I'm Finally Back! Let's See What I Can Remember...

Well, hello again. It's been quite a while, hasn't it? Anyone who knows me well enough probably could have predicted my sudden halt in posting on here, but I'm back. I know it has been almost two months since I posted anything, and that's a lot to cover. However, I haven't been doing as many interesting things as the semester progresses, so there isn't really a need to cover every single day that has passed. From now on until I catch up to the present, I probably won't be writing in great detail because to be honest, the days do kind of blend together. And a description of every single one of my classes would probably put you to sleep more than the classes themselves. Let's get started, shall we? This should be interesting.

3-9-2015
Basing my memories off of the pictures on my phone and a few notes I had written down about this day, I was apparently still actually doing things during the day at this point besides just sitting around like I kind of do now. I had class in the morning, that much I know for sure. Afterwards, I went to officially open my bank account at the bank on campus. As all of the other exchange students were trying to do the same thing, the place was packed, and I waited for quite a while. I passed the time by observing who I believe was a security guard as he wandered around the room. What I was trying to figure out was whether the holster bulging out of the side of his suit coat was holding a tazer or a gun. I've heard that even the police in Korea don't carry loaded guns, so my bet was on tazer.

I didn't find out what it was before my number was called, which granted me freedom from the bank shortly afterwards. Sitting in one place for too long apparently makes me hungry because I then got lunch with a few friends at BonGousse, a rice burger place that has cheap and delicious food. This place has essentially become the home base for many of the exchange students, particularly my friends and me. We need one back home. I don't know what I'm going to do when I don't have a rice burger to fall back on when I'm in need of a quick meal.

In any event, we continued on to the area around Ehwa University for a bit of shopping. If you look back to my most recent post from ages ago, you will see that a group of us had just been there the day before. But I had come on a mission this time. I needed a backpack. Something smaller that I could use like a purse but also take to class because no one around here uses the heavy duty backpacks that we have back home. Not that having a Korean style backpack will make me fit in around here because, well, I just don't, but I wanted one nonetheless. The one I got actually just broke a few days ago (as I'm writing this at the end of April), but don't worry. I got a replacement that is completely identical. The walk back to campus was probably one of the strangest I have ever experienced. We were swimming upstream. And that stream wasn't your average stream. Oh, no! It was completely comprised of older women, referred to as 'ahjummas' in Korea. We struggled to navigate through the oncoming ladies until we reached the source. They were pouring out of an open door that was down an adjoining street. I kid you not, there was no end to them. Once we were passed the door though, it was smooth sailing, and we returned to campus safely.

Later that night marked the end of my nighttime freedom with the first of my Korean language classes (KLEC). It meets on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays from 6:50-8:40 p.m. Personally, I really enjoy the class. Well, at least the content because I find learning foreign languages really fun (I know, I'm a nerd). But having a night class is awful. Everyone in the class leaves dinner and goes right to class, and then we lose a good chunk of the night while we sit there repeating sounds and words over and over again to the point that we sound like toddlers. That class is working though. I can read in Korean faster than I could before, and I can put together basic sentences. Like I said before, it's fun.

3-10-2015
Tuesdays are never much fun, and this one was no exception. Class dragged on for the majority of the day before KLEC finally ended. A few hours after that, at 11 p.m., we all had our first floor meeting and room checks. Why is it so late at night you ask? Good question. I'm still asking it myself. Basically, all of the exchange students in the dorm are supposed to go down to the cafeteria for a five minute meeting to hear any important announcements. Yes, it is a pain to attend these every other week, thank you for asking. What's worse is having to intensively clean our rooms for these days, too. Following the meeting, the RAs go around to check each room. Mine takes all of five seconds to check the shower drain and toilet before leaving again. However, cleaning the shower drain this frequently is rather annoying. I would think they could invest in a better drain system. It's Korea; I'm sure they're out there.

My roommate and I were all nervous for this first check because we had heard that they were really strict about them, but as I already said, my RA barely leaves enough time for the door to close before she's gone again. Feeling relieved that we had survived the first check, a few of us ordered some pizza as a late night snack. Since guys and girls are separated into different buildings, we were forced to eat downstairs on the ping pong table. Not that location mattered because, you know, pizza.

