I'm trying to blog frequently so I can keep track of all of the things I've been doing. I realized in my last post that I forgot to mention my roommate. Her name is Gloria and she is so sweet and kind! I hope we can live together well this semester. (Hi roomie!!) Anyway so I last left off with my dinner and seolbing in Shinchon. The next day was orientation and during orientation I ran into my friend Ramy from SUNY. She had met a bunch of other girls on the plane and I was able to meet them all along with her roommate. (Hi Angela, Inez, Lourdes, Kelsi, and Mei!!) The past couple of days I've gotten really close with them and we've become really great friends.
So the orientation itself was both boring and informative and they gave us a 2 hour break for lunch. Being the rebels that we were, we decided to skip the second half. The Yonsei student center and cafeteria is amazing! Everything was super modern and there was a photo shop, book store, bank, and a lot of other things that I can't remember. In the cafeteria there are 6 different restaurant types, but you order from one counter where there is a menu listing all the items. You pay first and when your order is ready the number dings up on a big screen. I ordered some kind of creamy chicken pasta that was really good! Albany food is terrible, so...
I don't know if I should get started on this, but the vending machines here are glorious. GLORIOUS I TELL YOU. I stared at them for about 5 minutes...they're like vending machines from the future.
We got a little lost walking around campus but I took some photos while that happened.
When you are staying in Korea, you have to apply for an alien registration card at the Immigration office (a process I will tell you all about in the next post -_-) and I had to get a photo taken for the application. A strange thing about photo places in Korea is that they assume you will want your picture photo-shopped so they will just do it without asking. I mean I do not look this good in real life.
So after the orientation there was an orientation for the Buddy mentor program, where you get matched up with a Korean buddy. The orientation ended up being something called "Cheering Orientation" where we learned different dances to do for Yonsei during school events and sports games. In case I didn't say this already, Yonsei, Korea, and Seoul Universities are the top 3 in the country, so Yonsei students are EXTREMELY full of school pride. The cheering went on for about an hour and then we were split off into groups to go have dinner and then go to a bar. We went to a curry chicken restaurant and had chicken and beer (called "chimek" for "chicken" and "mekchu," the Korean word for beer) even though we pride ourselves on having great fried chicken in America, I have to tell you that Korean fried chicken is probably a gift sent from heaven. Most chicken places deliver right to your door, no tip or delivery charge, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Behold *baby angels singing and playing harps in the distance*
During the dinner I met a cool guy named Ryan and we ended up talking a lot. After the dinner we all went to a bar called The Bar Fly which is, I guess I would call it "foreigner friendly?" because the menus were all in English. We danced a good amount and Ryan and I left at about midnight or 1 to go eat noodles at a convenience store. Most convenience stores have microwaves and hot water dispensers so you can buy food and eat it right there.
The next day I made plans to go with friends to Daiso, which is like a dollar store, and then to go shopping in the area around Ehwa Women's University. Because there are a lot of young female college students there, there are shops and restaurants caring reasonably priced merchandise so as to cater to the students. On the way to Daiso there was a mass confusion and my friends and I ended up not in the same place as each other. It took us maybe an hour to get back together, and we stopped at a coffee shop called A Twosome Place. This place was so expensive, and I think the name made sense because there were a lot of couples everywhere. I got a strawberry peach smoothie and it was really good but was maybe 5 bucks...
After that we walked up about 15 minutes toward the shops around Ehwa Women's University. This area, like I said has a lot of cute little boutiques selling shoes, clothes, cosmetics, and hair accessories. Korean girls here pay really close attention to what's trendy and you can see them wearing a lot of similar styles of clothes. I've noticed right now that pastel blazer-sweater coat things are really fashionable, and most of the stores in Ehwa had them. I went into one store and it was full of coats like that. I saw a kind of powder-blue one that I really liked so I asked the woman how much it was. She told me a price but if i tried it on and paid cash she would give me a discount. Now she was probably trying to butter me up but she told me she would give it to me cheaper because I was cute and that her boss wasn't there. In this area you actually can try and ask for a discount and they will give you a price maybe, in general, 2 or 3,000 won cheaper. This woman gave me mine for like 6,000 won cheaper, so I maybe paid 42,000 for it. The stores here also sell a lot of cute sweaters and tops for only 10,000 won. I got a cute top with a blue collar. We went to a shoe store that was wall to wall shoes of all different kinds and I bought a pair of plain black oxford type shoes, again at about 3,000 won cheaper. If you don't know how to ask for a discount in Korean, just stand there and look like you're really hesitant and not sure about wanting to pay the price they give for a long time...that worked for me.
I did buy some cute socks too. The street food in Ewha is really good. I waited in line for ice cream bbungeobbang which is goldfish shaped bread filled with read bean paste, but the line was too long so I got out of it...I will have to make an effort to go back. I did get something called a croquette though, which is like a fried nugget type thing. I got one filled with curry for 1,500 and it was really warm and filling. They had other kinds as well and if I were really hungry I would have gotten one of each.
We also ate dinner at a fried chicken place in Ewha. We ordered a tteokbokki hot-pot that came with noodles, odeng, hard boiled egg, and vegetables. We split the price so it ended up being only 2,000 a person.
After that we went to a bunch of cosmetics stores, but I beelined straight for Etude House. I LOVE ETUDE HOUSE. The packaging is so cute and the products are all reasonably priced and adorable. Since my birthday was on Friday I decided to treat myself a little bit...well a lotta bit...I spent maybe 79,000KRW but look at all the stuff I got and it's going to last me a long time.
I was going to write about my time in Hongdae with JuHyun but I think I'll save that for the next entry–
See you all soon!
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