Getting Back on Track

Hello! Hi! 안녕! Hola!

How many decades have passed since I last wrote on this blog? Wow. It’s been so long. It hasn’t been THAT long that two decades had passed, of course, but still, it’s been quite some time.

I’d missed blogging so much, and you can only imagine how many times I’d considered getting back to this particular hobby. If I were to publish my journal, you would see that even I had planned to self-host my blog and get it a revamp.

But I never did it. Why? Simple, life happened. Or… I just kept on procrastinating, and now I’m looking for excuses. Blaming ‘life situations’ to justify my laziness. Oopsie.

But then again, we all do that sometimes, right? It’s a normal, humane thing to do. Things don’t always go as planned, and when it happens, we put the blame on the situations we can’t control. We justify our actions that we could have handled otherwise.

I read it somewhere in Kishimi and Koga’s “The Courage To Be Disliked” book that we, oftentimes, leave the possibility of ‘I can do it if I try’ open, by not committing to anything. We keep finding excuses to make ourselves feel we could do it if only the situation allowed us to. Take my procrastination on blogging, for example. For two WHOLE years, these thoughts were clouding my mind: I could get back to writing if only I had time, or if only I had the money to buy a domain and host my blog, or if only I had the proper environment, and so on. But let’s face it, are those the real reasons?

Studying Korean? Here’s How I Do It

오늘 걷지 않으면 내일 뛰어야 한다. (If you don’t walk today, you’ll have to run tomorrow).

If I were to pick only one quote to live by, I think I would go with the quote above. It has such a deep, motivational meaning, and has a power to remind us to not procrastinate. It is more or less similar to the quote, “Don’t put off till tomorrow what you can do today”, but in Korean.

Other than it being a motivational quote for me to do my daily tasks and routines, that sentence is meant to remind myself of my progress in learning Korean. If you happen to have read my previous post about my Napoleon Plans for 2019, you might notice that I wrote ‘learning Korean’ as one of the things I will focus more in 2019. My Korean learning schedule has been quite a mess, though, but I’m doing better than I was last year. And I want to keep this up by always reminding myself of that quote. Learn more, and more!

For some people, learning a foreign language may sound frightening, as we are exposed to a whole new list of unknown words and grammars and expressions. It may also feel boring, not fun, and not something that people get excited for. I feel that way too, sometimes, and that’s one of the reasons I have been progressing so slow with my Korean. But when I look back to the very essential reason why I started it, somehow, I feel more determined to continue learning. And about that reason? Well, at first, it was because of K-Pop and K-Dramas, and some of you might have guessed. But after months of studying, understanding the culture deeper, and spending my fourth semester in Korea as an exchange student, I realized that there was a more influential reason to keep studying the language; I want to continue my Master’s degree in Korea.

A Taste of Korea and Italy in Yogyakarta

There is a principle that I’ve always hold on to when I go travelling, and some of you might too; to do and eat what the locals do and eat. Nothing is more exciting than wandering in a new place and at the same time trying to imitate what the locals are like. Well, not exactly imitate how they behave since we all have our own culture too, but it is more of eating what the locals usually eat, going around the town by the transportation that the locals use, and doing other sorts of things that may make us feel like we were at home.

When I was in Korea, too, I applied this principle. I retained from eating at McDonald’s and KFC and had authentic Korean meals instead. Some of the local food might not suit my taste, but I could always eat something else and I believe that doing so can give more meanings to traveling than just a feeling of, “Oh, I’ve been to that place.”

But, yeah, I admit that I went to an Indonesian restaurant a few times… but that was just when I really missed Indonesian food!

Anyway, this principle still applies even when I’m in Indonesia. Every region in the country has its own traditional cuisine and I want to make sure that I eat the local food that I might not find anywhere else. That’s what makes it special, right? However, that was not the case when I was in Yogyakarta last December. I ate the local food too, of course, like gudeg, soto (soto tastes different in each region in Indonesia), and some others, including my grandma’s superb cooking. I especially like the soto in Yogyakarta, and if you don’t know what soto is, it’s kind of like a soup made of chicken or beef broth and is composed of meat (could be chicken or beef) and vegetables. If you happen to visit Yogyakarta, I recommend that you try its soto!

Ullen Sentalu: A Museum Experience Like Never Before

My lovely friends!

I am back with a new travel story, but no, I’m no longer in Korea so I won’t be posting travel destinations in that country. Instead, I will be posting more of destinations in my beautiful country, Indonesia! As I have said before, I want to explore this country and write my trips on my blog to introduce the beauty of Indonesia. You may know that Indonesia has Bali, Lombok, Jakarta… but they aren’t the only ones our country’s got! So, I hope by my travel logs starting this post, I will be able to share with you the wonderful Indonesia.

If you have been to Yogyakarta or have looked for the top things to do in Yogyakarta on Google, there is a chance that you know Ullen Sentalu Museum. Or, at least, you’ve heard of it. It was the case for me too, but only until recently that I found out about the museum.

And I’d been dying to go there.

My Napoleon Plans for 2019

I looked at the calendar earlier today and realized that it’s just a few days before New Year. Wow, just how fast time flies! It feels like yesterday I just came back from Korea and started my fifth semester. But the semester is finished, all big projects are done, all reports are submitted, and the holiday is hereee! The festive has yet to begin, though!

