Post-Midterm Relaxation

Sorry again for not having any posts up the last few weeks.  I was very busy studying for midterms which are a very big deal here.  In the US, I had never really had a true midterm before, and I have never really had a final or test worth more than 20% of my final grade.  All of my midterms were worth at least 35% of my final grade, so I have never felt the pressure on an exam like I did this past week.  I think I did pretty well on all of them (I already got one score back which was a 92 so yay!).
The first thing I did after getting done with finals was head out to Insadong to go hit some baseball in the batting cages as a stress release.  After this, we went to eat one of the most famous mandu (dumplings) in Seoul.

The rest of the day was spent on relaxing, so we did not really do anything until Saturday.  On Saturday, we all decided to go with some Korean buddies of ours and go see the Cherry blossoms that just started to bloom in Seoul.  

A funny thing that happened during our time at the cherry blossoms was one of my roommates, Lei, decided to take my hat, and he called himself a true Chinese gangster (he's Chinese).  

After a long day looking at the flowers. we decided to relax and cool down at the movie theater to see Avengers: Age of Ultron which had just been released.  This movie was extremely packed because a good part of the movie was filmed in Seoul.  It was really cool to get to see some of the buildings and areas I have explored show up on the big screen.  

To end the night, we decided to do one of the most Korean things we could do..... a face mask.  These are all the rage in Korea.  Most Koreans actually do 5-6 of these masks a week to keep their complexion.  

It was kind of hard to use with my facial hair, but my face felt great after nonetheless.  

Oppa Gangham Style

Today, I was the one that planned the activities for the day.  So, today we spent the day in Gangham-gu (yes that Gangham).  We started the day off in the COEX mall which is the biggest mall in Seoul.

This mall is huge.  Its has 4 atrium and plazas, so many stores, a cinema, and an aquarium (in a mall).  The reason we were here was the aquarium.  We started out by wandering up one side of the mall on our way to the aquarium and maybe finding a place to eat lunch.  We ended up in the food court, and it was pretty interesting how it worked.  The food court has about 10 restaurants, and the food court is closed off and the only entrances have these huge touch screens. 

 You order and pay at the touch screen.  

After paying, you get a ticket that has your order on it.  

Then, you get a text alert saying your meal is ready, go turn in your ticket, and you have your food.  

After lunch, we headed off to the aquarium.  

It was a pretty standard aquarium, but they did have the largest individual tank in the world or Asia.  Sorry, I didn't get any pictures of it. I was not thinking about it.  Next, we walked back past the other side of the mall before going to the Hyundai Department Store.  

This is a 9 story tall department store full of everything and anything you can think of.  This place was absolutely unbelievable.  

After this, we went to Samsung headquarters and played around in their "Samsung d'light" which is a place they have that lets you mess around with all of the stuff they are making and developing there.  

The coolest thing they had there was a prototype virtual reality headset to try on.  

The program I did was a city tour of some of the world's most famous cities, and it was pretty realistic for the most part.  Exciting to see where they take this in the future.  I did buy something at the store they had because I could help myself.  

It only cost me 5,000 won ($4.60).  

It is actually a 8 GB flash drive.  I though this thing was pretty cool.  

Friday - Day ....... I lost count

Today started off with some of the guys from my floor going to help one of them get his alien registration card at the immigration office.  After that, we headed off to find this music mall that is 3 floors of nothing but musical instruments everywhere.  Stuart was the only one to make a purchase, and he got a small keyboard to help make music on his laptop.  After that, we found a "sports place" in Insadong that was full of cheap sport games to play.  The first thing we all did was a pitching speed competition.  We each had two throws to see who could pitch the fastest.
5th - Eric           - 60 km/hr (37mph)
4th - Frank        - 65 km/hr (40mph)
3rd - Stuart        - 83 km/hr (52 mph)
2nd - Myungsuh - 96 km/hr (60 mph)
1st - John (Me)  - 113 km/hr (70 mph)
Then, we headed upstairs to play more games we found.  The first I played was the basketball shooting game.  The high score on the machine was 361 points, and I was able to set the new high score of 496.

(This was me after just passing the high score with a whole other quarter left to go.)

Next, we messed around with a soccer power kicking thing and a how hard can you punch game (which I also set the record on).  Finally, we finished with the batting cages.  All of these activities cost 2,000 won or less (<$1.80).  The batting cages was the most expensive one, and you got 20 pitches for less that $2.  

We were all hungry after playing around, so we got dinner at a dumpling place.  Those dumplings were amazing (sorry mom, no picture).  We were all craving dessert, and we came across a place that sold the most famous dessert of Korea, the J cone.  

This picture is all you need to describe the J cone.  

Then, we decided to wander around some on our way to a shopping area one of the guys wanted to go to.  On the way we found a cathedral in Myeongdong.  I thought it looked nice, so I'm including it.  

The shopping area is pretty neat and packed full of people.  They had some of the biggest individual stores I have ever seen.  

After this, we called it a night and headed home.