’s” to keep with tradition. I guess it bothers a lot of students, many of whom want to change the name to Ewha University, and eliminate the word woman all together. Perhaps we will see that change in the future.
After reading up on the history I spent some time walking along the campus again. I have only gone to school in urban areas, Marquette, DIS, Loyola, and now Ewha. Ewha has done the best in making you feel like you aren’t in the city. I suppose an argument can be made for Loyola’s Lakeshore Campus, but in my defense, I have only been there twice. Once for my dad’s MBA graduation, and this May to cheer on the full time students in my cohort at their graduation. While Ewha doesn’t have large fields and green spaces like Marquette’s Central Mall, Ewha has big trees and winding roads. Very little traffic throughout the campus and is quieter than in the city. I did question some of their pathway material as I tripped for the third time walking up the hill path, and really wondered if walking the path in heels is an entrance requirement for the school. I’ve never seen any of the local student fall, and here I am struggling with flats. I’ve decided I will miss this campus. It would have been cool to actually study here.
After my walk, I was rudely reminded how much stuff I brought with me to Korea and how much I bought in Korea as I tried to shove everything back in a suitcase, a backpack, and a bonus duffel bag I had brought in my suitcase. Thank goodness, because I’m bringing home lots of snack foods and those take up space.
I haven’t talked much about my dorm here, because, honestly, I haven’t spent too much time in it. I’ve been lucky to have really good dorms throughout my college career and this was no exception. If I were living here full time, figuring out a couch option would be nice, but for two weeks with two people, this was great. I believe I was staying in a graduate housing building, and I had a penthouse view, a bathroom in the room, and great sunlight.
Tonight, Loyola hosted our farewell dinner at Sosunjae in Samcheung Dong. Our welcome dinner had been Korean BBQ, so tonight we tried hansic, which means Korean food. Many people think that market/street food is traditional Korean food. While it’s a part of the Korean culture, locals see that as snack food. Hansic is “real food” for dinner.
We. Ate. Like. Royalty. Really, keep reading. Our meal consisted of nine dishes, don’t worry, I got photos of everything. The fish wasn’t my favorite, but it has the best story. I missed the name of it, but it was a dish that was only permitted to be eaten by Korean royals. Now you can find it all over Korea. The fish is first dried, then roasted and served with all the fixings.
Walking back to Ewha we were surprised to walk into the Ewha film festival. There were screens all over campus! They were contemporary films for the most part, very artsy, not quite my style. But we stopped and watch a few before packing our final things and going to bed for the last time in Korea (thank goodness, I miss my bed, my pillow, and my roommate) with plenty of alarms set so we wouldn’t miss our 6:50am pick up to the airport.
