Orientation Day

Today was the first day of orientation at Yonsei! The orientation itself was….really, incredibly boring. It was the same stuff over and over again. I skipped out on the optional orientations because I was so tired that I came back to my dorm and took a nap.

I did get my student ID and proof of enrollment, though, so that was exciting! I took some time to go to the stationary office (which has a bunch of school supplies and stuff), and managed to pick up some cute un-lined notebooks, a small wallet for my Korean items I have to carry, and a clear file.

The two notebooks where impossible to pass up…here in Asia I can find Rilakkuma items, but at home it’s impossible and I have to order it import! If Rilakkuma is at my fingertips it’s hard not to buy~

I’m very happy with my desk space in my dorm room, I feel very comfortable here working on stuff~

Anyway, after I had my nap and went to the stationary store, I waited for the Mentor’s Club orientation to start. Mentor’s Club is a club on campus that pairs international students with a native Korean Yonsei student. Each Yonsei student has a group of six or seven international students, and we all meet up and do activities together.

I met up with my group, group six. They were all really, really great! We went out to eat and stayed there for three or four hours just talking, laughing, and playing Korean games! We drank rice wine and had Korean potato pancakes with warm kimchi. It was really great…I had an amazing time and met some great people! I’m excited to see them all again!

When we left, a few from the group and other groups wanted to go to a bar, but I passed…along with a couple others. We all decided to walk back to the dorm together, and it was pouring down rain….of course we had no umbrella! So we walked as fast as we could, but it still took at least 25 minutes to get back. We finally got back and went to our respective floors.

I could barely walk because I was so soaked. I took everything off at my door and grabbed a towel…after drying, I went to the convenience store in the basement of my dorm and got some Coke and Oreos…I needed some comfort food after getting so wet and cold!

Now, I’m sitting here watching the Simpsons and trying to get warm again. It was a good day and I’m glad I finally got to meet some new friends.

Ah, and on move-in day I bought a Korean cell phone…it’s really the smallest phone I’ve seen in a long time. It’s not a smart phone, and it’s hard to live without my touch screen and never-ending data plan! TT____TT

Oh, and Korea is “bracing for the strongest typhoon to hit the nation this summer and possibly in years. " 

So we went from smoltering heat the last few weeks and now I’ll be swimming to class! I’ll keep everyone updated~

Insadong

Today we went to Insadong, which is a place everyone says you have to go if you’re visiting Korea. It’s pretty tourist-y, but also incredibly fun to visit. It’s an open street market with cute shops and amazing food vendors.

We first made our way to the most well-known spot in Insadong, the building that you walk up with a bunch of different stores. Insadong is also an art district, so there were tons of galleries, but also in this building there were lots of names and things drawn on the walls. A few support beams were made up to look like trees.

On the walls, lots of people write their names, cool sayings, or their own names with their boyfriend or girlfriends names. I was standing next to a pillar and turned to see that someone had scribbled MBLAQ right at my eye level. It was weird because that’s my favorite group, and they’re not extremely popular in Korea…but I was happy to see it!

Up one of the stairwells they have a huge statue of a rose…it’s really awesome how they integrated art into their building as well as all over it on the walls!

It’s an upwards outdoor mall-like building, and you make your way to the top to see all the stores. It’s a really cool layout and fun to look at! The street kind of takes you out of the city and puts you down in a place that integrates the buildings in with nature. It’s really relaxing and calm.

We then passed cut-outs of Yunho and Changmin from DBSK and mom had to have her picture with them~

Throughout the entire city there are back alleyways with lots of places to eat. They all smelled so good TT__TT We stopped and got some Mandu, which is Korean dumplings. We got the deep fried one just to try, and it was so delicious.

As we were walking, we did get sucked in by the men making Korean candy. They were really fun and hilarious…I’ll post a video below too, hopefully you can hear them!

Here's a link to the video that I uploaded on youtube~

Tomorrow we go to Yonsei in the morning to move me into my dorm in SK Global! I'll give an update about that tomorrow~ I hope everyone back home is enjoying school so far and that the weather has been good!

DMZ – Demilitarized Zone

We finally got in an actual tourist group to visit the DMZ! The DMZ is the Demilitarized Zone, or the border of North and South Korea. It was an all day journey and had some pretty strict rules as far as taking pictures went. I didn’t bring my nice camera, so you’ll have to make do with the pictures my dad took on my smaller point-and-shoot camera.

First, our tour guide was absolutely the cutest woman on earth. She was really excited and wanted to share the history with everyone. She was always very chipper and happy. When we started on our way, we first headed to a monument area honoring a few different individuals who served Korea. I’ll post those pictures below.

Lotte World and Coex Mall Aquarium

Yesterday there was no update simply because it was a relaxation day. We’d been running around so much we really needed a day to just sleep in and relax. It was definitely well worth it.

Today we woke up to raindrops on our window. 

It was storming like crazy. Originally we had planned to go to Insadong but instead decided to go to Lotte World instead (Lotte World is a Disney-esque theme park). We were determined not to let the rain spoil the day.

War Memorial and N. Seoul Tower

Sorry for the delay of updates from yesterday! I was so exhausted that I could only upload the pictures to my computer before passing out. It was a really full day and we did so much, so there will be even more pictures in this entry~ I'm gonna add a cut to this entry, so please click the "READ MORE" to read the entire entry!

We first took the subway to the War Memorial, which was a memorial to the Korean War but also a museum of war history in Korea. After the short walk from the station, you arrive at this HUGE building surrounded by greenery. There is a large statue immediately in front of you as soon as you get there. It’s really cool to look at.

