London Semester – Page 6

That's Art? – Pop Life @ Tate Modern

As you can imagine, London is a BIG city. That means there is just so much to do and so little time. While I’m here, I would like to do all sorts of “tourist-y” thing there is, so last weekend, Jack and I decided to start with something basic – Buckingham Palace, St. Paul’s Cathedral, HARRY POTTER BRIDGE and Tate Modern Museum.

On Saturday (16 Jan) we woke up even before the sun came up – fine, exaggerated, but early enough – to get out to Buckingham Palace for the changing of the guards. So Robert, Jack and I simply hopped on the tube, which, by the way, is so fancy compared to the glorious T back in Boston, at around 10:45 a.m. We honestly thought the ceremony started at 11:30, but when we actually got there at around 11:10, we realized we were wrong. The new set of guards were already marching into the palace and starting the whole process.

So yes, we saw these people in funny furry hats and gray winter coats playing music, including a bit of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, marching around for about an hour and successfully switching their guard shifts. It took just about an hour, and I couldn’t believe how many people there were to see this. Despite the rain, many were gathered around. More importantly, the number of different languages I heard around me was even more impressive. London is indeed a very diverse city.

For more information – i.e. history, time, place etc. – check out their website: http://www.changing-the-guard.com/

After, we walked through St. James’ Park toward Westminster tube station. I have been saying over and over again London is a BIG city, but the truth is, once you get to one area of the city, within certain areas, it is definitely walkable. For example, from Westminster station, if you’re up for it, you can walk all the way to Tate Modern, located across the river from St. Paul’s Cathedral, and on your way over, you’ll see the Aquarium, Movieum, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre and National Theatre Gallery.

BUT we actually decided to be lazy and utilize the great public transportation system. For a good reason though; it started pouring, and thankfully, the #11 Bus took us directly to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Upon our arrival, we did find out it would cost us 9 pounds (student rate) to see the inside of this magnificent church.

Our thought process was this: St. Paul’s Cathedral isn’t exactly going anywhere. In the meantime, we’ve already burnt through a good portion of our budget. Unfortunately, the dollar/pound exchange rate isn’t exactly in our favor. Therefore, if we have money left over at the end of the semester, we’ll come back for the interior tour. For now, skip!

We grabbed a quick lunch at a small place called Fresh Italy. (http://www.fresh-italy.com/aboutus.aspx). To our surprise, for only £5.50, we had a huge portion of pasta and a cup of tea. What a great deal!

Now, probably the most important question ever, do you recognize this bridge?

If you don’t, SHAME ON YOU! We are no longer friends.

Alright, just kidding. But seriously, this bridge’s formal name is Milenium Bridge. If you’re a Harry Potter lover like I am, you’ll know this as The Bridge That was in the Sixth Movie. Mmhmm, that’s more like it. After all, the deatheaters didn’t destroy it. Thank goodness. As you can see, on the north side of Thames is St. Paul’s Cathedral, so if you cross the bridge, you stand right in front of Tate Modern on the south side.

Tate is a modern art museum. The building used to be a warehouse. All museums in London are FREE. There you go, cool enough reasons for me to visit and learn about modern art. As a modern art museum, Tate houses contemporary paintings, sculptures, videos and any other form of art created by imaginative minds, such as Claude Monet, Anish Kapoor, Picasso and Mario Merz. Honestly, I am not an expert, so I can’t really tell you what their artworks are like. One thing I can say though is if you ever do go to the Tate and decide to see Paul McCarthy’s video, well, don’t. Semi-disturbing. Not sure what he was trying to say through a naked man dancing around with a mask on, but I didn’t really get it.

Besides those collections, the Tate does have special exhibits – and you do have to pay admission for those. When I went, Pop Life was the main attraction. Pop Life was a display of various works by Andy Warhol and Jeff Koons.

And I will let these articles do the review of the exhibit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2009/sep/29/pop-life-tate-pop-art AND http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article6852784.ece

This is a fairly lengthy recap of my last Saturday. I know I still have so much to catch up on – pubs in South Kensington, Notting Hill Arts Club, Soho and Brick Lane.

More to come very very soon!

-Yoojin

Windsor Castle & Eton College

It’s already been two weeks! WOW. More accurately about 11 days, but who cares… Same difference, right? This week was filled with lectures and orientation events, including Imperial College pub night and start of the semester party at Langley. I have so much to say about both places – and of course about Tate Modern Museum, St. Paul’s Cathedral and generally being Harry Potter, but I am going to try to keep this entry focused on the daytrip I went on today.

That, my friends, is WINDSOR CASTLE – the place where past kings and queens of England have used. Most importantly, it is the oldest occupied castle and Queen’s official residence. The castle is absolutely gorgeous, especially the front entrance used by the Queen. It is just like what you see in fairytale where there is a long walkway leading up to the gate where you’re greeted by those guard with funny hats. And only after that, you enter a majestic courtyard, and up on the second floor is the Queen’s hall.

The tour of Windsor was very simple. All there was to do was circling around the circle, seeing the chapel where the Order of the Garters met and admiring the gorgeous garden. But, the most impressive and possibly the most popular feature was Queen Mary’s Dollhouse. Honestly, those dolls have it so much better that us normal folks would ever be able to afford. So. Jealous. It was fascinating to see an elaborate dollhouse that was taller than I. PS, the dollhouse is equipped with perfectly working electricity and plumbing. Why is that necessary? Not sure, but it’s SO COOL! Unfortunately photographing inside the exhibit was not allowed, but here is the taste:

That is the living room… Really, NBD.

