Day 7 - Random Adventures

With yesterday being such a long day, I decided to enjoy my time in bed and did not get my day started until lunch time.  Some of my friends and I headed back out to Dongmyo to grab some lunch and to go through the huge street markets in the district.  For lunch, we stopped at a small little noodle shop right off the main road for my first cold noodle meal.

After lunch, we headed out to the street markets.  One of the guys on the floor was looking for speakers for the floor while the rest of us just looked around.  He did end up finding the speaker system he wanted and was able to get it all for 30,000 won ($27).  

Somehow during our walking around we ended up inside of a mall and down to the basement.  We went through some doors trying to find our way out, and we ended up inside an E-mart which is like Korean Costco or Sam's Club.  So, we decided to explore this place which was huge and in our exploring I found that they sold individually wrapped sushi pieces for the equivalent of 50 cents.  

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After shopping, we headed back to the apartment to relax for a little.  Johaness and I wanted to go to a professional basketball game while everyone wanted to go to a birthday party for a girl they met the day before.  So we went our separate ways.  The basketball team was the Seoul SK Knights.  

I was fun but a weird atmosphere because I felt like the focus was more on the "show" than the basketball itself.  I swear more time was spent entertaining the crowd that actual basketball was played.  After the game, Johaness and I decided to go see on of the more famous bridges in Seoul on our way back because it was on the way, the Seongsu Bridge.  

After seeing the bridge, we decided to stop by a food cart on our way back to the subway for dinner.  These were probably the best dumpling I have ever had in my entire life.  They were very simple and filled with meat, rice, and some vegetables.  

Then we headed home and called it a night. 

Day 6 - Seoul City Tour

The main par of today was city tour.  The same group of students from Korea University that run orientation planned and lead all of the exchange students on a bus and walking guided tour of Seoul.  The first stop was the "Green House" (where the president's office), the Museum for Foreign Visitors, and the "Blue House" (where the president lives while holding the position).

After this, we went to Gyeongbokgung Palace (the old imperial grounds where the Kings lived when Seoul was under imperial rule before the Japanese invasions before WWII).

While we were there, we were able to the the "Changing of the Guards" ceremony which basically just means changing shifts for the guards.  

After the Palace, we went to In Sa-Dong which is a famous shopping district in Seoul for lunch and a little shopping.  This lunch was in a traditional Korean restaurant and the first time I ate on the floor.  

After lunch and a little exploring (which included the best cup of hot tea I have ever had in my entire life), we got back on the bus and headed to a NANTA play.  NANTA is known for their comedic and rhythmic plays.   This certain performance was done with only kitchen utensils.  After the play, we headed back to the school, and I grabbed some food my some friends before heading back to my apartment to go to sleep.  

Day 5 - Korea University and Digital Media City

Today was a day off from all of the orientation activities, so my friends and I decided to get lunch and walk around campus to try and find where all of our classes are and just enjoy the beauty of campus.  For lunch, we went to a Japanese restaurant in Anam.  I had Spicy Udon noodles with Tonkatsu (tempura fried pork).

After lunch we headed to the university to see some of the high points.

Samsung Hall (newest building on campus/classrooms/study rooms/cafe)

This is the central courtyard and the Main Building (presidents office)

This are pictures of the inside of the Business School where all of my classes are.  

After walking around campus, we went to a cafe to get a cup of coffee before heading out to Digital Media City (where all of the broadcasting stations are as well as the soccer stadium).  We heading down to the Han river (that splits the city in half).  They have a walking path along the river that had one of the coolest things I have ever seen.  The path has exercise equipment that lined it.  

The path we took ended at the World Cup Stadium where is where the finals of the 2002 World Cup were held.  

Next, we went into World Cup Park.  

After that, we headed over toward the broadcasting buildings and the squares between them all.  

After Digital Media City, we headed back to Anam to grab dinner at a Ramen shop.  

