What do Kids in Korea do during their free time?

In Korea, it's very easy to find street food carts, selling various popular foods, such as ddukbokkee (rice cakes and eggs with spicy sauce). Around the street carts, students gather around and pick whatever they wish to eat and save a lot of their money at the same time.       

In Korea, Karaoke has been very popular and became part of their culture. Especially, students love to go with their group of friends and spend 1 to 2 hours of singing. In past, Karaoke was a place just for singing, however, nowadays, it has been advanced and  there are more activities to do, such as taking sticker photos, which I will explain next.     

 

These are sticker photos that I took in Korea.  They are usually $7, and there are various machines with different qualities. After taking pictures, you can decorate and add many quatities as much as you want.   

Another thing that students in Korea love to do is going shopping. The picture on the left is Seoul downtown, Myungdong. It's the most crowded place in Seoul and where most students love to go to.

Teen Life in Korea

After pondering about what to talk about on my blog, I thought that it'd be interesting to share teen life in Korea. Last year, I visited Korea and stayed at my aunt's house. I was fully of excited about the thought that I could hang out with my cousins. However, we couldn't spend much time together, because they were always busy studying and preparing themselves for college. 

An Example of Korean Student's schedule:


6:30    

get up

exercise, including dancing, aerobics, and jogging

eat breakfast

typically rice, gimchi, soup, yogurt, apples

wash face and hands or take a shower

clean dorm room

take roll call

7:50    

school officially begins

free study at carrel in student study room, known as a yaja

9:20    

first of four classes, each between one hour to 90 minutes

1:10

lunch

typically rice, gimchi, soup, bibimbab, tomatoes

sometimes spaghetti with a topping of peas and/or fish

1:45

more classes

4:00

students clean the school with their team

4:20

one more class

6:00

dinner

7:00

roll call and free study at the yaja

often goes until 11:00 with a 30-minute break in the middle,

can go until 1:30 or later during examination periods.

As it is shown, Students in Korea spend most of their time studying. 

However, they aren't much different than American students. Korean students love to hang out, go shopping, and play video games as any other teenagers do. In the next blog post, I will share some activities Korean students like to do in their free time.