2nd Day of School + Pre-희식

Two days into working and I have heard the following from the kids:

"You have plastic surgery!"- 6th grade girl who keeps coming with her friends to my room and talking to me in English.  Props to them for practicing English.  In response to the comment these are country kids that rarely ever see white foreigners like me so they think anyone with a large nose must have had surgery.

"Teacher teacher tomorrow......you......soccer.....me."- 3rd grade boy who is darned to get me to play soccer with him.  I told him if you can correctly ask me in English I'll be play.

1st grader - "한국말 알아요 (do you understand Korean)?"
Me: "No, I don't understand Korean."
1st grader - "뭐라고 (what did you say)?"
Me: "That's what I thought. You can't tell that I understand Korean if I reply in English.  Hehe."

So far I've taught 3rd, 4th, kindergarten and 1st grade and they have gone over quite well.  I've spent most of the time introducing myself with a power point and doing fun activities to get the kids comfortable with me.  The notable thing that happened today was I did a lot of movements with the kindergarten kids.  The stand up sit down activity gets the kids moving and speaking some English and they loved it.  The classroom is quite hot and after that and an intense session of Simon says and Heads Shoulders knees and toes I was sweaty.  In the worst places non the less.  My groin area was clearly soiled.  It didn't help that my pants were light Khaki colored so the wet mark could be seen at least 500 feet away.  I didn't notice the wetness until after the class and the teacher pointed it out.  I kindly said I was really hot and proceeded to cover it up on my way back from the kindergarten room to my English room.  Thankfully I didn't have to move for 40 minutes until lunch when it was all dried up.

Lunch is also an interesting experience for me.  I usually get a "션 식사 먹자 (Sean let's eat lunch)" from either the PE teacher or the bus driver.  I eat with them or the other teachers and it is really quiet.  No one speaks.  They finish then hurry off to there little area and some of them did that and left me sitting by myself.  I really want to get to know them but it seems like they go to lunch with a mission and that's it.  Tomorrow is 희식 (company dinner) after school and that is where I will get to bond with my fellow teachers, VP, and Principle.  The dinner is in downtown very close to my apartment so I'm very happy for that.  My excitement isn't unfounded and comes from the fact that we will drink a bit of soju and I don't want to go to far to get home.  The company dinner is where everyone gets to relax and have a good time with co-workers.  The food, I hear, will be very good and plentiful so I should have plenty of room for it.  I also have been warned about the amount of alcohol consumed and how to properly serve it respectfully to the different ranks at school.  One example is taking my shot glass to the Principle, Vice Principle and other higher up teachers and pouring them a shot of soju.  Once they consume it, they will pour me a class and I will have to turn away and drink it.  This act is very respectful and I will be doing that tomorrow.

I've also learned that my co workers and especially my Principle like 소맥콜 (so-maek-kol).  So-maek-kol is a combination of soda, beer, and soju.  What you need is a large glass and two shot glasses.  One shot glass is put in the bottom of the big glass and filled with soda.  The next shot glass is placed on top of the soda shot and filled with soju.  The whole cup is then filled with beer.  Once completed you tip it back and drink the whole thing at once.  Our coordinators at our second orientation kindly taught us this drink and it actually tastes good.
Disclaimer *No I'm not really into drinking but living in Korea you have to learn to drink.  It's very much part of their culture.  And I say when in Rome do as the Romans do.*

Karaoke singing is also usually a common part of 희식 so I've prepared a number of Korean songs to sing.  Why do I do it?  First, I will gain a lot of respect for singing in Korean.  Many Koreans, from the city, that I have met are very impressed a white foreigner can sing in Korean.  I can't imagine what my teachers will think.  All I can hope is that I project a good image to them because of my lacking ability to express myself in Korean.  Second, it's fun to sing in Korean with Koreans because they get into it and sing along.

What I don't understand is how all the teachers will come into school at 8am on Thursday morning and be all good.

I'll report on how the 희식 goes complete with pictures.

First day of Teaching Adventure

First day of school started out with a interesting twist.  

6:30am and out for a run to my school and back.  The weather this morning was really beautiful compared to the last four days of rain in Samchok and in Seoul.  It's quite common, from my month of observation, for Korea to be cloudy and dismal looking in the morning, however, the sun poke out behind white marshmallowy clouds.  Like Jochiwon it takes about a mile in any direction to go from city to absolute country.  When I say country I mean a few houses, loads of mountains, fields of rice and visual beauty.  The apartments buildings also dwindle in frequency past the mile or so mark out of the city.  It took about 45 minutes to complete the 6 mile loop and other than the humidity and lack of shoulders or sidewalks to run on, Samchok is a nice place to run in.  I have to get back into running my long runs 10+ up to 20 miles and have to find ways to overcome the lack of places to run.  It'll just take a little bit of planning and a little repetition of running in the same areas to get those runs in.

