Seoul Searching: Day 3

12:00PM - So today was the day for our placement test. I was a nervous wreck in the morning and even though I said I was going to go for a run, I chose to study instead. Katie (my roommate) and I decided to wake up at 7:00AM and I started then. Close to 8:00AM, I took a shower and we went down to the lobby to meet up with Nicola, Amy, and Carrie for breakfast. Breakfast was AMAZING! I chose the western option again and that consisted of corn flakes with slim milk, toast (which was actually just a slice of bread lol), 2 brownies, and this gelatin like stuff which I chose to try since I was not eating rice and kimchi this morning lol. The gelatin was a little harder than our jello and it tasted like apples, so it was pretty good.

After breakfast, we walked over to J-Hall to take our placement test. The teachers were very funny and spoke mostly all in Korean (since it is a Korean immersion program). They set up certain sections of the room for different leveled students and set out the books. We were told to then pick the booklet we thought we fell under, so I went towards the Beginner 1-2 booklet (anyone who was a beginner, beginner went straight to class today). I panicked a little when I was going through the booklet because it looked VERY difficult. Once it was 10:00AM, they told us to start our test and that we needed to go to a separate room when called to take our verbal/listening test. Once I really started to read over the test (which was almost all in Korean), I started to spot out key vocabulary and could piece together what they were asking me. I made it through about 3 pages of the test and then turned it in. At 11:00AM, I went to the second floor of J-Hall to take my one-on-one test. It was not too bad! I understood the first few things she was asking me and we had a fun conversation about me teaching 5-6 year olds haha. I loved how she said that teachers were the best! ^_^

After it was all over, I went back to my room and cooked up some cheesy ramen noodles to eat for lunch. Now I am just waiting around until 2:00PM when we have Orientation.

7:00PM - So much has happened since my placement test this morning that I hope I can remember it all! First thing was orientation:

Nicola (not my friend, but one of the instructors) was pretty hilarious. We received some maps, an orientation book, a folder, and a t-shirt to wear to the baseball game on Friday! I also answered a question correct and was given a chocolate biscuit thing. ^_^

Amy and her friend in the glasses (I forget her name >.<).

Nicola with the funny face and Katie my roommate.

After orientation, we decided to drop our things off and meet in the lobby to try and find Hongdae. We first got lost because we went the wrong way. I saw some interesting things...

Random buildings on the street of Sincheon.

Again, random buildings in Sincheon.

A cool egg sculpture in front of the Lotte Hotel.

This is basically a university for you to learn how to make golf courses haha.

A cool building--it's an all boys high school.

Live octopus on the street.

I have NO idea what this is...but it was swimming around.

Squid on the street.

After we turned around and headed back towards campus, we were exhausted. I guess I should mention that Amy, Nicola, Katie, and Sarah (another girl we've met) were with me. Once we got to Sincheon station, Katie decided to go back to the University and we all ventured on to figure out how to get our T-Money cards. I got my card and loaded 10,000 Won on it so that I could take a few trips during the next week or so.

Sarah standing in front of the subway doors.

I'll have to get a better picture, but this is a map of the subway system here.

I've never been on the subway, but it was so convenient. Once I bought my card and loaded it with Won on the machine, we had to read and figure out which one went towards Hongdae. We already knew we had to stay on the green line train, but there is always one going left on the route and one going right on the route. After we figured that out, we scanned our card and went down the stairs to the station. Once the subway got to our doors, we loaded up and I was so squished! It went extremely fast, but I could not have fallen if I had wanted to because I had no room. We only had to wait about 1-2 minutes and then we were there. After we got out (everyone is trying to get on as you are trying to get off haha), we went upstairs and scanned our cards to get onto the street.

All I have to say about Hongdae is wow. If I could picture what I thought Korea would be like, this are would be it! It was very hip and artsy. They had K-Pop playing in every store and even though it was not nighttime, a lot of the lights were on. We did a little shopping around and became thirsty, so we climbed a million stairs to get to a cafe. I chose to order a smoothie-like strawberry bubble tea. Not only was it delicious, but the cafe was VERY nice and hip.

A cute chandelier in the cafe behind Amy.

Part of the cafe.

Nicola and Sara's drinks--they had cute Lego people on the cups.

Amy's tiny pitcher of tea..with a seal!

My bubble tea with my Lego man!

After the cafe, we looked around a bit more and then made our way back to the subway. We decided to try passing up the Sincheon station and going into Ewha station so we could come in the back entrance and not up the big giant mountain in the front. It was perfect. While walking back we even had an older ajjushi come up to us and flirted with Nicola a bit. He was so excited to practice his English. ^_^ Once we got back to campus, we went to the cafeteria to eat dinner. The eastern meal had its normal side dishes of kimchi and pickled items. The main item was some sort of kimchi soup. The western meal is what I chose, but I didn't eat much of it because I'm not big on curry. I did eat a TON of rice (which I am LOVING here in Korea) and some weird hash brown things with some odd veggies inside. I kind of liked it. We also had our dorm orientation tonight, but I won't bore you with the details. It's definitely bedtime now because I want to get up early to go for a run and then off to breakfast and my first day of classes! ^_^ I'll leave you with some pictures now!