Travel stories in translation: Hello from Mongolia

In which I translate my first solo travel stories from Dutch to English. I hope you enjoy!

Monday, June 30^th 2008

Hello everyone,

I am finally in Mongolia, 2 days already. It is Monday about 3 o’clock and in a little bit I will climb some sort of holy mountain.

I usually hang out with the youngest girl of the family and the cousin because they both speak English. Yesterday I explored Ulanbaatar with the both of them, and saw an absolutely stunning Buddhist temple. I also got a painting from Bayarchimeg, the cousin.

I also tried snuff for the first time. (snuff Tabaco, I am not exactly sure what it is called). It made me sneeze terribly! They also give me so much food, they keep on saying that I am not eating enough. I am also meeting the entire extended family, where I always drink milk tea, and they give me huge amounts of candy to bring home. Ugh, there is so much to tell for so little time.

Besides that, in contrary to what everyone was saying, UB is incredibly beautiful. But you have do sometimes have to look around the ugly, but beauty there is.

Beauty you see in the boys that shine their cars, waiting to pick up their girlfriends. Beauty in the young children, selling wet wipes and candy on the street, staring at you with their unwashed faces.

Well, I’ve got to go.

Talk to you later.

Love, Wietske

Let's do this, a fresh new start!

It is Wednesday 7 P.M. I am sitting in one of the coffee shops in my neighbourhood overlooking the Korea University campus. I should be studying but I can't help staring at the screen. Hands itching to write something.

It has been a while since I wrote a proper post, but the time feels right. I moved platforms from wordpress to blogger. But besides that I will be the same me, writing about my life as a student in Korea and about things that interest me.

If you have any questions, don't hesitate to leave me a comment or send me an ask on tumblr. I will always be here for you.

Love, Wietske

Life: Smile like you mean it.

 

If you follow me on instargram you know that I am a fan of selca’s and pulling out my sexy half smirk whenever it’s needed however it’s time to put this overused smile in the bin and time to genuinly start smiling!

I don’t like my smiling face much, I hate my teeth, I hate the lines that form around my eyes, I hate that I cannot control the way my hair falls, I hate double chins and just “not being in control”. However, I noticed that the memories going with pictures like the one above are usually better then when I sit in the bathroom for an hour taking pictures of myself.
So here is a challenge for myself and for everyone really! Take pictures and share them when you laugh, have fun, show your imperfections, your double chin but laugh about it, because in the end it doesn’t really matter!

If you post those pictures on instagram use the hashtag with #smilelikeyoumeanit and @lifelovekorea so I can find them!

It’s time to have fun guys! And it’s time to show it!

Love, Wietske

Tasty Tuesday: the Kings Soup

Today was a very special day. Now Queen Beatrix abdicated the throne to  Prince Willem-Alexander. He is the first King since 1890 and in order to celebrate I bring you this very special Orange soup. To celebrate the change of power in the House of Orange.

Ingredients: 500g carrots, 1 orange bell pepper, 1 orange, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 cubes of chicken stock, 1 sprig of rosemary, one spoonful of curry powder, 1 liter of water



Preparation:

• Cut up all of your vegetables into small pieces.
• Sauté your vegetables, the curry powder and rosemary in a hot pan with a little oil for about 5 minutes.
• Add 1 liter of water, you chicken stock and the juice of one orange (about 200 ml) and bring it up to a boil
• Let it boil for about 15 minutes.
• Take a stick blender and puree your soup. Please be careful when doing this you don’t want to get boiling hot liquid all over you.

And that’s it, you made orange soup! I have to warn you though, the curry flavor might be a little overwhelming. If you want something more refreshing take out some of the curry add a little bit more orange juice and perhaps even some orange zest.

Enjoy, Wietske

Life: 6 tips for friendship

Inspired by this particular post I want to write about friendship.

For me friendship is probably more important than my family bonds, however it is way more fragile and not as everlasting. Here are some tips on how to get most out of your friendships.

Pay the bill: Don’t go Dutch on your friends. I don’t ever split the bill with my friends, unless we are with a large crowd. Take turns in paying the bills, it always leaves me with a special feeling. Either I treat a friend or my friends treats me to something nice while we had a good time together AND most importantly we don’t have to fight about how to split the bill to the last penny or get out our calculators because one of us had one more drink.