After my run is where the adventure begins.  I got ready by 8:30am and didn't have to be to school until 11am for many reasons.  First impressions are important and the head teacher made it clear that the last scholar was sometimes late and she hoped I was on time and not hung over all the time.  Hoping to catch the bus early I got out before 8:50am but didn't find the bus there.  Waiting until 9:40 for the next one I found the 14 bus that goes by my stop.  I got on the bus but the bus driver said he doesn't go to where I want to go.  That's weird it says on the bus time table that he does.  Maybe he didn't understand my Korean.  Anyway I was a little bummed to wait until 10:10 for the next bus to show up, but a white guy in a taxi stopped by and asked where I was going.  Now seeing another anglosaxon such as myself in Samchok is a rarity.  I think there's maybe 10 white foreigners here though there could be more.  He quickly noticed I was new and saw I might need help and let me catch a ride from him.  I found out he is from Georgia and has been teaching in Korea for a couple of years and enjoys teaching out in the sticks. I finally made it to my school and got ready for my first class.  Wait, I greeted a 할라버지 (grandpa aged guy) right next to my school and he asked me where I was going.  I told him I'm going to Miro as I am the English teacher there.  He was confused and told me my school was further away.  I repeated myself a few times and he finally understood.  He was cute.

I greeted my co-workers and the vice-principle as a good foreign teacher should and then started to prepare for my class.  The previous scholar said he finished chapter 8 and I should pick up on 9.  I got all prepared then met the students.  There are only 8 (-1 for today) in the 3rd grade and they were really excited to see me.  Herro teacher!  You big!  I was very thankful to have their home room teacher assisting me as he informed me the kids started on the second part of chapter 9 and I wasn't really prepared for that.  It's also necessary to say that the book is mainly in Korean that I'm teaching out of so I was a tad confused, though I use a cd that is projected on the board.  This is a regular class so I have to do that with all of the regular classes.  The after school classes which are Tuesday, Thursday and Friday are activities that I design.  I'll also teach kindergarten kids on Tuesday which will be of my choosing.  Watch out little kids you'll be doing a lot of songs with some guitar backing!  

Other than finishing my introduction for my after school classes, I'll upload pictures from the weekend in Seoul and maybe take a stroll and take some photos of my running routes.

TaLK orientation is done

Orientation is all over and I have finally moved into my apartment.

A tad messy but the room is huge compared to the other apartments the 3 other TaLK scholars have in the apartment complex.  The location is very convenient being located in downtown Samchok with the close proximity to a Home Plus (think Super duper Walmart on steroids), an out door market, tons of small shops, restaurants, bars, etc,.  When Koreans say rural they mean something smaller than a couple million.  Samchok is actually quite large for me considering the town I grew up in, which is really rural.  I'm very happy with my placement.

The past couple of days I've checked out Miro elementary school and it is a cute school.  The school is a little smaller than I imagined but it is huge for 70 some odd kids.  There are maybe 7-8 classrooms and you should see the English classroom that I have.  I have a smart board and huge flat screen TV and in the back there is some thing called virtual reality.

My classroom

To clarify my co-teacher and mentor teacher are two different people.  My co-teacher is a university student at Gangwon-do University Samchok Campus (which is less than a mile from my apartment) and she will be the person helping me teach classes 3 out of 4 days.  My mentor teacher, on the other hand, is just suppose to help me get adjusted to life in Korea and help out with some administration duties.  So far both are extremely nice and I'm positive I'll get along with both of them very well.

I'm going to get my alien registration card in Donghae (the larger city a few miles north) and hopefully heading to Seoul for the weekend.

TaLK Camp in Korea, etc,.

