Today is culture day. The last Wednesday of each month is culture day and on those days most museums and other such culture experiences are free.
When I woke up this morning, I was wondering what I should do today, but then I discovered that it was culture day and it seemed like a good opportunity to visit the royal palace: GyungBok palace.
I have actually never been here before. I didn’t bother with a lot of tourist attractions last time I was in South Korea, so this was a golden opportunity.
It was pretty, but also pretty small compared to what I had imagined and one thing that especially struck me was how small and narrow the doors were. People either didn’t walk with their backs straight or there were significantly smaller than Korean are nowadays.
The visit left me with a bigger hunger for Korean History discoveries. And that’s a welcome adventure.
In other big news of the day: I may, just may, have been super lucky and found myself a new roommate.
You see, I made a friend when I first arrived at the dorms. She was with her mum and had just arrived and we helped each other find the office where we could get our key cards.
Yesterday, we met again and exchanged KakaoTalk IDs (KakaoTalk is a Korean message app like WhatsApp). And today her Mum was leaving in the morning so we agreed to meet up for lunch.
After I was done with my palace and museum tour, I headed home to the dorm and met up with her at her room.
Right as we were heading out, someone enters numbers on her padlock. Her roommate had come home.
Like me, her roommate was Chinese and had been away. But now she was back, right as we were heading out.
So I went out and let them talk.
My friend then comes out with a puzzled expression and says: “my roommate is moving out.” I looked just as confused.
My friend proceeded to explain that her roommate had said that she was moving out in a few days. My friend was sad at the prospect of having no roommate.
As we were out and about she asked if I wanted to move in with her if her roommate really was leaving and I said “of course”.
Upon our return we went to the housing office and asked and they said that it was fine if we could agree and we would just need to come down and sign some forms and get new keys.
So now I hope that it’ll come to be, and that it doesn't turn out just to have been some miscommunication with her roommate who doesn’t have that good English.
I wonder if maybe her roommate had wanted to explain that she had been away for a few days but didn’t have the English skills so she ended up saying something like: “I... move out. Ehh... Few days.”
Yes. I really wonder. But, of course, I hope that I’m wrong and that I did really just find myself a new roommate.
The roommate has been packing though, so it seems like it’ll happen..!
In either case, I certainly have found myself a new friend, and we’ve already made plans together both for dinner tonight and for a hip hop concert in a few weeks.