Give: I love giving gifts and receiving them. I love to see the excitement on my friends face and it leaves me feeling wonderful if I found or made something that brings a smile to my friends face.

Support: I try to support my friends in every decision they make, even if it might seem like a bad one. Sure I try to talk them out of really bad decisions but I don’t push. I am not their mum nor dad and there are probably enough people who told them they are wrong. Support them, and if thinks don’t go as planned at least they have learned their own lesson.

Listen: Let them whine, complain, and ramble on if they want too. Sometimes people just need to want to get things of their chest without any interruption. Let them talk, but listen! Give them advise or encouraging words when needed. Don’t just stare into space unless you want the same treatment.

Make memories: Do things, take pictures of it, and keep remembering it for the rest of your life. People you forget are often the people who you don’t share any crazy memories with. Even just a quick message that mentions a certain event can instantly refresh a slightly worn down friendship. However if you don’t have any memories in common  friendships die a slow and painful death.

Let it go: The most important tip however is although energy is needed to let a friendship exist sometimes when things just cost too much energy and you are not gaining anything positive just let it go. It is not worth it, find someone better because even though your friends are important. Your own feelings are more important. And who knows maybe the sudden stop of attention makes your friend realize what they are missing out on!

what are the things you do to keep your friendship going? Do you talk every day? have weekly meetups? tell me, I am curious since I still have a lot to learn.

Love, Wietske

Tasty Tuesday: Pie of fail

I had an utterly amazing idea for this weeks Tasty Teusday. However, once again I’ve proven that I am not good at baking – at all.  I wanted to make a choco pie. But in cake form. For those who don’t know what a choco pie is, it is a popular Korean snack of a cake with marshmallows in the centre and covered in chocolate and it’s just perfect.

Unfortunately they don’t sell them in the Netherlands, so I thought to myself, why not make a choco pie cake! Basically one ginourmous chocopie. Well, my dream didn’t come true.



For he actually cake I wanted to make a vanilla chiffon cake since the light texture and light vanilla flavor wouldn’t overpower the chocolate and marshmallow flavors. First of all my cake was one deflated mess. In order to try to save it I cut it into squares so I could stack it. Then I tried to make the marshmallow filling by trying to melt marshmallows using a double boiler but it was just too sticky to work with so I tried melting the marshmallows in the microwave but it just didn’t work.

And that’s where I gave up. So no tasty looking cake. Just a big mess I had to clean up and food I had to throw out.

No more baking for me, at least for a while.
 
Can you bake? If so, what is your favorite thing to make?

Love, Wietske

Gwangjang Market - there is always more to see.

This week in Seoul Saturday I want to share another awesome and free activity for you while you are in Seoul. This market is a great place to grab a bit, and don’t worry you don’t have to like pig feet, heads, or intestine to find something delicious over here! They serve kimbab, sundae and the markets famous bindaetteok. Besides the food, meat and fruits and vegetables stands there is also a good place to buy high quality but cheap fabric.



There are many hanbok stores around and stores that sell a bit more of a modern version of the hanbok. Besides that Gwangjang market is also a great place to find cheap souvenir! And within walking distance of Dongdaemun where you can do more shopping!

How to get there:  Take the subway to Jongno-5-ga and take exit number 8. You will basically walk into the market once you exit.

Click here for the official website of Gwangjang market.

Tasty Tuesday: Jjajangba

Ingredients: 300g of jinmichunjang, 300g potato, 300g onion, 150g carrot, 100g pumpkin, 1 spring onion, 250 gram of meat (either pork or beef), 5 tablespoons of oil, 4 cups of water , 3 tablespoons of starch flour.  But really you can add all the vegetables you want, I used 300 g onion, 400g pork, 350 g potato and 200 g carrot.
Preparation:

• Cut your meat and vegetables into bite sized pieces and fry them in 2 tablespoons of oil. (Cook your meat first, you really don’t want to eat undercooked meat, especially if you go for pork).
• Add your concentrated black bean paste (jinmichunjang in my case) and stir until you have everything covered.
• Add 3,5 cups of water and let it cook until done.
• Mix the starch flour with half a cup of water and add it. Let it cook for another 2 minutes or until your rice is done.

