First, it began with almost 24 hours of travel time between leaving my hotel in Portland and arriving at my dorm in Seoul, South Korea. I was supposed to fly over with my friend Hanna, but there was a mixup and we weren't on the same flight, which provided some interesting experiences with trying to get through immigration and customs! But it all worked out. Once I arrived, one of the leaders of ISA (International Students Abroad) met me at the airport and quickly ushered me into a cab to make the journey to the dorms, where I was met by another ISA leader who, just as quickly, handed me some general dorm information, my card for dorm entry, and left me at the door to my dorm building. After getting yelled at in Korean by the dorm security guard (WHY that happened still remains a mystery to me), failing at using the elevator (apparently certain elevators can only go to certain floors), and arriving at my room (the door locks are super high tech. I think just to mess with us.) I finally got to unpack. At that point though, honestly, I had never felt so alone in my life. Nobody had spoken more than 10 sentences of English to me since I got off the plane and my dorm hall seemed completely deserted other than me. People who say everyone speaks English in Korea are definitely lying! Lying down to sleep with just my sheets, a thin blanket I confiscated from my international flight, and a sweatshirt for a pillow, I was almost certain coming to Korea was the biggest mistake I'd ever made.
Day Two, luckily, was a major turnaround. It started with a skype call to my family (which was much needed!) and the ISA orientation. I met most of the other ISA American students outside the dorm and we all walked over to the meeting together. It was so relieving hearing English again! And everyone in my group is really chill. At the meeting, they gave us some more details about contacting them and our itinerary, which was very much appreciated! Up to that point, I had absolutely no idea what to expect in the future. After the meeting, a group of us students went to the store to pick up essential items like pillows, hangers, toiletries, etc. We grabbed some quick lunch and then headed to another ISA meeting. This one was a campus tour (although I probably won't remember where anything is! Campus is really big!), followed by a trip to the Konkuk University Hospital (good to know) and subway station (which is under the hospital!). We also purchased subway cards while we were there. The tour was over at 3pm, leaving plenty of day left to explore! I joined up with my new friends Kate and Chris (pretty much the coolest people ever) for some fun little escapades! We got bubble tea, made the trek to Gangam (Yep, I totally had Gangam Style!!), and visited a Cat Cafe!! Not gonna lie, the Cat Cafe was super awesome. (: For about $8 you get a cup of coffee and entrance into a little cafe where cats run rampant! It was so cute. And really fun getting to pet all the cats. (: Turns out all three of us (me, Kate, and Chris) are really big cat fans. It was fun! We were then going to meet up with the rest of our ISA group for dinner, but we were about to get back on the subway when Chris realized he forgot his backpack in the Cat Cafe! Ooops. So we had to go back for that and missed our group leaving for dinner. So Chris and Kate and I went to a little street restaurant and had skewers and shrimp! It was really cool because they brought the skewers and then we cooked them ourselves over some hot coals they put in the middle of the table. The food is surprisingly good! A little spicy at times, but I haven't been starving to death.
Although my trip started out awful, I think I'm going to love it a lot. Today was vastly more wonderful than yesterday! Maybe I can survive this city after all. I'm really excited to see what other adventures lie ahead! And I'll try to get some pictures up on facebook. (: Thanks for listening to me drone on and on!
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