Friday - Day ....... I lost count

Today started off with some of the guys from my floor going to help one of them get his alien registration card at the immigration office.  After that, we headed off to find this music mall that is 3 floors of nothing but musical instruments everywhere.  Stuart was the only one to make a purchase, and he got a small keyboard to help make music on his laptop.  After that, we found a "sports place" in Insadong that was full of cheap sport games to play.  The first thing we all did was a pitching speed competition.  We each had two throws to see who could pitch the fastest.
5th - Eric           - 60 km/hr (37mph)
4th - Frank        - 65 km/hr (40mph)
3rd - Stuart        - 83 km/hr (52 mph)
2nd - Myungsuh - 96 km/hr (60 mph)
1st - John (Me)  - 113 km/hr (70 mph)
Then, we headed upstairs to play more games we found.  The first I played was the basketball shooting game.  The high score on the machine was 361 points, and I was able to set the new high score of 496.

(This was me after just passing the high score with a whole other quarter left to go.)

Next, we messed around with a soccer power kicking thing and a how hard can you punch game (which I also set the record on).  Finally, we finished with the batting cages.  All of these activities cost 2,000 won or less (<$1.80).  The batting cages was the most expensive one, and you got 20 pitches for less that $2.  

We were all hungry after playing around, so we got dinner at a dumpling place.  Those dumplings were amazing (sorry mom, no picture).  We were all craving dessert, and we came across a place that sold the most famous dessert of Korea, the J cone.  

This picture is all you need to describe the J cone.  

Then, we decided to wander around some on our way to a shopping area one of the guys wanted to go to.  On the way we found a cathedral in Myeongdong.  I thought it looked nice, so I'm including it.  

The shopping area is pretty neat and packed full of people.  They had some of the biggest individual stores I have ever seen.  

After this, we called it a night and headed home.  

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.