April 16th - 22nd

This week was a very relaxing week even though it is still midterms. My midterm isn't until next week so I haven't needed to worry about it quite yet. My roommates have been studying pretty much non stop though, and they can't wait to be done with their tests. The Korean students pick who their new MMS partners will be in a few days so I'm looking forward to that and seeing who I'll get to spend the next couple of weeks with. Since most people had a lot going on this week, I didn't really get to do a whole lot, but on Friday, Marisa, Isaac, Josue, and I went to the beach. We went to Gyeongpo beach in Gangneung which is located on the East coast (the Sea of Japan) and is really close to Pyeongchang (where the Olympics were held). It only took us about an hour and a half to get their by bus so the trip was really easy to do even though we didn't have any of the Koreans there to help us. Gangneung has a very different feel from Wonju. There are flowers everywhere and even if you can't see the sea, you can definitely smell it in the air. This was also one of the first really nice days that we've had so far and there was just enough wind to keep it from getting too hot. When we got to the beach, there was hardly anybody there because the water is still really cold so it's wasn't in the best condition to swim in, but that didn't stop us from going in! We definitely got some weird looks because almost everybody else on the beach had long sleeved shirts or coats on. After we relaxed on the beach for a little bit, we got up and walked down the beach a little ways and did some seashell hunting. Once we were done at the beach, we walked along the street and looked at all of the restaurants that were there. Since in was right on the sea, almost all of them had fish out front in tanks that you could choose from. We eventually stopped at a sushi place where Josue and Isaac got raw fish bibimbap. After we were done eating we went back to the bus terminal to get our tickets and head back to Wonju but we missed the earlier bus so we had wait about 2 hours for the next one. While we were waiting, we took the opportunity to explore the city a bit more. As we were walking, we found a Baskin Robins so we stopped there for ice cream and by the time we were done, it was time for us to start walking back. The next day, Marisa, Marie, and I went into downtown Wonju to do some shopping. This was our first time going downtown without one of the Korean students there to help us, but we got there pretty easily. There was a performance going on at one place and we couldn't exactly tell what was going on, but it looked like it was a group of people dancing while doing sign language at the same time. We went into a little indoor shopping area and we ended up getting stopped by a girl wearing a hanbok (traditional Korean dress) and she asked us to be in a video that they were making to promote the market that we we were in, so she just had us wave to the camera and say hi in English and Korean (annyeong haseyo). After we were done there, we went to underground place that had a bunch of little restaurants and we eventually stopped at one that was an all you could eat place. Once we were done eating, we decided to head back to campus.