Movement By Lydia

One of the coolest parts about living on Oahu is the wide array of activities the island offers. Most people think of the beautiful beaches when they picture Hawaii, but one of my favorite things to do in Hawaii is hike! There are so many mountains with beautiful trails and views of the island. During my time in Hawaii, I plan to hike as a much as possible and document those hikes here on this blog. P.S. I apologize ahead of time for the low quality iPhone photos. It is hard to capture the beauty with a camera phone, and for me, it's more about being present in the moment and enjoying all the scenery around me. Hike 1: Kuli'ou'ou Ridge Trail  Recently, my coworkers and I hiked the Kuli'ou'ou Ridge Trail. The location of this trail is designated by the red pin on Google Maps in the photos. As you can see, it is located on the eastern side of Oahu. This hike offers an incredible view of Waimanalo, Hawaii Kai, and the windward side of Oahu.     Fast Fa...

Nearly two years have gone by since I last posted on this blog, but I am so happy to see people still reading my blog and using it as a resource for NSLI-Y/traveling to South Korea. It seriously overwhelms me thinking about how many people have read my blog over the past few years!! While I haven't posted in quite some time, I miss blogging and have decided to revive and remodel this blog. There are a lot of changes being made, but I promise there will still be posts about NSLI-Y and South Korea. Keep reading to find out more about what I am doing with this blog moving forward! FORMAT:  For those who have read my blog before, you will notice that the format is much different than it used to be. I changed the format so that it is easier to navigate through the posts and use all of the different features on this blog. At the top, there are different pages you can select based on the topic you're interested in reading about (NSLI-Y/Korea, DC, Hawaii, Fitness, etc). If you cli...

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 ...

I usually make posts that list of cafe or restaurants in a specific area, but those are honestly such a drag to write and format sometimes. So, different than my usual cafe posts, this post will be all about the wonderful cafe in Hongdae called Mobssie (몹시) . The place is very well-known to Koreans for their delicious chocolate cake. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My friends and I set out to Hongdae after class one day to eat chocolate cake, and it turned out to be quite an adventure. My friend, who is a big fan of sweets, had done research and found a cafe with delicious, well-known chocolate cake so we went to find it. After about an hour of searching in this area of Hongdae, we asked a worker at a cafe near this supposed cafe... only to find out they had moved. Quite a disappointing moment. We were craving chocolate cake at this point, so we sat in a cafe searching for other...

Whenever I told people I was going to South Korea, they were always saying things like "don't die!" or "be careful!" because they immediately thought of the situation with N.Korea. Depending on where you live, reports about North Korea can be really crazy and make the country seem like they're constantly at war with South Korea and that South Korea is super dangerous because of the threat North Korea poses. Well in South Korea, people aren't nearly as frantic and worked up over North Korea because they're used to it. So to be honest, problems with North Korea should NOT be your main  safety concern if you are going to South Korea. What I think is more important to talk about is personal safety in South Korea, specifically Seoul (where I lived). That's what this post is going to be about- personal safety and dangers! I'll talk about what I think is important to know/do to stay safe and my personal experience and thoughts on safety in Seoul,...

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...