BigOnKorea.com

Today I went with my roommate Yu-Tien and the 3rd guy who’s staying in our dorm room until Sunday Bojan. We went to check out the Samsung library on campus. It has a lot of interactive technologies. Things you’d see in futuristic movies. We played this game on a touch screen table, it looks like tetris, but the object is to place as many pieces on the table as you can but they can only connect at the corners. You get to place one piece per turn.

We then got on the bus for a Seoul city tour. The school has prepared 3 tours, each day is different. This tour we were going to the soccer stadium in Seoul where they held the World Cup in 2002.

A few of the guys wearing jerseys.

Then we headed to this technology place, I’m still unsure as to what it is called. I think it was something like Soft World.

They had all sorts of cool things. Windows that turn into screens for movies or backgrounds. Interactive mirrors, a virtual doctor, a lot of real advanced touch technologies.

Here we went into a movie room where the movie is in 4D? I think its 4D. Maybe 5D? I don’t know how they measure it but anyway, its in 3D but the floor shakes, your seat shakes, and there’s the large tufts of air that spray you right in the face or at your feet.

For instance there was this one scene where this lion pops up and roars and your seat vibrates and this quick burst of air hits you right in the face and through your hair. It was quite a surprise, I don’t think anyone was expecting it.

We then went to the National Assembly, which is where the Korean government meets. However there was some special event going on, they were in session so we couldn’t go in. I plan on going back later when I can go in.

Last night my roommate and I along with a buddy of his went out for some dinner and stopped by a couple places for drinks. When I first arrived to my dorm room my roommate asked me if I wouldn’t mind his buddy staying in the dorm for a few days as he was passing through after a two week exchange in Japan. I said ok. I was slightly confused to how it was going to work in such a small room, but I didn’t really care because we don’t start school till next week, so no big deal.

So Bojan showed up yesterday and we went out. We had some Korean BBQ where you have the grill in the middle of your table. It was pretty difficult to order because the Holland guys don’t know any Korean and I only know a little.

It was a lot of fun having the three of us there. All three of us were new to Korea of course, they are from Holland, I am from the U.S. and Bojan just finished a two week exchange in Japan so we had plenty of things to talk about. He is a hilarious guy we laughed a lot last night.

It is amazing how alive the area becomes at night. There’s neon lights everywhere throughout this huge network of alley ways. There’s games outside like throwing darts at balloons and such. There must be thousands of bars and Karaoke rooms. Most of the buildings are several stories tall and have different businesses in each floor, including sometimes several floors into the basements. I will try and get some more pictures of it, it’s quite an amazing.

I almost forgot to mention, this is funny. So you’ve seen the pictures of the dorm room in an earlier post. You maybe wondering, “how the hell can you fit another person in there?” We didn’t have any air mattress or anything like that either. I fell asleep before I knew what the arrangements were and I woke up in the middle of the night and looked over and I saw my roommate’s head and Bojan’s feet. They were sharing the twin size bed sleeping oppositely head to toe. It was a hilarious sight.
Here’s a couple photos from last night.

My roommate is the guy on the left. He is from Holland and speaks Dutch and English.

Bojan with a random Korean guy at the bar.

Today after the presentation ands orientations they did a bit on some of the Yonsei cheer songs. There’s a lot, atleast 10 or so. One thing you may notice about some asian cultures like Japan and Korea is that they are very animated people. Combine that with Korean’s being so proud of their country and then also school pride. The songs and dance are a lot of energy, entertaining and very funny. There’s some event in March or May, I forget… where everyone goes to the large ampitheater and they have popular music groups come and they all wear school colors and just dance and cheer all day long.

Here’s a little taste of what the songs are like. Check out this short video, its only 1:45.

Yonsei University Cheer Songs from Josh Dill on Vimeo.

I tried the coffee at Dunkin Donuts this morning since it was directly across the street from my hotel, I don’t know if it’s Dunkin Donuts, or if it’s just Korean Dunkin Donuts but the coffee was terrible. I had to walk around and finally found a Starbucks (which had a picture of Seattle in it) and sure enough, that coffee tasted just like home. All of their pastries in there are wrapped individually in a sealed bag. Doesn’t look appetizing that way.

The dorm rooms are nothing to brag about… at all. But I guess it will do. It’s pretty small.

I have a roommate and he is from Holland. He’s 24 and I’m 25 so that is good.

We spent most of the day together trying to figure a few things out. We couldn’t get internet at first, we were  told to buy a network cable so we went to go buy a network cable. Before that we stopped at ???? which is Woori Bank. The teller didn’t speak a single bit of english, but after about 30 minutes of strange confusion we finally realized we needed some form of a immigration residence card or something like that in order to open an account.

We then went to buy our network cable and some cleaning wipes since the dorm room shelves were pretty dusty.

Then we went to eat at Pizza Hut. We were both curious to see how different it would be from the U.S. and Holland. It was very different. There is no pepperoni pizza, cheese pizza, canadian bacon and pineapple or any of that. The closest thing they had that I recognized as pizza was BBQ chicken. It was good, but Pizza Hut good which isn’t really that good. They did have seafood pizza… no thank you.

I’ve found it very beneficial that I can read Korean. I cannot translate everything but I know common things, and many things are english written out in Korean so you just have to sound it out. I’m starting to remember more words too.

Tomorrow is more class registration and orientation. I should know what my full class schedule will be tomorrow.

So it is about 9am Monday morning here in Seoul right now. It is about 2pm Sunday in Seattle. I woke up at 7:30am local time here and have just been making a couple calls letting everyone know I’m alive and well. The flight was nice. Total air time was a little over 14 hours. I got to the airport, checked in with immigration and picked up my bag which thankfully made it through with no issues. I got on the bus that went directly to my hotel in downtown Seoul. I am going to check out of here today and head to the University to check in and get a dorm room assignment. Right now I’m going to hop in the shower and head over to Dunkin Donuts for some coffee and breakfast.

Also, I setup a Skype account and I purchased an online phone number. My cell phone does not work here. I forwarded my cell phone to my Skype number, which is a local Seattle number. So I believe if you were to call my cell phone it should ring me here on the computer and if I’m not on it will go to my voicemail here.

Here’s a picture from my hotel window. I’m up on the 10th floor. I have absolutely no idea where I’m at in downtown. But I think I’m in a cab distance from the University.

Join me, my friends, family and co-workers for a going away party. I hope to see you there.

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On Saturday February 21st I will be heading to Seoul South Korea. I will be in South Korea attending Yonsei University. I am going as an exchange student through the University of Washington and this will be my final quarter at the UW before I graduate.

Why Korea? Well I have taken several Korean history and language courses at the University of Washington and I enjoy studying a different country and culture. One of the books that I read was discussing the North Korean nuclear crisis and a point made was that there is a lack of U.S. scholars in Korean studies. I find that it is something I can specialize in and market myself with a little better rather than leaving the U.W. as another Political Science major.

If you have more questions try clicking on the About page for more info, or please feel free to contact me.

I started this blog so that I have a place to put my traveling experiences up online for my friends, family and anyone else who might be interested to see. I have also thought about keeping it going upon my return to discuss Korea related issues. Hence the BigOnKorea.com is universal enough to allow me to continue even when I’m back here living in Seattle.

Thanks for coming, I do hope you return and I wish to hear from you if you have anything to share with me.