Bibimbap Taste Test

All of you who know me are well aware at how quickly I will jump at opportunities for free food. I’m a college student, it comes with the territory. Well when I first moved into the I-House they had a signup for a free meal in Gwanghwamun, which is where a famous palace gate is. A group of about 40 splits into two and takes buses over. Now this is my first time on a bus here and two things stick out: One is that it has air conditioning, and the other is that the bus driver drives it as if it were a taxi. A quick, crazy ride to say the least…

We show up at Café Sobahn, a New York bistro-ish kind of place, and were all surprised to find the tables set with surveys and cameras all around. Turns out we were there for a taste test by CJ group (the largest consumer group in Korea) to give them feedback on a new menu. It was not at all what we were expecting, but was nice to be able to sample even more kinds of foods. The place was kind of pricey, they gave each table a bottle of more expensive soju and every participant their own bottle of rice wine so in all we made out with a nice meal that most of us would never have been willing to pay for.



The kind of weird part was that they had staff taking pictures and shooting video the entire time. This means that quite a few times I had pictures/video being taken of me mid-chew. At one point they started asking us to pose for shots. A favorite seemed to be of us taking a huge spoonful of rice and sticking it in our mouths and then thumbs-uping while chewing. It was kind of hilarious to see other people do it, and who knows one day there might be ad campaigns with random people from the group.

After dinner two of my friends and I decided to walk around a bit more down in that part of the city. There is supposed to be a really famous man made lake, but we obviously didn’t walk the right way to find it. What we did find were hundreds of policemen in riot gear. The streets were lined with police buses, with some of the officers sitting on the ground and some standing to make a corridor with shields up. One of them waved and said hello to me, but I still couldn’t help feel a bit uneasy. I think maybe they were just training, but we never did find out for sure. Needless to say we took a different path to the metro back home.

Hongdae Clubnight

Hongdae is the area around Hongik University, and known for its nightlife. On the last Friday of each month there is Clubnight where you pay about $20 for a wristband that gets you into all the clubs. In Korea you also tend to get a drink with cover, a nice departure from America where the admission price only gets you in the door. Things here also stay open later, with the expectation being that if you are going out clubbing that you aren’t likely to leave until 5 am.

My mentors group met at 8pm and split cabs over to a restaurant in Hongdae. We took over most of a side room for drinks before heading to the clubs. Our group fluctuated between 8-15 people, so at the end seats around the table got extremely tight. Drinking culture here is rather different, very communal. At restaurants you tend to order pitchers and it is customary to always fill the glasses of others, never your own. In the span of 3 hours we went through 4 huge pitchers of beer (double sized American ones), at least 5 pitchers of fruit flavored soju and 4 bottles of regular soju. This combined with a couple of huge platters of food ended up costing each of us less than $10.


We first went to a hip hop club with multiple floors. It was soo packed that our group got separated after we went down to the main dance floor. It wasn’t really a dance floor, but more of a mosh pit. I didn’t really find it all that enjoyable since you spent more time being pushed around than anything. The extra fun part was that I was with one other girl, neither of us spoke any Korean, and we were separated from the guy who had the locker key where our purses were. Finally we went to another club where it was much less crowded. We ended the night at M2, a famous club that had electronica music. By this point my ears were definitely gone. Before heading home we found a random place to get food and then split cabs back to campus around 6:30 am.

Linfield In Seoul

I finally got to know one of the coolest people who goes to Linfield, and go figure that wouldn’t happen until I was in Seoul. Bona lives about 45 minutes from Yonsei and was kind enough to meet my friends and I to show us where some shopping places were. We both spent about a half hour panicked, trying to find the other but miraculously did. This whole not having a cell phone thing is rather inconvenient and I can’t wait to correct the problem.


We went over to the Ewha Women’s University stop for lunch and ate at a place called School Food. It serves the kind of snacks that kids here get, sort of like a Korean Mighty Kids Meal if you will. Mine was Tteokbokki, a sweet version of the popular spicy street food and was practically a dessert. We found Hi Seoul, which is essentially the dollar store of Korea and then located the Grand Market grocery store at our Sinchon stop. I definitely feel a lot better know that I know where to buy those random things that at home I just would have gone to Target to get.


Bona had never been on campus so she came back with us and got to see the I-House. She gave me a great way to put the distance of where the dorm is in relation to the subway station. For everyone in Mac imagine walking from campus to Walmart and then back to Muchas. I make that walk atleast 2 or 3 times a day. Throw in the fact that there are many hills and no real flat surfaces anywhere, and you can see why I consider this now to be my “Stairmaster Abroad”.

After campus we went back out, and on the way to the station I pointed out food places and asked her if they were safe to eat at. I did get a kick that one of them she nixed was a popular one that people have been going to a lot lately. Its popular because everything is less than $5, but I did hear today of the first case of food poisoning. Get what you pay for sometimes I guess. It was great to be able to ask all of my random questions to someone who could understand me and wasn’t offended.

We headed out to a shopping district in Myug Dong where there is this HUGE Forever 21 and a random vintage place called Aland. Aland is pretty cool because it supports local artists and has a top floor that is basically like a nicely organized Goodwill. It was a crackup to see t-shirts from the US and a large section of flannel shirts. No joke it was like 1994 Seattle threw up in there.