And there you have it, a perfect dish to keep you company on the day of the singles.  Mix it up and don’t care if you get dark spicks of the sauce all over your shirt and face – you don’t have a boyfriend who is going to judge you ^^

Enjoy, Wietske

Life: Motivational Monday – starting now

Although I really enjoyed listening and making my weekly music posts I want to try something new on my blog.

I feel like I need a bit of motivation and perhaps feedback on some of the projects I am currently involved in. I usually prefere to keep my projects for myself since I hate failure, and what is worse when I fail, people that know I failed. However keeping my projects a secret also helped me to not do things, but I think sometimes you just have to start! So, that’s what I am doing, starting now!

Today I will share three projects I am working on. The first one is still an early stage development, namely this blog. I’ve always wanted a succesfull blog. And by succesfull I don’t mean xiaxue famous. Succesfull to me means my own domain, my own designed webpage and a connection with people that visit my blog. I want to share what I know, while learning from others. I want to meet great new people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. I am already well on my way and although I only seriously started with this blog for little over a month the amount of followers and commenters suprise me. And I am very greatfull and happy about it. Even if it takes years I would love to expand this blog into a website where I can help people achieve there dreams, encourage people to do what they want to do becuse that’s what I think is most important.

My goal is more involvement, I want to get to know everyone that even only looks at my blog, why do you return, or why do you stay away? I’d love to hear from you, even if it’s just a Hi every now and then. I also want to find a concept that I like, I am pretty close already but not quite there yet. But once I have that I think I will actually start with a design and getting my own domain.

The second thing I want to achieve is  I want to be more organized, I want to have a perfect daily schedule, I want to be on top of things and not forget people’s birthdays. I am currently trying to get organized and trying to get rid of anything that is not only clutterling my room but also cluttering my brains. Edit my life, so to say. I thinking of of getting myself a filofax – which has the most amazing planners ever – they are expensive but it seems worth it.  I just really want to be on top of things instead of constantly feeling like I am falling behind.

And last but not least, I really need to study more Korean. So starting from today I will study at least 15 minutes of Korean every day! No excuses, just do it!
I will keep you guys up to date one way or another and post things to motivate myself and you with your goals every monday starting from today.

So tell me, what are your goals for the future or near future?

Love Wietske

Life: How to deal with reverse homesickness.

Everyone knows the feeling of being homesick, longing for home, for a place where you feel comfortable and at ease. People feel sorry for you, try to comfort you and eventually send you home.

However reserve homesickness is something that gets laughed about. People keep on telling you that you just need another holiday while in fact you feel lost, not at home in a place other people tell you is your home. That combined with an extreme longing for in my case Korea cause me a serious depression.

A depression that would only go away when I was back in Korea and would come back as soon as I came back home.

However I finally feel that I have overcome this feeling of sadness, I still know and feel that I don’t belong here in the Netherlands but I can deal with it now. And here are 5 tips how you can too.

Go sightseeing; Yes, in your own town. Go on adventures, try new bars, new restaurants, new stores see your place not as a town where you return to your same old boring life, see it as a new adventure.

Get active; By exercising your body releases pheromones which make you feel happy, even if you hate exercising, find something you like, such as walking, dancing around the house, riding your bicycle.

Meet Friends; Whenever I feel extremely homesick I just want to sleep all day and cry in a corner. This is not a solution to the problem. Go out, meet your friends, take you friends to said new bars and talk about past memories. Laugh together and make plans for new adventures.

Be Sad;  There is nothing wrong with crying your eyes out every once in a while. There is nothing wrong with wanting to go back to that time and place where you are happiest. Just make sure you don’t get stuck in the moment and if you are really slowly rolling into a depression seek help!

Go back; That doesn’t mean you have to go back tomorrow. No, just make plans. Think about it; talk about it. Tell your family how you feel about it and your absolute need to go back. Ease your family and friends back into the idea of you going back for a longer and longer.

Korean resources - All about Hangeul

Last week while I was going through piles and piles of paper and notes of my time as a Korea studies mayor I found some quite useful information.

It was a piece of paper my Korean language teacher gave me with links to websites about  Korean alphabet or Hangeul. I’ve mentioned some websites to study Hangeul in my last Korean resources post, but here are 4 more!

