My First Two Weeks in South Korea!

February 23rd through March 11th

Hello everyone! This is my first post since being in South Korea. This post will cover my first two weeks and then I will post a new one every week now that I've gotten settled in.

My flight left on February 23rd in the evening, and I didn't arrive in Korea until early morning on the 25th. Korea is 14 hours ahead of Minnesota and I had about 19 hours of total flight time. For this trip, I was flying over with a family friend (Molly) who was going over to visit her son (Dave) and his family. The first four hours was for a layover to LAX and the rest of the 15 hours was from LAX to ICN. The flight seemed really long and uncomfortable, but overall it wasn't too bad because the way that my flights were set up, I was flying pretty much just during the night and I was able to sleep some on the plane, so my jet lag wasn't bad at all. After I made it off the plane and through customs, Molly and I met up with Dave and his son where they were kind enough to get me a tea from a little cafe in the airport. Before we drove back to the hotel, they showed me around Incheon a little bit. There were a lot of small seafood restaurants next to a beach on the Yellow Sea. I have never seen a sea or an ocean before so we stopped to look and we hunted for seashells. We found a bunch but unfortunately I didn't take any pictures! After we were done, we went back to the hotel that they were staying at and I met the rest of the family. For lunch, we went to one of the little restaurants in the hotel where we got pizza and assorted sausages with fries, For dessert we got the pecan pie, which was very good. They brought me back to the airport and we went to the Culture Experience Center for a little bit. One of the cool things in there was this interactive floor display where you could step over some screens in the floor and overhead sensors would track the movement and make the images on the screens react to wherever you were moving. The two that I saw were lanterns that would move when you walked over them and then there was one that had a paper background and ink blots would appear when you walked around. When it was time, I met up with the rest of the students headed to Yonsei and I said my goodbyes. My dorm room is actually pretty nice. I have my own bathroom and own shower (separate rooms), there are 3 beds, each with its own desk underneath, the floors are heated, and the view from my window is amazing! The program that I am participating in is called the Global Village Program and it is an expansion of the student exchange program, where international exchange students will take part in the cultural internship program, live with a small group of Korean students, and conduct sessions with the Korean students to help them learn to speak English. The next day I had orientation for the GV Program and I was able to meet the 10 other international students participating (Marcella, Jay, Marie, Marisa, Eevie, Dari, John, Isaac, Josue, and Arturo) and they come from all over the United States. We got a quick tour of the campus, which is surrounded by mountains and a lake (which we can't swim in but there is a swimming pool in our sports center). After our tour, we met some other international students that have already been here for about a month who had volunteered at the Olympics. Shortly after, the GV program students met all of the Korean students who are participating in the program and I was able to meet my 2 roommates (Kim, Bu-Kyung and Park, Ga-Eun). They can both speak some English, so communicating is not too much of an issue. From the 27th through the 28th, the GV students went to Jeonju, which is a very historical city about 3 hours away from the campus in Wonju. We started out our stay in Jeonju by eating in very traditional looking restaurant where we had Bibimbap, which is rice served with various vegetables, sauce of your choice, an egg (raw or fried), and sliced meat. It was really good and would definitely recommend giving it a try. After lunch, Bu-Kyung took me to Nambu market, which was a very interesting place, it had a lot of small shops selling cool, little gadgets. We met back up with our group in front of Gyeonggijeon, which was a castle to one of their kings. The tour guide taught us the different meanings behind the colors that are used a lot in their culture; Blue (East), Red (South), Yellow (Center), White (West), and Black (North). This was just one of the meanings behind them, but they use them for lots of different things too. We got some more time to explore the city before we had to meet back for dinner. Once we got checked into the hotel we were staying at, everyone decided to go out so we could get to know each other better since we are going to be together for the rest of the semester. The next morning we went to the National Intangible Heritage Center where we were able to look at a lot of traditional items from South Korea's history. Next, we went to the Wanpanbon Culture Center, which was a place that they had some old books that were made using woodblocks and they also offer classes on how to carve your own. Then we went to Jeomju Hyanggyo (Confucian School). We then went to get lunch and then started to head back to Wonju. I had my first experience on South Korea's public buses when I went with a group to AK Plaza (it's kind of like a department store). The bus wasn't too bad, I just had to hold on tight. I also got to experience their karaoke (Noraebang) for the first time. That was a fun time, even though I didn't sing a whole lot, but everyone was just having a good time. After a week of being there, it was finally time to start classes. I'm taking four classes, Beginner Korean Conversation, Western Civilization, Beginner Korean Reading/Writing, and Culture Experience. They are all taught in English (for the most part) so I shouldn't have too much of a problem with them. With the first week of classes over, me and three others decided to spend the weekend in Seoul. We didn't really have a plan for what we wanted to do, but we just wanted to experience the city. The place that we stayed at was a little house in Itaewon. All four of us stayed in one room and there were also other guests in the house as well. The host (Noel) was very nice, and she helped us with directions and even out with us once too. We went shopping in Myeong-Dong, which was a crazy, busy street market with tons of vendors in the streets, as well as actual shops all around. One thing that I wanted to do but didn't get a chance to was to go to a dog cafe. Maybe next time. During the night, we walked the streets and enjoyed the nightlife in the city. These first 2 weeks have been really great and everyone here is so nice. I can't wait for the rest of the semester! Thanks for reading!