When people think of Introverts, they think of shy people, people who would rather stay within the confines of their comfortable homes than go out. People who might not acclimate to… well, a totally foreign country, let alone being alone. And ok… that’s kind of accurate. At least for me.
I would like to think that during that month I spent (almost) by myself in another country, I was truly honing in on my “introvertedness” and training my “extrovertedness”. If that’s even a thing.
And honestly, I didn’t even want to go in the first place.
It all started in the beginning of my 2nd year, 2nd semester at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). I was having lunch with a close friend of mine when she suddenly asked if I wanted to go to South Korea together for the summer.
With my mouth filled with food, I stared at her blankly and did the mental calculation of how much it’ll even cost me to do that (it’s around S$4k I believe, including school fees, lodging and plane tickets but excluding external expenses like food and souvenirs, for that month). I knew it isn’t cheap and it’ll mean I have to find means to get that extra money but as I swallowed my food, I came to a conclusion — why not?
After all, throughout my entire university life, I only had 2 things going for me: my grades and my part-time jobs. I never pursued any after-school activities, never joined any clubs and definitely should’ve avoided paying S$60 for my freshmen camp by not attending (because it was such a waste of money on hindsight) but yeah — for me it has always been school, work, study, sleep, repeat.
I knew I needed to do something interesting before I graduated.
We eventually agreed to go to the most affordable summer programme within South Korea, which undoubtedly is the most popular summer school out of all of the countries NTU has to offer — Hanyang University.
We matched our courses, tried to find classes we could attend together, applied, waited eagerly for the results while looking at all the different lodgings we could call home for the month.
And when the application results came out… I was the only one that got in.
At that point, I had 3 days to accept the offer, else past that deadline I’ll have to pay extra to back out.
It wasn’t until I talked to another close friend from another university and found out that she’s accepted to Hanyang for the summer too, that I decided to accept it. After all, if the other friend’s there… I probably won’t feel too alone, right?
Fast-forward to the start of July as I moved into my goshiwon — a shoebox sized room fit for one person. It has a double bed, a small wardrobe at the foot of the bed, a tiny personal bathroom in the corner that would eventually grow mould because it couldn’t drain water properly, and a desk with a mini fridge beneath the desk (which oh my god I love that so much). The walls surrounding you were paper-thin so you could hear footsteps pitter patter along the corridor or your neighbour turning on and off their air-conditioning units.
All of that crammed into something about the size of 2m x 1.5m.
Yup.
About the size of 1.29 Me x 0.96 Me (cause I’m about 1.55m) that cost me S$800 and a bit more for the entire month.
But at least the goshiwon was right opposite the school. Seriously — most days when my classes started at 8am (although I was lucky enough to find a professor that pushed classes to 9am and ended it by 11am), I would be up about 1 hour prior to wash up, have breakfast, do my makeup and leave my room about 15 minutes before class started.
What a freaking luxury.
And sometimes, the room felt like an introvert’s perfect space. Just big enough for the essentials (and let me mention again: a private bathroom. So you don’t even have to share such a personal space with others) but small enough so that you can have an excuse to avoid asking people over since your place is too small to accommodate an extra person.
I will say though, that even though my close-friend-from-another-university was with me most of the time in school — we would have enjoyable lunches at the best spot in Hanyang as it has a view and really good food, then followed it up with going to the school’s cafe as we wait till 1pm when our next class would start then maybe having dinners together and spending some weekends together — she still had her own-friends-from-her-university to spend time with.
And that meant multiple days where I had to spend it on my own. Cue the scary, ominous music because let’s be honest, this would be an Introvert’s nightmare: spending days out and alone in a country where you can only read the language but not speak or listen to it well enough to converse with anyone.
But I knew I didn’t want my S$4,000 to go to waste, so I did what the average Introvert would take a long time to muster, let alone be comfortable with — I ventured out and explored places alone.
To start off my first trip, I knew I needed to get used to going out alone. Sure, the night before summer school started, I did walk from Hanyang station to Wangsimni Station (about a 15–20 minutes casual walk, winding along alleyways filled with bars and convenience shops) to get to the E-Mart (a Korean supermarket) for some basic supplies like toilet paper and breakfast foods.
And eventually I was comfortable with going to E-Mart alone 1–2 times a week whilst seeing so many groups of familiar summer school faces as they see me walk past aisles alone. It became an enjoyable trip, to be honest. I love grocery shopping and it helped that the E-Mart was huge and had so many things to look at.
But I digress.