The first one is all about the history of Hangeul and the Korean language in general. There are also great recordings of pronunciation of the Korean alphabet. Please note that with the pronunciation of the consonants they say the name of the letter and not just the pronunciation of the letter. However here is a quick tip for you; the way the name of the letter is pronounced reveals how the letter itself is pronounced at the beginning and the end of a syllable. For example the ㄹ or r/l it is pronounced as rieul or 리을 which means at the beginning of the word is pronounced as an R at the beginning of a syllable and at the end it is pronounced as an L.

The next two websites are both have great explanation of how each letter fits in a syllable with the only difference that one has audio that explains the pronunciation and the other has not.

Last but not least for the people who thrive by someone explaining it in a clear manner in a classroom like situation here are 2 videos for you . The first  explains the principle of creation of Korean alphabet and its historical background and vowels and consonants and their phonetic value.  The second video explains ending consonants and its phonetic value and write and read syllables.  The videos are a bit on the long side but defiantly worth watching for someone who really wants to learn Korean.

I hope you find this information useful, if you have other great websites explaining Hangeul. Feel free to share in the comment section below.

Love, Wietske

Life: Create an amazing breakfast.

One thing that makes getting up in the early morning easier for me is the thought of having an amazing breakfast. Something that gets me going and is delicious. Unfortunately I don’t have time to cook up perfect French toast every day. Luckily with a few tweaks,  even the most simple toast can look absolutely amazing! Fear not you don’t have to be a foodstylist to do so. Rather not actually, because do you really want to spay perfectly edible food with hairspray?



I am a fan of eating some fruit with my breakfast and instead of just grabbing it whole why not cut it up and arrange is in a colorful way, put it in a little bowl or arrange it on top of your yoghurt.  Even simple things such as cutting your sandwiches diagonally make your them look more pleasing for the eye and thus more tasty!

Even just switching up your cups can give you the feeling of eating in a fancy eatery. I am used to drink my milk and water out of old cups and mugs, even just pouring it in a regular long drink glass makes it more appetizing for me and makes me want to drink it! Try eating from your fancy plates, drink your juice from a wine glass, pull out the expensive cutlery, make yourself feel special by simply eating in style.

Tell me, how do you serve your breakfast?

Love, Wietske

Life: How traveling alone changed me.

This week I have been posting a lot of pictures and music that remind me of Mongolia. Mongolia will always have a special place in my heart, since it was the first country I traveled to alone.

I stayed in a Mongolian family for 3 weeks and traveled around the country with a Mongolian family 2 Italian guys and an Irish girls for a week. This was only made possible because of the Lions organization, which is a kind of rotary club that organize camps and homestays in countries all over the world to encourage dialogue between people from different countries and to create cultural understanding.

I was a very shy girl and very attached to my “friends” who treated me very badly now I look back at it. I have never traveled without my parents, outside of Europe or flown in my life. I was scared, I was afraid I would have a hard time communicating, that I would be lonely and homesick.

Thank god I had the best time of my life, I made awesome new friends, I realized my so-called-friends were not my friends and discovered who my real friends were. I became more confident and way more talkative. If you want a relatively cheap and save way to see a new country and you are within the age range of 15 and 21 I totally would recommend you to check out the Lions organization youth exchange program!

However, it wasn’t until 2 years later, the summer after my high school graduation that I really got to know myself and became the person I wanted to be instead of being the person that people thought I was.

I finally went to the country I always wanted to go to – Korea! I made a plan, calculated how much money I would spend and then started convincing my parents. My dad was easy-peasy, he really encourages me and my sisters to follow our dreams, my mom however was a different story.

North-Korea just sunk a South-Korean warship, my mom was scared and just rather had me stay at home. Luckily I was able to convince her and could start booking tickets and hostels. And then finally I spend an amazing 3 weeks in Korea.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared. I was shitting bricks however from the moment I stepped out of the airplane I fell absolutely in love with the country and it’s amazing people.

But most important I learned a lot about myself. I learned that it is okay to make my own decisions, that it is okay to have fun, that it is okay to be myself and people would still like me.

I became a happier, more confident version of myself. Korea still has this effect on me and that is probably one of the reasons why I like to be there so much even though I am in general a very happy and confident person nowadays.

After traveling alone I finally realized I shouldn’t take shit from people and stand my ground, that I have the right be happy and should be, because I am amazing and wonderful.

