Movement By Lydia

If you watch Korean TV shows or dramas, I'm sure you have heard of and seen the Han River before. The Han River flows through Seoul and is a popular spot to hang out with friends or go on dates. People enjoy riding bikes along the rivers, grabbing food and hanging out with friends, watching performers, or just walking along the river. It's really pretty during the day and night, and during the summer it's refreshing to splash around in the little parks they have too! I mainly went to the area of the Han River in Yeouido (off of Yeouinaru Station). When we would go during the day, we'd mostly just walk along the river and explore the area (some rode bikes which is popular to do!). When we would go at night, we'd usually grab food first then find a place to sit and just hang out. The first time I went to the Han River was during my first week in Korea and I went with other NSLI-Y students. We were in Hongdae, where we picked up Korean fried chicken from our u...

For those not familiar with what a supporter is, a supporter is a Korean college student that you meet with two times a week to study Korean and go around Seoul with. Supporter groups are groups of 2-3 NSLI-Y students around the same level of Korean (usually from the same class) paired with a supporter.  Supporters are something unique to the NSLI-Y Korea program, though other programs may have something similar. They act as tutors, tour guides, and friends all in one! Supporters as "Tutors"  As I mentioned above, you meet two times a week with your supporter for a few hours, and it is up to them where you go. One of the supporter's main role is to help you with your Korean, so they have a little book that corresponds with the lessons you learn in class and work out of them. We mainly focused on speaking. We would go over vocabulary and grammar in their little book then do some kind of role play or question and answer to practice what we were learning. After ...

In continuation with my last blog post, here is the second "Post NSLI-Y/College Life" blog post. This one is geared more towards alumni, but anyone can read it to learn of some of the opportunities you get as NSLI-Y alumni and know how to keep up with language studies even after you come home from being abroad! This blog post ended up being much longer than I expected, so I have split it into two different posts:  Part 1: Keeping Up With Korean  Part 2: Opportunities as a NSLI-Y Alumna They're quite long, but I encourage you to read both of them. They're filled with personal but relevant post-NSLI-Y experiences that will hopefully be beneficial to you. ALSO, I saw that NSLI-Y started sending out notifications last week, so HUGE congratulations to those who will be going abroad with NSLI-Y this year. And to those who don't get it, congratulations to you  too , really. Congratulations to you for even being a semifinalist and for applying to NSLI-Y in the firs...

Congratulations to all of you finalists who just recently found out you will be going to Korea for the summer!! I am so excited for you guys [and super jealous]! You are going to have an amazing time.. I know I did. One of the reasons I had such a great time was because of my Korean friends! So this post will be about the importance of making Korean friends, or at least why I think it's important and helpful during your time studying in Korea ^^ So I have a lot of Korean friends as my school has been hosting Korean exchange students since I was in 3rd grade and I go to a camp with lots of Korean people who come from Korea... I got to meet some of them while I was in Korea which was awesome, but I also made Korean friends while in Korea. I'm not going to lie, making Korean friends during the summer program isn't easy- it requires a big effort on your part because besides the day camp and supporters (and for us, the cooking class), you really don't have much interacti...