[Originally published in the UP Korea Research Center’s website on 27 August 2025]

Visiting South Korea has always been on my bucket list. As a Plan C-Korean student at the UP Department of Linguistics, there have been many times in the past few years when I’ve strongly considered applying for an exchange student program to Korea to experience the culture, immerse myself in the language, and to finally tick this item off my list. Truthfully, going on exchange has always been a dream of mine since high school, but the timing had never felt quite right, so I never did it. Come my junior year and the hustle and bustle of university life and the opportunity simply slipped past my fingers. However, when Professor Kyungmin Bae, who has been my professor in Korean for the last three years, suddenly messaged me in March about KONECT, I knew I had to go. I owed it to my 12-year-old self to fulfill what was once my childhood dream.

How I Started Studying Korean Language 

I started learning Korean in grade school after a classmate had introduced me to EXO. Like many, I started as a kid who got fascinated by the glitz and glamour of the Korean entertainment industry, which eventually led to an interest in the Korean language. I taught myself how to read Hangul and worked my way through some free resources on the internet to learn the basics. I remember spending a lot of my free time being deeply engrossed in studying Korean when I was younger.

Unfortunately, self-studying has never been my strong suit, so I was not able to go further than knowing how to greet people, introducing myself, and reading words I couldn’t understand. I didn’t have much progress in learning the language after that, but during that time, I realized that my interest in learning did not just stop at Korean, but rather it extended to other languages. Add the fact that I had started writing early on, and so my intrigue for words had never been quite as strong.

By the time I entered UP as a linguistics major in 2022, I had to decide on which curriculum track to pursue in the program. I pondered very hard on this choice because while I still had an interest in learning Korean, I also thought that it could be worthwhile to start from scratch and learn a different language. However, my curiosity to experience formal language education in Korean had won me over, and it only felt right to see through the journey I had already begun years ago. I ended up choosing Plan C-Korean. Since then, I have been studying the language as part of my degree program, and I’ve met good friends, made happy memories, and had many opportunities that I would not have had otherwise.

Joining KONECT

KONECT was one of the many opportunities that presented itself to me since joining the Plan C-Korean track. When I first read the project brief, I was very skeptical about joining, as international relations and diplomacy are completely different fields compared to linguistics. I neither had the skillset nor the experience on the topics relevant to it, so it made me question whether joining would be the right choice.

However, I’ve always wanted to go to Korea. Exchange was no longer an option for me as I was already approaching my senior year in university and, upon weighing my options, I realized that the only thing holding me back was my anxiety over making what I consider big, life-changing decisions that could alter the course of my life. I haven’t really grasped the concept of being an adult and making decisions for myself quite well enough yet, but I had run out of excuses as the timing finally felt right: KONECT was happening after my midyear and ending just before the start of my first semester as a graduating student. It was going to be a busy year, but I figured that it would be worth it. I applied and got accepted.

That frightening feeling of not being good enough to join the program never really left. During our pre-KONECT sessions weeks before our flight to Incheon, I had tried to put my best effort into preparing before every Zoom meeting because I didn’t want to come in empty-handed. The weeks before KONECT were flying by fast and I was getting agitated. I have never been good at going out of my comfort zone, and because this experience counted as one, I always had half a mind to just quit and turn my back away from all of it. It sounds dramatic, but it truly was quite the challenge for me. There was also the fact that it was going to be my first flight ever and I didn’t really know anyone from the rest of the delegation (which actually stressed me out quite a lot as someone with such crippling introversion), which added to that anxiety.

Turns out, I didn’t actually have to worry about much at all. Once I had met the rest of the delegation at the airport, it wasn’t very difficult to fall into conversation and banter with them while we waited for our flight. By the time we arrived in Incheon, I felt a bit more comfortable with the people I was travelling with and I was feeling more positive about this trip.