To get used to going out alone, I decided to go somewhere nearby and I told myself: there is no agenda or planned path. Just head to this general area, have lunch, walk around and decide what you want to do next. If it means going back home, that’s totally okay too. Just do what’s comfortable for you.
On one of the first weekends I had alone, I prepped myself in the morning for the afternoon. I knew I was going out for at least an hour, and I needed to know (1) where I was going, (2) how long it’ll take me to get there, (3) how to get there and (4) what I’m going to do when I get there.
I didn’t leave until 1pm because I was still mulling over the details, unable to make a decision to leave. Also, I was kind of sweating. My heart was racing a little, my palms were sweaty and I was scared I would get myself lost.
But at 1pm, I checked my bag for my essentials for the 50th time again, turned off my air-conditioning, wrapped my hands tightly around my door handle, took a deep breath, and turned it to head out into the sunny, unbelievably hot Seoul summer day.
I went to Common Ground. A container shopping area that was maybe 15 minutes away from Hanyang Station by train with a bit of walking.
I had my first ever alone-meal — not just first ever in a foreign country, but ever (underline that ‘ever’ a hundred times over)— in my lifetime, in a small restaurant at the top of Common Ground that sold burgers.
A meal that was still familiar (yes, I came to Korea to eat American burgers) with options fit for a solo person.
I had a view facing the center of Common Ground, looking at tiny people milling about, taking photos, shopping around. Couples, groups of friends, tourists. All sorts of people and here I am, on the third floor, just looking down and enjoying my food.
As I sat there, I wondered: if I had friends around me, would I enjoy being here just as much as I am now, or more? I imagined the types of conversations I would’ve had with friends that were 8 hours away by flight. It was a strange phenomenon when you truly realise all your friends and family are so far away and you are all alone. It felt like one of those “what is the purpose of life” rabbit hole that I didn’t want to go down. But like Alice, I did anyway, all whilst I chewed on some fries.
After my meal, I walked around the area instead of running back to my shoebox I call home. I even took it a step further — I headed to this other cafe, “Cafe Onion” that’s 1 station away but about 15 minutes by foot from Common Ground.
As I strolled my way to the cafe, there were plenty of interesting things to look at. There was an area of warehouses and garages with some of the doors open and inside, men were working on rubber, fixing up car wheels half the size of them, doing some metalwork. Other warehouses had amazingly beautiful cars parked in it, lined up all the way to the edge of the road. All glossy and clean. Some even had fresh paint jobs on them.
Before I knew it, I reached the street where Cafe Onion was on and turned in.
Not gonna lie, but I didn’t stay long there. They had a whole-ass bakery in it but I picked nothing up because I was too full. I couldn’t get anything to takeaway either because I already had breakfast for tomorrow so I didn’t need the extra food.
So I got a cup of iced latte and found a seat. After I finished it, I just left. I was done.
I had ventured further than I thought I would. I went on a 3 hour adventure that was 15 minutes away by train from my goshiwon.
And I felt extremely accomplished.
If I didn’t force myself to leave for Common Ground, I would’ve ended up spending my entire day in my shoebox, watching YouTube videos in Seoul, South Korea. And oh how I’m glad I didn’t waste my day away.
Heck, on my way back, an ahjumma started talking to me in Korean cause she thought I was Korean. I don’t know about you, but that’s 100% a compliment to me, so thank you ahjumma, for thinking I look Korean enough.
During the month, whilst I had left some weekends to spend with my close-friend-from-another-university, and 1–2 Sundays spent studying (yeah I know, I told you, I had nothing else going for me except for my studies, so it shouldn’t surprise you that I studied during summer school. The only time where you could pay to have your grades written off as a pass so it wouldn’t affect your CGPA. My god, Celia), I made multiple efforts to go out alone.
I walked around Sinsa-dong Garosugil for almost the entire day. Headed to Myeongdong one night for Myeongdong Kyoja, a popular dumpling noodle soup place. Had tempura udon (I know, hella ironic) at this popular tiny restaurant under my goshiwon multiple times alone.
And I felt like it was a definite character growth.
So to all my introverts out there who’s struggling to even go out of your own home, in your own country for more than 3 hours alone: don’t think so hard about it and don’t put any pressure on yourself to ‘hit x hour’ mark. Just think about where you want to go and like Nike’s slogan: just do it. And if it helps to have something to keep you preoccupied (so you spend more time there), bring a book or something.
After all, even if it means spending 1 hour at this place alone before you can’t take it anymore and have to go back home, that is totally ok. Because spending that 1 hour alone experiencing something new is so much more invaluable than spending that 1 hour alone at home in your room; as if you don’t already spend 24 hours at home.
All the best!
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