Feeling Overwhelmed in Myeongdong and Namdaemun Market

Finally, on to Sunday, which yet again began a bit later than I would have liked. But what can you do? A group of us had plans to go shopping in Myeongdong, but we decided to grab lunch first since it was my roommate's birthday. Although it took a while and a little bit of wandering to figure out what we would all be happy eating, Pizza Hut was the final choice. Now, for those of you judging us for picking pizza, keep in mind that Korean pizza is different than pizza in the U.S. It was still a new experience. A delicious one, I might add. The "garlic bread" (it was sweet so I don't know what to call it) and dumplings from the almost salad-less salad bar were enough to fill us up, but that didn't stop us from snarfing down a bunch of pizza.

The bottom was BBQ chicken with a cheese stuffed crust. It was good, but
not as good as the bulgogi one above it with the most delicious crust ever.
Sweet potato and 12 cheese filling is revolutionary.

After leaving Pizza Hut, the adventure really began. There were just streets and streets of stores. I'd estimate it was about 1/3 restaurants, 1/3 makeup and beauty, and 1/3 socks. I'm not kidding, Koreans have a thing for socks. Not that I'm complaining since they're all cute and only about a dollar a pair. We made it to the end of one street, where there was a food stand for hoddeok. The older couple running it heard us all say how good it looked, so we couldn't really say no once they started handing them out to us. And I'm pretty sure we got one for free, but I don't really know for sure.

A street in Myeongdong.

Still in Myeongdong.

Hoddeok, with what I think was some kind of cinnamon-sugar filling.

Onward to Namdaemun market! Most things in Korea are cheaper than in the U.S., but we wanted cheaper. So we leave the streets of Myeongdong to find the even more overwhelming Namdaemun market. There were little stores on both sides of the streets, and even some little stands lining the middle of the streets. I don't think I've ever been so over-stimulated before. Smells, things, people. They were everywhere. Also, we never really came up with an efficient system to tell everyone else that we wanted to stop at a store, so there were multiple moments of thinking we'd lost someone.

Not being a fan of crowds, or shopping really for that matter, this all was very exhausting for me. I didn't even get any pictures because I was so overwhelmed. But we decided to take a break at a cafe. It was really nice inside and much classier than we were dressed for (at least half of us had bought snapbacks and beanies earlier in the trip), but we plopped ourselves down anyways. We had come for a reason: green tea bingsoo (shaved ice). Well, not me, since I don't like green tea, but I could make do with a mocha.

A masterpiece.

Yogurt waffle and a mocha.

Although we didn't want to leave the cafe since it was warm and there were couches, we continued on. More shopping followed, and somehow we ended up in a mall. If I remember correctly, it was called Lotte Young Plaza, and it sure had a lot of levels. I, along with two others, went exploring when we got bored of just looking around. Apparently, one's natural instinct is to go up as high as possible, so we did. And we found a really nice, peaceful rooftop garden. We stayed up there until the others found us, taking pictures and getting kind of giggly again. They were the same girls from dinner a few nights ago, so I guess it should have been expected.

Relatively shortly after that, we all made our way back to campus. However, we got off the subway at Ehwa University, an all female university one stop away from Sogang. This was done intentionally, as we wanted to look around the area a bit. Not all of the shops were open since it was Sunday night around 8 p.m., but we got a pretty good lay of the land. We then realized that we hadn't eaten dinner, so the struggle of finding something we could all agree on continued. And to make it worse, the one place we were going to try told us they were closed. It was 8:40 and their sign said they closed at 10 so I don't know what their deal was. But we found somewhere else. It was a little pricey, but tasted amazing. Finally, we could return to campus, with full stomachs and empty wallets. I did the homework I had been putting off all weekend and had the second roommate talk with Jen before finally going to sleep.

Field Trip!

So the day (Saturday) started out late again because sleeping in is a wonderful thing. Well that, and I didn't have anything to do until 12:30, when I had to leave to meet for a field trip. It was organized by the club that does and organizes things for the exchange students, and it was free, so I figured it wouldn't hurt to go. Personally, I was just excited to be going to see something else besides what is right around campus. In any case, we all met up, tried (and failed) to take a decent group picture, and then piled onto the subway. Dang, that thing was crowded. I felt kind of sorry to the people on the subway who were just trying to go about their Saturday, but were attacked by a swarm of loud foreigners. But you know, there was nothing I could really do about that.

