Third Day in Korea

After waking up early I went to take a shower and there were two Korean girls already in the shower room. Now our shower room has four shower heads and glass walls dividing each side in half but you can see everyone and they can see you. At first i thought it would be scary but surprisingly I had no trouble at all. After getting ready for the day, I met up with two friends, Gabriela and Aidana to go to the opening ceremony. Once inside I sat next to my roommates and met my third and final roommate. Her name was Eungyung and I was pressured to name her as well. i gave her the name Echo because it was short, simple, unique, and cute. Then there was a presentation explaining the upcoming field trip that was scheduled for the very next day. Then all of the Global Village students introduced themselves. International students first, then Korean students. Then we took a large group photo.

After the ceremony, My roommates, Aidana, and I went to Grazie Cafe and I ordered a Vanilla Cafe Latte which was pretty good. Also, I ordered in Korean. Then we all sat around a table and talked about our siblings and hobbies and other generic questions. After finishing our drinks we headed upstairs for lunch. They provided lunch boxes for us and the food was very good.

Yummy Lunch box provided by the International Office.

After eating, Eungyung had to go to a meeting so Yewon, Hwayoung, Aidana, and I went on a walk. We met up with Blake and Luke then we all went to Kiss Road where cherry blossom trees bloom during the Spring. It was very pretty even with bare trees.

After a nice walk we met up again with everyone at the plaza. Once everyone was accounted for we got on the bus, filling it up completely, and drove to downtown Wonju where we were going to get pictures taken for our ID cards. After everyone's pictures were taken, we walked to a dollar store. here i bought make-up remover for a buck.

Daiso was the Korean dollar store.

Soon we all got back on the bus and headed back to campus. However, this time after beeping my card the bus driver ran after me and started shouting in Korean. i was confused but soon we figured out that my card had already run out of money so i had to pay to ride. I walked up to the front of the bus and the Global Village boys helped me get the right amount of money. Then I sat up in front with them and talked. It was a lot of fun and it's a funny experience every time I look back at it.

Then in the evening, we met up with everyone and went to Pig Campus to eat Samgyeopsal which was delicious!

Samgyeopsal, yummy!

After eating we went out to Karaoke and split the group into two since we were too big to fit in one room. At first I didn't sing because I didn't really know anyone and I've never really sang in front of anyone before and the guys sang a lot of American songs. Then some Korean songs came up that I knew and I sang without a microphone. The first song I sang with a microphone in my hand was Haru Haru by Big Bang because everyone heard I loved Big Bang. However, I did not know the lyrics and struggled to rap so one of the guys sang with me. Then afterwards I sang all the Bruno Mars songs that were played. I was seriously on the microphone for the whole last half of the session. It was fun and they told me I sang well but I felt bad for taking up so much time.

Karaoke or Norae Bang in Korean ^^

The bathrooms at the karaoke place were very sketchy. We needed to get a key from the front desk before walking outside and up some stairs to a unisex bathroom with two stalls, two urinals, and one sink. In my stall there was a door next to the toilet...I hoped it wouldn't open haha.

After Karaoke we all went back to campus and I fell right asleep.

Second Day in Korea

On February 24, my second day in South Korea, I woke up at 4:00 am because I was cold, so I snuggled in my blankets and went back to sleep. I woke up again at 7:57 am and rolled out of bed. After turnign off my three alarms I got ready for my day. The showers have amazing water pressure but...there is no privacy whatsoever, well I guess there is a glass wall on each side between two shower heads. However if you turn away from the wall you can pretty much see everyone else in the room. Personally, I didn't care and jumped right in without a care in the world but most of the other exchange students did not like this one bit. To this day I have not seen another exchange student in the shower when I'm in there, they probably go in at different times than most people.

After a little organization.

After organizing my room a little, I met up with the rest of the Global Village exchange students and hiked over to the computer lab. Here there was a lecture introducing the Global Village program. After everything was said and done we had a campus tour. Yonsei University Global Village in Wonju is so beautiful.

