쇼핑

After our night out two nights ago, we all added each other on Facebook and begin throwing around ideas for how to spend last night. It was decided that we would grab dinner, and then go to Dongdaemun (동대문) to go night-shopping at their many outdoor stalls. I woke up around 3:00pm after going to bed at six, and we all decided to meet at 8. Out of the 16 of us from the night before, four of us met up in Anam, and we had plans to meet up with three more at Dongdaemun in a couple of hours. The four of us who met in Anam were me, Kirsty, who is from Vancouver, Peter, who is from the Netherlands, and Torkel, who is from Sweden. We decided to go straight to Dongdaemun and eat there, since we were all curious about Korean street food.

We took the subway, and thankfully Kirsty knew the way really well and we made it there fine. We walked around for about half an hour looking at the many stalls selling clothing and accessories, not really stopping at any, but just enjoying the scene. Eventually, someone asked if we should get food, and there was a unanimous and instantaneous "yes" from the rest of the group. It was around 9pm, and we were quite hungry.  We saw a stall selling 붕어빵, "Bungeoppang", literally meaning "Fish-Bread". It's a type of bread filled traditionally with red bean paste and grilled in a waffle-iron sort of contraption that leaves it shaped like a fish. The stall we saw however had about 10 different filling options; I got the potato filling and the rest of the group got pizza filling. It was served to us piping hot out of the iron wrapped in a piece of paper, and I thought it was really tasty! 

We walked around some more, and ended up at the Cheonggyecheon (청계천), a river that's been partially man-made to allow people to walk/sit along side it. We took the stairs down to the bank of the stream, which was flat stone tiles, and walked alongside of it for a bit. At one point, we saw some children walking around on the edge of the river, and convinced Torkel to do the same, since he was in sandals. Eventually, however, one of the guards blew his whistle and made him get out.

We walked around a little more, then it was getting close to 10pm, which is when we had told the other three, Polly and Philomena from Hong Kong and Anna from Korea, we would meet them at exit two of the subway station. We took the stairs back up to ground level, then walked a little bit down the road, where we saw a subway station marked exit 2. We still had ten minutes until 10, so we all grabbed some more street food from a vendor next to the subway station. Torkel and I had chicken on a stick in some sort of sauce (I'm noticing more and more that I have no idea what most of the things I eat here are), Peter had a Korean style corn-dog, and Kirsty had Soondae, a type of Korean sausage made from pig intestines, organ meat, and blood. I tried a bite, but didn't enjoy the taste it left in my mouth. Eventually, it was 10:20 and we still hadn't heard from the others, when Peter got a call from Polly saying they'd been waiting at exit 2 and still hadn't seen us. We were all very confused until we looked up and noticed that we'd walked so far away that we were at the exit 2 for a completely different subway station. We apologized and went to go meet them at the right station, arriving about 15 minutes later.

We all walked around some more, looking at the stalls and wares, when we decided to go to a covered market advertised in Polly's tour guidebook. We walked back to the Cheonggyecheon, then alongside it for about 10 or 15 minutes to the market. Upon arrival, we discovered that, save for a few food stalls, it was closed for the night. We still walked through to see what it looked like, and then, as it was nearing 11:30 and the last subway leaves at 12:30, decided to leave. Before we left, we decided it would be nice to find a cafe and have some drinks together. Normally, in Korea, there are tons of coffee shops, but of course since we were looking for one, we couldn't find any. Eventually, after walking for twenty minutes with no luck, we decided to just go to Lotteria (the Korean equivalent of a McDonalds, owned, like pretty much every other food item in Korea, by the Lotte corporation) and get soft-drinks there. At 12:10, we decided we ought to get to the subway. When we went to walk down, we were stopped by a guard who informed us that the subways close at 11 on that day. So, Anna called her dad to pick her up, and we waited with her, just talking since we were now in no rush. After she was picked up, we went to go catch a cab. While we were deciding how we were going to split the 6 of us up to get back to Anam, a taxi-van, advertising "6 PERSON TAXI" on the side, pulled up right in front of us (I'm pretty sure we were giving off the "desperate tourist" vibe), and we took it back to Anam.

