Ok. It's currently 9:11 am in Seoul, Wednesday Feb. 27. I'm a bit out of it, because I need proper food and i'm still catching up on missed sleep. The flight from O'hare was 13 hours long, and I didn't get to bed last night until around 11. Then my body decided to wake me up at 6:30 am. ANYWAY about the flight first.
I sat next to this adorable old couple who didn't speak much or any english. They were really excited to see me studying Korean, though. I also got to eat Bibimbap, and it was pretty decent, for airline-quality bibimbap.
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| This is not the bibimbap that i ate. this is from google. |
So we landed in Incheon, and I found a few other girls who were going to Ewha, and we sort of made our way through the complications of a foreign airport together. Met up with my ewha buddy who took a bus with me to Seoul and we walked to Ewha from there. OH man. So...let me tell you, the WHOLE walk to Ewha, the street was just lined with shop after shop of street food. It seduced me. But of course I was honestly too thirsty and dehydrated at that point to care much about food.
Oh, point of interest. The first official Kpop song that I heard here was SHINee's Lucifer (which honestly I wasn't expecting since it's a bit of an older song) but hey, still cool!
Link to Lucifer video for whoever wants to listen to it......
So we walked to the Graduate Student dorms, building B, where I'm living, and found my room. I went in, and expected to find my roommate, my mysterious roommate, but alas, only her suitcase and some clothes were evident of her recent occupation of the room. Said goodbye to Ewha buddy, promised to meet up with here again on Thursday (along with the other exchange students she's helping) and dropped my stuff on the bed. Went to explore the room and the dorm.
The Bathroom...had no toilet paper.... D: Looks like that's on my shopping list. Found a dorm bathroom two floors below. Next priority: my immense need to rehydrate. Luckily I wasn't so out of it that I was stupid enough to drink straight from the tap. I knew there was a water station in the lounges on each floor, but I, regrettably, had no cup or other drinking container, nor were there any already in the lounge. CRAP. Dejected, I went back to my room. Lo and behold....My roommate was back...
Note: by this time I was really really nervous about meeting my roommate. I was already high-strung from lack of sleep as well as dehydration, and a bit overwhelmed by the language barrier. I just wanted to be alone and quiet and recover, at that moment. In addition, I'm not really a roommate person, I like living by myself, but I figured for this situation, it would be better to have a roommate, someone to explore Ewha with, and talk with about classes or whatnot. However, I was worried that maybe my roommate would be hard to get along with, wouldn't like me, etc etc. So...coming into my room to meet her, I was worried.
I came in and sat on the bed, because she was skypeing or talking with someone in Korean on her laptop. When she ended and turned around, she seemed surprised and instantly started mumbling a little to herself in Korean.
I was like..."Uh-oh..." but I was curious too
So...she asked me in really broken english if I was from America, which I was...and at that she started panicking and even more, giggling nervously. So we tried to converse in Korean, which she had waaay better knowledge of, since i"m just a beginner. Then I stopped, and asked what else she spoke, and LUCKILY she spoke Korean AND Japanese!
THANK GOD I DECIDED TO TAKE JAPANESE CLASSES OH MY GOD
so we introduced ourselves and talked a little in japanese, and I"m surprised how well I got by, considering I was dead tired and desperately needed something to drink. But everything is great, and I"m actually really excited because this will give me a chance to keep using my Japanese and improve, and she'll get a little better at her English too.
OK so after that I really really really needed something to drink, so told the roomie I was going out, and went to look for a convenience store to buy some water or a cup or something. I was definitely in a bit of a daze, and I took this little video... I hope it works and is not too embarrassing haha...
(Yeah that was really embarrassing. Btw the plug I mention at the end refers to the wall adapters for like my laptop and stuff. And luckily turns out I didn't actually need to buy one cos I'm just dumb and the adapter I have works fine...)
So then, I walked to the shops around the campus entrance, couldn't find a convenience store, turned around and followed some other path and found a busy street with no shops, walked back towards the dorm, went BACK to the shops, turned left and found a little shop AT LAST but it really was just me being dumb cos I saw it and was just like "eh, I don't think that's a convenience store" but then it actually was. So I went in and bought a humongous water bottle, grabbed a smaller bottle of apple juice, and a little frappuccino for the morning. Went out, went to drink the apple juice first, and found out I'd made a huge mistake. See, the thing is, the apple juice didn't have pictures of apples on the front. Sure, it was a golden delicious looking liquid, but instead there was a picture of wheat or grain on the front and I was like..."The hell is this...?" soooo took a sniff and thank god I didn't take a swig straight off in my disorientation because it smelled disgusting, no offense to anyone who actually knows what I was about to drink and likes it. Sooo...I'm gonna pour that down the drain.
Instead opened the water bottle and drank its sweet sweet nectar of life. Slightly mineral-y nectar of life.
Went back home, finished unpacking, climbed into bed, and eventually fell asleep and had really weird vivid dreams that made me question reality when I woke up.
Took a shower in the weird bathroom, pictures of which will eventually be up, and set up internet on my computah, skyped with the parents, and made this crazy crazy post.
And I'm still a little weird in the head cos I'm hungry and all I have is brownies and oreos and so I'm about to go find a starbucks or dunkin donuts and eat me some breakfast.
I have my Korean Language placement test today too, so hopefully that'll go well.
This post was really long and a struggle and I'm gonna go now and explore a bit.
I LOVE YOU ALL OMG WHAT IS LIFE I'M IN FREAKING KOREA
So that all wrapped up around 4:30, maybe, so then a couple girls and I decided to go walk around and find this convenience store called Daiso, because I needed to get a bowl and other eating stuff. 
Bulgogi, or Korean BBQ, is beef marinated in this really really good sort of sweet marinade. It also came with a little cup of butter and sweet pickles, and I can only assume we were supposed to eat those with the pizza, cos I definitely dipped my pizza in them. It was pretty good :) It was also good luck that we'd decided to eat at Mr. Pizza, because at the table next to us were all the Ewha PEACE Buddies. The Peace Buddies are Ewha students who are here to help us adjust to life here and also organize activities for us to do, such as the Welcoming Party at the Barfly club that was going to happen later that night.....But more about that later! We ended up asking the Peace Buddies where we should go with the check, and that's how we learned to take the check up to the counter where we'd come in.
