Hi this is matt and I’ll be writing for the HYU team this week! The weather is starting to get quite chilly (midteens and lower), and the leaves have begun to turn auburn. This week we had a Hangul national holiday, the last public holiday till the end of the term unfortunately. I find this period of the year to be the most enjoyable as it’s sufficiently cooling to walk and explore almost everywhere whilst enjoying the fall colours. As it is beginning to ramp up for midterms, we have yet to explore much during this week.
I did however head down to Gangnam to try shake shack! I think the price levels are slightly too high for a student, akin to that of upmarket restaurants, whilst they serve fast food style sliders. However, the burgers do live up to their reputation, especially when I had it warm and fresh off the grill in the cool evening air. I am looking forward to comparing it to the branch opening in Singapore!
The weather is also suitable for some plein air sketching! It’s snugly in the range where a hoodie and some sweatpants let you comfortably sit in a park to absorb the sights and sounds (some chill lofi in my case). With the typhoon over, the weather seems clear of rain for the next few days.
Additionally, to cover for the lack of interesting events because we are good students who study for midterms, I will cover what I did during Chuseok! Whilst Daphne, Tessa and Oon Tong took the bus to busan, Yuyang and I took the path less traveled and cycled there! The entire trip took us about 6 days, covering a distance of about 600km. This let us see different parts of Korea, including the many apple and persimmon farms, great bridges and dams, beautiful sunsets whilst interacting with the warm and welcoming locals.
The kind hospitality of the locals in each town really gave us the determination to push on, despite aching butts. Having them try so hard to communicate with us (gibberish Korean for us, and broken English for them), was an enlightening experience. The fact that most of these exchanges happened over the topic of food, I think was additionally comforting for us as Singaporeans.