Today, I have to write a short essay about the struggles of North Korean refugees in South Korean for my Korean Mass Media and Popular Culture class, and make sure I have the first 6 chapters of my new Korean textbook memorized, as per the (Korean) instructions of my Korean teacher. This weekend was definitely very fun, and I hope the rest will be just as great!

Dongdaemun

Dongdaemun

Kirsty, me, Torkel, and Peter in Dongdaemun

(Blurry) shot of some clothing vendors. It was very crowded and people were constantly moving, so it was difficult to capture any clear shots.

One of many street food vendors (and one of the cleaner ones)

Fish bread!

Cheonggyecheon

Peter and Torkel next to the river

The closed market

Lotteria

홍대

So, last night was the beginning of my first weekend in Korea, and I'm pretty sure I did it right.

The "buddies", a group of Korea University students whose job it was to show us around, hosted a party at "Star Beer" from 5-8, which kicked off the Friday night. There was food (including spaghetti, ha!), beer, music (both recorded and live) and some dancing. I went with Anna, and afterwards, some of the people we had met earlier in the week during the orientation/tour invited us and another group of people out to grab some Korean food, to which we agreed. A group of about 16 of us went to a Samgyupsal restaurant. There were holes in the table where they placed hot coals, then put metal plates over top on which we cooked Samgyupsal and Galbi. We also drank more beer, this time with shots of Soju mixed it, called "So-Mek" (소맥, a combination of the words 소주, Soju, and 맥주, Mekju, the Korean word for beer). Afterwards, we voted on whether we wanted to stay in Anam and go to a bar, or take the subway to Hongdae and go to a club. I voted bar, since we had originally planned to go to a club the next evening, but club won the vote and we headed to Hongdae.

Even in Anam, Korea has a much more active night life than I am used to (and boy, can they drink), but in Hongdae, that is multiplied by a hundred. We arrived at around 11:30, and there were tons of other people wandering around, though I was told it doesn't really get busy until midnight-1am. We drank more 소맥 and then found a club to go to, "nb1". It was completely packed. I mean, shoulder to shoulder can't move your own arms packed. The fog machines combined with the fact that people are allowed to smoke inside clubs in Korea made it hard to see too far in front of your own face. Add in all of the flashing lights and it was pretty much like wandering around blind. We had a ticket for a free drink with our admission, and Anna, another person from our group, and I pushed our way to the bar to redeem it. Afterwards, we tried to walk out to the dance floor, a new song began, they filled the place with fog, and when it finally cleared, we were all separated. Fortunately, the 16 of us had agreed to meet outside the club at 4am should we be separated so I wasn't too worried. I danced, occasionally ran into people I recognized, and over all just enjoyed seeing what night life in Korea was like (at least for young people). We met up at 4, took a couple of taxis back to Anam, and after a shower to wash away the bar smell I crashed at around 6 in the morning, waking up at 2:30pm.


Tonight, we decided to forgo a second night at the clubs and are instead going out to get dinner and then going to a night market. I'm very excited, and hopefully will be able to take a lot of pictures!

I don't have many pictures from last night (though hopefully can post more when other people from the group send them), but here are a couple:

Samgyupsal! So good.

Our Samgyupsal Group

The group about to leave for Hongdae

In Hongdae

Hongdae

Passing around more beer at a park in Hongdae, pre-clubbing

Very crowded club

...미국에 있어?

Very, very short post for today because I'm pretty tired and the classes for this program run Mon-Thurs so this is the equivalent of my Friday night haha.