 Then after buying an ethernet cord and putting it in my room we returned to the computer lab to fill out loads of paperwork for the Alien Registration Card, Yonsei ID card, and bank account. Then we registered for classes but since I had already registered I just enjoyed wifi for a little while and messaged my family and friends. At the end, we were given free coat hangers and I grabbed a mini laundry basket. Everyone gathered in the bank downstairs and we handed in our paperwork. After all of this I went back to my room to discover that one of my roommates had moved in. Her name was 예원. She brought me to the Emart gathering area and helped me get a Transportation Card for the bus and subway. Soon a large group of exchange students was led by three Korean students to Emart. We rode the bus and filled up the entire thing. After a few minutes we arrived at Emart.

Emart in Wonju South Korea.

Emart was a three story store that reminded me of Walmart or Target since it seemed to have everything. Instead of esculators they had inclined moving sidewalks so you could take your carts up and down to different floors. I stuck close to My roommate Yewon and even used her cart to put my stuff in. Something different from America was that we had to pay 100 won to use a shopping cart. This is about ten cents but it is weird to think about paying for a cart but they were nice carts.

Emart shopping cart.

While we were exploring the food court two little kids pointed at us and shouted "American! American!" in Korean. It was so cute! Then Yewon asked the kids if they knew any English and the kids said, "Hi," and waved. They were super cute.

After everyone got what they needed, we went to check out. Yewon had to help me because I didn't speak enough Korean. And to get a paper bag, you had to pay for it. This was also a foreign concept for me but I didn't mind. As we were waiting at the door we realized Melanie and Gabriela didn't know we planned on meeting at a certain time so Yewon and Soojin went back in to look for them. It turned out that Gabriela's card wasn't working so she had to withdraw money in order to pay for her groceries. it took a while but everything got sorted out and we all headed to the bus stop.

View next to bus stop.

Once we had returned, our third roommate had moved in, her name was Hwayoung. We all talked for a while and organized our desks. Then at one point they asked me to help them decide their English names. I asked if they wanted simple names or unique names and they of course said unique. Then I asked for their favorite American letter and threw out ideas from there. Eventually Yewon got the name, Destiny, and Hwayoung received the name, Ariella. 

We worked for hours on my Internet but could not get it to work. Eventually we decided we were hungry so we ordered chicken. it was delicious! After we finished eating, our neighbor came to our room saying she needed to go to Emart so we decided to go with her and help her. 

Bus ride to Emart.

Eventually we made it back to the dorm and I was able to connect to temporary wifi and contacted all my friends and family. After that i fell right asleep, I was exhausted.

My First Day in Korea

So I have been in South Korea for a week now but it has been really busy. I will now share my experiences on the first day I arrived.

After our airplane arrived at the airport at 6:00 pm, ten minutes before we were supposed to meet the Global Village group. However we had to go through immigration, then find and wait for our luggage, and by the time we were ready it was already 6:30 pm. We ran around but could not find Gate 14 and finally someone told us the right direction and we found our group by 6:45 pm. We waited until 7:00 before boarding the bus and heading to Wonju campus.

On the bus heading to Wonju Global Village campus.

I fell asleep on the bus and was woken up when we made it to campus. After getting our bags we had to hike up hill to get to Maeji Dorm. Once we were inside we waited around for a few moments while they gathered our room keys and key cards. After throwing my stuff in my room I went back downstairs to get bedding.

All my stuff thrown on my roommate's bed (didn't know whose bed was whose until later)

I sat downstairs waiting for the bedding with Melanie and Gabriela. After a while of waiting we decided we were all starving, so we walked to the convenience store. I bought a yogurt cereal thing which was actually pretty good, even for someone like me who doesn't care much for yogurt. Then after sitting and waiting again in the dorm lobby we finally got news on the bedding. There had been some miscommunication, and the bedding had been sent to the other dorm. We had to walk over and grab our own bedding. After hiking through the dark, unknown territory, I finally had bedding. I went straight to my room and started to unpack but just kind of threw everything on my desk. After making my bed and changing into pajamas I fell asleep around 11:00 pm.