Are you studying Korean???
Well, as many of you know I am, fortunatelly for me I met Sanghyun Ahn and
Jo-Anna Lynch last year and WHY would you care if I met them?, well Sanghyun Ahn is the author of
Wild Korean "A fieldguide to Real Conversation" - For Beginner to Intermediate Levels.
On my 1st day in Seoul I met Jo-Anna Lynch and she was kind enough to take me to her Korean Class, I was ment to attend a Begginers class with Sanghyun but as you know, I am WAY to shy to be truth so I didn't want to go on my own, instead I went to Jo-Anna's class ...it was a HUGE mistake and I know that!, her class was mostly in Korean and I understood nothing u_u , later I find out Sanghyun was writting a book and ever since I've been waiting. Around August it was announced the publication of this Book and I was really excited for this and asked to buy one, a few weeks later I received a Free copy of the book.
At this point I had just started my begginer lessons and I was just learning to read Haengul, due to some family problems (as some of you know...) I had to stop taking my lessons and I had to re-take self-studying, The Wild Korean book has been a great way to do it and I'm glad I still remember how to read Haengul because you won't find any romanization in here, The good thing about NO romanization is: You can't be lazy and will make you study harder and will improve your reading.
If you know ZERO haengul, I would definitely recommend to learn the basics and to read, this way you can get the most of this book.
The book will start with the basics being "Nice to meet you" the 1st lesson and being followed by "I am", "I'm from"... this is obviously really helpful if you want to Visit Korea and want to impress everyone with your "Korean Skills" ;)
If you already read Haengul, then make sure to get this book as it will help you transitionate from Begginer to Intermediate :) , hopefully soon they will release another book for more advanced levels.
The ilustration on the book is made by hand by Douglas Holden and gives the book a funny perspective on each Lesson.
In addition to the book, you can follow their blog
Wild Korean in here Sanghyun or Jo-Anna will answer your questions, post links to helpfull resources and from time to time will post a Joke in Korean (See? another way to impress your Korean friends with a joke!!), Downloadable audios can be found here as well.
Some basic information on the book:
Writen by Sanghyun Ahn
Edit by Jo-Anna Lynch, Megha Dubal and Megan Morrow
Ilustrated by Douglas Holden
Price: ₩15,000 (Currently they are running a Special Promotion from 2011 November 1st ~ 2012 January 31th, 1 Copy + Free Shipping for $15USD!!!)
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wildkorean1
Email: wildkorean1@hotmail.com
I want to invite all of you to get this book and keep your lessons going on!
-Gisela V.
We then headed over to Insadong for Lunch, I love Insadong, there’s so much to do and see but we were in a bit of a hurry so we just went straight to the restaurant to have Lunch, we went to a famous restaurant filled with pictures of celebrities eating there and we all had “Insadong Samgyetang” which is a Korean soup with a whole young chicken and Korean ginseng, the soup is cooked for several hours and it makes the chicken very tender so you can just tear it in half and find it to be filled with rice, this food is served in the summer for its nutrients to replace those nutrients lost through sweating during the hot summers in Korea, this was my 2nd time eating this and it was AMAZING (Warning!! I will use this word very often for this trip haha), it was boiling hot and the flavor of the ginseng was not overwhelming at all, of course we also had Banchan with this (Radish Kimchi and Onions in Soysauce*?*), the restaurant was very nice and we also got to try some Plumb wine with our food (yum!), this one tasted like a very sweet juice.
After lunch we took a short walk on Insadong and then headed to the Institute of Traditional Korean Food to visit the Tteok Museum and the Jilsiru Café, now let me tell you I’m a huge Tteok fan, I don’t think I’ve had enough tteok in my life (lol), the museum displays various rice cakes, some enjoyed during special occasions, major holidays, others are seasonal and other sare used in rituals, in the museum we got to see the utensils needed to make Tteok, then we went to the Jilsiru Café were we got to try some drinks and different kinds of Tteok (yay!!!), we had Chocolate Tteok cake, Sweet bean paste filled Tteok, Citron Tteok, Persimmon Tteok Cake, etc etc… I would’ve stayed longer but it was time to go to catch a performance, this time it was MISO, this is a traditional performance, sort of like Romeo & Juliette but with a happy ending, at some point the actors invite people from the audience to participate with the performers and after the performance you can take a picture with the actors, the performance has live music that at first I thought it was recorded until I realized the musicians playing in the back and I have to say they are…Amazing! I loved the music of the show, it’s not boring at all and one of the girls danced Gangnam Style hahaha. 
