What happened to the day??

I can't believe it's already 10pm! Where did my day go?? We had our conversation class in the morning. That was not too bad. I was relatively familiar with the phrases we were working with. However I found out that I can never get lost or lose something because that phrase/word is really long, and very difficult to pronounce! Our afternoon Culture class was okay. There are a few Chinese foreign exchange students in this class as well. Our teacher is kind of excited because he studied a lot of Chinese and sometimes puts the Chinese characters on the board to help 'translate' some for them. Emily, Maren and I went for a short run after class. It was a little bit embarrassing running because there is a bus stop towards the rear entrance of the campus and there were a LOT of students standing waiting for the bus and we had to run past them twice. It is kind of an unusual sight to see girls playing sports and even running. So I'm sure we looked a little crazy. After our run, Emily and I passed the soccer ball around in a 'performance area' in front of ET. We just sat outside because the sun was shining and it wasn't too cold. When the sun started going down a bit, we decided to study with a small group of the guys... except they don't really 'study'. They just all sit at tables next to each other (writing or reading) but don't talk at all. Dinner was not too bad...Emily and I REALLY hoped that it was going to be bad because we are in LOVE with Issac's (pronounced Eesack...); which is the amazing sandwich place we went to on Tuesday. 

After dinner, Emily hung out here. Then we went to Baskin Robbin's with Maren and Jenny. We ordered a quart I think and devoured it in about 10-15 minutes, haha. We were talking about Adam Richmond from Travel Channel's "Man vs. Food" show, and so toward the end we were saying "women vs. food!"...We had a lot of fun; I think Emily and I were on a bit of a sugar high, because all of a sudden, everything was really funny. 

Tomorrow we have a 'health test'. They are just going to do a little blood draw/test and an x-ray. It starts at 7, so...off to bed I go. 

PS I'm realllly behind on pictures! Hopefully there will be some down time on Saturday. LOTS of great pictures to come!! :)

Jenny and Emily with our GIANT tub of ice cream!

Oh yea, we just finished that.

Where did it all go?!?

Another long and busy day

I'm starting on the update early so I can head to bed earlier. Think back to yesterday...

We had our first conversation class with a different professor. Jihye told her that we were 'good students' but so, Hannah thought that meant we were masters of the Korean language...after we all kind of struggled through the class we threw out some suggestions and upon learning about Jihye's comment I told Emily "ability and attitude are two different things!" Anyway, she threw a lot of Korean phrases at us. After conversation, we had our first taekwondo class! We just had a 'lecture' introduction. Unbeknown to me...the class is actually made up of regular Inje University students as well!  There are probably close to 30 students total. The professor only spoke Korean, so we didn't really know much of what he was saying. IIIHR got Taekwondo 'uniforms' for us and they have our (adopted) names written in Korean on the back-the uniforms are pretty awesome! The next class was a Korean language class. We have the same professor for 2 classes (this one and the Culture class on Thurs.). It reminded me a little bit of the Spanish phonetics class I took at MMC. We learned about the characteristics of the Korean language and then practiced writing the Korean alphabet. Again. But, I think that the practice is paying off.

After class, we went to dinner. It wasn't very good and Emily and I were still hungry. I had remembered passing this egg toast sandwichy place on the street in front of campus so I suggested that. While we were looking at the menu I said "boy, it would be nice if there was someone here to help translate for us!" Just then, I looked up and Emily's roommate, Sung Hee was walking out of the coffee shop right next to the sandwich place!! She and her friend had ordered a sandwich so she helped us out. We brought our sandwich back to my room to eat. After we finished I looked at my schedule to double check my English Town class and...!!!!! Oh my! It was at 7:00, not 7:30...and it was 7:02!!! I was late for my first English Town class!!! I am the co-teacher in the class. The class has about 14 Korean students working on their English skills mostly to help them with their TOIEC tests. There is one leader and then they have all have a member or two from IIIHR helping. We did a quick introduction and overview of the class (it was all in Korean! :/) and then went out for chicken and drinks. It was definitely a different experience. But we played some name games and just got to know each other. I wrote down the names of all the students and maybe one or two things about them to help me remember them. Here's where all that practice of writing in our classes helped!! I could hear their name and write it correctly in hangul (Korean writing)!! My Mom bought me Rosetta Stone for Christmas and I had been working on it almost every day before I left; there was a writing part where I had to write what I heard and I couldn't do it. After being here a week, now I can!! I am so excited! Anyway, we were at the restaurant for a looong time. When we left, they decided to get ice cream. We went to the Baskin Robbins and bought 2 giant tubs-almost everyone picked out a flavor. We brought it back to the dorms, but then had to wait for the 11:20 curfew check-in time to finish. However, when I was back in my room, the floor assistant told Jenny there was a meeting and we both had to go to it. It was basically the head women's RA telling everyone about the English Town trip next weekend and how she wasn't going to be there. 1st-it was all in Korean 2nd-it took her 20 minutes to get it all out 3rd-I didn't actually need to be there. It was really frustrating because I knew it didn't apply to me-I couldn't understand it all anyway. After her long speech, I went downstairs to eat the ice cream with my ET group. FINALLY, I was able to go to my room when it was around midnight. I was so, so tired.