We eventually, and somewhat chaotically, made it to our final destination, Bukchon Hanok Village. For those who don't know what this place is, because I didn't before I got to Korea, I'll give a quick introduction (with a bit of help from Wikipedia). It is a traditional Korean village that was home to important, higher-up people during the Joseon Dynasty, and it's located between a few of the palaces in Seoul. So we get there, and then the different groups head off to their activities. I chose to traditionally dye a handkerchief because, as my roommate pointed out, you get a souvenir that way. The dying itself was like sped up tie dying, minus any tying. Basically, you throw on some rubber gloves, toss the pre-printed handkerchief into the bowl of dye, squeeze it a few times, andddd you're good. Well, you stand there for a minute or two and let the color sink in after you take it out of the bowl, and then you rinse and dry it. It was really easy, but a cool experience nonetheless.

I stole this off of someone else's Facebook, but here are the handkerchiefs.

Afterwards, we were given some free time to explore the village, which to a few friends and me meant getting overly priced coffee at a really cute, two-story cafe within the village. I kind of regret not looking around a bit more, but I was really tired at the time and coffee sounded like a good idea.

A door.

A view from within the village, of the village (I think).

Everyone on the field trip then piled back onto the subway, now en route to a chicken restaurant. The group ended up splitting into at least two smaller groups to fit into different restaurants. All I know is that both had chicken, but our's was boneless. Therefore, our's was the best.

I got back to the dorm at some point, hoping to do homework. Let's just say that that didn't really happen. Talking to friends for hours is more fun anyways.

Karaoke Time

Considering it was almost 3 a.m. before I feel asleep last night, I guess it shouldn't have been a surprise that I couldn't wake up until about noon. But who cares, right? It's not like I had somewhere to be. I eventually managed to get ready, and I headed out to go exploring with a friend. We weren't really sure where to start or what to do, so naturally hitting a cafe was the obvious choice. This time it was one called Twosome Place, where they make unbelievably delicious mocha chip frappes.

Scoping out the cakes and pastries at Twosome Place.

Afterwards, we popped into Daiso yet again because it was right next door, so why not? From then on, the exploration really began. We would sort of just pick a street and walk down it, going into any stores that caught our attention. Being girls, these were basically just accessory and stationary stores, but they were so fun to look through.

Welcome to Art Box, where you can shop for an hour and still not see everything.

A quick snack at the food stand right at the front gate of campus tided us over until dinner at the cafeteria in the basement of the dorm. I finally used my first meal swipe! The food was alright, but at least I saved a couple extra bucks by eating what was already prepaid.

And now to the fun part. Karaoke! Now, I know most people at this point are like "Uhh, ok? Who does karaoke for fun?" Koreans, that's who. And exchange students. So a whole group of us (I think there were 13) crammed inside of a room and sang our hearts out. It was awesome. I can't wait to go back again. After our time was up, we popped into a nearby bar for a bit, but I was too busy panicking and trying to help someone find her phone to really pay much attention. The phone finally turned up, so we turned in. Well, not before hitting Burger King and the convenient store for some snacks. Walking around a lot really makes a person hungry.

And yes, I know this is two days late. I was busy doing things with people.

That Time an Ice-Breaker Actually Worked

If anyone pays attention to the times at which I usually post these, you'll realize that I am quite late tonight relative to other nights. And I know what you're all thinking: "Maggie, did you actually do something tonight? On a Thursday?!" Why yes, yes I did. Well, sort of, but I'll get to that later.

So I had class again today. After having such a long break, one kind of forgets that that is how school usually works. The classes were pretty uneventful, except for the fact that someone (a Korean) actually sat next to me in one of my classes. They don't really do that unless it's the last seat in the room, which this one was not. So, you know, that's exciting I guess. I am fairly sure that he glanced over at me a few times. Not sure if it was the hair color or my long eyelashes that were so fascinating, but I was just impressed someone was brave enough to sit next to a foreigner. We're really not as mean and scary as they all apparently think we are.

In another class, I learned that professors from New Zealand also love a good ice-breaker to make an awkward class more - I mean less - awkward. We had to kind of work our way around the room and just chat individually with the other students in the class for three minutes a piece. To be honest, it was probably one of the least painful "get to know the class" experiences, so that's a bonus. And I actually ended up meeting someone who had been here last semester and knew someone else that I also know. The two of us, and a couple other people, ended up getting some coffee and sitting in a cafe on campus for a good two hours. I had to run off to yet another orientation after coffee. This time it was for the Korean language class that begins next week. Thankfully, it was really short, which meant I was free to do whatever I pleased with my night. Going to Emart again was clearly the obvious choice.