No matter how many people say that setting a New Year’s resolution is ineffective because you’ll forget it just a few days after Day 1, I believe that it is just as important as reflecting and being grateful for what 2018 has brought to you. Creating New Year’s resolution lets us think of what we want to do the most in 2019, or what kind of person we want to become starting from the day we write it.

Plus, if we keep the list in a proper place—say, stick it on the fridge door or on the mirror—it will be a reminder for us to keep doing our best in order to reach those goals or routines.

Explore the Most of Busan in 3 Days 2 Nights

As the end of the semester was approaching, both the Korean students and the international students of Dankook University were feeling the holiday vibes. Even I, as an exchange student with fewer classes and less schoolwork, and who always went to Seoul every weekend, were feeling the joyful vibes. And holiday isn’t a holiday if it’s just traveling somewhere near, at least for me! Seoul was definitely not an option for my perfect holiday, as it is just 1.5 hours away from Yongin.

The first thing that came to my mind when I was planning for the holiday was Busan. People say it is South Korea’s second city, just like how Surabaya is Indonesia’s second city, after Jakarta. I had read a lot about Busan and even watched a thriller zombie movie connected to it; Train to Busan. Well, even if the movie does not illustrate the beauty of Busan, it doesn’t even show how Busan is like.

Busan is located in the Southern part of South Korea, making it become a mix of metropolitan city and ports and beaches. And, villages. I asked my friends who had been there and they said it was completely different from Seoul. Busan is less busy than Seoul and is more like a countryside rather than a metropolitan city. Yes, you will see tall buildings everywhere just like in Seoul, but as you ride the bus on the road with these tall buildings on your left, you will at the same time witness the beauty of the seashores on your right. Did you get my point?

Travel Back Through Time to Gyeongbokgung Palace

Hello, my lovely friends!

It has been quite some time since I last wrote in this blog. I had been pretty much occupied with final exams, but now that they are over, I am back to tell you more of my adventures in Korea! There have been a lot going on and I had some of the most wonderful days ever in my life. Especially now that I already left Korea, I started to appreciate every little thing I had spent in the remaining days before I went back to Indonesia.

The international office of Dankook University held a farewell party for all the international students on 18 June. It was sad to know that all of us would return to our own countries, but at the same time happy that I got to make friends with such awesome people! I will write a separate post about it later.

Okay, that’s enough of being emotional. This time, I am going to take you back through time to Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Bukchon Hanok Village in Seoul!

How It’s Like to Study in South Korea

Hello, lovely peeps!

If you’ve read some of my recent posts and are following me on Twitter, you will know that I’m currently in South Korea. But I’m not here for a holiday; I’m here joining a student exchange program in Dankook University. And in this opportunity, I’d like to share my experiences in studying abroad in this country! I’ve read some bloggers talk about their life in university and they inspired me to write one of my own experiences.

As I’m writing this blog post, I’m currently in my second year of university and next semester I will be in the third year. I’m studying Industrial Engineering at Institut Teknologi Sepuluh Nopember (ITS) in Indonesia’s “second city”, Surabaya. I don’t even know how I suddenly got interested in Industrial Engineering, considering that my parents and grandparents aren’t in that field at all. But so far I’m enjoying my study and I really like it. I’ll tell you later in a separate post about my study in Industrial Engineering ITS!

[Wep’s Korea Life] Wonderful Experiences at Icheon Ceramics Festival

My interest for ceramics all started when I saw an advertisement about a ceramics festival in the subway. I was on the way to Nami Island when I noticed the poster, saying “2018 Gwangju Ceramics Festival”. My knowledge about Korean ceramics was just limited to what I had seen in some Korean dramas then, and little did I know that there was such a festival. In fact, I did not even know that there were ceramic festivals in any part of the world. I just knew that ceramic villages existed as home to ceramic artists, like the Kasongan Village in Yogyakarta.

Before coming to Korea, I set a resolution for myself, which was to learn and experience things that I wouldn’t be able to get in Indonesia. So when I saw the ceramics festival poster, there was a sudden spark of interest inside me that told me to go. I started to look for information about the Gwangju Ceramics Festival on the internet with the help of my Korean friends, because some of the websites were in Korean. Oh, anyway, it was the Gwangju city in Gyeonggi Province, not the big metropolitan city Gwangju.

I had been all excited about the Gwangju Ceramics Festival when I came across an information about a bigger and more popular festival, the Icheon Ceramics Festival! I quickly learned that Icheon is a city that is rich and well-known for its ceramics. It has its own Icheon Ceramics Village, which became the center of traditional pottery during the Joseon Dynasty for about 500 years, because of the easily obtained materials in the area.

[Wep’s Korea Life] A Trip to Winter Sonata Filming Site, Nami Island

When you think about Korea, the first thing that comes to mind would probably be Jeju-do. Or it may be K-pop, if you are a huge fan or if you have friends who are into K-pop music. It depends on how you see the country is and how well you know this country. But if you are a fan of Korean dramas and you have watched the Winter Sonata drama, the first thing that pops up in your mind would most likely be Nami Island. Yep, the very filming site for Winter Sonata, Nami Island!

Nami Island is a small island located on the extension (North) of Han River in Chuncheon, Gangwon Province. The shape of the island resembles a half-moon and it was formed as a result of the Cheongpyeong Dam construction. With its lovely lined pine and redwood trees and a large grass field for training activities and camping, Nami Island is surely a wonderful tourist destination that’s worth a visit.