Monday to friday, not so much routine.

20-05
Today we learned more consonants and vowels.
In my current class : the beginner class, there are only 8  students (including me).
The other people that were in my class before seem to be in different classes now.
No idea why. Probably because they already have done level one before.
So now it’s me, 3 Japanese girls, 1 Mongolian girl, 1 Vietnamese girl and 2 Chinese (a boy and a girl).
The Vietnamese girl (Nok Hwa) has a backpack with.. weeds on it and they look like the weed leafs the Dutch are familiar with, if you know what I’m saying.
It kind of makes me laugh because the girl wearing the backpack is such a cute and tiny girl.

Roommate report : My roommate left and didn’t return before I went to sleep. I’m kind of worried.

21-05
The more days pass by, the faster the learning pace seems to go.
Today we finished the Korean alphabet and we now progressed to more words and little sentences.
The sentences we learned today are mainly things the teacher would say like:
‘’Look here’’ or ‘’Read this’’.

The Chinese guy is so funny.
Today he almost fell asleep during class but his arm somehow slipped on his desk and the noise woke him up.
Me and the Chinese girl were almost dying because of laughter.
This guy is so clueless but yet so macho.
I didn’t know that combination was even possible.

Roommate report: My roommate is still gone but today I found out her toothbrush was missing so she is probably on a stay-over school trip.

22-05
We learned so many things in class today.
Finally, we progressed on to grammar and that meant I finally got some answers to many questions I had regarding the difference between writing and pronunciation.
In Korean some things you write a certain way are not pronounced the way they are written.
That got me to thinking “If you do not pronounce a word the way it is written, why would you even bother to write it that way!?’’
And then a sense of reality got through to me : ‘’In Dutch.. you will witness even more difficulties regarding this subject’’.
I shouldn’t complain.
In fact.. I should be thankful that Korean easier than Dutch.

Today we also learned classroom words like: desk and chair.
Oh, I forgot to mention the fact that the teacher made us all pick cards.
Each card had a different number on them: 1 to 8.
We had to sit in the order of the numbers (probably so we will be triggered to talk to different people)
But there was no number 8 present: (Guess who was late for class today?)
Right..
Ajusshi from China.
He came at 11 because apparently he drank too much the day before.
Our Chinese girl replied the teacher : Sha Hwi Hau (his name looks like this in hangul) meori apayo.
Yes. In fact our Chinese Ajusshi was dealing with a severe hang-over.
When he came in he was scolded by our teacher.. but that didn’t stop him from playing around with his cellphone.
The teacher took his phone.
Luckily for him the teacher was putting the word descriptions (if that makes sense) on objects in the classroom.
And maybe you can guess what one of the words was..
Yes, it was indeed: PHONE!
This led to Ajusshi’s phone being taped to the school board and was turned into a learning material.
Convenient for us, but not so much for him.

Then the word air conditioner showed up and for your information: our aircon is located on the ceiling.
Luckily we had a man in our class : Ajusshi.
So he got onto the chair and… was still too short to reach it.
So we laughed at him.
Then, he tried jumping up to the ceiling.
Which worked.. for a while, that is.
Then Ajusshi figured it was too much work for him to put it back and transformed himself to:
AIRCON AJUSSHI.
It was a fun class.

Roommate report: WHY IS SHE STILL GONE? Where could she have gone to?

23-05
These days I’m wearing my high heels more often.
I want to be pro in walking in them like a lot of other Korean girls.
Wearing high heels to school: SKIT!

Today to my surprise Ajusshi showed up in time.
And he had to sit next to me (number one) since there were no other seats because there were a few teachers in training joining us for class today.
We repeated the stuff we learned the days before and learned useful phrases like:
Is this a chair? Yes, it’s a chair.
And Is this a desk? No it’s not a desk. It’s a chair.

Then it was time to team up with the classmate next to us and ask each other questions to work out which object we were talking about.
We got a paper with pictures of different objects but mine had half of the description and the classmate would get a paper with the other half of the descriptions.
That’s why you had to ask which item it was.
I had to team up with Ajusshi, but he didn’t know the hangul for many objects so I had to check his paper many time to know what the guy was trying to tell me.
The teachers in training were watching us and laughing.
(In the end, I got a compliment from Ajusshi: Te told me that I’m smart because I can read all the hangul!)