:Pictures soon:

For the past 5 days I have been in Middle-of-No-Where (Pyeong Chang) South Korea at an English camp.  The reason I haven't updated the past couple of days is due to the fact that this camp, I'm sure, is part of the .0000001% of Korea that isn't connected to the internet.  There is good reason because the camp doesn't want the little Korean kids to surf on the Korean websites, however, I noticed many of the little kids with cell phones that I'm sure are connected to the internet.  Anyway, we arrived Sunday in the afternoon and were free to check out the campus.  The campus consisted of a forest with many obstacle courses, a rock climbing wall, a huge building for activities, cafeteria and a dorm.  The dorm rooms were much different than our western counterparts.  When I think dorm I usually think bunkbed.  Well in Korea it's a little different.  The room consisted of roughly a 12' by 12' floor, with nothing in it.  There were 10 mats, blankets and pillows and just enough room for our group.  Again it isn't that bad sleeping on the floor with the Korean mat but when you throw ten guys in such a small place sicknesses spread quickly.  I think I was the guy that had a sore throat and beginnings of a cold and passed it on to most the guys in our room.  

Later we met our living breathing Korean child that would be our little student for all of camp.  My little guy, whom I named Moe, was a goofy little kid.  At first, he didn't want to talk much but after doing a bunch of activities he started to show how much English he understood.  I felt bad for some scholars who had kids that rarely talked, cried, said nasty things in English and weren't the best students.  Moe spent most of his time petting my arm and leg hair and playing my muscles.  He learned his manly vocabulary of this is hair, this is muscle, I'm strong and other assorted muscle head talk.  He's set on impressing his little lady friends.

So most of our time in English camp was spent doing predertimined activities with the kids and coming up with our own activities.  A talent show with the kids, drama class, musical class, cultural class, mini-olympics (the best), traditional Korean music class, etc,.  I volunteered to be the group leader (of 10 scholars) ages ago in the beginning of orientation and this is were my duties began to pile up though it didn't help that I had lost my voice the first day of camp due to a sore throat.  But, I lived.  

Today, we had the closing ceremony and yesterday our group coordinator asked me if I wanted to give the thank you speech from all the scholars.  So yesterday, in my dazed medicated state, I came up with a speech and did fairly well in front of the 800 or so people.  Surely I've come out of my shell since coming to Korea.  Also, it was kinda sad to say good-bye to my little Moe, who I'll probably never see again.

Then we spent 2 and a half hours on the bus back to Jochiwon, where our original orientation had taken place.  The talent show was tonight and I had been playing with a group of very talented musicians the past couple of weeks preparing our act.  The song we played was Dancing in the Dark by Solange and we did a really good job considering we found out last minute that there was no piano and we were down to two guitars, a trumpet and a singer.  There were maybe 20 different acts and there were a lot of them that were very good.  A belly-dancer, some singers, dancing acts, skits, guitar/singers and rappers.  We got first place and will perform tomorrow at the closing ceremony for the TaLK orientation, which is really a treat.  I know I should take what I hear with a grain of salt, but someone said that Korean TV will be there.  They were at the opening ceremony so I'm guessing they will be at the closing ceremony too.

Tomorrow we head out to our POE Orientations at around 2pm for another week.  We'll be staying at a hotel in Yang Yang in Gangwon-do, which looks to be pretty nice.  Our POE gave us a schedule and looks to be very relaxing which is highly appreciated with the hectic schedule we've gone through the past couple of weeks.  Next weekend we'll finally be in our apartments and I'm looking forward to some routine though I'll miss a lot of my friends in the other provinces.

No plans = fun times in Seoul

The Korean experience isn't authentic with having a strict plan.  Orientation has been structured to a T, but many of the lecturers have clearly stated that you must be ready to change your plans on a dime while teaching here in Korea.  I've experienced Korean cultures flexibility when I worked at HSA (the Korean Institute "hagwon") in Boston.  More often then not, I would have my classes swticed on me right before I got to the class or I would be given a class with very little notice.  I'm not one to whine so I would always roll with the punches.  Music therapy has really prepared me flexibility wise because often times I had no idea of the reactions of the clients, state of mind of the clients, if group would be cancelled or who would be present at class.  I had to go in each session with an open mind.  I'll have to keep that up while I'm here in Korea.

Anyway, I brought up the flexibilty topic to explain my trip to Seoul this weekend.  Usually I can't function without making a plan of what I'll be doing, be it traveling or just in my daily life.  However, my trip this weekend had no plans what so ever.  The group as a whole already made it to Seoul for a performance and cooking classes, which were really fun.  We watched Nanta which is a non-verbal musical performance with cooking.  Think of Stomp meets Emril Legassi meets a goofy childhood cartoon.  Too bad they didn't let us take any pictures.  I'm sure if you google it there is some video snippet of it.  We then wandered around Myeong-dong, which is an upscale area to shop in Seoul, to get some lunch.  A group of us ended up at a fried chicken place that was empty.  We ordered three plates of different chicken that were extremely delicious.  Now I've had young-nam chicken (seasoned fried chicken) in Boston but this fried chicken was at least 3 times better.

