Finding a place to stay & other stuff

So, after I was done with all the administrative matters, it was time to find a place to stay.

Since classes are from mondays to fridays 9-1pm, I should get a place near to the university.

My first consideration was to stay in their hostel. Unfortunately, they were not offering dormitory in the March 2014. :(

Then, I went online trying to find a place not too far from ewha. Eventually, I got my place via airbnb. Just to share, airbnb charged me in my local currency so that's a good thing. Besides the actual rental, there is also an airbnb service charge. I think it's worth it to go through a decent website to find your place. It's quite a popular website so some of those apartment with excellent reviews were taken up quite quickly.

I'm looking forward to my stay and hopefully it's good~

Another matter to rant is the placement test. Apparently, it's compulsory for everyone and hat's a annoying part. I'm going as a pure beginner. I wrote to ewha about that but they say that everyone has to take the tests~ It's wasting of my time because I'm just going to stare that the paper. I seriously won't be able to even pen a word down. So why do the test? Anyway, I'm going to my luck again when I get there.

Since last month, I have thinking a lot of the things I should do in Seoul. I'm completely distracted from my schoolwork here. lol! I do want to explore but I hope that the classes are not too ridiculously intensive that I have to go home to do hw. That would be the saddest story ever! According to my online search, grocery is more expensive compared to my home country. I wanted to do at least some simple cooking, but we'll see about that. :P

Applying for 3week korean course at Ewha women university

To decide to do this course was easy. However, to choose between the universities was tough. If you do your research, you will know that there are several universities you can choose from. See link to another blog for more information: http://littlemisshoo.com/?p=10

First, I shortlisted based on the period available. Since I'm only available in March-April period, that pretty much eliminated several universities. Now, I'm left with either Yonsei or Ewha.

Second, it was down to the curriculum. I wanted something that stresses more on speaking since I personally feel that the furthest I'll go in a language is to read and speak it, not write. (DISCLAIMER: i'm not sure if i'll be happy with the curriculum at Ewha because I have not gone for it. I can only pray it's good). Unfortunately, the universities don't release their curriculum in detail online. So, I depended a lot of many other articles to read and find out the differences between the universities curriculum.

(PS. I'll write about the curriculum again after my experience)

Third and the most important reason was the cost of the course. Yonsei was more expensive than Ewha. So... there you go.

Application can be broken down into 2 parts: 1) online registration 2) payments and sending your documents.

1) Online registration

This online registration process can be quite frustrating. I could not access the registration website because I don't have java applet or something. I tried downloading as instructed by the system but IT DOESN'T WORK. (PS. I'm using a macbook pro) Then, I went on to try on my brother's computer (window-based computer) but it just won't work. This is probably the worst experience I had when applying for courses. I was extremely frustrated because I had already spent at least 3 hours just on the registration page. I gave up and emailed for help.

For some randomness, I decided to try it on the rusty old windows laptop at home that only serves for printing. MIRACLE happened and I successfully completed the application!!! 

Ewha replied to my SOS on the following day though.

2) Payment and sending documents

For me, Ewha then email the following day you upon receiving the online registration. Sending the documents was much easier than I expected. Soft copies are fine as long as you verified them.

Payments however, was a bitter thing. Depending on the local bank you liaise with, you may experience a loss due to currency exchange. Let me explain. Ewha accepts only japanese yen, korean won and american usd. My bank has local currency and can only work with usd of the 3 choices given. So, first my money was converted from local currency to usd for payment. Then, from ewha side, they would convert the usd to korean won. So, with 2 rounds of conversion, I would need to pay more. In fact, I still ewha a couple of dollars due to the conversion.

However, the good thing about ewha is that they allow me to pay the remaining (or if you have paid excess), they will deal with the money matters when you get there! so, I don't need to transfer any money a second time! :)

Application is finally completed! yeah!

Why blog? why korea? why?

Hi all,

This blogs entails my travel in korea for the upcoming 1 month. I wanted to keep a simple daily log of the happenings while I'm there.

The travel starts on 2nd March 2014 and ends on 30 March 2014.

So, some might ask why i'm going for such a long period. There are a couple of reasons. Coming March holidays will be my longest break in the 3-years of school. so i should make full use of it, isn't it? I was trying to find ways to get out and have some fun for longer periods instead of the usual 1-2 weeks of travels.

So why korea?
I have finally caught the "Korean hype" bug! I thought hard about what I could do. And I found a couple of 3 weeks intensive korean courses offered by Ewha women university, Yonsei university. So, I decided why not!?!?! And of course, I have not been to Korea before!

I'm looking forward to this great adventure!!