And so are you! and if you haven’t realized that yet I recommend you to travel alone, meet new people and do all the things you want to do and be happy, because you deserve it!

So I challenge you, within a year from now, travel somewhere, it can be far away, or really close by. Go alone, stay alone and enjoy and be amazed about all the things you can do!

Tell me, where would you go and what crazy things would you do if you were travelling alone?

Love, Wietske

Life: 20 things I want to accomplish this year.

I do have a bucket list of 50 things I want to do before I die. And although I’ve accomplished quite a lot of things already some of them are defiantly goals I don’t even want to accomplish just yet (get married, have a baby). However I feel like I need to push myself more to accomplish something this year. So here I present you with a list of things of 20 things I want to accomplish before this year ends.

1. Get accepted into Hanyang University
2. Loose 10 KG
3. Get one of my posts to Freshly Pressed page
4. Sell a painting.
5. Get some of my photography published.
6. be able to run 5K
7. Get  to Topik level 6
8. Save 10,000 Euro
9. Get straight A’s in my classes.
10. Be able to do 20 push-ups
11. Go camping with my friends in the backyard
12. Create a monthly budget and stick with it.
13. Keep writing daily post
14. Throw an epic party, with no reason and invite everyone I want and don’t worry about how they mingle.
15. Make a weekly schedule and stick with it!
16. Get something to remind me of birthdays and ALWAYS send a card
17. Make my own birthday cards
18. Take a day every week where I am not connected.
19. Talk more with my mom.
20. Be a better sister.

I am going to work hard to accomplish those goals, although some are probably a bitter harder then others.

What are the things you want to accomplish before 2014?

Love, Wietske

Review: Korean resources - dictionaries

Once you start learning a language, no matter what language, there is one thing you will always need. A dictionary. No matter if you are a beginner or almost fluent you will still need it. However, the question is, what dictionary do you need. A book, an online one, an electronic dictionary, or just a simple one on your phone. Is it worth investing in a good dictionary, or are the free options better?
I am going to compare a few different options.

• Online: Naver Dictionary & Daum Dictionary
• Book: NTC’s compact Korean and English Dictionary
• Electronic: NurianX30  electronic dictionary
• Phone: Dictionary App (this was already on my phone when I purchased it in Korea)

First of all let’s start with the simple word for house in English and Korean (집) : This is no problem for all the tried options, however the online, electronic and phone dictionaries give me a wide variety of example sentences such this one from naver dictionary.

as I was looking for the key to my house.집 열쇠를 찾고 있었다

Now the other way around. For the online and phone option you need to have a Korean keyboard installed. For most computers not a problem but this might be a problem for some phones. Again this is no problem on the online, electronic and phone dictionaries and gives a nice list of examples and translations.

Now for the NTC’s Compact Korean and English Dictionary it is a pain in the ass to even find a simple word if you are looking at Korean to English. Since the Korean words are listed by how they are written in Romanization. It took me a good 10 minutes to only find the word for house and it doesn’t even give me examples.

Now for something a bit more difficult. Let’s find the meaning of ~고 싶다.
Let’s start online with both Naver and Daum dictionary.


This is what Daum dictionary could come up with.  Thanks to the bing translation there is an exact translation however I don’t trust bing and figuring it out from the examples given is possible but still a little bit difficult.


Luckily Naver dictionary gave me and exact translation and a few examples to go with it. Even my phone did better then Daum dictionary although I had to change the search word to 싶다. But it gave me an exact translation and quite a few examples to go with it.

The same with my electronic dictionary, I had to adjust the search word but I did find what I was looking for. I gave up with the paper dictionary or else I wouldn’t even be able to finish this article.

Next up, something that is most difficult. Let’s find the meaning of a Korean proverb. 작은 고추가 맵다  is one of my favorite ones because it gave me and my friends a good laugh back in the day. Literally it means small peppers are spicy but it is used with the meaning don’t underestimate the small things.

Daum dictionary couldn’t find the proverb even when I changed up the keywords a little bit. Naver however, proves once again why I love it so much and it gave me this as a translation.

Don’t ever underestimate the little man. 작은 남자를 과소평가하지 말라. (작은 고추가 맵다.)