Today for lunch, Anna, Lily and I took the subway down to Itaewon. I had been told about Itaewon by many people since arriving in Korea. It's a "special tourist area", and caters very much to tourists and foreigners. I couldn't stop giggling the entire time I was there, it was so strange to go from Anam-Dong, where Korea University is, where the signs are all in Korean, to Itaewon, where the signs are in English and instead of Kimbap and noodle stores there are Taco Bells and Outback Steakhouses. We ate lunch in the basement of a shoe store (advertising, like many other clothing and shoe stores in the area, that they sell "big size"), where they sold noodles, soup, and mandu (Korean dumplings). Upon seeing us, they immediately brought Lily and I a menu in English/Chinese, assuming we couldn't read the wall menu in Korean. I smiled inside thinking how I was going to show off my Korean and surprise them, but that kind of flopped when I ordered Mandu, and the waitress turned to Anna and asked her in Korean whether I wanted the regular mandu or the mandu soup. I was a little annoyed that my attempts to practice Korean were ignored, especially since I've been spoiled this whole past week by praise of my Korean and the graciousness of the shop/restaurant workers in Anam-Dong when I use it instead of English. But I suppose in a place like Itaewon, they're surrounded constantly by Americans and other tourists and don't have time to put up with it. But whatever, the Mandu were delicious and I got over it.

We got back on the subway and made it to class just in time for it to start. The rest of the day went normally, classes and dinner. And now I'm going to rest in my dorm and enjoy my three day weekend! There's a party at a bar scheduled for tomorrow, so I should sleep plenty tonight!

Subway lines

Subway

Itaewon

Taco Bell in Korea! 

"Big Size" for us American tourists ;P

Lily, Me, and delicious Mandu

Anna and her noodles!

Lily and her noodles!

그런대, 공부 했어요!

So, the Korean placement results were posted today. I'm sure you all want to know how I did.

BUT

I'm going to make you wait a bit and tell you about the rest of my day first.

I had Korean Americans class first, wherein we decided to forgo the lecture seating and instead push the tables together and have a seminar style discussion about the readings. That was nice. The readings were interesting too, about causes for Korean migration to the US and the relationship between Koreans and Americans when they first began to immigrate. I won't bore you with any details however.

Afterwards, I hung out in my dorm until 12:30, when I was meeting my new Korean friend Anna for lunch. On the way, I ran into Lily, the girl from China who I met the day before, and invited her to join us. So the three of us met up and went off to find food before our next class at 2:40. I walked us to the student restaurants and we looked around, but decided instead to walk out into the city and find something to eat. After some walking around, which was nice because I've hardly been off campus since being here, we found a restaurant that sold noodles and kimbap. Anna and Lily ordered noodles, but I had yet to have Kimbap in Korea so I ordered 참치김밥, Cham Chi or Tuna kimbap. We poured our own water, which I've now noticed is pretty customary at Korean restaurants, and retrieved our silverware from a lidded alcove built into the table. Our food came out and we dug in. Seriously, even though I was full after my order of kimbap, if the waitress had brought me out three more servings of it I would have forced myself to eat them. It was so delicious. Afterwards, we still had a little over an hour to kill before class, so we decided to go find a cafe that sold 빙수 (bing soo), a popular Korean dessert for the summer that Anna had told us about, it normally consists of shaved iced topped with sweetened red beans and fruit. We found a cafe/bakery that advertised bing soo and went in. The whole front was pastries and baked goods and I made a mental note to return there to try them one day. We bought an order of bing soo to share, and waited at a table for it to be brought out. It was colorful and kind of strange looking, but really delicious! Definitely refreshing on the hot summer day. We stayed and talked for a little while longer before heading back to Woodong hall for class.

We arrived 20 minutes early, so Lily and I decided to go check our placement results for Korean. Now, I was not kidding in my last post when I said I did terribly on that test. I freaking bombed it. And any last bit of optimism I held on to that maybe I'd still be placed into a decent level shattered when I found my name on the list for absolute beginner's Korean. I was crushed, but of course, brushed it off in front of my new friends. Lily and I headed to our next class, Korean Mass Media and Popular Culture, which we shared, and Anna went to hers.

The class was incredibly interesting today; we discussed Korean feelings toward 외국인, or foreigners, learned about the demographics of Korea, and watched film clips that demonstrate feelings Koreans have towards foreigners in their country. After learning about how Koreans were treated as foreigners in America in my Korean Americans class, it was cool to see the other side. However, I spent most of that class counting down the minutes until my Korean class would start and I could speak to my teacher about being placed in that level.

