Day 1 (Yesterday)

Sorry I couldn't post sooner, I haven't been able to hook up the internet in my room yet! Anyways, here is an update on yesterday. It was a busy day so this might be a bit of a long post. :)

Moving into CJ House
This was the first thing we did yesterday. CJ House is the residence for international students and is supposed to be "hotel style".  The first floor is the lobby and cafeteria, second is workout room, third and fourth is boys rooms, fifth and sixth is girls rooms, and the basement is laundry and piano rooms.  I am room number 522D and I share my room with 3 other people. But so far there are only two other people here.

Here is the floor plan of the fifth floor. In room 522, my bedroom is of the left-most side. There is also a kitchenette down the hall I will be able to use.

Swiping my keycard to get into my room (See mom? It's very safe)

Common space in my room

Hallway to my room. I share the sink, shower and toilet with one other person. There is another hallway like this on the  other side of the common room for the other 2 girls.

My room! It feels bigger than what I expected. Notice the thermostat on the left... lol I forgot to turn it on last night and woke up in the middle of the night freezing!

Lot's of closet space! There is also more pull out drawers under my bed.

Desk and side cupboard (that has a built in lock)

One of my roommate is Nana and she is from Milan! She has been here since September and can speak Italian, English, Korean and is learning Japanese. She is very nice and bought my some laundry detergent. :) My other roomie is Mizuki and she is from Japan. She seems very nice also but I haven't had the chance to talk to her much yet. I'm guessing the other girl will be coming soon.

There is a convenience store called GS25 (they are everywhere here!) about a 2 minute walk down a hill where I was able to buy hangers, toilet paper, hand soap, bread and peanut butter (yum!). There is also other sort of snack or cereal I can buy there. 

If you walk further down the hill (about 5-10 minutes) you get to a main road where there is a subway station and LOTS of coffee shops. 

When you have to walk back up the hill it takes about 20 minutes though because it is so steep. I will have buns of steel when I get home from going up and down this hill all the time!

KUBA (Korea University Buddy Assistance)

In the afternoon I met up with my KUBA buddy Cecilia. She is a student here at KU and will be helping me and 3 other people during orientation. We are all part of another larger group (group 1) which gets together to go out on weekends!

Cecilia is Korea but she was born in Holland (Tyler: I know you guess that one of my roommates would be Dutch, but this is pretty close!). Her dad's job moved around a lot so she has lived in Norway,     Thailand, and Sri Lanka (and also many places in Seoul). Right now she lives in Gangnam which is pretty cool.

Dinner With Michelle
Which also meant taking the subway for the first time! To pay for the subway you can use cash or you can buy a T-Money card from a GS25 store or 7-11. If you are staying in Seoul for a while it is better to use a T-Money card because the fares are a little bit cheaper. It costs 5000 won (about $5) up front but is reloadable. You can also use these cards for the bus, some taxis, and payphones.

This is my T-Money card

In total it took us about 15 stops with one transfer to get meet up with her (took about 30 mins). The closest station to me is Anam station on line 6 (orangey/brown) and Michelle is by Sinchon station on line 2 (green circle).

Subway map

For dinner Michelle took us to a really great Indian food place. It was delicious :) So I did not have any kimchi today, but I did have 4 cups of tea :)

So day one was a success! Hopefully I can take some more pictures of the buildings around my area.

Bonus picture of this Lacoste rip off store. (This is the one I was telling you about Bronnie!)