Isaac Toast-'deliciousness' in the making

Almost finished product; I forgot to take a picture!

English Town group

English Town group

English Town group

 Today:
...another very long and busy day! I finally got to go to my Kindergarten class! :) The kids are sooo cute!! We introduced ourselves and then broke into small groups with about 5 students. Our activity for the day was to write our names (in English) on our own pieces of paper and then decorate our 'name tags'. Alona was in the group with me. A few of the girls were really good with their English, but some of them were just too shy to even try repeating phrases or letters. Then our time was up and we had to return to ET for a special lecture. A non-profit organization came to give an introduction/lecture about Korean culture. It was pretty interesting. Afterward, we were able to dress in the hanbok's (traditional Korean dress) and take pictures and have some traditional foods for a snack. Today, our group decided to go to the cafeteria across from ET. It is typically for the professors, but after 1pm we can go there for lunch. We tried it and really liked it-all the cafeterias serve the same food, but it seemed better. Then Emily and I took a walk around town. 

At 3:30, we had a welcoming party for all the international students. That was kind of fun because they had some musicians, taekwondo performers, a couple of different dance groups and a hanbok fashion show. We had dinner and now I am going to study a little bit with Tim and Ben. I can't wait til I can go to bed! I am soo tired! 

New Year's bowing ceremony demonstration

All of us in Hanboks!

Emily, Maren, the cute little girl, and me

Welcoming Ceremony: Hanbok Fashion Show-Alona, Joakim, and Magnus

Traditional Instrument

Dinner was good!

Mushy Brain

Hi and goodnight everyone. Today was such a long day...my brain is mush. Updates tomorrow when I get a chance.

1st Monday Class

We went to breakfast with a smallish group. Again, not too much looked appetizing to me this morning. After breakfast, I was planning on taking a shower and hiding out in Emily's room because the engineer was coming to fix our toilet and I wasn't sure what to say to him. However, just before I hopped in, he knocked on the door. It took about a half hour to fix whatever was wrong. The water was really cold in our shower, so I went to the communal showers; luckily there was hot water! After my shower, I went up to hang out with Emily and painted my nails with my new nail polish. Then we headed down for lunch. After lunch, Ben and I thought we would watch a movie because our group didn't have anything until 2:30. However it took forever to download-and then it wasn't the right format and didn't work anyway. Tim came down while it was downloading and we just talked and watched youtube until it was time to meet up for our cooking class. We walked about 5-10 minutes to a cooking institute. We made a type of cheon. The ingredients were pork, tofu, garlic, and onion. We mashed up everything and then made the mixture into little flat discs. We then dipped the discs in egg and fried them. They were okay-it was a LOT of work!! When class finished, we walked back to school and took a short break. I went up to Emily's room to hang out before dinner. Then Maren and Jenny joined us. We had dinner and Jenny said she was going to a guitar recital for her previous roommate. The Sweds, Ki, Tim, Maren and I went with Jenny. It was okay; it was just really slow and quiet...nice relaxing "go to sleep" music. We stayed until the intermission and came back. Emily came to our room and we did a little bit of studying. Tomorrow will be a busy learning-filled day!

Ingredients for the dish we are making

Ki, Top Chef with flair

Not so sure how mine turned out

Sunday...Soccer!

This morning a small group of us went to breakfast. (It wasn't very good-too much seafood!) After breakfast Emily and I went to the Catholic church I found last week. I called Maren (with my newly acquired cell phone!) to meet up with Tim, Ben and her for lunch. We went to Kong's Riceball. It is kind of like a Korean fast food restaurant...kimbap is meat, vegetables, and rice rolled up in seaweed, but the riceballs are rice and a filling in a ball with small seaweed strips on the outside. It was really cheap and tasty! Everyone wanted to buy some groceries or other school/dorm supplies so we walked over to the Home Plus (like a Meijer or Walmart). Tim, Ben and I split the cost of a 3,000W soccer ball! Right away Ben was ready to play. Tim and I made him wait an hour.

Around 2:30 Tim, Ben and I met up to walk over to the soccer fields. The main field was being played on so we went to check out the small futsal type field. That was also being used, but there was a basketball court that was only being half used. So we started to just pass and shoot. Ben noticed our Swedish friends Magnus and Joakim watching the main field from the stands above us. We got their attention and asked them if they wanted to play with us. Of course they did! They went to go change and while we were waiting, we asked the three guys sharing the court with us if they wanted to play 3 v 3. They agreed and we played until Magnus and Joakim came back; they brought Ji a big soccer guy with them. Also around this time the 3 guys had one more of their friend join. We split into 5 v 5 then. A little bit later one of the dorm captains came to play too and another friend of the original 3 guys joined also. Then we had 6 v 6. It was a lot of fun playing even though I was the only girl. The only bad thing was Tim kind of rolled/sprained his ankle and is in a lot of pain.

