Day 1: Feb 27, 2009

Anyeunghaseyo!

So first impressions: wow. I think culture shock has not set in yet because I keep thinking I am in Chinatown in NYC... but english is not as popular here as I thought. Only the students know it (some well, others very little), but the international students only communicate with it.

I am currently in the living room of my hostel with seven other international students typing away at our respective computers... today has been crazy. I got into Seoul last night (it is midnight here now) and went to bed after waiting at the airport for some other exchange students to get in. The hostel is pretty crappy but really good for the $13 a night, haha. I am in a room with six other people, but there are about eight of us here who are going to Seoul National. Today we had orientation, which included a traditional korean percussion band (very intense drumming and metal banging, sounded tribal which makes sense because of its shamanistic roots) and a lot of food.. which was delicious and spicy.


For lunch I had bibimbap which is vegetables and rice mixed with spicy chili paste to taste, along with watered-down kimchi (for beginners maybe? haha), black beans with sesame seeds, turnips with a very spicy sauce, a sprout soup which no one liked, and barley tea (instead of water). We also stopped for some green tea ice cream, which pretty much tastes like what it sounds. It is semi-sweet and very refreshing, I didn't like it at first but soon became quite fond of it. For dinner we went to a restaurant called "Oh! Pig" in a popular sidestreet. It is very popular with students because it is very cheap, and those were the only customers we saw there. It was traditional floor sitting and our buddies cooked the pork on the table and we drank quite a lot of soju (tastes like vodka but 20% alcohol). Kimchi was also cooked along with garlic. We were given lettuce leaves to put the three aforementioned ingredients together along with the chili paste and roll it up and eat. I really enjoyed everything. The rounds of soju kept going but we did not have too much because they were trying to keep us more or less sober.


Then we went to a noreabang, which is a karoake room. This was very interesting. The Koreans are very open with their singing and are pretty good at it. The two other non-asian international students in my group sang "We Will Rock You" by Queen and "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. I also sang a Green Day song with one of the other buddies. It was fun but defintely an experience because many Americans and Europeans are too shy to sing full songs in front of their friends, but the Koreans welcome it. They were disappointed that we did not get into it as much as they were hoping, but i'm sure there will be many opportunities to make up for it.


The metro and bus systems are really foreigner-friendly here. Many signs are also written in english and announced in english. I already purchased a T-Money card for the subway and bus system. My hostel is about an hour away from the school so both subway and bus were necessary to get there. It is really nice that some international students have already been here for a while so they have been very helpful. Also, my buddy Yungme is a sweetheart and we are going to rent a phone in her name so I don't have to worry about documentation (which I won't have for a while) and we could be in contact as soon as possible.


Tomorrow, the whole group staying at the hostel is planning to get breakfast and then go to a big market and the Seoul Tower. They are all really friendly and nice, we have been getting along quite well. It is very fortunate that there are three (from Czech Republic) of us in the same buddy group because we spent all day together.

It is 1:15am here right now and I am very tired, so I am going to go to bed and try to adjust to the time difference (so far so good).