Earlier we were given 10,000won each for dinner and with drinks it cost only 10,000won.  Aka free meal.

We even got some great traditional Korean tea and I got some Shi-key.

We then got together and headed out to some cooking school.  Here we watched a chef from a really nice hotel in Seoul make Bibimbap and cold cucumber soup.  After that we got in groups of 10 and made the same dishes.  

Before 

Middle 

Result

It was quite delicious, I have to say.

Everyone was allowed to stay in Seoul until Saturday at 9pm so a lot of people were waiting outside the cooking school to get people together to head out.  Yes, very few people had a plan.  No, I was not one of them.  Ben and I headed to Seoul to meet up with some of his friends that he met in a program he did in Korea a while ago.  We got a little confused on the subway, but we made it back to Myeong-dong.  We ate at an Outback Steak House with his friends which was pretty good, but much different than one in the States.  First the price was ridiculously high, like $30+ for a steak dinner.  They also had us dip the bread in chocolate sauce.  Ben and I just got an appetizer and some beer.  We then headed to Lotte World (sorta like Korea's Disney World) and drank some alcohol at a bar near by it.  By this time we acquired one mor e of Ben's friends and there were six of us.  We splurged a bit and got a small bottle of Jack Daniels, a bottle of Jose Curevo and a pitcher of beer for almost $200.  See now if we kept on the Korean track (Soju) we would of had paid $100 or more less.  Living like you would in the States sure is way more expensive here in Korea.  I'll stick to living like a Korean and being stingy.  Anyway, we had a great time socializing, but we had no place to stay for the night.  We were desperate yet flexible.  Luckily, one of the girl's Juju was kind enough to invite us to stay at her place, with the approval of her mom.  Again, young Korean's live with their parents until they are married.  At first I was very shocked to have this girl invite us, because she is inviting two guys to stay at her parent's place, but Koreans I guess tend to be more lienant with foreigners.  We woke up and cooked some pancakes, bacon and eggs.  Umm umm

I've researched were to find a music store in Korea and I found this really large one in Seoul.  Ben and I both being musicians were curious to check it out so we left Juju's place and went to Nagwon Arcade.  All we knew about the place is what stop to get off of.  [Thank you cell phone subway map]  We walked around quite clueless, so I had to ask a younger guy in Korean where the place was.  He actually understood me and pointed us in the right direction.  We found this monsterous building in the middle of a busy area and preceded to climb to the second floor.  We looked down the corridor and wow was that place big.  I'm not sure how many little shops there were but there must have been at least 100 vendors in these small little shops.  They had every instrument you could think of, however, the american guitars were ridicoulsy expensive.  I tried out a few of them and one guy kind of kicked me out because I was playing a $3,000 guitar and knew I didn't have the money.  haha.  Ben and I headed for lunch at a Soon-dae Gook place.  Soon-dae is blood sausage and is something I really enjoy to eat, though I never have tried the soup version.  The place was a whole in the wall which meant it was really good.

I was right.  It was really good and for only 4,000won it was a steal!

After that we headed to meet Ben's other friend Sohee near the Olympic Stadium (for those that do not know Korea hosted the 1988 Summer Olympics).  She plays guitar so she took us back to her place and we jammed out for a little bit.  She showed me her very nice Les Paul standard with a flame top.  It cost her almost $1,000 more than if she would have bought it in the States.  Too bad she was shy because she didn't really want to play too much. 

Anyway, we met Sohee's mom who was a riot to be around.  Sohee's mom really likes to sing so when she found out I played guitar she wanted to hear.  We sang a few Beatles tunes and a Sinatra tune as well.  It was fun to be able to communicate with her because of some of the things she said.  I'm glad I understand some Korean otherwise a lot of people I've met so far I wouldn't have been able to understand them as much as i have been able to.  We goofed around for a bit more than Sohee's mom wanted to take us out to dinner.  I had my first experience in a car in Korea.

It was actually quite nice and less of a circus act then I had imagined.  Many people said that Koreans are crazy drivers.  I have to say the bus drivers are crazy though.  Not too far from Boston bus drivers or Subway drivers, however.  Anyway, we went to a Nakjibokum place and that was a real treat.

Nakjibokum has to be the spiciest Korean dish, but one of my favorites.