Once again, my phone surprised me with a wonderful translation when I looked up the word for 고추 (pepper), it gave me the proverb I was looking for and this translation: the smaller, the shrewder.

The electronic dictionary also gave me a translation when I put in the full search term however, the translation was in Korean. Which is fine for me; but a little bit too challenging for beginners.

Overall Naver dictionary was the best and actually the dictionary I use on an every day basis. The only downside is, is that you have to have internet connection and access to a device with internet connection (aka a computer or a smartphone).  I have to say though, the dictionary app on my phone surprised me since I only ever use it too look up a word or two while I’m texting with my Korean friends.  I won’t throw out my electronic dictionary though since it is really helpfull with a subject I haven’t touched up on – looking up Hancha – and it could be helpfull if I don’t want to have my computer around while studying Korean (such a distraction!).

I will banish NTC’s compact Korean & English dictionary to the back of my closet though, it’s the worst dictionary I have ever seen and I do not recommend you buying it!

Now tell me, what is your favorite & least favorite dictionary and why?

Love, Wietske

Life: Spring clean for your body.

Spring is just around the corner, time to throw of the oversized sweaters and drop the chocolate bar that kept us company during cold winter nights. It’s time to stop with our extended no-shave-November and have a good pampering session before we dash out the door in our frilly skirts.

I recommend you do this on a Sunday night, perhaps tonight! Take your time, relax. Pamper yourself and you will feel amazing, now, tomorrow and for the rest of the year!

Put on some nice music perhaps burn some candles and make yourself comfortable. I’d like to start of with a hair mask, or just plain extra virgin olive oil. You can leave it in as long as you like while you sit back and listen to your music. If you are wearing make-up, right now would be a good moment to take it all of, I once again like to use olive oil (I am a big fan guys!) to take my make-up off.

Then get yourself some fluffy towels and get ready for a bath (or shower). I usually start of with a complete body scrub, my favorite is something you will probably already have in your kitchen cabinet. Just mix some olive oil and regular sugar and you are set! After this amazing scrub session get rid of that winter coat of yours, I know you have one, I know I certainly do…

Talking about a winter coat, wash your hair very thoroughly, especially if you used oil in your hair. You could also wash it twice, just to make sure you get everything out. I still like to use a conditioner afterwards since my hair is really dry, but you don’t really have too.

Then do whatever you want to do in the shower and then end with a cold rinse! keep my blood flowing and close the follicols on my hair to make it nice and shiny I always end my showers with a cold rinse. As cold as possible, it feels horrible, but afterwards I always feel Amazing!

Then I smother myself in my favorite bodylotion and put on some clothes and put a leave in conditioner in my hair (like I said I have very dry skin and hair) on and we are done with the first part.

Then I like to use a nice aloe facemask to realy moisturize my skin, after which I massage my skin with the leftover residue of the mask. The next step you can do while you wear your facemask or after, it’s up to you. Give yourself a manicure, not just get my nails back in shape but get rid of dead and dry skin and then put on some hand cream, after you are done with your hands, don’t forget your feet, these babies carry you around everywhere you go so then really need a bit of extra love!

Feel better? ready for spring? Now dont’ forget spring clean to declutere your house really helps with keeping up with it for the rest of the year, this is pretty much the same. Pamper yourself every once in a while but for the remaining weeks just do a little bit of each every day.

For example, scrub and shave on Sunday, Hair Mask on Tuesday, Face Mask on Thursday and a Manicure on Friday.  Helps you to stay pretty and feel amazing all year round!

Love, Wietske

Life: Four tips to make getting up earlier easier.

Last week I wrote a post about Four Things I Should Stop Doing In My 20s and one of them is sleeping all day. I usually stay up all nights and it’s a real struggle to get out of my bed at a reasonable time in the morning. Here are a few tips that make getting up early easier.

1. Go to bed earlier: These days instead of going to bed at 1 or 2 A.M. or sometimes even later I go to bed at 11 P.M. at the latest. That way I get enough sleep and it makes getting up a whole lot easier.
2. Put your alarm on the other side of the room: I am one of those persons that hits the stop button instead of snooze, rolls over and sleeps for another 4 hours before realizing I am horribly late. Even though having to jump out of bed to turn the damn thing off, it was one of the best decisions I made.
3. Implement a 30 buffer: I usually set my alarm on 7.30 but while the music is playing I usually roll around in my bed for about 30 minutes before actually getting up. And even though I did this I am still up early.
4. And last but not least, once you are awake and got out of your bed make yourself a majestic breakfast, my current favorite is French Toast topped with banana and syrup. But even a simple slice of bread with nutella could be a real treat.

