[Part 1] 148.수료식 & 울산여행

Today marked the official end of 20 weeks of Korean language lessons at Silla with a graduation ceremony held at 10am. Time really passed so fast! I can still remember our induction ceremony in the same hall back in September and fast forward 20 weeks or 480 hours of lessons later, we have ended the 1st part of our language study here.

I didn’t receive anything though because I skipped one lesson and came in late for the lesson on the next day because of my trip up to Seoul last December. My classmates who had perfect attendance received shampoo and body soap sets from Amore Pacific! But it’s ok :) I’m glad that I managed to spend more time with my relatives! We also received our report cards and…I did really badly for my finals! Totally unbelievable. To think that I thought I had flunk my orals…I actually got 27/30, the same score as my previous oral exam back in November. And I didn’t even practise this time round. Other than my orals, I did badly for all the other components so…my final exam’s not something I want to remember. But again, it’s ok. TOPIK is the only thing that matters here!!!

After all the picture-taking, I went for lunch with my classmates at Hwarang Hall 화랑관 before going back to my room to unpack my box and pack my room. I also met up with Jenna and we went to the Admin Office to confirm that we want to share a room together for next sem :)

Best-in-class prize winners || congrats Valentina, Chanamas, Steven and 언니!!! 

Oops, forgot what prize this was for but Daniel collected it on behalf of us KGSP peeps

E반 || Samy (Egypt), Baby/Sylvia (Indonesia), Bolor (Mongolia), Kawita (Thailand), Pan (Myanmar),  Khuvsguldalai (Mongolia), our teacher 이혜원 선생님,  Hung (Vietnam), me, Sheeren (Egypt), Ikbol (Tajikistan) *missing Wyatt (USA)

Lunch- 칼국수 knife-cut noodles

At 2.15pm, I met up with Valentina, Daniel and Sonya in the cafeteria and we set off for our 1박2일 울산여행 2D1N Ulsan trip.
We made an impromptu decision to stop by Seomyeon because we couldn’t go to EH’s place empty-handed. I knew that I wanted to get ginseng for his parents but there were sooooo many different types available that I didn’t know which to get! It was so stressful  >.< In the end, I chose the one that was the most discounted lol.

From Seomyeon, we took the subway all the way to Nopo Station 노포역 before taking bus #1127 to Haksong Park 학성공원 which is at least 1.5 hours away. The last time I went to Ulsan was in Nov I think! Anyway, EH came to pick us up from the bus stop and drove us to his place where we had a wonderful home-cooked dinner with his parents. We were served fruits after dinner too and his mum placed the biggest of all the strawberries on the plate into my hands! EH remembered how I was going on and on about wanting to eat Korean strawberries every time I saw them in E-mart but they were too expensive so the day before we arrived, he got strawberries for us :) And the strawberries he got were so much bigger than the ones I saw in E-mart!

On the bus to Ulsan

Waiting for EH to pick us up

Our driver for the trip

Dinner!

My side of the table

After dinner, we were so stuffed that EH brought us to the sports stadium for post-dinner exercise lol. It was drizzling when we got there so after walking one round, we left for Daegwangam Park 대관암공원.

Hyundai shipyard

Photos credited to Daniel

At the observatory where Sonya concocted his version of how this place came about -.- 

EH and Sonya created some story of how a King jumped from the furthest end of this place into the sea for his lover and we believed them until we saw this -.- 

Back in his place, his parents made seafood pancake 파전 for us and despite our feeble attempts at rejecting the food, claiming that we were still full from dinner, we actually ate a few plates of the pancake lol.

Makkori

Really delicious :) 

The boys slept in the living room while Valentina and I got the bed in one of the bedrooms.