We then met up with one of my old Korean friends from Boston in Gangnam (the ritzy part of Seoul).  It was a treat to see Joohee again after a number of years.  We headed to a pat bing soo (red bean and crushed ice) / bakery place.  Since the three years I've seen Joohee she has gotten married.  I wasn't expecting that but I am very happy for her.  Here we are and I'm holding the pat bing soo.

Again without a plan Ben and I had to find another place to stay.  Sohee's mom invited us to stay the night and we gladly accepted.  We were treated to Kimchi pancackes at 10 at night and had a fun conversation in Korean and broken English.  In the morning we were again treated to a very nice breakfast of eggs and fruit. 

In my opinion Koreans have the best hospitality out of anyone that I have met thus far.  This weekend was a great treat and if Ben and I had a plan we would have never been able to experience the true Korean experience.  

I'll make sure to bring the sd card so I can take more pictures.  Next up English camp, then Gangwon-do orientation.

Seoul Trip

On Saturday we had our mandatory medical check-up which lasted way longer than it should have.  All 350 of us had a battery of tests done on us and took from 9am to 4pm for all the groups to get done.  Thankfully I'm in group four and was finished by 1:00pm and was ready to leave to Seoul by 2pm after lunch.  I was going to meet up with a few friends to head over to the train station but they were still waiting to finish with the medical check-up so I went alone.  The train station was a piece of cake to find because I run by it in the morning and found some other people in the TaLK program waiting to go to Seoul.

For 6,900 won ($6.50) I got standing tickets on the train to Seoul.  The sitting seats were all sold out when I went to buy the tickets.  The trains here are air conditioned but we stood in the non air conditioned connecting part of the train which wasn't too bad.  On some parts of the train they even have computers and even karaoke rooms.  Next time I'll see how much they cost to get in them.  Anyway, the train was about an hour and a half.  By that time I was suppose to call my friend Young-gun at the train station.  Keep in mind I have no cell phone, so I had to go the old school route and call using the pay phone.  He quickly made it to Seoul station but had trouble finding me, but he eventually found me.  It was great to see him because it has been almost 3 years since I last saw him.  He was a world traveler up until last November and has since found a job as a software engineer at Samsung, pretty much a dream job for any Korean.  Anyway, we caught up over Samgyeop sal (pork belly) and Soju in Hongdae (a very hip place where many younger Koreans are).  The Samgyeop sal was really good but a tad expensive (I guess in Korea) at 9,000won a serving which would be about $18 in the states.  The soju was about 5,000won which would have been $15 in the States.

Grilled Pork Belly and all the small side dishes

He showed me all around that part of the city and the college campus and we had some really good Ddokboki at a really famous place.  The translation of this specific dish of ddokboki was gangster ddokboki but too bad I forgot how to saw it in Korean.  It cost 5,000won with fried seaweed wraps (teegim).  SO CHEAP AND DELICIOUS!

Best Ddokboki in Hongdae Seoul.

After walking around for a bit we sat down and started talking to the girls next to us in Korean. We asked them if they wanted to go out and drink Makolli (rice wine) and they agreed.  They spoke very little English so it was great practice for me because I hadn't spoken too much Korean yet since arriving.  After that we headed back to Younggun's place and I met his parents.  Again I surprised myself with how much Korean I was able to speak with them.  It's very common for young Koreans to live with their parents until they get married.

Traditional way of sleeping in Korea, the floor!

After getting a good nights sleep I woke up to this...

Korean breakfast.

Young-gun told me that he was originally from Gangwon-do before he and his family moved to Seoul so he gave me lots of tips on what it is like in the province I'll be living in.  His mom even had an accent so I had a little trouble understanding her.  His family overall was extremely nice and welcoming to me.

Later on Sunday Young-gun and I went to Itaewon (the foreigner district) to get me a cell phone.  We looked around and found a place that sold second hand phones that I could get without my alien registration card, which I won't receive for another few weeks to a month.  For the equivalent of $30 dollars I bought a pretty nice phone and enough minutes to get me by.

It's got a dictionary and everything else under the sun on it for $30!!!

Instead of taking the train back to Jochiwon, I took the bus which was 100 won cheaper and I had a seat.  Then once I arrived to campus, I met up with a bunch of friends and we went to norebang.

So much cheaper and nicer than the states.  For 10 people about 2 hours and 2 bottles of soju + snacks it was around $30.

This weekend I'll be going to Seoul with the TaLK program and can stay there for two nights so I'll be putting up more pictures of the different areas.

TaLK Orientation Classes, etc,.

