It's been a long week, but good

Well, last week was quite a week. I had a few tours of the area, completed my orientation, and even received my first school assignment. I still can't shake this feeling of disorientation, which makes it very hard to concentrate and retain information. I've been studying Korean phrases and the alphabet so that I can catch up with all of the other students. Most of the other students here have a background in Korean, and can get by fairly well. It's truly amazing how much more accomplished people are compared to the US. They are well-educated in at least one other language from their native language, and most of them know three or four. My roommate knows Russian, Uzbek, Korean, some Arabic, and English. I'm glad I have this opportunity to see outside of American culture, it will be good for me to push my goals even further.
I captured some great things in media these past few days, I hope you like them.
One interesting thing learned: I've noticed that many other countries are represented here, but Japan is not one of them. There are no Japanese students. My friend Usman explained that after the war between Koreans and Japanese in the last century, their relationship suffered and has not been repaired since. The sensitive nature of this event has kept them from sharing in education and economy, although their cultures are very much tied in many aspects (although I think they resist admitting that).
Koreans are very proud of their culture, and protect it in many ways. The music here is all in Korean, although many of the tunes you hear are American (like Britney Spears and Red Hot Chili Peppers). They don't allow dowloading of music on Limewire, or streaming anything from the US, including television shows (oh no, Gossip Girl will go on without me!). Preservation of their heritage is a main priority. It makes me wonder about how the US will maintain any kind of culture when we allow so much to be changed all the time. The US is crying for Change! Change! Change! and Korea is holding tightly to what it has, and it seems to be much more progressive in many ways. I wonder that the US will be surpassed very soon in the world.
Anyway, enjoy the pictures from these past few days! I hope at least one will make you smile, and brighten your day.





Shopping district, and nightlife, so cool
Um, LMFAO!
Lunch at Sol-Sai Cafe hosted by the school, consisting of an entire chicken in a bowl. The chicken was stuffed with fruits and vegetables, it was ultra-nice. Most of the people I am sitting with are chinese students. About 85% of our student body is Chinese.
Beautiful shot of the cafe and stairwell.
Another picture of my dormitory, Nuri Hall


Traditional market in downtown
Pork dumpling soup, sweet potato, and weird noodle thing. You'll notice the little silver cups in nearly every picture. These cups are in every eating facility, and they are used for drinking water. They are kept in silver cases that I think are supposed to kill bacteria, and you go and get your own cup, and water from the fountain (as seen in one of my videos).
Underground subway market, it stretches for miles in every direction!
Love you all! I'll be visiting the local ginseng festival this Saturday, so I'll have some more cool stuff to see soon. Aneyong haseyo!

Korea - It's Daejeon! And I love it!

Finally, some pictures!! My internet is working now, so I have more time to do this. Here are some really great photos of my journey here…
The enormous plane we took from San Francisco to Incheon airport. It was SO BIG (TWSS). Look at all the seats! And it was really tall, too, and there is a little bit of room to stretch and do some lunges, which I did every hour or so.

I’m glad I asked for the vegetarian. If this is the vegetarian, I don’t even want to think about the other stuff. Customs forms you have to fill out and give to customs and to the police officers if you are declaring anything. The flight attendants hand these out to everyone mid-flight. I did not need to declare anything, but I filled out the forms just the same.

Craig, your company is here too! This was on the bus ride from Seoul to Daejeon, and I just had to get it. It made me think of you!

Somewhat apprehensive. I got a little scared.
Next are some pictures of my Dorm:

And here are some of my university:


Here is a traditional Korean lunch, hosted by the University in one of the local restaurants. The bowl below is called Kimpap. In the center of the table you see Kimchee, sweet potato, and some other little dishes that I wasn't sure about, but it was all delicious.