What methods do you use to get out of bed? and what time do you get up?

Love, Wietske.

Review: Yes, you can speak korean!

I got this book the 2nd time I left Korea from one of my Korean friends so I could improve my Korean during the 4 months I would be gone. An incredibly kind gesture but slighty insulting as well. By that point I had been studying Korean for a year but the book -Yes, you can speak Korean! – was meant for children, age ranging anywhere between 3 and 6+.

I did, however, learn something from this book when I opened it for this review. Because although there is no grammar explanation nor any audio to go with this book there were a few words that I did not yet know.

Another thing I appreciate about this book is the fact that it has answer sheets. Something that is not always commonly available.

If you have the money you could purchase the book because it does seem great for studying Hangeul (the Korean alphabet). It has separate chapters for each letter BUT you do need the help of a native speaker to get your started on the correct pronunciation.

So do you really want a book to spend 26 dollars on a book that doesn’t get you anywhere? Probably not, instead check these websites I myself used to learn Hangeul.

I do recommend this book for people like me trying to study Korean on their own. Just as the intro of the book states – it is probably best used for children of Korean parents or going to Korean school to get a better knowledge of written Korean.

Norangjin Fishmarket, Fun, even if you don't like Fish!

The first time I heard about a fish market I was like well I got to see this, cultural experience and all but I wasn’t really excited for it. Now I still won’t say I will go there every weekend but it is defiantly something you shouldn’t skip on your trip to Korea.

Don’t worry, there is no fish smell hanging around and you don’t even have to buy fish to go there. Just walk around and enjoy the atmosphere. Try to figure out if those things are really fish and make plans for a fish liberation campaign.

However if you do actually enjoy fish you can pick out your own fish -and see it killed in front of your eyes- and eat it at one of the many restaurants lining the fish market.  Although the fish is delicious it can be a bit pricy but it’s a great experience!

Also if you have been to the fish market in Busan, you should still go norangjing fish market in Seoul. The atmosphere is totally different and there aren’t as many foreigners as in Busan, which makes the experiences even more fun.

Directions: Take line one to Norangjin station. Exit at exit 1 and go straight, you will see stairs crossing the road but you have to go upstairs and cross the trainstation. At the end go left and then go downstairs.

Life: My name is Wietske

After reading the chapter Learning to Love Yourself of  Gala Darlings book  -which was truly inspiring for me – I decided I needed to start loving myself because In the 22 years that I lived my life I still feel that I cannot really say that for even one year I fully loved myself.

There were times when I was super happy and I felt awesome but there were always moments where I felt that I couldn’t be me.

Now I feel that I still cannot completely be me. There are just two places where I feel I can be myself. Korea and the Internet. Now unfortunately I am not in Korea at the moment. Which means the Internet is a place where I spend most of my times.

Now I still want to feel good outside of the internet. Which is hard sometimes especially since I recently got back from Korea. The place where I am happiest to a place where I feel that my life is on hold.

I have basically been on the internet for my entire conscious life and when I was younger I used my full name for everything from my bebo account to myspace and I just added every -creepy old – person one that wanted to be my friend.  I quickly learned my lesson,  deleted what I could and started using fake names ever since.

You might know me just as Katie, or maybe as Seungmi or maybe even just as that girl from that website, but as I wrote a while back on my tumblr. I want to interact with people on the internet. I don’t want to be just a nameless face. I want to be me.

So here it goes, for the first time in maybe 10 years I will use my real name again.

My name is Wietske. 

It’s a name I love, I love it’s uniqueness, I love the litteraly meaning and the thought by which my parents gave it to me.

It’s also a name I hate. Especially since I started traveling – constantly getting weird faces or people mispronouncing my name.

I am used to it now and I won’t ever for the life of me change this name. It is mine and it’s a part of me. Now I revealed this piece of important information about myself. I feel that I can be more myself on the internet. Now just find a way to feel more comfortable at the place where I am actually at.