This statue is about the brotherhood between soldiers, one being an American soldier and the other being a Korean soldier. It’s pretty cool because it’s absolutely huge. Then, just across the way, there’s another big statue. It’s got just as big replications of soldiers. Whoever created them was amazing!

Yonsei University Day Trip

First of all, this entry will be long because there are a lot of pictures that were taken. Be prepared! (if you click on the pictures themselves, they'll get bigger and you can see them in detail!) Please be sure to click the "READ MORE"!

When I woke up, I decided to snap a few pictures of what's outside our hotel room. You can really see the city, and some mountains in the background!

if you look down from there, you see a really pretty garden-like terrace and relaxing area on top of a restaurant. It's fun to watch couples sit together down there~

So, today we went to Yonsei (originally for things that we actually couldn’t do :P ). To get to Sincheon, we have to take the subway metro system. It was really exciting! I’ve never been on a subway metro before, so it was a totally new experience for me. Aside from having a bit of confusion about which subway line to use and where to get off, it wasn’t so bad. It’s a lot easier if you’re like me and can read Korean (therefore understanding which stop was for which city~) and eventually we got from our hotel to Sincheon. The subway is really convenient and neat here. Also I have nothing to compare it to so maybe that’s just what subways are normally like…

The Trip Begins

Well, I’m sitting in a hotel room in Seoul. Honestly I don’t really think it’s sunk in yet, and honestly I don’t know if I’m completely sure I’m here already. I’ve been up for more than twenty four hours straight, and my brain is now already filled with a bunch of Korean that I don’t understand…so maybe I’m just exhausted and need some rest.

Either way, I’m actually here. I’m actually in Korea. The plane ride was almost excruciating. Had it not been for Korean Air being a stellar company, I would be so miserable right now. But they had awesome movies (I watched the Lorax, Avengers, and some others), music, and games to play (Street Fighter II and Bubble Popper took up way too many hours of that flight). It was forever long, but finally we landed.

This is where everything fun starts to happen (I use fun both literally and sarcastically). We bought a T-money card and hopped on the bus that would take us closest to our hotel. So we rode the bus for about an hour from the airport and saw some of the most beautiful, cool scenery and cities I’ve ever seen. I give props to you Korea, you’re pretty awesome to look at. But we got off at what we thought was our stop, and then realized we had absolutely no idea which way the hotel was from the bus stop. So we walked…and walked….and walked. All while I myself was trying to roll around two 35 pound suitcases, a full backpack, and a full purse (and also a very perfect stuffed tiger). It was so incredibly difficult to do, especially since this city’s sidewalks were not created with suitcases in mind.

With hundreds of people around us, we fumbled through all sorts of narrow sidewalks and awkwardly broken roads. At one point my parents bolted ahead of me down a narrow sidewalk and I was trapped by an Ahjumma’s food stall. She then promptly stood up, stepped out from behind her stand and grabbed my suitcase, asking me where I needed to go in extremely broken English, and then pushing her way through the crowd of people, dragging me and my other case behind her. (I managed to have small conversation about where I needed to be and roughly how to get there). She got us across a huge street and far from her stall before she grabbed a traffic officer and made him help my parents and I. I wasn’t sure if SHE was going to die or if she was going to kill every last person in a car coming towards her.

She went way out of her way to help us, and I felt so stupid just saying “Thank you” in Korean and bowing about a million times. Then, as we still struggled to find our way, an older Ahjussi stopped what he was doing to help us find the hotel (I have no idea who designed this place but you probably shouldn’t hide your main entrance so well). He took my suitcase from me too and led us at least a mile until he could find the hotel for us. He carried my second case down a huge flight of stairs, then made the desk workers at the hotel get us bottles of water for free. He gave us his phone number and said that if we ever needed help that we shouldn’t hesitate to call. Trust me, Ahjussi, I won’t hesitate.

There aren’t a lot of people who speak English here, but the people we spoke to were more than willing to help (and lead us if they felt we didn’t understand them well enough). The Ahjumma with the street stall, the nice Ahjussi who could speak better English, and a beautiful, cute and charming girl who tried to help us with her GPS on her phone. The people here, though they tend to be a little skittish at the sight of my parents and I, seem to be friendly enough. Maybe I’ve just been lucky on my first day, but I think lots of Koreans are probably like this.

The hotel room itself is gorgeous. The bathroom, holy shit (excuse me but I can’t describe it any other way) is the bathroom and shower of my dreams. I’m pleased with that and I think I could spend all 8 days sitting in the shower. I wouldn’t let my parents leave to eat without me getting a shower in, haha. Our hotel is actually attached to a huge mall, so we just hopped on the elevator and went down there to eat.

Being exhausted and not willing to walk around the seemingly ENDLESS mall, we just went to On the Border.  Yeah, the American chain Mexican place. We had a reason…it didn’t have a wait like other places did. Hey, when people say getting American style food is expensive in Korea, they mean it. Our three dishes (with one beer) was almost $80USD. But it was delicious after only getting airplane food for 24 hours. (Even though I’m fairly certain I almost face planted into my food I was so tired…) After that we went to e-mart and I bought a hair dryer and straightener. I would die without those things, so I pulled my parents along. Passing by all the clothing stores made me crave a day for shopping…oh no.

Well…I guess I’ll end this post now. I didn’t realize so much could happen in one day. The culture shock is incredible and the language barrier is amazing. Tomorrow should be interesting.