Apparently they sell people baking toast here. :)
Individually wrapped sushi at the local market

Trying a new hairstyle with my Uzbekistani friend Iroda Usman (Pakistani): An excellent distraction from missing people back home. ;)

This is my friend Shukhrat, he’s very good at speaking Korean, but he’s also from Uzbekistan. He teaches Korean to foreigners He speaks so well that when we ride in a taxi, the driver is surprised when he collects his fee and doesn’t see a Korean person, but a foreigner! He inspires me to become that fluent over the next year, hopefully. He approached me about helping teach English to other foreigners as a part-time job. I am definitely interested!
Above, right - Claudia is my new friend from Indonesia; she’s an amazing person with a really sweet nature. She enjoys cooking, and I’m hoping she teaches me a few things. She showed me that Indonesians like Facebook. Her favorite movie/ book is one of mine, After Sunset and Before Sunset. Something interesting we share…She showed me pictures from her blog, of an entire bus full of people from Indonesia, and explained that there are so many cultures, people have very significantly different physical features but are all Indonesian. She also says it’s like a melting pot, so that there is no culture anymore. If you look at Indonesia on a map, it’s made of many islands, so the differences in characteristics seem to make sense to me. This was the day my roommate finally came (Sunday)! Her name is Lobar, and she’s from Uzbekistan. I think this is a really good thing, because there are so many good-looking Uzbekistani guys here and she can help translate for me when we are hanging out! She’s incredibly friendly and really mischievous, just like me. Today I urged her to haggle for a shirt she wanted, because I read in one of my travel books that bargaining is acceptable. She was so surprised when the saleswoman gave her the shirt for half the price that she kissed me on the cheek! Then we started haggling everywhere we went, including at the amusement park next to the university. They wouldn’t let us ride the roller coaster for free though. Go figure!

This is just a picture of my snack, but look at all the pretty symbols! I have no idea what’s inside. MSG? who knows. High fructose corn syrup? Partially hydrogenated oil? Probably. I’m completely in the dark because of my inability to read Korean. These little cookies are just like those Koala Yummies that I love so much!! For all of you that said I would get skinny here, I highly doubt it. They have just as much junk food here, and if I understand it correctly, no one likes the cafeteria food enough to eat it. I am not surprised. For example, tonight I had a dinner of pizza. Although the Korean version of pizza is a little different from the states. For instance, they do not use marinara sauce. The toppings also consisted of cheese, potato wedges, onions (which I picked off), chicken, pineapple, and corn. Uh, yeah, actually it was really good.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed all of these pictures! The one interesting thing I've learned lately - the rest of the world is behind Obama for president. In fact, everyone here thinks he already is. Apparently the news says so. Isn't it interesting that no one outside of the US knows McCain at all, but everyone knows Obama? I find that very amusing.

I'm going to be adding plenty more pictures, so I hope you stay tuned. Coming up this week, I'll be having my formal school orientation, and we're visiting the shopping district where there is plenty to see. I love you all and miss you so much!!!!!!!

Holy cow - it's Korea!

So now I'm finally here, the place I've been waiting to get to for months. Korea is nothing like I expected...If you can imagine every little detail of your life being swept away and replaced by something foreign, you may begin to understand what things are like over here. It's not the big things that are different, not really (they drive on the same side of the road as Americans, btw). It's all the little things I obviously took for granted. Take, for instance, a trip to the grocery store. Do you know where it is, and how you will get there? I didn't! Do you know if your credit card will work there? And once inside, can you identify what's in all those brightly colored little packages? I've realized I will have to look at the pictures on the packages to see what I'm supposed to do with it. I'm really hoping that bottle of stuff with cute little germs on it is actually a cleaner of some sort. It smells good, anyway. I got all my groceries at the E-mart, not a good idea to walk to from the dorm! It is not close, and it's even worse carrying back groceries in the pouring rain. Luckily a friendly girl with a bike came looking for me and helped me out with my packages. We talked for a little while, mostly laughing because we couldn't really understand each other. I do know that her parents are both doctors, she likes to go running on the track by the river here, and she thinks boys are as stupid as I do. Sounds like a new best friend to me!!!

So, life for me right now is pretty low-key. I don't start school tours and registration until Monday, so I have a little more time left before routine sets in. Since I'm on a coin-operated computer and the meter says I have 7 minutes left, I'll leave you with a few differences I noticed first-off.

Koreans don't have trucks, they have these weird flat-bed things, pictures to come. They sell fish jerky at convenience stores. They eat with metal chopsticks. The E-mart is an equivalent of Wal-Mart, although it's several stories high and has escalators that you can take your cart on with you. Best of all Korea is a beautiful land that offers green landscapes, rivers, city life, and gardens all in the same place. I think I'm going to love it here....