This April during the school holidays, a group of 16 keen QACI students joined by three amazing teachers travelled to 대한민국 (Daehanmingug) otherwise known as the Republic of Korea! Here, we made so many friends, and memories that will last a lifetime.
Starting bright and early on Thursday morning at 5:20am we all met at Brisbane Airport. It was a long 9-and-a-half-hour flight, arriving at Seoul in the evening. On our first full day in Korea, we woke up exhausted (from our long flight) but excited to attend school classes with our wonderful Chungnam arts high school buddies. Some of us were even lucky enough to do English class from a Korean perspective, it was so cool! We also got a tour of the school with the school principal, Jeong Tae-soo (and were delighted to hear his wonderful opera singing)! To finish the day of lessons we had performances from some of the music students and attended a traditional Korean drumming class. We also got to experience dormitory life during the weekdays we were at school. It was an excellent way to really experience Korean student life, (even if it did mean 10pm role calls and subsequently going to bed a little later than we should have).
The next day, despite a rainy forecast, we visited Oeam folk village where we tried some traditional Korean rice cakes, injeolmi (인절미) and rice drinks, sikhye (식혜). Then we visited Arario gallery in Cheonan. It had beautiful artworks and made for some good inspiration for the visual artists in the group. Later on we learn some new things about Korean history at the Independence Hall of Korea.
On Sunday we had the opportunity to do independently planned activities, which for most of us meant travelling to Shinsegae Department store. Our teachers looked after us throughout the trip using photo check-ins, to prove everyone was sticking together. By the end of the trip we were all coming up with all sorts of creative ways to take those photos.
On Monday, we attended classes again, and we were lucky enough to experience an impromptu performance from the vocal teacher. We then went to calligraphy classes where we learnt to write our names in Korean (Hangeul). During the evening, we watched a performance from some talented first year students.
On our last full day at the school, we attended our buddy’s classes one last time. We also had a master class on Buchaechum (부채춤), or Korean fan dance, which made it to QACI socials. In the evening there was an assembly where some of us did a K-pop Dance to Aespa’s ‘Drama’. Then as a whole group we performed the Nutbush QACI Style! We were fashionably late to our cue, but still delivered a memorable performance and left a bit of our QACI spirit behind.
On our final day in Chungnam, we said our goodbyes to all our friends and set off to Korea’s capital city, Seoul. On the way, we stopped at a theme park called Everland. It was filled with lots of food and rides. We also went to Starfield COEX Mall which was part department store, part library and part aquarium.
On our first exciting day in Seoul, we visited Namsan tower or N Seoul tower to live out our K-Drama dreams. Especially seeing and taking photos on the decks with the love locks where a lot of K-Drama scenes take place. For lunch that day we went to Hongik University to have the most delicious hot pot. Another amazing opportunity to live our K-Drama dreams, was visiting MBC Studios. We got a tour of the recording studio, sets and even got our hands on a script for an upcoming drama episode. It was all in Korean, but hey, it's still pretty cool. We then attended a Baseball Game at Jamsil stadium; we watched the Doosan Bears vs the Hanwha Eagles. Sadly, our team, Doosan did not win, despite a promising start.
On our second last day, we got an opportunity to visit Gyeongbokyung palace & wear the Korean Hanbok. We got some stunning photos! We briefly explored DDP (Dongdaemun design plaza) and we took some photos of the incredible architecture. When coming to Korea most of us were looking forward to a huge shopping spree, and walking along the streets of Insadong was the perfect place for that. For our K-pop fans HiKR was a highlight, getting to film mv’s on light up stages. To finish off our busy day we went to see the NANTA Show which was so much fun! The actors not only delivered peak nonverbal comedy but were extremely talented drummers, martial artists, dancers and chefs.
On our final day in Korea, we went to the cherry blossom festival in Yeouido. It was so beautiful, watching the cherry blossom petals falling around us. We also walked along K-Star Road in Gangnam. We got to see many statues of some of our fave K-pop groups Including SHINee, EXO, Girls’ Generation, and BTS. Samsung Innovation Museum which was really cool to see the history of all things technology. We went to a really nice buffet restaurant, and we had a bit of spare time, so we couldn’t resist one last trip to Olive Young (a cosmetic store)!
We are so grateful for this amazing opportunity. It is certainly something we will never forget!!! 대단히 감사합니다 to everyone who helped make this unforgettable experience possible, Ms Cabot, Ms Geddes, Ms Kim, Mr. Bacon, the fabulous CAHS Students and staff and of course our families!!!! We certainly can’t wait to welcome some of the Chungnam Arts High School students this October with the same love and warmth they gave us!
Article written by Thulasy Sivarupan and Gemma Moore.