Another site we visited was Eton College. Don’t let the name “college” deceive you. It is simply an all boys boarding school where Price William & Harry spent their high school years. Once again, really NBD. Eton is right next to Windsor Castle (only about 15 minutes of a walk), situated very nicely along Thames River. While the campus is really pretty, and according to our awesome tour guide Penny, the education the boys receive is superb, you do have to be able to pay close to 10,000 pounds per term – and there are 3 terms a year – to attend this school. Wow.

Windsor & Eton was a nice short getaway from the little bubble called South Kensington, but I’m not sure if I can ever afford to actually live in the area. It is indeed a nice little village that I enjoyed visiting.

Next up – hopefully very very soon – is my thoughts on some London explorations I’ve done so far, such as pubs around the area, Buckingham Palace, Tate Modern, etc.

PS. Today was the first sunny day in London. What a miracle!

-Yoojin

Super Quick Update – HELLO, LONDON!

6 January 2010 at 7 a.m., I landed in London to actually stay here for the next four months! Since the RA training has been ALL I’ve been doing, I will just give some bulletpoints of things that have happened so far and update more in detail later – Sorry! But I promise, I will upload lots and lots of pictures and stories after this weekend.

1. Surprisingly nice British people! Seriously, I’ve found so far that the majority of British people I’ve met are super friendly. Props for them.

2. Endless hours of RA training: absolutely miserable. When I’m mega jetlagged and exhausted, sitting in a room hearing about rules, fire alarms, culture shock, transportation etc. isn’t exactly fun… But I’m learning a lot and can’t wait for everyone to arrive on Sunday!

3. Gorgeous South Kensington buildings: pictures to come soon!

4. Comedy Store: very much like Boston’s Improv Asylum. Although some jokes are very very inappropriate, still funny and the venue is a great atmosphere for friends.

5. Gloucester Arms: the greatest fish and chips thus far. YUM.

I will write so much more later! Safe travels to everyone coming this weekend and to everyone who’s going back to Boston soon!

-Yoojin

Looking Back on 2009

Is it almost 2010 already? Serious? It honestly doesn’t even feel like the year is ending, but alas, in just a few days, it will be 2010 (double digits? what?) and more shockingly, in just about a week, I will be on my way to London. So far this winter break, I’ve hit up various malls – Allen Premium Outlet (highly recommended), Galleria in Dallas, Stonebriar in Frisco and Northpark in Dallas – and ate my weight in awesome home-cooked meals, but I still haven’t even thought about packing or gathering the necessities for my semester abroad. Oops!

So here’s to more procrastination – Highlights & My Favorite Memories from 2009 (I will try my best to organize this nicely in a chronological order…no guarantees though)

1. First in January, the birth of my beautiful little: Caitlin Rose. Yes, ADPi Recruitment was the very first big event that happened once I returned to BU for Spring 2009. Going through a sorority recruitment on the “other” side was definitely an exciting, time-consuming, awesome experience, but the end results were totally worth all the hard work. As former Membership Education VP, I am proud of say, ADPi at BU continues to have the highest GPA on campus! 🙂 Oh, and my little, current Membership Education VP, will for sure continue this legacy.

2. ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY with Jack & the Beanpot Tournament. In February, Jack and I celebrated our one-year anniversary at Legal Seafood by Boston Harbor (where we had our very first date just a year before). We also went to the Garden to watch my favorite team, Dallas Mavericks take on the Celtics. Well, good news was I watched my love, Dirk, play basketball, but the bad news…the Mavs lost badly. Maybe next time. Anyways, our sporting adventure continued on to BEANPOT a couple weeks after. Just as exciting as watching Dirk and Scalabrine dominate(?) the court with KG was BU beating Northeastern for the Beanpot title. Yes, that’s right – BU has won more than half of the Beanpot Championship in the Beanpot history.

3. Spring Break: Roadtripping with FOUR boys… Basically, I saw, I came, I conquered. More precisely, I survived the 10-hour drive from Boston to Washington DC with all boys in a tiny car despite getting lost terribly in Connecticut. Great times… Needless to say, by the end of the week, I was ready for some quality time with my girl friends, but still had an awesome time with my bros walking around the capital and simply hanging out.

4. 121 all day everyday: my summer job at the admissions office. My days were filled with giving campus tours, running BUEx (Saul Bellow…Ha Jin…French, English, YIDDISH…), mingling with 16-year-old high school children, talking about BU, etc. When it was 80 degrees with 100% humidity, my frizz might have turned away some prospective families from BU, but I think I still had a great time representing my university. Oh and met STAN VAN GUNDY. Yeah.

5. MY 21ST BIRTHDAYYYYYYY! Need I say more about this? (Basically consisted of a couple parties with friends and a romantic lunch with Jack on Boston Harbor Islands where we discovered this way-too-cool canon.)

6. Montreal with friends in October. Once again, a long road trip, but this time, I had my girl friends with me! Sweet.

7. The first surprise party I have ever planned: Jack’s Birthday. Granted he showed up an hour late because apparently he wanted to stop by 7/11 after the concert he went to… It was a success! And the picture is the “cake” aka beer bread I baked for this occasion.

8. GO GREEN: ADPi presents, Turn Off, Turn Out Sustainable Fashion Show. Thanks to my friend Dan, we were able to host an awesome fashion show with clothes from Livity Outernational and raffle prizes from HP. Once again, for the first time ever, I co-planned and co-hosted a huge event open to the entire campus to raise awareness for the environment. Feels great.

And check out the article: http://www.dailyfreepress.com/alpha-delta-pi-holds-sustainable-fashion-show-1.1999349

It’s been a great year. I learned a lot – especially in my Foreign Reporting class, which opened my eyes toward international reporting, war, different culture and the concept of “other.” I also grew as a person – a little bit more mature. But I know I still have ways to go to perfect that level of maturity and knowledge. I can’t wait to see what’s in store for me in 2010. Enjoy what’s left and have a great new years day!!!

-Yoojin