Day 8 began with Zenn moving to Yonsei dormitories! We took a cab down and I went along to help her with her luggage. The cab driver was chatting with us and he revealed that his daughter is a SHINee fansite OTL but we didn’t ask who God bless him he was so proud and supportive
Her dorm is actually quite spacey I’m jealous! ):
blurred pic damn! But the light was bad and i left the house immediately after waking up so no camera LOL
I doubt our dorm is gonna be this spacey!
We met up again with Sarah and Dinny (once again i think im spelling it wrong) and Shaun (the yonsei shaun not the hostel one) and we had some yummy tofu soup! My favorite in Singapore! But so spicy here 😦
We hung around abit more and I returned to the hostel. I wasn’t really in the mood to do any traveling and decided to just go home and rest. I also decided to save money by eating the hostel bread for dinner.
HOSTEL UPDATES!
As i was lazing around, a new roomie entered! She started speaking to me in Korean and for a while it was okay. Then after a few minutes she tentatively approached me and asked if I’m a Korean, and I said i’m not. Then she asked if I’m from China OTL T.T She was really nice and very quirky, she was eager to keep striking a conversation with me and was just so warm and friendly. We spoke a bit in half Korean and half English and she invited me over to view some videos. At first I thought it was some random videos and it turned out it was videos she made herself! It was a very nifty app called Magistro or something like that. She showed me videos of herself traveling that day and then asked if I wanted to make a video. Just like that, we took random videos acting cute and also invited Sasha, another exchange student from Sogang in that dorm, to join us.
She started talking about her travels and I asked her when she was leaving. She said tomorrow, cuz she wants to go see Insadong and return back to Busan that day. She asked if I’ve been to Insadong and I said nope and she then asked if I have plans tmr. So that’s how we settled on going Insadong together! And officially, the first Korean friend and technically unnie because she’s older than me, that I’ve made in Korea! And school hasn’t even started yet!
I think that’s really the beauty of staying in hostels, people who come and go here are mostly alone, especially those who stay in the 6-bed girls dorm haha. There’s a sort of automatic mutual kindness between travelers that I’ve seen often on this exchange. It’s like an unspoken bond is formed instantly when you know you’re a stranger in a foreign place, and this stranger you see before you is exactly the same. Even if you both are too different in personality and background, at that moment you are companions bonded by circumstance. I personally find it so beautiful because it’s friendship forged in the purest of intentions. Too often we are settled in our comfort zone and never find the need to spare a smile or start a conversation unless it serves a purpose to us. I really think traveling has pushed me out of this comfort zone and in the process, i’ve heard so many beautiful stories and met so many incredible people. Grateful for the journey so far and looking for more to come. I always tell people who ask me how’s Korea so far, that the most interesting part of it is the people. Not the sights or activities or food, but the people that come and go.
I have quite a few things to talk about Insadong and the travel with Yumi unnie, so I’ll leave that for another day as I’ve got to sleep and rest for skiing!!!!!! (This is Day 10 that I’m typing this it’s 1:20am and i just ate bread and egg and i’ve got to wake up at 6am to catch the shuttle bus it’s okay it’s exchange so #yolo)
darmawanders 