After dinner, we headed back to the apartment, hung out for a little, then headed off to sleep.  

Day 3 - First Day of Orientation

Well, today was the first day that I had to actually wake up early.  The first day of orientation started at 9 am, but I had to get up a little earlier to grab some breakfast with some of my floormates.  The first part of orientation was just a bunch of speakers telling us different things we had to do, the schedule for orientation, and other details about our time at Korea University.  After this, we had lunch in one of the cafeterias under the International Studies Building.  It was tempura fried pork with rice, crab salad, fried dumplings, wonton soup, and this small yogurt drink that tasted exactly like melted sherbet.   After lunch, we had to set up our Korea University emails and network login to use the school's wifi.  I did my registration on one computer but it froze right when i was going to confirm everything to be submitted.  So, I had to get on another computer to try and login, but it did not work. So, I made another login thing and when i tried to use that it would not work either.  So, I got another computer and tried to login with the new one I made, and it did not work.  Then, I tried to login with my original stuff, and it finally work.  It was good to get that taken care of.  After orientation, I went back to my apartment and relaxed for a while before going out with some friends in the apartment for dinner.  We decided to go get some Korean BBQ in Hongdae which is a district know for its young adult scene.  The way Korean bbq works is you pay a flat fee for all you can eat meat and sides.  The meat is all raw and 4 people sit around a grill that you grill your own meat to your liking then just take it off and eat it.  hey had some sides but the only noteworthy one were the seaweed and rice balls that were amazing.

After dinner, we were going to head back to the apartment but came across something we could not pass up, a cat cafe.  How this works is that you pay a flat rate (in this case was 8000 won or $7ish) and it comes with a free cup of coffee and a chance to hang with the cats.  The room was roughly 10ft by 15ft and lined with tables and stuff for the cats to play on.  There were probably 15 to 20 cats to play with.  The cafe only has like 5 rules involving the cats which were all basically to not make the cat mad.  

After this, we headed back to the apartment to hang for a little before going to sleep.  

Day 2 - First Full Day

I woke up pretty jetlagged, but I had not eatten since my dinner on the plane which was 10am(ish) Korea time on Saturday.  So, I was pretty excited to get up and get my first meal in Korea.  A group from my apartment were heading out to go get some lunch and some items for our rooms (towel, trash can, toilet paper, etc.  We took the subway (which was my first time in Korea) one station over to Anam which is the foodie district.

We ate at a little hole in the wall Korean restaurant.  I ordered a traditional Korean meal, bibimbap, which is rice with some pickled vegetable topped with a over easy egg.  It also came with a side of kimchi which is seasoned/vinegared cabbage (the most traditional food of Korea).

In this picture from left to right (all live in my apartment), Lei, Stuart, Me, Anouk (from Paris), Marelisa (from Vienna), Becky (from Canada), Jo (from Hong Kong), and Mischa (from Arizona).  After lunch, we went Daiso (Korean Walmart) to get some stuff for my room.  We went back to the apartment and took a break before we headed out to Dongmyo.  Dongmyo is most known for the river that runs through the middle of the district.  

We walked around and explored for a while down the outdoor market they have.  For dinner, we decided to go somewhere random and ended up at the place we did because the owner was yelling on the street to come eat his amazing food.  For dinner, we ended up having maybe the most adventurous meal possible.  I had noodles with ox intestines.  I did not know what it was beforehand, but I did not care because it tasted good.  

New people in the picture on the left (more from the apartment) are the front two.  On the left is Johaness and on the right is Roberto.  The third from the right is Frank.  And the guy in the middle is the owner of the restaurant who yelled at us from the streets to come eat in his place.  The picture on the right is the side bowls they served for the meal.  It was referred to at the table as a "bowl of mess your mouth up".  After dinner, we went down to the river where they have a path to walk on that leads all of the way down the river and some stones that occasionally allow you to cross the river and back.  Then, we went back to the apartment and went to sleep.