In photo: A visit to Seoul National University

During our university visits and lectures, even though I knew that I was really lacking in the skills needed for IR discussions, I think I can say that I have done my best to contribute as much as I can. Even though it’s a very different field compared to my area of study, it was a welcome challenge. I had thoroughly enjoyed learning about new things, and I felt that I came out of every lecture with a renewed perspective.

Discoveries during KONECT

I only spent two weeks in Korea, the days scattered across five different cities (Incheon, Seoul, Cheonan, Jeonju, and Busan), but through it all, I couldn’t help but make comparisons to life back home. I couldn’t tell if the familiarity I felt was because I’ve been studying Korean for quite some time now, or if it was because life in Korea was not all that different from that in the Philippines, save for the many conveniences that being a first-world country offered. It was summer in Korea, too, and when we arrived, the biggest shock of all was the heat of the sun that welcomed us in Incheon. I thought I knew heat well, growing up under the Philippine sun, but the Korean summer heat was altogether a different beast from what we have back home.

There were also a lot of things that left me in awe while we were in Korea. For one, they have a really incredible public transportation system that left me jealous as someone who practically lived half of my life commuting in Metro Manila. The subway system was impressive, but what I liked the most was their bus system. The buses had fixed routes and schedules, and the LED board on the bus stops lets you know how long you’d have to wait until your bus arrives. Commuting was convenient in Korea, even outside of Seoul, and I left wishing for that same comfort and convenience back home.

In photos: Museum visit in Incheon (leftmost), the King Sejong Statue at Gwanghwamun Plaza (2nd), a visit to the Hanok village at Jeonju (3rd), and a picture in the subway with Aya, a fellow delegate (rightmost)

The amount of history in the places we visited also left a mark on me. The buildings and artifacts told different stories from different times in the past, and the places we visited all bled history. My favorite visit was to Gyeongbokgung Palace and the Hanok Village at Jeonju. It’s amazing how much history has been preserved in the walls of the buildings in both places, and it was a special experience to walk the same grounds that people in the past had once walked, too.

The sea was amazing, too. It had been a long time since I’ve been to the beach, so I didn’t want to miss the chance to take a dip when we went to Songdo and Haeundae in Busan. It wasn’t very sunny when we spent our afternoon at Haeundae, but the water was shockingly freezing. But despite that, we had a fun time playing in the waves, by the sand, and to top it all off, the samgyetangthat we ate for our last dinner in Busan warmed our hearts.

In photos: Visits to Songdo Beach (left) and Haeundae Beach (right)

Memorable moments

Many remarkable moments left a lasting impression on me during our two-week trip in Korea. However, perhaps the memory that I’ll always think of when I look back on this trip was getting the opportunity to speak in support of the comfort women who were victims of the Japanese during World War II during the Wednesday Demonstration (수요시위). As one of the representatives during the 1313th Wednesday Demo, I had the chance to give a speech in solidarity with the halmeonis calling for historical accountability from the Japanese government, and also talked about how it was shared history between South Korea and the Philippines as we, too, have our own lolas who were also enslaved during World War II.

In photos: Photos during the Wednesday Demonstration for the Resolution of the Japanese Military Sexual Slavery Issue

On that day, knowing that I had to do the speech, I intentionally wore purple: a color associated with women’s empowerment. It was very nerve-wracking, as I don’t consider myself to be gifted with the art of public speaking, but I managed to pull through. Although the speech I made was short, I tried my best to convey my hope for the future: that the women who suffered under Japanese rule can finally get their rightful justice, reparations, and accountability from the Japanese government, and the hope that young people like me would never forget our histories. I went back home feeling like a part of something bigger, and the rubber bracelet I got during the demonstration quoting Kim Bok-dong, an activist and former comfort woman, saying, “There should be no victims like us,” is a keepsake from that moment that I’ll always treasure.

Even during our visit to the War & Women’s Museum in Mapo-gu, it was difficult to hold back tears as we listened to the historical lessons throughout the museum. The experience left a hollow hole in my heart, and I felt incredibly connected to it, perhaps because as a fellow woman, I empathized with them. I felt very proud when I saw my picture on the board at the museum showing the Wednesday Demo photos for that week, and I felt absolutely honoured to have that opportunity.

