Where to eat around SK Global House/International House?!

Hello, sorry for the extremely long staleness on this blog.

I am safely home in Singapore and adjusting to the hectic, high-stress life as a student in Singapore. -sigh- How I wished I was still in Korea, eating my kimbaps and ramyeons...

Anyway, some of my readers now have already embarked on their journey to Korea. To all my readers studying in Korea now, all the best, enjoy yourselves, eat more Korean food (because you will miss it), and live your Korean dream!

Okay, now back to topic.

When I was in Yonsei, I constantly worried about food. See, when I was in KU, it didn't matter much to me for two reasons.

1. There is a cafeteria in the building next to Frontier House that provides meal plans.
2. Even if I didn't feel like having cafeteria food, a short trip down to Anam (which will not take more than 5 minutes walk) will provide me a variety of choices.

However, Yonsei didn't have such options! There was no school cafeteria that allows us to take up meal plans. There is a small restaurant serving Italian at International House, and other than that, was the few shops open at Global Plaza. We shall not talk about these places because you will all find out about them eventually.

So I shall enlighten all readers here living at Yonsei dorms to the places very near where we're staying, that I've discovered has food.

1. Korean Language Institute (KLI) Building
If you walked to Global Plaza, walk along GS25 and pass through the doors into the next building. Walk up the short flight of stairs and turn left. There will be a small cafeteria there.

The food served there is KOREAN. Yes, you can get Korean cuisine! From tonkatsu to samgyetang (Ginseng Chicken), you can find it there. However, the menu changes everyday so there is a limited selection per day. I personally love the Samgyetang, Soondubu JiGae, and Kalbi Tang.

The price is reasonable. Very reasonable. Trust me.

However, I'm not very sure about opening hours. All I know is that... it is definitely open for lunch, and lunch hours are very, very packed. I'm not sure about dinner. But with all school cafeterias, they do not operate on weekends.

Note: FLI Building has a cafeteria too, but I've never tried it, so I cannot write about it ):

2. Lord Sandwich
Walk down from SK Global House until you see an oddly shaped rectangular-ish grey building.

They sell sandwiches. Of course they do.
They sell them quite pricey, but the quality is superb. I've only ever eaten at Lord Sandwich once, but I know if I could, I would return for another of their delicious sandwiches.

My recommendation, as well as my friends': The Beef Steak Sandwich

Eat it, Love it.

No regrets.

3. 딸기곰(Sorry, can't remember exactly so don't blame me if it is spelt wrongly. We just call it the strawberry place)
Walk down from SK Global, pass by Lord Sandwich until you reach a crossroad. Turn right and you should see a convenience store, walk a little beyond it and at a cosy corner, you see the Strawberry Place.

Sells Korean cuisine at reasonable price. A good place for staple meal.
The Strawberry Place sells everything typical. Dwaenjang JiGae to Ddeokbokki, Kimchi JiGae to whatever it is. They have it.

They also have a mad number of side dishes, I've always felt so satisfied having my meals there during weekends. Yep, they open throughout the week!

I recommend this place, really. Especially when everything seems closed on weekends T.T

4. 칼국수 Place
Walk down from SK Global, pass by Lord Sandwich till you reach the crossroads... then keep walking straight until you see a small shop. They specialize in 칼국수, which are knife cut handmade noodles in anchovy broth. I didn't pay much attention to the entire menu, but they do have other dishes.

They didn't really leave a deep impression on me, but if you've been craving the typical chinese style soup and noodles, then this is the place for you.



These are only the umm... very limited places I've tried. That are within short walking distance of SK Gloabl House and International House. A lot of the restaurants are closed. And some I've never ventured into.

But I've always passed by a buffet place outside along the main roads. On weekends I do see the restaurant being packed, so do give it a try and do tell me how the food is! (:

There are also more popular eateries along the main road leading to Severance Hospital, so if you feel like walking a little more distance, explore the area and hopefully you'll get your bellies filled (:

This isn't a very long post, but I'll come back every now and then to post one or two about what I recall during my stay there. I'm still here! So drop me an email if you need to, alright? (:

PEACE!

Yonsei University: SK Global House? International House?

Are you coming to Yonsei University for a summer programme? An exchange programme?

I think one of the questions you'll be asking yourself is where you will be staying; and if you're staying on-campus, you probably have to pick one of two choices: SK Global House, or International House.

So as much as possible, I'll give a brief introduction to both choices and hopefully make it easier for you to make you choice!

Background:
I live in International House currently.

General information about both SK and IH (things they don't tell you!)

• Both SK and IH are connected internally. This means you can move freely from IH to visit your friends in SK, and vice versa, without having to go out in the open. Entrances to both residences are separate though.
• However, you can only enter and exit from your respective residence. This means that even if you want to visit your friend in SK/IH first before going back to your room, you have to enter through your own side first.
• You can use facilities in both SK & IH if you are a resident of either one.

