During these two weeks, I have been able to practice Korean on multiple occasions. On Saturday morning I went to Park Joon’s(Korean Salon) again to get a haircut because my hair was getting a bit messy. I was able to use Korean to tell the hairdresser to give me a low fade and just trim my top hair. After the haircut, my Korean friend and I went to Grand Market which is right next door, and ate Korean food. I had Korean bibimbop and my friend has a mix of black bean paste noodles and Korean Spicy Sea Food noodles. I spent Saturday afternoon an evening with my friends from VCU. We ate Korean food together. We ate some Korean BBQ Galbi, Some spicy grilled pork, and some Korean bean paste soup. We also played Korean games together. After eating, we decided to watch some Korean comedy shows. I was surprised I could understand the jokes and the funny scenes with my limited vocabulary.
I was able to practice Korean with my language multiple times throughout the week. Somyung and I focused on talking in Korean because that is what I am primarily concerned about. We talked about our favorite Korean foods. She told me that her favorite food was naengmyeon (Korean Cold Noodles). She says that naenmyeon has a very pleasing specific flavor and she craves it because she has not eaten it in a while. I proceeded to ask her whether she is able to get it in Maryland, where she lives. She told me that her mom usually cooks the Korean food that she eats. I asked her if she thinks that her mom is a good cook and she said yes. Then I told her my favorite Korean foods which are JJangmeon and Korean Fried Chicken. I could eat that pretty much every day. She then asked whether I was going to stay on campus during Thanksgiving break. I told her no and told her that when I called my mother earlier, she told me that she misses me too much! Somyung told me that she has to stay on campus during the break because she won’t have a place to study adequately at home. She said that there are also too many distractions at home like her younger siblings. I completely understand her situation because I lived and still live in a small apartment for most of my life.
I also got the chance to talk to my brother over facetime in Korean. He seems to be doing well and he told me that he found a church he could go to that is only ten minutes away from his campus. We also talked about his plans for transferring to another school. He wants to transfer to either Cleveland State University in Ohio or Virginia Commonwealth University. I advised him to email the admissions to if he could obtain an application waiver because the application was seventy dollars. He told me he will, and I helped him form a draft of the email.
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I also really like Naengmyeon. I live in fairfax county by Annandale (NoVA's unofficial "Koreatown") and I really miss it.