The class ended, and my section of absolute beginner's Korean was scheduled to take place in the same room so I stayed and waited. Eventually, just as class was about to start, the teacher walked in and began speaking to us. My opportunity to talk to her faded as she began handing out the syllabus and discussing what we would be covering in the class. I looked at the syllabus. Korean alphabet. Introductions. Present Tense. Paste tense. Future tense. I. Knew. It. All.
So
My previous idea to simply ask my new professor whether or not I was suited for this class was swiftly washed away by a burning desire to prove to her that I was not. That, okay, maybe I bombed the placement for Korean III, but I was at least suited for Korean II. But, being polite, I didn't want to cut her off, so I waited it out until our break an hour into the two hour class. We learned Korean vowels. We learned Korean consonants. My teacher was impressed by just how fast I was picking up on them. Finally the break started, I grabbed my syllabus, walked up to her table, and then something happened.
I'm normally not a confident person, but in that moment, I knew I could speak Korean to this woman and she would understand me. I knew I could get my point across, and I knew I didn't need English to do it.
I walked up to her.
(*Note, for the purposes of the following conversation, anything spoken in Korean will be in italics)
Teacher!
She looked at me surprised and then laughed a little at my use of the word, before asking
What?
I studied Korean for one year in college. I don't know why I am in this class.
Her eyes were wide open and her mouth agape. The class behind me had turned dead silent, and I could feel them staring from behind me. Normally, this would kill me, any ounce of confidence I managed to muster would have shriveled up and my resolve to continue speaking Korean would have died and my next words would have been in my mothertongue. But I have worked too hard at my Korean and I'd be damned if I let the opportunity to better myself slip away from me. So I was not fazed.
You studied Korean at this university?
No, my university in America.
You already know the Korean alphabet?
I know the Korean alphabet. I know everything in this class.
Why are you in this class?
I don't know. The test yesterday...
I tried to think of how to express the anxiety I felt when taking the test, but didn't have the vocabulary for it.
...the test was very difficult.
Which test was it?
Level three test.
Oh... well, you need to be moved into another class!
Yes!
Which class do you want?
Maybe... Korean II?
She looked at the textbook for a moment, the eyes of the class still firmly rested on us, before she said
Your Korean is too good for that class. I think you should be in Korean III.
...Really?
Yes, we can go talk to the teacher.
So we hurried out of the classroom, probably much to the confusion of my classmates, and on a quest to find the Korean III classroom. After asking a few people, we found it. Fortunately, they were on break too. My teacher grabbed the other teacher and they went back and forth in rapid fire Korean. The only thing I could catch was my teacher recounting her shock when I went up and spoke Korean to her. At this point my courage was already dwindling, especially under the gaze of the woman who had decided I should be placed in a beginning Korean class to begin with. But instead, I attempted to understand the gist of their conversation and interjected some agreements. They appeared to finally agree on something, the Korean III teacher returned to her class, and my teacher turned to me
You'll be in level III now
I can't even fathom how ridiculous I must have looked at that moment with a gigantic grin on my face, but I managed to bow and squeak out a 감사합니다 (thank you)!
I returned to my old class, grabbed my things, the teacher informed everyone I was being moved, I said goodbye, and I walked to my new class.

Walked right in mid-lecture, right into the teacher speaking rapid Korean to the other students. I sat. I waited for her to stop. To breathe. Something. Eventually the moment came when she stopped to write something on the board. I finally figured out they were talking about flavors (salty, sweet, bitter, etc.), none of which I knew, but managed to jot down the words quickly and force myself to memorize them. We did a partner activity, asking how certain foods taste. We went back to rapid Korean lecturing. I was called on to make a sentence with a random verb in future tense and managed to do it without messing up.

And finally, the class was done for the day, not a word of English spoken.

The Kimbap part of the menu at the restaurant we ate lunch at.

Tuna Kimbap!

The bakery part of the cafe.

Bing soo!

Me on the Korean I list.

My syllabus for Korean III!

수업

Today was my first day of classes!

I think I'm really going to like all of them. I'm taking Korean, Korean Mass Media & Popular Culture, and Korean Americans. I figured since I was in Korea, it would be a disservice to take any classes that aren't about Korea!

The class on Korean Americans was first, at 9am. The class was very small, only 7 students including myself, but it's going to be mostly discussion based so I think that's good. Out of the 7 of us, 5 are Korean American. The professor told us that she's never had so many non-Korean American students in this class before. There were two of us. She said it'll be refreshing to hear about Korean Americans from a non-Korean American perspective though. We spoke about what it means to be Korean American, how the immigration experience differs from that of other ethnic groups in America, and about the history of Korean immigration into the US.

After class, I asked one of my classmates, who had already purchased the reading packet, where I could go to buy it. She instead offered to take me there, which I happily obliged. We walked to the Student Union Building, and in the basement was the Copy Nara. There was a list of course numbers, and I was able to tell the man working there which numbers I needed in Korean. One of the KU ISC "buddies" was there to help assist international students with getting their packets, and he told me my Korean was good, which made me pretty happy. Afterwards, my classmate and I went to the University store to buy some notebooks. I decided to grab lunch at one of the restaurants in that building, and although she already had lunch plans, my classmate joined me to keep me company. I ordered dolsot Bibimbap (돌솥 비빔밥); rice, hot pepper paste, vegetables, and a raw egg served in a hot stone pot to cook it all. The woman at the counter seemed relieved to have an American come in and order in Korean. After I payed, my classmate leaned in and said something to the woman, to which she smiled and replied. At the table, she told me she had said to the woman "doesn't she speak Korean well?" and the woman agreed. I'm easily flattered and this was twice in an hour that my Korean had been complimented, so I was pretty happy.

I went back to my dorm to study for my Korean placement test for a little while, then had my second class, Korean Mass Media and Popular Culture, at  2:40. This class was very large, probably around 50 students. We just went over the schedule and syllabus, then all had to introduce ourselves and say why we were taking the class/were in Korea. He looked around the room for someone to start, our eyes locked, and he immediately gestured his hands out to me and asked me to begin. I talked about the relevance to my majors and future goals, and either my answer really intrigued him or confused him, because he spent the whole time with his hand on his chin, squinting and occasionally nodding. After the introductions, class was done for the day, about an hour early. The girl sitting next to me, who was here from China, asked me where she could buy the course packet. I decided to pay forward the kindness done to me earlier in the day and take her there. After she bought her packet, there was still an hour until the placement tests, so we decided to sit on a bench together outside and talk and prepare for the test together. A few minutes in, we heard a loud drumming sound and decided to go investigate. We made our way down the road and saw a long flight of uneven, tree-lined stone steps that seemed to lead to the sound. We made our way to the top and saw through a small grove of trees three students playing some sort of traditional Korean drums. We watched for a few minutes, then returned to a bench to study/talk until it was time for the placement test.

There's no easy way to say it, but I'm pretty sure I completely bombed that test. There were about 25 of us that had signed up for that level, and apparently there's something about my eyes today that makes professors want to call on me first, because before I knew it, I was being summoned over to a chair on the side of the classroom. Before I even understood what was happening, I was bombarded by questions in Korean. It was a surprise speaking test. She asked me maybe around ten questions, but I couldn't understand about three of them. My answers for the others were pretty weak. When she told me I could go, the relief overrode the disappointment and I made my way out as fast as possible. The results are posted tomorrow, I'll see how I did, but my hopes are not high.

That being said however, today was still a wonderful day! After purchasing a new umbrella to combat the torrential rainstorm that had begun while I was in my test and filling my stomach with ddeokbokki (떡볶이, spicy rice cakes), I made my way back to my dorm. I'm completely exhausted, but have about fifty pages of reading due at 9am, so, sleep is for the weak!

안녕히 계세요!

Bibimbap!

People playing drums

Huge rain storm

You may not be able to tell, but my glasses are fogged up. The humidity here is ridiculous!