INTERNATIONAL HOUSE (I-HOUSE)

General stuff about I-House:

• Only has double rooms. In my opinion, it's pretty small, but it's more of cosy than too small. 
• Toilets and showers are shared per level.
• A lounge on every floor. Includes water dispenser, hotplate for cooking, microwave over, large fridge. Also has television with cable, cosy sofas, and coffee tables.
• Fully air-conditioned, ondol also available (during winter).
• 5-storeys, Lobby, two for guys, two for girls. Basement (not accessible by elevator) has laundry rooms and study room.

What's good in I-House:

• Refrigerator inside the room - Store your personal groceries without the worry of them spoiling or being stolen (unless your roommate steals them). Refrigerator works even if nobody is in the room.
• Level-shared washrooms - No need to buy toilet paper, no need to wash toilets. The toilets are kept clean at all times, unless it's the weekends. That's because the janitor does not work. Then the toilets are really clean again on Monday. Even so, on weekends, they are still clean, just not super clean. 
• Good storage solutions in the room - several cubicles for you to organize and categorize your items. Makes use of vertical space so you have more places to put things compared to SK.
• Air-conditioner works all-year round (I think) - Don't need to return the remote controls even when the weather turns cold (unlike SK)

What's not-so-good in I-House:

• Washrooms are outside - May be inconvenient for some
• No shelter whatsoever to the entrance of I-House - Rain or snow, or when the weather turns cold.. You need to walk out into the cold just to buy food from Global Plaza. You have to run through the rain just to get home.
• Motion-sensor lights, even in shower - It isn't very smart. Sometimes it switches the lights off right when you're in the middle of shampooing/soaping yourself, or washing your face. Stuck in the dark, you hastily wrap yourself up to wave at the motion sensor, near the entrance to the showers.
• Less facilities than SK - more inconvenient to walk a whole big round just to print notes at the computer room, or us the gym, or whatever.

SK GLOBAL HOUSE (not a resident so might be lacking in some details)

General stuff about SK:

• There are single as well as double rooms.
• Personal bathrooms
• More storeys than I-House
• Lounge available, various types of rooms around are accessible

What's good in SK:

• Bathrooms inside the room - Convenient
• Slightly larger than I-House rooms
• Directly connected to Global Plaza, KLI, and New Millenium Hall - You can wear your comfy clothes to get to Global Plaza to grab some food, because you won't be out in the cold at all. Speedy travel to KLI and NMH for lessons.
• SK lobby is a great place to chill - don't need to be a resident to sit there, quite a lively place too

What's not-so-good in SK:

• Bathrooms inside room - Clean it yourself, buy your own bathroom supplies including toilet paper. Trust me, cleaning the toilets are often the source of perpetual frustrations especially with roommates who suck at cleaning up or keeping it clean. Single room, not too bad, I guess.
• The entrance only allows one person to enter at one time - Troublesome.
• Kitchen with cooking equipment at the basement - Gotta go all the way down to cook if you want to. Inconvenient.
• Less utility of space for storage - You gotta find somewhere to organize you items.
• No refrigerator in the room - You can't store your milk or other groceries ):

TIPS AND OPINIONS (important! You will regret not reading this part)

• If you are travelling by cab, access I-House through Yonsei's main gate and drive all the way in, and stop in front of New Millenium Hall, that's the closest you can get to I-House. For SK, if you use this method, you need to take the elevator down to the basement level to access the lobby. 
• There are TWO wall sockets at your desk. One is used for the table lamp, the other is for the IP Phone (which we never use). If you need more sockets, I suggest getting an adaptor for your HOME plug, and then bring an extension (like in this picture: click) in your home format, so you can easily use those sockets without hassle.
• There is NO WIFI in the room, please bring LAN wire, and learn in advance how to share your ethernet connection through wifi using your computer, so your phone can tap on it.
• The troublesome part about both SK and IH is that the power slot (the place you have to put your card key in so there is power in the room), only accommodates ONE card. It's a stupid design, especially if your roommate is one who is not spontaneous enough to make their card easily accessible. Imagine this, you wake up in the morning wanting to go for lessons and your roommate is still sleeping. You don't know where their card is, so you leave the room, with your roommate in a powerless room. (My roommate is one such person, she always keeps her card to herself.)
• SK and IH are located very far away from the nearest subway station. 15 minutes brisk walk to get there. Inconvenient much.
• Getting to lessons on main campus is also a pain in the butt, always prepare sufficient time to walk.
• In I-House, laundry rooms are split into Male and Female, although you can access both freely. In each room, there are three washers, and two dryers. Washers take 37 minutes per wash (1,000 won), and dryers take 45 minutes on high heat (always use this. and it costs 500 won). Detergent dispensers are available. Coin exchanger at the lobby. Yes, there is an iron.
• Global Plaza has convenient store, food, florist, nail shop, fastfood (burger & shake). On Sunday, only fastfood and convnient store are open. Food isn't cheap or exceptionally good, in the day, you can go to KLI basement for some good Korean food at lower prices (:

So that's all from me about IH and SK, both sides have their good and bad, so pick one the suits you better. Although, SK seems to run out of rooms faster than IH does so... yea. It doesn't mean IH is a bad place, it has its charms (: