My Days in Daegu

Seoul!!

2007-09-25T02:54:00.000-07:00

Whew. So... after leaving shortly after class on Friday, I'm finally back in my room from spending the past few non-stop days in Seoul - South Korea's largest city. It was overwhelming at first just how huge it was, and even though Jonathan and I barely stopped even to eat the whole time we were there, we didn't even get a chance to see half of what the city had to offer.

I've just finished sorting through and selecting some of my 200+ pictures to upload, so there are three albums up on Facebook! Woo! Try not to get too bored with them too fast, because there is a LOT of different stuff in there.
Album 1
Album 2
Album 3

Also, an update about my current situation...

Today (Tuesday) is Korea's national holiday of Chuseok - the reason I had this break from school. But because of the holiday, nothing in Daegu is open, including the school cafeteria! Ah! After getting back to my room and filling up on gummi worms and cereal, I decided I need to get some sort of nutrition in my system and wandered out to the convenience store in that back alley that leads to the subway closest to the dorm. Luck with with me that they were still open, but my choices were still limited. On tonight's dinner menu:

Is it a giant carrot or a minuscule carton of milk?

Teachers and Students in Korea

2007-09-17T20:56:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've noticed in classes now that I've had them for a few weeks is the amount of respect that students (haksang) have for their teachers (seonsang-nim) here. It's refreshing after living amid the typical US students, where it isn't uncommon for a group to sit in the back and snicker during lectures or openly and cynically contradict most of what the professor has to say in class. That's not to say that the same doesn't happen here at all, but the students very obviously have much more respect and appreciation for what the teachers are doing for them.

There are two most vivid examples that I've noticed so far from the Korean students in some of my classes. In one class, some of the students had arrived to the classroom before our professor. There was still notes written on the chalkboard from the previous class, so one of the boys went up and erased the entire board so it was clean for our professor when she came in. When we take breaks during our 2+ hour classes, many students go to the coffee machines or vending machines for a drink. More often than not, one of the students will buy an extra coffee or juice and leave it on the professor's desk on their way back into the classroom. In the US, that student would be considered a "kiss-up" or "teacher's pet." In Korea, though, it's just respectful. I like that.

Our teachers take care of us too, though. During language class on Monday, we spent only the first half in class. During the second hour, she took us on a field trip to the traditional village on campus where we have the art classes. She gave us a sort of tour, so I found out that the building in which we've been doing the classes is actually the husband's half of the home part of the village. There's also another half for the wife (since they would have had different duties... hers being to raise children, while he may have had to invite guests and such to his half). And then the second part of the village is actually a model of a school, almost identical to the one we visited on the bus tour (where Confucianist theory was taught).

We went down to a gazebo-like construct built over the pond in the garden area of the village. There, she taught us how to do the formal Korean bow that they do during the lunar new year and weddings.

The Girls' Version

This is actually the "easy" version of it... because you actually start standing up, and in this one you can move one of your legs to go down cross-legged like that. In the other version, you end up on your knees by going straight down, and its hard to do without falling completely over.

The Guys' Version

In both versions you start standing up and end standing up, and it's all very slow movements going down and back up. It was really interesting to get to learn how to do it, though, since I always hear about it and even saw an attempt at it by the Western bride and groom at the wedding. Now the real trick will be learning how to do that in the traditional Korean costume, the hanbok.

Seonsang-nim and her girls. :) (4 Chinese, 1 American, 1 Russian, and 1 Finnish)

After we did the bowing, we also played a board game that she'd brought. It reminded me a lot of the game "Sorry," with little pieces that moved around the board and which could be bumped back to the starting position if one of the other team's pieces landed on top of it. Instead of rolling die to determine the number of spaces to move, there are painted sticks that you throw. Different combinations mean different things. If we play again, I'll get a picture and be able to explain better. :)

The boys. (2 German, 1 Azerbaijani, 1 American, and 1 Austrian)

Apples, chestnuts, a wedding, and lots and lots of rain...

2007-09-15T05:31:00.001-07:00

So today was another day to wake up bright and early to go see a part of Korean culture. This time it was a trip to Guam Farmstay Village, where we got to pick famous Daegu apples, dye scarves, pick chestnuts, witness a traditional Korean wedding, and dance to the beat of traditional Korean drum music. It was a long, long day filled with lots of walking, rain, and mud, so I'm pooped!

This is another story better told in pictures, though, so I have another Facebook album (http://tlu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009862&l=607e0&id=79500798) all made up for you. Enjoy!

After you look at the pictures, I have a few videos here too. But you have to see the pictures first to get the whole story and explanations! I don't know why the videos seem to steadily go back and forth from blurry to clear, so I hope that stops soon...

And for something completely different...

McDonald's!
<3

It's nice to get "normal" American food every now and then. :) Even if you have to walk 45 minutes to get it. The menu is very different, though... no $1 deals here. And there's extra stuff, like "bulgogi burger" or "shrimp burger". I stuck with the ever-classic cheeseburger, fries, and a Pepsi (the default soft drink here in Korea).

Su-hyun's birthday party!

2007-09-09T01:34:00.000-07:00

(These decorations are also pendants that are worn by a bride and groom during a traditional Korean wedding. The birds are swans.)

This afternoon was Su-hyun's birthday party as well as the celebration of her baby cousin's 100th day. As Ally explained to me, the baby was the "princess" now instead of Su-hyun, since celebrating a baby's 100th day of life is a big event in Korea. The celebration originated many, many years ago, when it really was a big feat for a baby to survive past 100 days. If they made it past that mark, it was basically guaranteed that they would grow up as normal instead of falling victim to a not-uncommon infant death.

We went to a traditional Korean restaurant that reminded me of something I'd seen way back when I was what... 3 years old? (No laughing now...) Big Bird Goes To Tokyo. :)
Instead of having a big common room in which everyone ate, each different party gets its own room. Under the step is where the shoes go, and then the paneled doors slide open to each room.
I really like the picture on the wall... it reminded me of the one I won in the first art class. And yes, we all sat on the floor again. Besides Ally and I, a big portion of Su-hyun's family were there. Mom, dad, aunts, uncles, and cousins. It looks small, but we all fit fine! The food just kept coming, too. There was no definite "main course," like we serve in the Western world, but instead there were many many smaller dishes. They started out recognizable enough, but they got stranger and stranger to me as the meal went on. There was squid, sushi, another raw meat (I don't know what kind, but it was bright red and looked like hamburger), noodles, rice, soup, whole fish, whole shrimp, octopus, stingray, and some stuff I couldn't even begin to guess as to what it was. Su-hyun's family was really nice, and they kept offering me stuff even if I looked hesitant about it. So, yes, now I can add octopus to the list of things I've eaten. It was sliced very thinly and was cold like it had just come out of a freezer, so I'm wondering if it was raw too.

Su-hyun's mother took good care of me, though. :) When the small bowls of rice came around and I was eating mine, she started picking out pieces of meat from the fish and putting them in my bowl for me, which I thought was cute and really nice of her to do, since it's hard to get the flaky meat away from the bones in the first place, especially with chopsticks.

Me, Su-hyun's mom, and Su-hyun.

Su-hyun's aunt (the mom of the 100-day-old baby), Su-hyun, me, and Ally. You can't really tell, but Su-hyun and her aunt are on their toes to make the height difference less noticeable. :P

The happy family! The mom is 28 years old - only one year older than Ally, who wanted to know where her baby was! Haha.

Look at those chubby cheeks! ...not on me, I hope.

Long week...

2007-09-08T03:46:00.000-07:00

I know, I know... I should be posting more often than I have been. There's not a lot of terribly interesting stuff that goes on during the week, but I'll see what I can do.

Wednesday was another Korean culture-experience class. It was a continuation of the calligraphy-type art from the first session, so now we learned how to add four more lines to our grass paintings!
There's my finished product, including my name in Korean (or "hangul," as the Korean writing system is named) over on the right. Because of the way the Korean language works, though, it would technically be pronounced "Kuh-ree-suh-tee". My roommate, Da-eun, said it was cute when she saw it. :)

I didn't win any prizes this time, although the instructor said that it looked like the work of a famous calligrapher from one of the ancient dynasties, so that was pretty cool. The prizes this time were really pretty, because he used color! Here's Hanna with her first-prize roses and Kukka (both students from Finland) with her second-prize chrysanthemums.
On the board behind Kukka, by the way, is the directions for how to do our traditional grass-paintings. Each stroke is numbered, so they really are all supposed to come out the same.

Today was an especially long day. I woke up at 7:30am to make it to breakfast at 8 so I could go with Jonathan on a Daegu City bus tour. I think it's better narrated with the pictures, though, so I made another album (http://tlu.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2009764&l=6c178&id=79500798) full of pictures. Have a look and tell me what you think!

Tomorrow I'm meeting Ally and Su-hyun to go with Su-hyun's family to lunch to celebrate her birthday and her baby nephew's 100th day. If all goes well, I'll have more pictures to post after that!

2007-09-03T06:20:00.000-07:00

It's now almost Tuesday here, and I'm just now finally sitting down to write about my weekend... shame on me!

The campus here pretty much shuts down on weekends, which leaves us international students with very little to do. Most of the Korean students live within the city, so they're able to go home. I filled my days mostly with catching up with people from home while they were awake (the time difference is most annoying), and then venturing off campus a few times with various people.

On Friday evening, for example, Ally and Lily (Angela's buddy) invited Angela and I to go out to dinner with them. Dinner was pretty good, although not what I had expected. My "steak" turned out to be hamburger steak, and had a sauce that was so peppery, even Lily - a Korean - admitted that it was spicy. It wasn't bad other than that, and for dessert we went to a Baskin Robbins for ice cream! Yay! It was just like ice cream from home, so that was comforting. Of course, I stayed away from the flavors like "green tea" and stuck with plain, great chocolate. Our next stop was a game room - basically like a small arcade where we played a few games. Ally beat me at DDR (a dance game) and I beat her at Indy racing, so I think that turned out reasonably well. :)

Our last destination was another restaurant (so much food!) where Ally and Lily treated Angela and I to a Korean traditional alcohol drink which was served in a big wooden bowl, with smaller bowls for us to ladle our own drinks into. We also had appetizers there, like small, crunchy puffed rice-chips of some kind which were good, and Korean "pancakes". I'm not entirely sure what it was, but it seemed to be a flat layer of scrambled egg with things like green onion and squid cooked into it. Seems more like an omelet to me...

But yes, I have officially eaten squid. Tastes like shrimp, but chewier.

Sunday was a good day too. Jonathan and I went with Jennifer (another international student from the US) and her roommate deeper into the city to do some exploring. Our goal was to find the Outback Steakhouse, but it wasn't at the subway stop where Jennifer thought it was. Instead, we ended up at a TGIFriday's, which was just as good. We weren't picky about our Western food at that point.
It's one of those restaurants that gives you a basket of bread when you first get to the table and then which keeps refilling said basket as the bread gets eaten. I think we figured out that we went through five baskets between just eating the bread and also hiding the small loves away in various pockets and purses. :) Because of that, I was only able to eat half of my delicious chicken fingers and fries, so they packed the rest of it for me in a to-go box and bag. They must have picked up on our taste for bread (can't imagine why...) because there were three extra loves packed with my meal for me. Ha. What nice guys... It was expensive, though, as I suppose we kind of expected. For just my meal, it was W10,900, or a little over $10. Oh, well. It was worth it.

Dinner was amazing, also. Jonathan took me with him to his aunt and uncle's house, and his aunt had made a dinner for us which included my favorite - bulgogi! I think I've determined that my problem with the food here is not only getting used to Korean food, but also to Korean cafeteria food, which I realized when I enjoyed Jonathan's aunt's meal so much. It's too bad that we can't get that on campus, or I'd feel a lot more at ease here. And well fed, for that matter.

I tried to take more pictures of the view of the city tonight, but no luck... just more blurs. I also tried to get a few of the traditional village all lit up, but that was a bust as well. My picture-taking has kind of declined as I haven't seen many new sights lately, but if anyone has any requests as to what they'd like to see more of, let me know!

Um, excuse me, waiter...

2007-08-30T03:18:00.001-07:00

...there seems to be a chicken in my soup...I'm getting the feeling that dinner is going to become a great topic of interest in these blog posts. For the first month, anyway. Apparently we get a different meal every day, but it's a one-month cycle. So I get to look forward to three more chicken soup meals! The bowls were set up with the chicken sitting on a bed of rice, and as the students came up to get it, the cafeteria ladies poured the broth part over it all. Mmm mmm good.

Anywho, this afternoon's activities consisted of shopping! Shopping at the Korean version of Wal-mart, I guess, known here as HomePlus. When we walked in the door, we encountered a group of giggling Korean girls still in their school uniforms who said "Hi! You're beautiful! I love you!" to me and who also told Jonathan he was nice... Cute kids. Anyway like Emart, HomePlus had several different levels, which you can get to and from by escalator. But since there are carts just like at Wal-mart (except better because the wheels turn every direction so you can actually push the cart completely sideways), the escalators are ramps, which I find highly entertaining.
And I got new shoes! They're really nice (especially nicer than the flip-flops I've been wearing) and I think they'll be really good on these rainy days. Hopefully they'll dry fast, and I'll definitely stop slipping on all of the brick walkways. Here they are, sitting in the designated shoe area of the room, since it's customary for Koreans to leave their outside shoes off the inside floor. They cost me less than W20,000 ($2o), and for good LA Gear shoes, I figured that was a good deal. I had to get one of the men's sizes, though... apparently my American feet are bigger than those of your typical Korean girl. Go figure.

Anyway, I also rode the Daegu subway for the first time to get there, so that was exciting. It's a really nice, really clean system, which was a nice alternative to the New York subway system that I experienced this summer. It costs W1,100 for a one way trip, but once I get my student ID from Keimyung, that also works as a transportation card, so I can put money on that and maybe it will be even cheaper. I guess I'll find out.
There is a back way from campus to a subway stop, and since our dorm is at the back of campus, it's MUCH easier and a much shorter distance to trek that way instead of going all the way to one of the gates. I took a few pictures back there, too, since it was a side of Daegu I hadn't seen yet.
There's a "hair shop" back there, and a church.

And apparently this is someone's house... I'm extremely jealous. I want a house like that, although in a better location than the back streets of Daegu.
And then here's the little road that leads up to the (long) set of stairs that leads back up the hill to the school. Woo! I'm so tired now, though... Hopefully tonight I'll sleep well!

Second day of classes...

2007-08-29T00:36:00.001-07:00

My schedule isn't too bad, I'd say. On most days, I only have class in the morning. On Monday I have two hours of class from 4-6, and on Friday I have one from 1-2. Other than that, though, I only have either one or two classes each day in the morning, so I'm free by 11 some days and 1 on others. I have the same teacher for two classes who is from Great Britain, so his English is fine. The rest of my professors, though, are Korean... I met my Korean Language and Taekwondo instructor today. The Language teacher - Ms. Yoon - seems to be pretty easy to understand, although her English isn't perfect and sometimes she uses very strange phrases.

My taekwondo instructor, however... well... she speaks NO English whatsoever, so that was definitely interesting. There were a few students who spoke Korean and a bit of English who were able to translate the basic gist of what she was saying for us, which was nice. Even though none of us had particularly work-out friendly clothes on today, we started learning the basics of class, like the stretches and stances and how to make a proper fist (which I already knew, so thanks, James, for that :) ). When we stretch, if we don't stretch as far as the instructor (I wish I knew her name...) wants us to, she goes around and pushes and pulls on people to make them stretch farther. It hurts... but apparently it works.

Angela determined that eating in the cafeterias on campus was like being in prison because the trays, cups, spoons, and even the chopsticks are all made of metal. I have come to realize that if you get hungry enough, even something as plain as steamed white rice can taste really good, especially when the alternative is kimchi. Our meat this evening was pork, which wasn't too bad. Meals on campus, though, are definitely not something I look forward to...

Tonight, too, we had our first Korean art class, which was a lot of fun. And the fact that it takes place in the traditional village just makes it SO much more awesome.

The topic for this class was "Korean Traditional Drawing Art," so I didn't have very high hopes for it since I'm not an artist by ANY means. The man teaching the class was really nice, though, and since he only spoke Korean, Mr. Lee (the head of the international office) was there to translate. The man leading the class said he had done this kind of art for 30 years, and he pointed out that that was longer than any of us had even been alive.
Each picture has a very specific technique that is to be used to draw it. He taught us the first four strokes of the grassy-like plant. We each had plenty of paper to practice with, and after we'd been doing it for awhile, he said that there was going to be a contest for the best picture. So as we all started perfecting our masterpieces, he walked around the room to observe our techniques and such.

To my utter shock, mine was the first he picked to tape up on the wall. I thought it wasn't very good because I had too much ink in my brush at first and left blotches at the bottom, but when he was evaluating each individual piece at the end of the class, he said that my third stroke had a perfect curve. Aw. I'm so proud. =)That's his example work on the left, with each of the strokes numbered. That's my blotchy one on the right...

Once everyone was finished and had their work he picked out hanging on the wall, he started the official judging. Jennifer, an exchange student from Tennessee, was voted first, and mine was second! Ah! I did NOT see that coming! As a prize, he gave me the art he'd done of the cherry blossom, which was my favorite anyway, so I'm excited.That's Chinese written down the left side, but he never said what it means. I think it's probably just the name of the flower, but it looks really neat.

Evaluating the artwork.

All of us together with our lovely Korean art. ...and some not-so-traditional pictures, like Jonathan's beautiful onion and Nikolai's adorable house. :)

We're continuing the same lesson next week, although this time the instructor will be bringing some kind of Korean alcohol for us. Mr. Lee said that it's like soju, only thicker like milk. And the instructor said that it was because having alcohol in your system apparently makes a person paint better. Ha! We'll see...

Pictures!!

2007-08-28T06:21:00.000-07:00

My internet in my room is finally working!!! It's a huge relief, and now I can even get all of my pictures uploaded! Yay! You can click on them to make them bigger, and don't forget that you can leave messages at the end of the posts if you want to. =) Yay again! And since a blog isn't the most ideal place to organize a bunch of photos, I'll put the highlights here. If you want the full effect, I put up an album (<---- Click there!) of all of them, which you shouldn't have any problems seeing. If you do, let me know... (By the way, tomorrow's schedule: Korean Language and Taekwondo!)

My room! Yes, my bed is on the floor. It consists of a 1", maybe 1.5" thick foam-ish pad and two blankets. ...and two pillows and George. =)

Ju-youn (my buddy student) and me at the international students' party. A lot of Koreans give themselves English names so its easier for us to remember. Hers is "Ally," but she pronounces it more like "Ellie."

Su-hyun wearing the Texas t-shirt I gave her while showcasing her lunch. I don't remember what it's called...

Angela, an exchange student from Germany, and me at Mr. Pizza. Koreans seem to share everything, so at that lunch there were just two drinks - one for Angela and I and one for Su-hyun and her friend.

The view of Seongseo from the highest point on campus - Adams Chapel. Su-hyun took Angela and I up here at night, and the city looks amazing when it's all lit up. Unfortunately, none of the pictures I took turned out as anything more than colorful blurs. =( Seongseo, by the way, is the name of the area of Daegu that the Keimyung campus is on. All of Daegu is much, much larger.

2007-08-25T01:21:00.000-07:00

I got another chance to get online for awhile, so I thought I'd start explaining how things have gone today, at least, while I can.

The night didn't go so well... there's no air conditioning in the dorms right now since it isn't officially open yet, so it was very hot even with the window open. I ended up closing the window partway throught the night, though, because it opens to a wooded area where there are lots of nighttime sounds. Bugs, I assume. =) I got up at around 7am here to wander around campus and see if I could find any sign of wireless internet or a phone I could use. I did manage to find the phone, so I was able to call home and James, which made me feel a lot better. Not being able to communicate is extremely frustrating.

After I walked back to the dorm - which is an adventure in itself because of how hot it is and how many steep hills there are - I finally did manage to fall asleep for awhile after just lying around for a couple hours. Su-hyun came to meet me at 1, though, so I was awake again by then to meet her downstairs in the dorm. She took us - me and a German girl staying here too - around campus to see a few main points, and then we went to the only open cafeteria, which serves only Korean food. Su-hyun knows that spicey food isn't my favorite, so she ordered me a meal which came with bulgogi, rice, kimchi, and seaweed soup and only cost W2,000.

After that, we ventured off the campus property - across the street from the school's east gate where she took us to a coffee shop that also served ice cream. There she bought us a big dish of something I don't know the name of, but which tasted good anyway. It was a mixture of crushed ice, sliced fruit (watermelon, kiwi, mango, banana...), and bean sherbet (surprisingly sweet...) topped with a tower of vanilla soft-serve and mixed with a bit of milk to make it more soupy when mixed together. It's so hot here, though, and I knew we still had a lot of walking to do, so I didn't eat much.

When we left, we went to the PC bang where I wrote my last entry. I thought it was going to cost W6,000 for the hour we spent there, but it was only W600. Much better! Our next destination was E-mart, which we got to by taxi - thank goodness. It's a huge store with several floors, each one containing a different theme of product, I guess you could say. The bottom floor was groceries, the second was like a department store - clothing and make-up counters, and the third was like a Wal-mart. I bought a few things there that I didn't bring with me - like an alarm clock - so now I feel slightly more prepared.

Everything's in Korean...

2007-08-24T23:30:00.000-07:00

So I hope this post turns out okay, because I'm not sure which button to click on to post it...

ANYway! I know a lot of people are wondering what in the world happened to me after I got on the plane for Korea, and if you haven't been in contact with my mom, here's the story.

The plan was to get online at the airport in Seoul after my 14 hour flight and email everyone letting them know I was safe. The plan failed, however, when I was unable to correctly download or install or something... (I'm not even sure) ...the right program to use to connect to the public WiFi. I managed to find a phone card and an international pay phone, though, so I was able to call my (worried) mother at around 2AM-ish her time to let her know.

I should have my own internet in my room on Monday, so I will have much more time to explain the whole story about my trip and my first few days here. I have pictures, too, which will definitely be put up here as soon as I can.

Right now I'm in the Korean version of an internet cafe (called a PC Bang - "bang" means "room" in Korean). My time is about up, though, so I'll write again when I get internet in my room. I miss everyone very much, and keep me in your prayers!

It's going to be a rocky start...

2007-08-16T23:38:00.000-07:00

...but what's an adventure without some rough patches?

Because I will be arriving early, Na Yeong (the English-speaking coordinator at Keimyung) says:

"You may go through some inconvenience before the evening on 26 of August, which is the official opening day of the House, for residential facilities including hot water and cafeteria are not available to use."

So far on my first few days of Korea, I will not have hot water, internet (or a cell phone, for that matter), food... And because things aren't officially open yet, I'm betting I'll have to make due with the throw blanket and travel pillow that I'm bringing. :) Oh, yeah. I'm excited.

To wrap up my stunning bad-news intro of this post (don't worry, there will be some good stuff too), James has found out that his official document won't work to get his visa. That of course means that he still has half a week to a month or so to wait for his diploma to come to him. After that, it will take three days to get it to Korea. Then it will have to be processed in Korea in order for him to get a 'visa processing number,' at which point more papers will be sent back to him to get to the consulate here in Houston for the final visa processing. Even as soon as he can get all of that to Houston, though, he will still have to wait three days or so for the visa stamp to be put in his passport.

Confusing? Yeah... Annoying? Definitely. While none of this would have been a problem a few years ago, there have been a couple teachers in Korea who have encountered some problems and are now in jail. Their problems? They were uncertified. If I remember correctly what I read about it, one of them had actually forged a diploma. The government has since become stricter on it's policies about foreign teachers.

At this point, it may not even be worth it for him to go over there to teach at all because he'll end up staying until long after I'm gone. We'll see, though. Much praying is ensuing. :)

On a happier note, I have gotten a few emails from the school asking for more information about different things. One of them was t-shirt sizes. Yay! They say they "are preparing a souvenir at the orientation day" (I'm getting used to their sometimes quirky use of English. It's cute.). Another email was inviting the international students to apply to go on a field trip of sorts to "a beautiful willage at the foot of the Mt. Palgong." (No, I'm not kidding... it says "willage.") It will take up most of a Saturday in September, but we'll be able to see and experience a lot of Korean traditional culture, including a wedding and picking some of the apples that Daegu is known for. I plan to take plenty of pictures, so keep watching in September for that.

Other than that, I'm officially within my last week inside the US! The only thing left to do (I hope) is to get the last of my clothes packed as I get laundry done. If anyone has any ideas on things to take on a long trip like this that I might have forgotten or not thought of, I'm totally open to suggestions!

2 week countdown!

2007-08-09T10:24:00.000-07:00

Oh, yes. Two weeks from today, I'll be on a plane headed to the other side of the planet. Am I worried? Only slightly... I hoping it's considered normal for a person to be a little worried about traveling alone into a culture completely different from their own for the first time. I'm sure I'll be okay, though. And I'm prepared!

I have my visa, my Korean Air Skypass, and Korean won to get me started. Don't get too excited about the numbers, though, I'm really not that rich... US$1 is roughly equal to 1000 Korean won, so pictured there is the equivalent of about $26 (don't worry; I have more than that to take with me). The rates are a little low for the US dollar right now, though, so it's actually slightly less than that, but still... it's exciting.