Then after that inconvenience, we had to ask our other classmates these questions.
We could pick the classmate we wanted to ask the question ourselves.
Everyone did well.
Of course Ajusshi had to perform one of his clueless creative tricks.
He tried to ask Li Soo rin (The Chinese girl) a question but he couldn’t remember a certain word for what he was pointing at. I can’t remember which object he was holding but this is how it went:
Ajussi (Looking as confused as ever) stuttering:
 Is..This… THIS… T H I S.. and then he blurted out: LI SOO RIN?
He held his object in the air while asking : Is this Li Soo rin?
Li Soo rin looked at him and was like NO, YOUR NOT SUPPOSED TO ASK LIKE THAT!
The whole class was dying of laughter.
And the teacher was like : Yes.. Sha Hwi Hau, VERY creative.
So Li Soo rin just went a long with it saying: No, that is not Li Soo rin. That is a ..

When class ended I quickly went to eat something and I also had a shower.
I wanted to go to Daegu station (aka Donseongro!) for shopping.
It was a good idea to explore the Donseongro area because I got to see many sides of that area:
The traditional, the mixed cuisine, the trendy and the expensive
I bought a few CD’s(2 new : BTS and 4Minute and 2 second hand : Super Junior M and Mika Nakashima as Nana) and some more stationery.
I had some ddeokbeokki which was absolutely DELICIOUS, but so damn spicy.

When walking back to Daegu station I came across a large group of people and in front of the large group of people were about 6 people and 2 policemen.
I didn’t understand much about was going on but while watching the lady I understood this:
“HE HIT ME, LIKE THIS LIKE THIS’’ while hitting the policeman.
It crossed my mind : If this happened in the Netherlands, police would not just stand there while someone hits them.. I think.
The large group of people were such sensatie zoekers.
My mom always uses this word when she describes people who like drama and stand around to see what happens.
If you translate it directly to English it would be : sensation seekers.
In Korea the number of sensatie zoekers is quite big and it surprises me every time.

I took the wrong bus home (well it was the right bus.. but it had the wrong destination)
Then we got to the end of the route and I told the bus driver in Korean : This is not Daegu University?
THANK GOD FOR KOREAN CLASS.
He told me to sit down and dropped me of at Hanyang street and told me the bus I had to take.

Unfortunately. I didn’t listen.
This is a very important thing I will tell you : Busdriver’s Advice is HOLY.
Atleast.. maybe only in Korea. BUT DON’T EVER FORGET THIS.
I learned the hard way:
I took another wrong bus (on the stop it said Daegu University but it was probably the LONG route) and instead of sitting it through I got off at the middle of nowhere since it was the last stop.
I can’t even remember where but it was close to Ulseong.
Which is like more than 30 min north of Daegu University.
I panicked.
I was in the middle of NOWHERE and it was after 11 and I didn’t know when the last bus would come because I didn’t see stops with information on them anywhere.
And.. The dorm closes at 00:00.
I walked about for 10 minutes and the only thing that came to my mind was to wait for a taxi to pass by ( I saw one earlier, so there were definitely a few driving by)
So I waited for a taxi and waved my hands like an idiot.
I got in and told the taxi driver my destination.
It was hard but I managed to talk to him with the few Korean I could speak.

In the end I didn’t have enough money (5000 won short) so I asked the driver to stop at the main gate so I could get some money from the ATM.
Unfortunately that didn’t take any foreign cards.
Luckily on my way there I already figured out what I would do if my plan didn’t work.
I had some money in my room, in my dorm.
I explained to the driver : My card doesn’t work! BUT! I have money in my dorm and I got him to drive to my dorm.
I told him to wait and left my bag in the car so he wouldn’t think I was running away.
I quickly grabbed 10.000 won and returned to the car quickly.
I apologized for the inconvenience  and gave him the money.
He didn’t seem to care that much as he probably doesn’t really get customers in such a quiet place at that time.
I made it to the dorm just in time at 23:40.

Long story short : Perfect way to HAVE TO speak in Korean and Bad way to have to spend money.

Roommate report : Yep, she's still gone.