There were three of us who went. I can't say that it was a super eventful trip, but at least it was something to do. Afterwards, we grabbed a late dinner back on campus while nearly everyone else was getting ready to go out to some big club thing tonight. None of us were interested, so instead, we sat at a table in a little mini cafeteria and got extremely giggly. Apparently, we're all just tired and stressed from everything that's been going on this first week in Korea, and it resulted in us being a bunch of weirdo Americans eating dinner together. Not that we really cared because we couldn't really stop laughing even if we wanted to.

From then on, the three of us popped into each others' rooms, just because we wanted to see them. We ended up in my room, just chilling for a bit before we all decided that we very much just wanted to sit on our beds with our laptops. So off they went, and it's just been me in my room since then. So any expectations you had about my crazy Thursday night have now been shattered, but I don't know why you were expecting anything in the first place. However, it is technically the weekend for me, as I don't have classes on Fridays, so who knows what I'll be up to in the next few days.

Business School Welcome Dinner

Today was probably even less interesting than yesterday, if that's possible. Like, there wasn't even anything worthwhile to take a picture of. Class wasn't exciting (when is it ever, really?), and I realized that students here aren't as big of over-achievers as I had thought them to be. I say this because probably half of the class today had no idea we even had a reading assignment due. So at least I'm not actually as bad at this whole school thing as I feel.

I spent the rest of the day just chilling in my room, although I should have been unpacking. I'll do it eventually, I swear. But then there was a welcome dinner/party for the business exchange students. I, along with two other girls, panicked beforehand about what to wear. We had kind of heard that it would be casual, but what does that mean in Korea? Anyways, we all managed to settle on something, and then left for the dinner. The dinner itself was pretty uneventful, that is, besides the fact that there was a buffet. They know us foreigners and our love for food well, apparently. It was good food, too. The worst part of the whole evening was having to go up on the little stage and introduce yourself when your home university was announced. Hating public speaking, this part was especially awful, and I don't think I even remember what I said when I was up there with Stephen (who was naturally calm and collected).

Now I'm just back in my room, thinking about how I should probably read for my macroeconomics class tomorrow, but nah.

Just Class and Some Food

Today started out like it did yesterday, with class. However, this time I had three instead of one. I can feel it already that Tuesdays and Thursdays might drag on a little bit, but thankfully today didn't. This would be because all of my professors figured it wasn't worth doing anything besides going over the syllabus and class policies. Well, I guess that doesn't include my macroeconomics professor who decided that today was a good a day as any to start chapter one, but then he gave up because the microphone he was using to lecture seemed to catch on that none of the students really wanted to sit through a lesson on the first day.

At some point, I popped into the Office for International Affairs here on campus and turned in my Alien Registration Card application and course approval form. The moment as I walked out of those doors was probably the happiest moment of the day. They basically told all the exchange students about everything that needed to be done back on Saturday, and we only have a few days to get it all done. It is definitely a bit stressful.

A few of us hopped off campus for a late lunch at a nearby restaurant, guided by an exchange student who was here last semester as well. I thought the restaurant was Japanese, but I'm not too sure anymore. It doesn't really matter to me because it was good. In fact, it was finally my first full meal in Korea! I wasn't really hungry enough to eat all of the katsudon I had ordered, but I did anyways. Much better than bibimbap, I must say. And I tried kimchi for the first time, too. To be honest, I'm not really a fan. I'll give it another chance some other time, but for now I'll just say that I'm not too impressed with it.

Rice, onions, fried pork cutlet, and cheese (that doesn't really taste like real cheese). Yum!

Time for some dessert? I think yes. We head off to get some bingsoo, which is so delicious. The place itself was a warm, cozy haven out of the rain, and I will certainly be going back.

Frozen milk with some berries and other ingredients. It was too good to question what was in it.

Upon arrival back on campus, I regret not bringing an umbrella with me because I know my hair is all matted down. Of course, I had dragged it around all day to class when it wasn't raining, and then I leave it in my room once it starts. In any case, I'm about ready for nap after all the food and the rain, but I decide it might be wise to check if I have any reading due for class tomorrow. Well, crap. I sure do. And I haven't even thought about getting any books yet. I found someone to come to the bookstore on campus with me, who luckily used to work at a library. This bit came in very handy when trying to find my books out of shelves of seemingly unorganized books. She managed to find them all pretty quickly, but the check out line was another story. It was long. But I didn't really care because at least I had my books now. Oh, and get this. I only paid about $125 for my books. Four of them for that much. I'm still very happy about that. But because I got my book for tomorrow and was able to read, at least I'll be comfortable being back with all the overenthusiastic freshmen tomorrow who have probably already finished the next assignment, too.