Love Wietske

Life: 4 more things to stop doing in your twenties.

I recently read the  thought provoking article on thought catalog 19 things to stop doing in your 20s. I expected a list of things that would tell me to stop being a child and grow the fuck up but instead I found a list of things that are basically all of my bad habits. It was a wake-up call for me. There are some things I just need to stop doing now that I am a “grown up”.

Here are 4 more things to stop doing in your 20s. Or should I say, 4 more things I should stop doing right now.

1. Stop listening to your body.  This one might seem a little bit odd because these days everyone is trying to get back in touch with their bodies and minds. However, if your body tells you to just eat the entire bar of chocolate. Don’t Listen! Don’t let your taste buds decide what you eat on a day, you decide what you will!
2. Stop sleeping all day. You only need about 8 hours of sleep a day, there is no need in wasting your time by staying in bed all day everyday.
3. Stop bringing your all of your electronic devices to bed. If you really are only going to stay in bed for 8 hours each day you better not waste the precious time you could be sleeping by listening to music on your IPod while scrolling through your twitter feed until 2 A.M.
4. Stop waiting! You are not getting younger and time is the most precious thing we have. I will quote one of my friends here -you can always earn the money back but once the time is gone it’s gone forever.

Kids, time to start being responsible, however don’t forget to have fun everyday. If you are not having fun, it’s not worth living!

Love, Wietske

Hongdae: Cats living - a cat heaven.

On a cold and windy afternoon my friend decided it would be a great idea to take me and my sisters to a cat cafe. Now I have been all over Seoul and I have done all sorts of things but I had never been to a cat cafe in my life. I have been to a dog cafe before but the experience was just so so. And not even because I am allergic for dogs. I just feel that it isn’t good for dogs to be locked inside all day as for cats, their favorite thing to do seems to be sleeping so there is no direct need for them to go outside.

So of we went to cats living – located in Hongdae right next to the Hello Kitty cafe. The moment we stepped inside it felt, clean, nice and cozy. We put away our shoes and jackets in one of the lockers and ordered a drink and then spend a good 2 hours petting and playing with the cats.

A great thing was that it wasn’t very busy, unlike the dog cafe where I went. I don’t know if it is because we were there around 7 P.M. or if it is because cat cafes aren’t as popular anymore but I didn’t mind. It gave us time to look in every nook and cranny, and discover more cats every minute.

Some were just sleeping, some were ready to play and others where a tad bit on the shy side. But for everyone there was a cat to like and I really enjoyed my time there.

I totally recommend this place, especially on cold winter nights. Either with friends or with your boyfriend, it doesn’t matter. The cats will make you feel loved and at home anyway!

Review: Lingua Express - Sookmyung Women's University

As you may or may not know I used to study at Sookmyung Women’s University  from January 2012 till July 2012. Actually, to be more acurate, I took only one class at the actual university, besides that I would go to the Lingua Express 4 hours a day 5 days a week
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Sookmyung was founded on May 22nd, 1906 as Myeongshin Girls’ School, renamed to Sookmyung Women’s College on December 1st 1909 and re-established as a university on May 22nd 1948. According to Dong-A Ilbo it is ranked 10th place together with Inha University (located in Incheon) among Korean Universities.

In my opinion, the education level of Sookmyung no where near the level of education what I was used to in the Netherlands. It felt kind of as if I was back in High School but it might just as wel be the way they teach in Korea, which is following in the book precisely opposed to having more indepth discussions about the content.

The Lingua Express (language school) on the other hand was really good. The teachers are good at their job, they make you speak Korean and most important they make you feel comfortable while you speak it. The classes are not too big which is nice and although there are some rules about being in class, they are not too strict and if you are sick and can’t make it (even for the tests) it’s not that big of a deal.

However if you have full attendance or are at the top of your class you can actually get a discount for the next semester. Besides that the language classes are actually priced quite reasonalbly.
Lingua express also offers a few cultural experience classes (playing traditional korean games, taekwondo classes, or even sleighing). But you can also choose to go to the TOPIK classes they offer.

Even though I had my concerns about going to a women’s university, and the location of the university I ended up having an amazing time. I made great friends, and the neighbourhood feels like my home and I can totally recommend Lingua Express to anyone that is want to take language classes in Seoul.

X Wietske