Norebang, Korean Class and BBQ

So last weekend some of the interns were exploring our area and after dinner and a few drinks we thought it was time we checked out a Norebang place. Norebang is basically rooms that you rent with couches etc where you do Karaoke with your friends. Most of the places have bars so you can order drinks and hang out. The one we ended up going to was pretty nice with a ton of songs in English and Korean. Was a little bit of a step up from my 25th bday in Chicago's Korea town - but very similar experience. However this time they definitely had "I think we're alone now" :) I am waiting for my friend to send me some pictures and I'll post them, but wanted to tell about the experience - always love me some Karaoke!

This week we began Korean class. For someone who has only learned Latin based languages in the past, Korean is not very easy. For instance while there aren't as many letters as in the Chinese language, they are very complicated and confusing. For instance there are sounds that I do not characterize as even sounds we use in the English language. For instance there is a vowel that is kinda pronounced uh or ugh - combination, but I didn't even understand whether that was a sound that we use in English. Took me an entire class to understand how to say it. Also there are 3 letters that pronounce p/b - with slightly different intonations (see below for alphabet). Given the fact that different sounds have different letters its very difficult to remember when to use which. However, given that I'll be here for 5 more weeks, being able to read and somewhat understand how to say things will help enough. I still only know a few words, and despite the difficulty of this language, it is still nice to learn a little bit about the Korean language.

This week was full of Korean BBQ. Earlier this week I had dinner with 3 other GSBers that are also in Seoul for the summer. That was fun to catch up and eat some good Kalbi (beef) BBQ at Samwon Gardens.

Later in the week we went to this local seafood bbq place which was very Korean. We really had no idea what we were ordering when we ordered it, but it ended up being a pretty cool and interesting experience.