School and Random Stuff

I know it has been a long time since I have posted, and I am sorry.  I been spending the last few weeks focusing on school work and getting used to being back in classes.  Since the reason I have not posted is classes, I thought I would make a post about my classes.  My first class is Mon/Wed 3:30-4:45pm, and it is Intro to Operations Management.  It is fairly easy class, but the professor is a PHD candidate and you can tell this is her first time ever teaching a class.  My second class is Mon/Wed 5:00-6:15pm, and it is International Finance.  This is probably my favorite class.  I think the subject material is pretty interesting because it is all about exchange rates, and I really like the professor for the class.  My third class is Tue/Thur 9:00-10:15am, and it is International Trade Theory.  This class is my favorite professor because he is able to take some pretty cut and dry material and make the class bearable.  My fourth class is Financial Management on Tue/Thur at 10:30-11:45am.  This class is your basic formula class with not much other than that.  My last class is Tue/Thur 2:00-3:15pm, and it is International Business.  This class is different because it is an exchange student only section, so there are no Koreans in it.   The class is pretty boring. but it is alright.

Some random things I have seen and done is next.  To start with seen, I was grocery shopping in Homeplus which is like Walmart mixed with Costco mixed with about every other store you can think of.  We went though the food part, and you have to pass through the "Everything else" part to get to checkout.  While we were walking through, we ran into a mysterious pet for sale.

So apparently you can by a pet prairie dog in the same store that you buy groceries.  

The random thing I did was in my apartment we played "baseball" with some random stuff we had.  

The guy batting was Lei, and this was the first time he had ever "played baseball" in his life.  

Buddhist Temple Stay

Through the Business School, I forwarded the opportunity to spend the night in a Buddhist temple and be able to experience what it is like to be a Buddhist for a day.  The day started with a zen walking meditation hike through the mountains.

The hike was pretty brutal since it was all straight up the mountain, but once we got to the top it all became worth it.  

This shot is about a third of Seoul.  There was more to the left and the right, but I could not fit it all into the picture.  

After the hike, we ate lunch and buddhists are all vegetarian, so we had a vegetarian meal.  

That stuff that looks like meat is actually tofu.  After lunch, we had to do a sitting meditation.  We sat in the most stereotypical meditation posture.  The monk we had was one of the coolest ladies I have ever met.  She used to be a surgeon before finding Buddhism in her late 30s.  She told us a lot about finding happiness and stuff like that.  After that, we had locust leaf tea and rice snacks before learning how to bow and doing the evening bows.  

After the bows, it was off to bed, and we had to sleep in the most traditional Buddhist way, on the floor.  

I'm not going to lie, that was the worst night sleep I have ever had in my entire life.  The pillow was a small bag of rice.  I missed a bed so much that night.  We woke up at 4am for the morning bows.  After that, we headed back to the meditation room where the same monk lead is in meditation.  She noticed that we all were dead tired and had us doing a lying meditation.  She referred to sleep as "being fully peaceful".  Next, we had breakfast before doing a very traditional Buddhist tradition, 108 bows.  This was potentially almost harder than the hike.  We were lead by the head monk, so it was a pretty big honor.  

This is the bow, and we had to do 108 in a row.  After this, we all got packed up and headed back home.  

Friday - Immigration Issues

So today, my floormates and I headed over to the Immigration Office to apply for our Alien Registration Cards which we have to have along with a student visa to stay in the country.  We got there right at 9 am when it opened, and we were about 30th in line.  I was towards the end of our group and right when I went up to the machine to get my number it crashed.  So, I just stood there for 15 minutes while everyone looked at me as they tried to fix the machine before eventually just giving up.  They ended up just writing my number on a sheet of paper with a crayon.  When I went up to counter to do my registration, I learned that they switched people after writing my number, and the next guy wrote my number to the next person.  So at the counter, there were 2 35's.  I got my registration done pretty quickly once that was figured out, but the whole thing was pretty annoying because of the number thing.  After that, Johannes, Stuart, and I went to Itaewon which is the foreigners district to find some shoes for the gym.  The gyms in Korea do not allow you to use shoes that were worn outside, so I had to get some new shoes.

After shopping in Itaewon, we headed back to the apartment to take a nap and goof around before Stuart and I went to the gym.  After the gym, we all got some lunch before chilling in the apartment and going to sleep.  

Sunday Activities

Today started off in possibly the worst way.  The fire alarm for the apartment went off at 8 am which woke up everyone.  We all went outside in the freezing cold ans stood there waiting for the manager or the fire department to show up.

 Neither did, and we started to wonder if there was even a fire because none of us smelled or saw any smoke.  It ended up being that the alarm went off by accident, and one of the guys that lived there last semester had to go into the managers office (who apparently was not going to be there today) and find the key that turned off the alarm.  With that over, everyone went back to their rooms and tried to get any sleep they could.  We all woke up again around lunch time and decided to get some lunch before heading off to E-mart to do some grocery shopping.  We walked the 20 min walk over to E-mart only to find it is closed on the second and fourth Sunday of every month for cleaning.  So, we walked the 20 min back to the apartment before heading off to the subway to go to Hondae for some shopping.  This lead to another disappointment for me when I found out (even though I kind of expected this) that nothing was within 2 sizes of me in any store.  But, I still had a good time walking around with the group.  After a long day of walking, we all decided we wanted to just sit down and relax and what better way than a Puppy Cafe.  This works just like a cat cafe except there are puppies running around instead of cats.

After the cafe, we headed off to a Korean BBQ place for dinner.  It was amazing yet again and after this everyone was pretty tired and ready to go to bed because we all had to get up for class tomorrow.  