In photos: A bulletin board at the War & Women’s Museum in Mapo-gu 

Other than that, another remarkable moment for me during our trip was getting to talk to locals. It truly was a great motivation for me because it was during those moments that I realized that I could actually understand Korean. Shocking, I know, because truthfully, I did not have a lot of confidence in my language skills even after all this time.

During the first few days, I was still shy and unconfident to talk to the locals and fellow students that we met, but I eventually got the hang of it and felt more comfortable talking with them. My Korean was far from good, but I realized during the trip that I could actually converse—albeit briefly—with the locals, especially with the store owners that I bought my pasalubongs from. 

There was this running joke from the others that I often go ‘missing’ whenever we had free time to roam around. The truth was, I purposely wanted to roam alone to force myself to talk in Korean because I had the tendency to just let the more extroverted people in our group take the lead whenever we’re out and about. The few times I was able to roam alone allowed me to interact with the locals, and those times are positively my favorite moments from the trip. Whenever I got complimented about my Korean, I felt just a small burst of pride bloom in my chest every time because I was seeing the fruits of my labor in the Plan C-Korean track for the very first time.

Funnily enough, even though I’ve been studying Korean formally for about three years now at this point, I have never been able to cure my so-called “numbers disease” until I actually went to Korea for KONECT. For some reason, I’ve had this long-time confusion with Korean numbers that I’ve never been able to fix until our trip, as our visits to the markets gave me hands-on experience with dealing with the currency and huge numbers. I was even able to ask for discounts, which I thought was a very sweet deal.

Not an ‘if’, but a ‘when’

It’s not a question of ‘if’ I’m going back to Korea, it’s a question of ‘when.’ I truly enjoyed my time in Korea, and when I go back, I want to visit Bosu-dong in Busan again. It was honestly my favorite place that we visited out of all the places we went to during the trip, primarily because having an entire street full of books was right up my alley.

In photos: Eating bingsu while reading (left) and browsing books (right) at Bosu-dong

I wasn’t able to buy anything the first time we visited, so I even went back there again the morning before our flight back to the Philippines to buy some books. I bought seven books in total and, even then, I didn’t think it was enough. The only reason I held back on buying more was that I had no more space in my luggage, even though I had already bought a second suitcase in Gukje Market at that point. So, when I go back to Korea, I want to visit Bosu-dong again and buy a lot more books. There was just something about the place that felt very magical to me, and I’d love to go there again in the future.

Another thing that I’d love to do when I visit is to go to more cafes. There were a lot of coffee shops in Korea, and we had a lot of fun hopping from one cafe to another and trying out drinks and pastries. I’m not big on coffee myself, but the coffee shops we visited had a lot of good ade drink options which I really liked.

For those visiting Korea in the future

If I were to give a piece of advice to fellow students who also dream of going to Korea in the future, my best advice would be to learn the language. I found that the trip was so much more fun for me because I understood the signs on the street, the menus in restaurants, and the people that I talked to. It’s a much more fulfilling experience to visit a country and immerse yourself in both the culture and the language, and I am very thankful that I got to experience exactly that through KONECT before I graduated. There’s also another benefit to it, in that you’re more likely to get discounts and freebies from local store owners if you can speak even just a little bit of Korean. I would know, because I got quite a few freebies from the sajangnims that I talked to.

In photo: Taking a photo with the Little Prince statue at Gamcheon Culture Village, Busan

Finally, you can never go wrong with just showing genuine appreciation and interest for the culture, its history, and its people. There is so much to explore in Korea, and even though my feet were sore at the end of every day of our two-week trip, it was the kind of exhaustion that was worthwhile, because it leaves you fulfilled and inspired for the days to come.

I hope my 12-year-old self is proud of me.

Published by Hanz Margret Gadia