First picture in Seoul, with Kirstin and Jenny.Hello, all you faithful readers.
If you didn't know, I'll be studying abroad at Yonsei University in Seoul for the next semester, about 5 months...
I arrived in Seoul Monday morning at 7 am, and spent most of the day with my cousin's family who helped me move in. Which means I've been living at Yonsei's international dorm for 2 and a half days, and it's been a longgg 2 and a half days filled with orienting myself: getting myself familiar with the campus, the people, the food, the culture. It's actually harder than I thought it would be (even harder than adjusting to Madrid) because Koreans tend to make things a lot more complicated than necessary...
For example:
1. Move-In. Whoever decided to set up the schedule for Move-in thought it would be a genius idea to have it coincide with graduation day. It took us an hour to get into the school, and another half an hour SLOWWWWLY making our way to the dorm dodging the excited alumi.
2. Food Court. For lunch yesterday, I went to Hyundai deptment store right in front of the school for lunch with two girls i met in the morning, Jenny and Kirstin... I think it was the most tiring experience I've had trying to get food...In America when you enter a food court at the mall, you simply line up at the joint where you want to order your food. You pay the cashier, and find a place to sit as you patiently wait for your warm meal. In Korea, there's only one cashier for all the joints. You order your food and pay at the cashier after 20 minutes of waiting in line. The cashier gives you a table number in a specific room. You search for your table number, wait until your order number appears on the display, find your way back to the joint. Get your food, and find your way back to your specified table, dodging Koreans along the way. You tend to do a lot of dodging in Korea.
3. Course Registration. It's just ridiculously complicated. I don't know what my classes are, when they are, nor do I know where they are. They won't let me log on to my course registration until 2 days after classes start. I have no idea what I'm doing or what I'm going to do come Monday.
Hopefully, once school starts (and I somehow figure out my schedule) things will start falling into place. Right now, everyone is just all over the place. Trying to join as many clubs as possible, trying to meet as many people as possible, trying to figure out how to work the course registration system and the internet, trying to familiarize themselves with the campus, the Sincheon area, etc. etc.etc. It's all mentally and physically draining, but so far, I'm all smiles. :)