The weekend has finally arrived.  The week has turned from a bunch of activities into classes and I mean long days of classes.  We start at 8:40am and go all the way until dinner or if there is a mandatory meeting afterwards, until 8:30pm.  The past couple of days of classes ranged from Korean culture to learning different activities to do with our elementary school classes.  Most have been enjoyable, with interesting enthusiastic speakers, but there was one that I almost was sleeping through.  The speaker titled it task based learning, but his task of getting his point across was lacking.

Also, another notable thing I did a few days ago was to jam out with a few fellow TaLK scholars after classes.  There is a girl in my group who said she could sing, so we decided to find the piano room to jam.  To our surprise there was already a few people down there playing guitar.  We joined and started to work on a few songs.  To make a long story short, another singer, a few guitarists, and a piano player joined in.  We ended up jamming over a few chords, improvising lyrics and doing some solos.  The talent in the room was really amazing and we gelled really well with each other.  There is a talent show coming up at the end of orientation and we might perform there.  I'll try to record our next session.

Today we just have a medical check, then we are free to do what we want.  I'm thinking about traveling to Seoul with a few friends and to meet up with a few people already in Seoul.  Many pictures to follow.

Official TaLK Opening and Insadong trip

Yesterday was a world wind of activities from early in the morning to late last night.  I started the day with a jog in downtown Jochiwon with one of my good friends John.  Picture clouds and haze filling the sky, only a hint of sun and what felt like 120% humidity and 80 degrees.  We ran down the road a couple of miles and I turned back to go back to the gym which was a predetermined and appropriate action considering the heat and humidity.  The gym at the campus is actually a lot better than I was imagining.  The picture in my head was a few treadmills and a few machines, but this gym has tons of treadmills, ellipticals, bikes, machines, dumbells, barbells, and if I remember correctly a squatting cage.  I was gladly surprised.  I did an ab workout but the amount of sweat that I was excreting overwhelmed the amount allowable by law (visible puddles) that I kept my workout to a minimum.

We then had our first meeting with our group coordinators and were put into groups for a scavenger hunt in Seoul we were going to have later in the day.  The scavenger hunt's main objective was to take pictures of different landmarks of the Insadong area of Seoul before we were suppose to leave.  I also was the team leader so I kept the order of the  group.

Fast forwarding to later that day....

We got on a bus to Seoul where we were first going to the main campus of Korea University (the same university we are staying at now) to have the official orientation opening.  Here they had us sit in the auditorium and listen to the president of the NIIED (department of education) on how happy he was of us coming here for the program.  We met other members of the TaLK staff and watched an amazing Taekwondo performance, children's musical, and a contemporary art performance.  All of the performances were top notch.

Got on the bus and then headed to Insadong for the scavenger hunt.  Our group got a little side tracked at the beginning but we eventually found our way.  One notable thing happened, however.  We got dumped on with rain early in the hunt.  I mean dumped on.  My great great great grandchildren felt it.  Our team persevered.  We made our way around and we then ate at a tofu place (cheap, tasty and free with the 10,000 won they gave us each earlier).

That's about it.  I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

First Impressions of the TaLK program

What a treat this experience has been thus far.  On Tuesday, when I arrived at the airport and cleared customs, I immediately found the TaLK booth to check in and wait for the bus.  There I met some of the people who also had just landed and were waiting for the bus to Jochiwon.  The amazing thing about this program is that there are people from all over the world that are extremely friendly.  I can't count how many people I've met in the past day and a half.  John, a northern Irishman, was one of the first people I met waiting for the bus.  He's into running and is a character, so naturally we quickly became good friends.  After heading to the campus, which feels like it was built a few days ago, we received our name tags, room keys and goodie bag full of pertinent information.  While waiting to sign some paper work on our bank account, I met Dan a Colorado kid who's into finance and again quickly became friends.  

I'll highlight some of yesterday's activities:

Incheon Korean War Memorial

Song-do City of Tomorrow roof of exhibit.  I guess all roofs in the future will have grass and most of the gadgets won't work or won't have any practicality.   Cool buildings though.

Seafood Jjang Myeon (Korean Style Chinese Food) in Song-do.  Really Delicious!

Today we're off to Orientation opening in Seoul so that shall be a great time.

Made it to Korea

13 hours of plane travel has left me, well, in the sleepiest of states.  I won't write much but I'll post what the dorm looks like.  Quite small, but very modern and new.  Same goes for the whole campus.  I'm too tired to say anymore than this.  It's been extremely fun so far meeting everyone and such.  Until I have more energy nibble on these pictures of my dorm room.

Side shot of bathroom.

Open shower in the bathroom.