Excursions around South Korea

 Hi Sharks!

My name is Isabella Garcia, and I had the wonderful opportunity to study abroad in South Korea this past summer! In this blog post, I will share some excursions that I've been on and highly recommend if you ever travel to South Korea. I studied abroad at Konkuk University, which is located in the heart of Seoul, where transportation (bus/subway) is only a 10-15 minute walk from campus! 

I will first share my favorite excursions organized by Konkuk University, which were scheduled for every Wednesday during the program. We went on a total of 3 excursions to the DMZ, Gangwon Province, and Everland Theme Park. All these trips were so much fun, I will include Gangwon in this post since it was my favorite out of the 3 and then get into more things I did off campus!

Gangwon Province

Konkuk University organized a day trip to Gangwon Province, which is about a 1.5-2 hour drive from Seoul (we took a charter bus there). We first went to Gangchon Rail Park, located in the city of Chuncheon, where we rode rail bikes around a designated area. The scenery was beautiful, and it was so much fun!

Cafe Hopping

Studying is so much more fun at cafes, and one of my favorite things to do. Studying abroad in South Korea, I would highly recommend going to a cafe; there are so many options inside and outside of campus and across multiple districts. Some cafes are open much later than the ones in the US, which was a culture shock for me.

 

Museums 

Since I took the K-Art class, I had the opportunity to go to multiple museums for class, such as the National Museum of Korea and the Modern & Contemporary Art Museum. I learned a lot about Korean art and history!

 

Shopping

There are multiple places to shop around Seoul! I've been shopping at Insadong, Seongsu, Gangnam, and even the Kondae district right outside campus! I've bought so many things, such as clothes, accessories, skincare, and makeup! I even got color-matched for some of the makeup products, and my skin was analyzed so I could find the right products for me!

 

That's it for this post. I hope you all enjoyed a sneak peek into some of my daily life studying at Konkuk University. If you have any questions, feel free to email me at igarcia8@my.hpu.edu.