We stopped playing around 5 and all the Inje students agreed to meet up for dinner at 6. We had a huge group walk over to dinner together. When we were getting into the Bio Tech dorm, I was talking to Emily and all of a sudden she kind of stumbles...and then she looked really dazed/confused like someone knocked her in the head. She kept trying to walk, but was falling against the wall and then she just fell over. It was scary watching her pass out-Joakim ran to get her some water from the cafeteria and dorm captain guy ran back to English Town dorms to see about calling an ambulance possibly. Ji helped Emily up and then Jenny and I helped walk her back to her room. We tried to get food for her from the cafeteria, but they wouldn't let us take anything out. After we ate, we stopped at Family Mart (convenience store) to get some yogurt, bread and Korean 'Sprite' for her. Jenny and I talked with her a little and then brought up our homework and we worked in Emily's room to stay with her. Maren and Emily's roommate came in shortly after and we had a big study group together. Now I am exhausted and ready for bed!
 PS: Jenny went out with some school friends and she came back with a cheese stick for me! It was the BEST thing ever!! Cheese is really expensive and hard to find, which is reeeeally depressing for me. 

So excited for Cheese!

Riceball! Yum!

First Weekend at Inje

Today was a long day! (but good!) We had breakfast and then Jenny, Maren, Emily, Ben, Seung Bae, Tim and I went to Pusan! We did a little shopping around Seomyun; an underground shopping area. I bought a pair of flats and I was so excited I put them on right away and we started walking away from the store and it felt like there was something in my shoe. So I took it off and felt in the shoe-there was a staple in the shoe! Jenny and I went back to talk to the shopkeeper and show him the staple. He gave me a new pair AND gave me 1,000W back! :D 

We walked around some and then grabbed lunch. I had ddeok mandu guk (mandu-dumplings- and rice cake). It was so good! :) Then we did some more shopping! The girls split up from the guys for a bit and then we met up to go to Nampodong (outside shops). A few of us got hu ddeok (anyone remember what that is?! ;) I'm testing your Korean foods now!!). Unfortunately it was a little more expensive than the ones near school. However, they DID give you a little cup as a holder so the honey doesn't drip all over you (like it did to me-all over my coat and pants!). We wanted to come back so we could have dinner at the cafeteria (we don't get lunch on Sundays) and save some money. It took a looong time to get back and the cafeteria was kind of closed because we got there at 6:35-40. They weren't serving food anymore, but they did have a few servings of stuff left. It wasn't enough for everyone so some of us had cereal instead (I took the cereal). After dinner, Jenny, Emily, Tim and I went to the Home Plus Express (grocery store) near campus to buy some snacks. On the way we spotted a DVD rental store so we rented "Inception". We'll be watching that in a few minutes. I have TONS of pictures and I need to upload them. Hopefully there will be enough downtime tomorrow!

P.S. It's hard to believe I've been here for a week already! I feel like I've known everyone in our group for such a long time. I am also so thankful my roommate is the SWEETEST person! She is so nice, patient, and helpful. :) 

Jenny, me and Ben on the bus!

Seung Bae, Emily and Maren

Pretty girls. And Tim.

MICHIGAN!

Ddeok Mandu Guk. So yummy!!

Awesome!!

"Inception" Movie Night! Jenny, Emily, Maren and me.

Orientations X2

This morning we had another orientation! It was for the IIIHR (Inje International Institute for/of Human Resources) program and we were able to meet the Chairman/Director of the program. He was very nice and invited us to stay in his home in Incheon if we ever wanted to visit Seoul. After the orientation we had a short break and then went to lunch-it was pork cutlet, which sounds "Western", but it is a very popular/common dish here. It was so strange to eat with a fork and knife again!! After lunch we had our writing class. The professor only speaks Korean (or says he does-so that we have to really try to pick up Korean) and we had to write all the Korean we knew for him to gauge which class we should be in. I am going to be in the beginners class-we got a big packet of homework!!! Writing in Korean takes a lot of practice! I worked on my homework when I got back from class and then Jenny (roommate) and I went to hang out with Maren and Emily before dinner. We had dinner and then ANOTHER orientation for the English Town program. The English Town program is a way for the Koreans to learn English from (mostly) native English speakers. So we are split into pairs or individuals and will be supporting a Korean student that will be running the class/discussion group. It will be interesting and a great way to meet more students. We had to introduce ourselves in front of all the students so that was a little scary. After that orientation a few of us wanted to have a movie night, but it was a huge challenge and we were not successful. We had two Swedish exchange/international students come into the lounge where we were and stayed to play card games with us. Now it is time for bed!!! 

Our whole group! (Plus Jihye the coordinator, the Director, and a teacher)

Seung Bae and I forgot how to use a fork and knife! We are so confused!

Haha...Ben and Jenny trying to figure out the TV

Still working. It was kind of funny, except we didn't get to watch a movie.