Locking Out & Locking In

Movies

I was interested in what the movie experience was like in Korea, so my friends and I decided to watch Moana 2 and then Wicked in English with Korean subtitles. We watched it at CGV, which is a movie theatre chain (in addition to Megabox). It was pretty similar to the movie theaters in Hawai'i. We purchased our movie tickets and our food through kiosks, making it pretty convenient and efficient. They had different popcorn seasons, and I tried double cheese and caramel; both were okay as they weren't as fresh as I had hoped. One thing I would also like to note is that the seats don't recline at CGV like the ones I'm used to in Hawai'i.

Martial Law

South Korea's president declared martial law recently and, to be honest, I wasn't too familiar with what the implications were at first (I later realized how severe it was). Martial law was put into place during late night, but it was soon lifted by the morning. It was crazy because I felt like I was living in history while this took place during my exchange.

Seongsu

Lately, I have been doing a lot of shopping. As my time here is getting shorter and shorter, a lot of my purchases winds up getting justified by how things are cheaper here and that I "might as well". Seongsu is known for shopping and a variety of pop-ups that often offers free gifts and other benefits. I bought 5 lip products from Hince, one from rom&nd, and one from dasique (because of their Black Friday sale), so I basically have enough for the next couple of years. I also went wild on Fwee products, so I got a few of their lip/cheek blurry pudding pots and glowy jelly pots. They recently opened up the largest Olive Young there as well. In my opinion, it offers the same products as the other Olive Young stores, except it is more spread out among their floors; I did hear how they offer a free makeup service and other treatments. I also visited Blue Elephant, which is known to have the same manufacturer as Gentle Monster but at a lower price point; I went in there not expecting to get sunglasses, but I ended up getting enabled by my friends.

Cafes

As finals were approaching, I was able to explore a few different cafes since Korea is known for their cafe culture. Since coming here, I realized that many of the cafes that are popular on social media are only aesthetic for the pictures, but their menu items and prices are not as good; this doesn't mean that all the famous cafes are not good, but just be wary that it may not be like what it seems.

Some of the ones I personally liked:

• Poem (best bingsu we ate numerous times)

• Nuldam Space (where you can write a future letter to yourself)

• Foreplan

• Koriko Cafe (studio ghibli themed)

• Cheonsang Gaok

• Metcha

• Waffle it Up

• Osulloc

• Offer

• Forest Outings

Poem

Nuldam Space

Foreplan

Koriko Cafe

Cheonsang Gaok

Metcha

Finals

Unlike UH Manoa, where finals week has different designated time slots for each course, Yonsei has finals during their allotted course time, so the course schedule doesn't change during this time. Like my midterms, I only had final exams for two of my classes: Korean Popular Culture and the Korean Wave, and International Marketing. They were both the same format as my midterm exams. I took my K-Pop exam two weeks earlier, and my International Marketing exam a week earlier, than the 'usual' finals week; this means I officially finished the semester almost two weeks earlier since my professors didn't held classes after! This differs depending on the professor and course, which I found interesting since my other friends at Yonsei had exams at differing dates and weeks. I locked in a bit more than my midterms so I hope I pass <3