I have been in contact with my "student buddy" from Keimyung. She sounds really nice, and she sent me a picture and everything. Her name is Ju-youn, and she's a 27-year-old tourism management major at Keimyung. She'll be picking me up from the airport when I get there and showing me around Daegu and everything, so I'm really excited about that. I'm hoping she can find me an internet cafe around the school, since I found out that I won't have any internet for the first few days that I'm there. There are a lot of people who are going to be very unhappy (*cough*Mom*cough*) if I don't have any way to let them know that I arrived safely, so that's my best best so far. I asked Ju-youn about cell phones over there, so I'll have to see what she says about that when she writes me back again.

On another note, James is currently sitting in his last class EVER, meaning that he officially graduates on Saturday. Woo!! Unfortunately, he can't get his diploma for 2-6 weeks after that, which is highly annoying since he needs it in order to get his visa so he can teach in Korea. He does have a prospective job, though, and they want him to start teaching on the 30th of August, which would be totally perfect. We're hoping that his official "course completion" document will be enough to get him over there ASAP so he doesn't have to wait for his diploma. Silly UNT. I told him that TLU would have gotten it taken care of for him... =P

Visa Update

2007-07-17T07:38:00.000-07:00

Soooooo.... I'm in Galveston at the moment. Yesterday, we went to Houston and dropped off all of my paperwork to get my student visa for Korea. Yay! It would be ready on Wednesday, but that happens to be a Korean holiday, so we have to wait until Thursday to go pick everything back up.

And when I get home, Jess'll be coming to see me on Saturday! Yay again! She's flying out the next day to Argentina, though, which is totally exciting. I'm glad I still have one more month before I leave, because I'm definitely not ready yet. Then again, if I were leaving next week, I'd probably have all of my stuff together already like she does.

After we pick up my visa, I still have to...

-inventory for packing.
-get a computer cord/power converter that works.
-secure a job for James.
-figure out where I'm staying the first night (since I'm arriving a day before the dorms open).

Carrying Typhoid

2007-05-23T12:03:00.000-07:00

Summer has officially begun, and I'm all vaccinated and ready to go! Our doctor said that I didn't really need most of the vaccinations recommended by the CDC (which, I admit, kind of makes me nervous. What if I get Japanese encephalitis?!). I have had my tetanus shot now, and I'm in the middle of taking typhoid pills which will keep me vaccinated until 2012. Woo!

While at the doctor, by the way, I also found out that I'm not anemic, but I have had mono at some point in my life. Who knew? Also, apparently I need to eat more sugar. Yeah, now everyone wishes they had a doctor like mine. Ha!

Anywho, I'm also in the process of deciding which classes to request at Keimyung. So far, I for sure want to take the Korean Language course, Korean History, Korean Culture (sensing a trend?), and Korean Government and Politics. I can take one more class with those, too, but I can't decide between Gender Issues in Contemporary Korean Society (which will hopefully count as a PoliSci/Ethics-based credit) or a course about the development of Korean economy (which may work as my last Economics credits). I emailed Dr. Walsh (my lovely advisor) about them both, so we'll see what she says soon.

Still to do:
-Buy a plane ticket
-Get my visa
-Get James a job =\

Papers, papers /everywhere/.

2007-04-28T17:01:00.000-07:00

Considering that taking care of paperwork has been quite an adventure all on its own, I have decided that documenting my travels abroad should begin before I even leave the States.

Having been accepted by ISEP into a study abroad program which will send me to South Korea, I am utterly ecstatic. Not even the constant in- and out-flow of paperwork has brought down my anticipation, although it most definitely can be said that it tried. I'd just like to say that if they had told me before I started all of this just how much terrifying work was going to be involved in order to get everything ready to go abroad, I highly doubt I would have done it.

Now that I'm (probably) at least half way done with all of the hard stuff, though, I know that the trip is going to be worth all of this. Ironically enough, I'm not the only one from TLU who will be studying at Keimyung University in Daegu, which is interesting because Charla (the TLU study abroad director) was very excited when I told her it was one of the places I wanted to go; apparently no one from TLU has ever gone before, and now there's two of us going in the same year. Ridiculous.

Jonathan, his name is, and he's actually going for the entire year rather than just a semester. We've been in contact, though, since we didn't even know each other until we found out we were headed to the same school abroad, so it might work out that we're able to fly over there together and everything. He has family near the school, so I may even get to tag along with him to see some of the sights around Daegu.

But I have a few months yet. For now, I just need to sit back and relax until my information packet comes from Keimyung in June. Then the craziness will begin again as I have to apply for a visa, get the plane tickets, and start packing.

Wish me luck!