맥주

So I've decided I love it here and am never going back to America.

Just kidding. Well, about the never coming back to America part anyways. I do love it here.

Today was orientation. We began with some speeches and formalities, rules, etc. All rather boring. Then there was a two hour break for lunch and upon returning to the building, the numbers had dramatically decreased. Which is a shame, because that's when all the excitement happened. First, there was a performance by a vocal ensemble from Harvard, which was nice, but nothing compared to the Korea University cheerleading squad that followed. I have a distinct image of what a cheerleader is in my head, and they did not fit that image whatsoever. Dressed in stylized Korean garb, excitedly leading us in song and dance, I don't think a person was left untouched by "KU Spirit". After the performances, there was a campus tour. The campus here is gigantic. I mean, overwhelmingly huge. I have no idea how I'm going to get around here, but I'm sure I'll figure it out... eventually...

After the campus tour, we were all invited to go to a bar 5 minutes away from the campus by foot and mingle. Not everybody went, but even so we filled the restaurant. I sat at a table with a Korean girl I met and talked to during the tour, a guy from Sweden, two guys from Japan, and a guy from Korea. We were brought two plates of fried chicken, one in a spicy sauce, and a gigantic pitcher of beer. I'm just going to say now; if American college orientations ended with off campus beer and fried chicken socials, I think people would be much more inclined to go. We stayed for about two and a half hours, with conversation ranging from drinking culture (Korean drinking games, American drinking games, Swedish drinking songs) to sports to saunas to height differences. We all soaked up each other's cultures, with questions constantly flying around the table (Maybe when I have more time/am less exhausted I'll try and recount some of the conversations). Finally we made it back to our dorms, and I was able to take a nice shower.

Tomorrow is my Korean placement test, and since I haven't practiced all Summer, I'm pretty nervous. So I'm going to read up on my book a little bit and then take some well deserved rest.

안녕히 계세요!

Hills everywhere! I'll have monster calves by the end of this program.

How's this for a lobby view?

The mosquito bites keep getting worse. Bug spray does nothing

One of the KU Cheerleaders

Chicken!

The remains

Side street in Seoul

반갑습니다!

