It’s been more than four weeks now that we are here in Seoul. After some orientation time most of us are becoming very comfortable in this interesting, diverse and HUGE city.
Fortunately the weather has been very good what was perfect to experience as many parts of Seoul as possible. We did almost every day a trip but still there is so much to see. Seoul is an awesome city. On the one hand it is very modern, has the fastest internet worldwide and everyone uses their smartphones all day long – everyone includes all grandpas and grandmas and great-grandmas and great-grandpas. On the other hand Seoul is very Asian and traditional.
You will find small and also huge buddhistic temples in the middle of the city between skyscrapers. The city is colorful and Koreans really carry on their tradition. You can see a few times a week people walking around in their traditional dresses. On a trip with our professor for culture and society we also tried on traditional dresses.
Being only nine students from all MHMK campuses all over Germany, we are one of the smaller courses compared to other. But to me that’s more of an advantage, because it’s easier to get to know each other and to organize group activities.
We are doing a lot of little trips which are organized by our “nanny”. Students from last year started calling him Magic Mike because he makes everything happen for you. We can say that the name absolutely fits. Apart from him also the other teachers are nice. Most of them teach us their skills beside their main job in their profession. Lucky for us – as most of us doing the specialization in Germany in advertisement – we have two courses that are about integrated marketing and entertainment marketing. The teacher is great and we really learn in all courses good stuff.
Our university, the aSSIST “Seoul School of Integrated Sciences & Technologies”, is located on a little hill, which needs to be climbed day by day as a morning exercise. But no need to worry: probably next year the construction infront of the building will be finished and everyone can get up by elevator again. The close area is during a normal day full of young students, due to many universities, who are hanging around, studying or just enjoying good food in one of the plenty restaurants or street-sold snacks. It’s very interesting to just walk around and discover all the unknown dishes sold by friendly men and women trying their best to communicate with you.
Talking about food, there is always something new to eat in this city, and everyone will find something that fits his taste. Seafood, meat, fish, vegetables and not to forget lots of rice and Kimchi (김치). In every part of the city you will find food sold on the street, if it’s fried Squid, fishsoup, pancakes, chicken or just different ricecakes – you will definitely find something to eat here. But you got to be careful, Koreans love to eat very spicy food.
Because Seoul is so enormous, there isn’t only one place to call downtown, but many. And everywhere are always many people on their feet. If it’s Insadong, Itaewon, Hongdae, Sinchon or Gangnam, there are various places to go during the day or night. The Subway network is very nice and simple, it took only a very short time for us to get comfortable with it and it’s the most convenient and fastest way to travel through the city.
If the evening ends too late you need to take a Taxi to get home or wait for the first subway in the morning. But taxis are very cheap and the drivers are friendly over here and even for girls very safe. By the way, to me, the city seems like one of the safest feeling I’ve ever been to, even though Koreans drink a lot and you see many drunk people in the streets at night. Even when someone just grab your bag you don’t need to worry. Koreans just want to help you carrying it and don’t spend any thought in stealing.
I hope we will bring and spread this attitude to Germany to make the world a little more Korean.