Day 11 - Classes Part 2

Unlike yesterday where my first class was not until 3:30 pm, today I started bright and early with my first class at 9 am (International Trade Theory).  It was brutal having to get up that early to go to class, and it did not help that my first class was super boring.  After this class, I headed directly to my next class, Financial Management.  I think this is going to be an easy one except for my teacher's English is absolutely terrible.  After class, I met up with some of the guys from the apartment, and we got lunch in the school's cafeteria.

 The food is alright (not the best), but I got all of this for roughly $3 (so I can't complain too much).  After lunch, we all headed to our next class, International Business.  This class is specifically for all of the exchange students, and I think it will be an interesting class to be a part of.  After class, I went to the University's bookstore to get my textbooks for the semester.  It took a little bit to get some stuff figure out, but I was able to find all of my textbooks.

I was able to get all 4 of my textbooks, brand new for $125.  In the US, this would have been at least $500, so I was pretty stoked.  After that, I went back to my apartment and relaxed for a little before making myself some dinner.  After that, I did a little homework before heading off to bed.  

Day 10 - First Day of School

Sorry for the lack of pictures the last few posts.  I will make sure I have some tomorrow.  But, today was the first day of class in Korea University.  I lucked out pretty well, and my first class of the day (Introduction to Operations Management) was not until 3:30pm.  My first class lasted for a total of 5 minutes.  My teacher read the syllabus word for word and then told us we could go.  She was the first one out of the class too.  So know, I had over an hour to waste, so I decided to watch youtube in one of the study hall.  My next class was International Finance.  I love my professor.  Her English is a little shaky, but she is very chill.  The quote of the day was from her when she was talking about her love of gaming.  She was talking about her love of playing the game Battlefield, and she said she just "loves to shoot people".  I went straight from class a to dinner with some friends, and we went to a Japanese place where I got a rice bowl.  It was rice topped with grilled onion, cheese, chicken nuggets, "Asian mayo", and tempura fried shrimp.  After dinner, we went back to the apartment, and I headed to bed early because I had a 9 am class the next day.

Days 8 and 9 - My first full weekend

Woke up on Saturday and did not have any plans for the day, so I was ready to go with the flow.  Started my morning with a couple episode of the new season of House of Cards.  Then, I headed off to lunch by my apartment with some friends at an authentic Korean restaurant (sitting on the floor again which is absolutely painful for someone my size).  For my entree, I ordered Bulgogi Soup (which is pork and vegetables in a chicken broth).  Everyone at the table shares the same sides which were rice, salted seaweed, kimchi, steamed vegetables, and a spicy garlic sauce.  The main way I ate my meal was put some rice on the seaweed, add meat and veggies, and then eat it like a mini sushi roll.  Then finished my meal by eating the broth.  After lunch, we headed out to the E-mart down the street from our apartment to get some groceries.  I was able to get through the store pretty easily and was able to find everything I wanted.  A fun part of this shopping experience is that I was able to buy my first bottle of alcohol in the store.  The drinking age in Korea is 20, but age is determined by the year you were born not buy the month. So, anyone born in 1995 is the same age (legally).  Also in Korea, people are not born at 0 they are born at 1, so my Korean age is 21 even though my US age is 19.  After this nostalgic experience, I headed to checkout.  I made my self a to go box of sushi but at checkout something went wrong.  Apparently you have to go to a special counter to get the box priced even if the individually wrapped pieces have their own price tags.  So the cashier (who only speaks Korean) is trying to explain this to me while all I am doing is shrugging my shoulders and looking at my friend who was next to me.  After about 2 minutes of not talking and looking at each other, she finally just gave me the box free of charge (so it was kind of a win for me).  However, things got even worse after checkout.  To get bags to put your groceries in you have to ask at checkout, but since I did not know bag in Korean and the cashier did not know bag in English, I was left without any bags.  So, I find this box station and am able to make a box with the tape they provide.  I packed up all my groceries in my box (my friends were doing the same thing).  We were walking out of the store boxes in hand, and we saw this guy walking out who made handles for his box with tape.  Some of my floormates decide to go back in and make handles for their boxes, but I decided to just carry my thing myself.  They come back out with the most messed up looking, tape covered boxes I have ever seen (the handles worked for half of the trip before breaking off). After this adventure, we decided to just go get some dinner and relax for the night (most of our prides hurt from our shopping experience).  For dinner, we went back to the 24 hour shop from 2 nights ago and I ended up ordering the same thing I had then.  After this, we just relaxed at the apartment before going off to sleep.  

Sunday started exactly like Saturday did.  However for lunch, we all made food we had gotten the day before.  Then, Johaness, Stuart, Lei, and I decided to go play basketball at the outdoor courts on campus.  We were planning on just shooting around until a group of 4 middle-aged Korean men challenged us to a game.  I don't know if they always play like this or if they did because they knew they were playing against two Americans, but I have never been fouled ever in my life like I was in this game.  I drove in the lane once, and I swear (trying to be racist in anyway) this guy straight judo chopped me right in the chest.  Some of the other things they would do is literally stiff arm us while they would drive or post up.  We somehow won after they messed up the score at "halftime" (we played to 20 and when one team gets to 10 points they take a 30 second break).  They said the score was 10-3 them, but I was actually 10-8.  Somehow we compromised at 10-4 (they spoke no English).  We eventually came back after we figured out their game.  For dinner, we went to a bibimbop shop near the apartment because none of us felt like going anywhere too far.  After dinner, we headed back to the apartment, chilled, and then went off to bed.