Now that it is the final week of my stay in Seoul, I wanted to do the little things that could still make my experience memorable. I wanted to do some of the common activities that Koreans would do during the weekend. For three days after classes ended that week, we went café hopping to the variety of interesting cafes in Seoul. The first café we went to was a sheep café where desserts and drinks were served inside while exiting the café doors led to two fluffy sheep outside. The dessert we shared in the lit decorative café setting was cozy. After finishing, we went on to feel the coziness of the sheep. It was funny watching them eat each other’s food. Then the next café we went to that week was the racoon café. For this café, we were required to change into slippers provided by them and to remove everything from our pockets. After entering the designated glass room where the racoons were, we saw not only racoons, but also dogs. As we lured the racoons to us with food, we got to interact and pet them. Some of the racoons crawled on the head of the other customers and they took a picture with the racoon. As for my attempt of taking a picture with the racoon, the racoon ended up almost pulling my hair. As we moved on to the last café of the week, we went to the famous ‘poop’ café. The theme of the café was cartoon images of a brown stack of poop. At this café, we ate out of bowls that were in the shape of toilets. Of course, as we eat the noodles from the toilet, it got more and more dirty and made it look like an actual toilet. It was quite a distinct café that I wouldn’t mind wishing again.
Since it was the end of the week by that time, it was also the end of my six week study abroad program. Even though the program was short-term, the university still provided us with the traditional graduation ceremony to end the program. We got to put on our cap and gown and met with our friends in the refreshment room. Then we moved on to the most important part of capturing our memories there: taking graduation pictures. As graduation ended, we moved on to getting dinner with all the other students we met in Korea to finalize the night.
The following night, we met up with them again to enjoy dinner at the Han River. After getting off the subway and arriving at the Han River, we saw many food trucks that sold a variety of foods from tacos to Korean snacks. We all dispersed to get our foods and gathered back together to sit in a circle next to the river to eat. As we ate, the water fountain on the bridge of the Han River began to shoot out water that came out as different colors because of the light. The sound of water, the wind blowing, the good food, and the friends we were with made the experience very memorable as other Korean people were also here to enjoy the rest of their weekend. This experience may seem common to Koreans, but to us, it was a very special experience that we would never forget. Staring up at the night sky while music was being play from all directions and just being together with everyone made everything just seem so perfect.
