yonsei

Me and my roomies (Gina and Jenny so far) headed out to Seoul today. Took us forever to figure out how to do it. It wasn't like we were confused on how to get there but more like stupid time constraints...like the excellent DMC Ville deciding to hold a mandatory orientation at 11am, and us Yonsei kids getting news that we have to pick-up our shizznit from Yonsei from 9am to 12pm.

But it wasn't really until 12pm because when the DMC orientation finished, we found out the Yonsei packet pick-up was extended to 5:30pm.

Thanks for telling us haha.

Anyways, the roomies and I grabbed a bus (171 Blue...I think haha) to Yonsei and proceeded to get very, very lost. For me, it wasn't so unusual, and in fact, getting lost in Korea is kind of fun because you're a lot more lost than usual. Might accidently end up at the DMZ or something...and I would, considering the way I'm going right now haha.

...

Sorry, mom. Ending up in North Korea was a joke heheh <3

By the way, I feel slightly bummed out by Yonsei. It pretty much looks like Davis except it has hills and taller buildings. Other than that, there's trees everywhere and its got its weird little charm of feeling really closed in. I think they're both the same size but Yonsei just feels bigger because of the hills, cars, and the fact that the moment you step outside the university, you're surrounded by cute little shops in narrow alleyways...which is kind of like B street in Davis hahaha.

I also have yet to spot a squirrel population like Davis's...but back to my life story haha.

We had to go to Underwood International College and had a really weird time getting there. It was up a hill...then up a REAL hill...then up some stairs, then down the hill, turn right and head up the same hill we just came down, then turn right and go down the hill again. At this point we passed a child daycare center and I have decided I am going to kidnap a Korean baby. THEY'RE SO CUTE!!!! My cousin Nirav approved this operation so the Korean Baby Operation is GO!!!

The building BEFORE the daycare. If you keep going right and down a little hill, there is is. See, we're all set to get some of them babies :D

But even with our plan to some day get Korean babies, we were still confused, because now, we were at another university. Yup. No more Yonsei. We had somehow landed at the gates of Ewha Woman's University...that's not where we needed to be haha

But evenutally we got to the UIC main hall, only with the help of this cute old man. I mean, we knew we were there (we could see the building), but there was just intense construction going on around it. So he sent as back the way we came and up another street...which meant another hill. Before coming here, I was actually a bit worried about me gaining weight while I'm stuffing my face with Korean food but if we have to walk up and down those hills like that then I'll definitely be super fit by the time I get back to the U.S.

Cute old man who helped us out of our predicament :D

I just have to get better shoes for it because my feet ache :(

The last hill before we made it to the site of the registration packet pick-up. So difficult!!!

Anyways, we did our registration thing and we managed to make it back to the DMC Ville orientation on time. Wasn't really interesting. They were going to serve us lunch but me and Gina just filched a few sandwiches (okay, a half each) and some juice and ran back the apartment. We also got lost on our way to the apartment.

Really, it's crazy how many times I've gotten lost so far here in Korea haha.

I just spent the rest of the afternoon bumming around on facebook, skype, and on the TV. There's this one channel that's like the security camera for a certain part of DMC Ville. A few of us roomies have decided that we're going to record the TV and then go run out in front of the security camera. It'll be a faux-"Look Ma, I'm on TV!" moment haha.

I had to go meet for dinner with Nirav so I left my place at around 6pm. I have to say that my cab driver on the way there was awesome. Pretty much the coolest person EVER. We started talking about the weirdest things. I think it was such a fun conversation because he spoke like 20 words of English and I speak about 1.002 words of Korean. It was only natural that conversation was freaking cool.

We started off by him asking what DMC Ville was. I said "apartments" but he didn't understand. Then we started talking about "Korea speak" (he meant the Korean language), soju (I think he wanted some hehe), my family, Korean dramas (there was this little TV in the cab and he was watching a drama on it as he drove...there was one man with TWO wives...he loved it haha), my single status (that was hilarious hahaha), weddings, wedding marches (I think...), something called "hakjang" or something like that, "Biz X" and just "Biz", the word "pretty" in Korean (ippuda) and Chinese (piao liang), smoking, drinking, and Yonsei. Pretty much amazing haha.

When we finally reached the Grand Hyatt Seoul, he let me off, and I have to say, I was pretty sad. He was so cool!!! Anyways, I went inside and found Nirav.

He took me to dinner to the restaurant in the hotel and OH. MY. SHIZZNIT. That stuff was goooood. I couldn't be the weird me that I am and take pictures of the food or the view because...well...because...

I forgot my camera.

I was so sad :( FINALLY, I'm in downtown Seoul at night, the view is amazing, and the food is freaking AWESOME (special shoutout to the dumplings haha) but I don't have my camera.

FAIL.

Oh well, there's always next time.

I hope. I mean, do they let regular people like me into a place like that? haha jkjk