Well, my laptop won't connect to the wifi here for some reason, but my phone is connected just fine. I'm really kicking myself for leaving my Ethernet cable at home, but I can probably find a place to buy one here so I'm not too concerned just yet. Anyways, you will all have to excuse the brevity of this post as typing on a phone presents certain disadvantages. So, I'm safe and sound in Seoul! The flight from Toronto to Tokyo was ridiculously long, and felt like it would never end, but it did and overall wasn't too bad. I don't really remember the flight from Tokyo to Seoul, as I was drifting in and out of consciousness, but I do remember finally waking up when there was an announcement that we were 20 minutes away, and realizing I'd fallen asleep before filling out my customs and immigration forms. So fortunately I was able to do those before landing. In the Incheon airport, I learned pretty quickly to get over my claustrophobia. It was shoulder to shoulder on the escalators, shuttles, and immigration lines. I managed to be one of the last people to get to the luggage carousel from my flight, and found my suitcases already off and in the hands of a Korean airport attendant who was glancing back and forth between my luggage tags and the small group of people already there and calling out "Reynolds? Reynolds? Reynolds?" before I finally went over to grab them from her. By this time it was 10:30, and the bus I was supposed to catch stopped running at 10:00. I was standing outside with my luggage looking around trying to figure out where to go when a man came up and asked where I was going. I said I was looking for a bus that ran to Dobong (not my stop, but the last one on the line that led to Korea University). He said he was a cab driver and would takr me, which I had initially wanted to avoid due to the costliness of an hour long cab drive, but at this point I was completely exhausted and had no idea what I was doing, so I didn't protest when he grabbed my bags and started walking them toward his taxi. He asked me for an address to where I was going, and I said Korea University. "Which Korean university?" "Korea university." "...which one?" "Korea" "what?" "고려 대학교!" "Ohhh 고려 대 okay!" And we were off. The city, which was a sight to see, was full of lights and people and cars, both exciting and intimidating at the same time. I told him which dorm building I needed to go to, but he didn't know where it was. I showed him a map, but he didn't know how to get there. He called someone, yelling "고려 대 기숙사 (Korea U dormitory) and then stuff I couldn't catch. Apparently the person he called had no answer because he yelled something else in Korean and hung up, instead choosing to roll down his window and yell to students to give him directions, although the only words I was able to catch were Korea University, dormitory, frontier house (the name of the form), and foreigner. He ended up taking me to the wrong dorm, which I didn't realize, but I started walking up the steep hill toward the International Student dorms (not where I am staying, as I opted to live in the regular dorms, but I knew the were close from the map so I figured I'd navigate from there). Halfway up, beginning to break a sweat thanks to the 80lbs of luggage and the ridiculously steep incline, a visiting American professor saw me and offered to help carry my things to the International House. When I told her I was actually going to Frontier House, she told me it was actually down hill. So I turned around, internally commending myself for getting my excercise in for the day, and made my way to the building. The guard at the front desk took one look at me, and then I suppose was immediately terrified that I'd start asking him a million questions in English (by god, do I stand out here)because he immediately held up his hand in a "wait" gesture, made a call to someone, then grabbed one of my bags and led me to a chair to sit and wait for a girl who came down to check me in. I got up to my dorm room at around midnight, wide awake due to it feeling like 11am, unpacked my stuff, showered, and finally managed to doze off at 2am. I woke up at 6am, again wide awake, got up and organized things around my room until 9:30, then fell back asleep until half past noon. Deciding I needed to get out of my room if I wanted to get over this jet lag, I left to go find food (my last meal was at 2pm on the flight the day before, and although I didn't feel hungry, only sleepy, I knew I needed to eat). I asked the students at the International Summer Student check in desk where the cafeteria was, and they bantered back and forth in Korean about where it was until one finally said "I'll take you there, it'll be easier" and led me. I don't have a meal plan card, and had no idea where to pay with cash. Upon entering there are gated machines where you swipe your card and go through. Of course, they are entirely in Korean, so I stood there for about a minute with my face about a foot away from the screen trying to piece together the very little I could understand. Eventually a woman who worked there saw me me and brought me to the back where I could pay with cash. The meal for today consisted of rice, some sort of spicy soup with beef, cold noodles, beansprouts, radish kimchi, and rice. After lunch, I went to a convenience store to buy some toilet paper (there was none in my dorm much to my horror upon arrival, fortunately I had some tissues). I probably looked like an idiot walking to my dorm afterwards, with a huge grin on my face, swinging a twelve pack of toilet paper back and forth by the handle, but I think that's when the realization of "oh my gosh, I'm really in Korea!" truly hit. My roommate, a native Korean named Inyoung, just came in (though she's left now with her mother) and we introduced ourselves. Her mother didn't speak English, but instead just smiled at me, occasionally repeating her daughter's his and byes. when they were about to step out, I said "반갑습니다!" (pangapsubnida! Or nice to meet you) to which they both smiled and laughed and said it very excitedly back. I hope I can practice my Korean more with my new roommate! Now I'm going to try to study a bit for my placement test which is in a couple of days and will determine which language level I'm placed in. Hopefully my next post I'll have my computer working! 안녕히 계세요!

Almost to Tokyo after a 13 hour flight!

"Welcome to Japan!"

The shuttle leading to the terminal at Incheon airport. This was about 2/3 of how much it filled up.

Escalator at Incheon airport

Couldn't read the Korean instructions for the AC (figured it out the next morning when I wasn't sleep deprived) so I slept with the window open. Turns out Korea has mosquitoes too. A lot of them.

For some reason, I think seeing a drink I'm used to drinking in Korean was a bigger culture shock than seeing all of the weird Korean drinks.

My very first Korean meal! Approx $3.50

From my second meal; having to rip out the spine of the thing you're about to consume is a humbling experience. Also reminded me why I started eating meat after 6 years of vegetarianism in preparation for this trip.

Seoul!