Afterwards we went to Dongdaemun where the Number 1 National treasure is. The Seoul Jeunginjimun Gate is there, the famous one that a pissed off drunk homeless man burned down last years. There is also a man made river walk and just an amazing skyline. It is easy to see why this is one of her favorite places in Seoul.

Cultural Assumptions and Mentor’s Club

Today was spent mostly taking care of things on campus. Having a Mac I had to go to someplace on main campus to get my wireless hooked up. Good news is that instead of having to get a new password every month like the PC kids do, I am set up through the semester. Bad news is that I ended up having to carry my laptop around for most of the afternoon while we did some shopping.

The bookstore here is heaven for nerds who love school supplies like me. There were soo many notebooks and pens to choose from! Luckily I was with another fellow nerd who didn’t mind spending lots of time trying to pick out just the right one. The most important buy was an alarm clock. Usually I just use my cellphone, but I don’t want to keep charging it just for that. I found a dandy one that lights up like the Water Cube for less than $4. It is obnoxious sounding as all get out, but I guess that’s the point.

On the way back we looped around the outside of the campus to try to find a place for lunch and a grocery store and the bakery I had been wanting to try. I bought breakfast for the next two days for about $2.50. One of them turned out to have the red bean paste on the inside of a sugary-ish doughnut thing, sort of the best thing ever. We saw a sign for a 6,000W lunch that included dessert right near the East entrance so decided there for lunch.


The thing I’ve noticed so far is that the sign may say one price, but you get inside and it is definitely a higher one being charged. And not really having the language skills to ask about it yet, I kind of just go with it. The place was really nice though, the chairs were these very comfortable couches and it had a nice view. We were all enjoying the music and laughing at how they only brought our Asian looking friend chopsticks when they turned on some English pop. Cute that they wanted to make us feel more at home and all, but we were def enjoying things as they were. Oh well, the place did have a killer kimchi fried rice.

I had to leave lunch early because there was a Mentor’s Club meeting where I was supposed to meet my Yonsei student. Naturally there would be a torrential downpour as I was trying to run across campus. Thank god I stopped off at my dorm and grabbed a rain jacket though, otherwise I would have spent the rest of the day see through and all around rather unhappy. Finally make it to the meeting, and as it turns out we are going out to dinner. Good news is that the place was a really good, inexpensive Chinese place nearby (which I have been dying to find). It was a lot of fun though because this was the first time that a large number of students had the opportunity to get together.



After dinner we went to the Heidelburg House and took over the top floor with all of the groups. Pretty soon thereafter out came these HUGE insulated pitchers of beer. Now I’m no conneseuir, but I will say that Korean beer leaves much to be desired. On draft Cass tastes like PBR in a can. It is weak enough to taste practically like water, so even I could bare to drink it.

Drinking here is a rather big part of the student culture. There are many games that involve a lot of shouting and high levels of consumption. It was kind of funny to look around the room and see the different toasts and games being played from all over the world. Our group ended up playing Titanic, where you put a shot glass in a mostly full glass of beer and pour soju in. The person who sinks the glass gets the joy of drinking it. Just my luck I sunk the 3rd round, and had to drink a rather terrible mix of two of my favorite things! Somehow though, the mixture made both taste better.

After stopping at the I-House to change really quick a bunch of us headed back out to Sinchon for the night. We ended up running into our Mentors again and meeting more people. Fun fact: A bottle of Jack Daniel’s costs $80 at a bar here (where we were didn’t sell by the drink). I did find out that there are duty free shops foreigners can shop at and buy it for $25, much more in line with what I would pay at home.

Day One

They say when you travel abroad you need to have a sense of humor, be adventurous, and be extremely flexible. Well I will add to that an extreme sense of patience, the ability to take life as it comes, and not judging your experiences by how things would go at home. Believe me, if I had come to Korea with any real expectations of how things would go then I would spend more time comparing it to life in the US (and perhaps even bemoaning the fact that so much of it is completely different).

Best example of this is our transition to life in Korea. There was supposed to be an Orientation, but it was cancelled because of Swine Flu. This has left us without any real direction or the chance to meet that many people (especially since you can be expelled from the dorms if you are caught in the opposite sex’s wing). There has been soo much conflicting information: You need to get an Alien Registration Card to be able to get a bank account and a cellphone. Truth of the matter: You can open an account with just your passport and if you are only buying a pre-paid cell (which most of us are interested in) then a passport will do as well. Main issue: Being told the first part my group went out first thing on Monday to get register, where they take your passport for atleast 10 days. Result: I’m kinda screwed until I pick up my card. Oh well, luckily I brought a decent amount of Won with me.

Further fun on the registration thing: To get to the office we had to take the subway for the first time. This involved finding a place to get a refillable T-Money card, which we only managed thanks to the kindness of some stranger who took us from the metro to a nearby cart that sold them. So we finally make it to the Immigration Office and it is basically like a Korean style DMV from hell. About 2.5 hours after taking a number I got up to the desk and find out that the 10,000W fee is to be paid by buying a stamp from downstairs (something we think might have been covered in orientation…). Luckily the lady let me sprint downstairs and buy one instead of making me wait in line again.

After resting for a bit we decided to go out for a late dinner and to try to stay out as late as possible to get over the time difference. The finding of restaurants is basically trial and error, and we spent a good half hour or so just looking for the main street where they are. Everything looks the same at first, and if you can’t read the signs/most say the same things then you can imagine how difficult it might be to navigate (thank god for the huge hospital I use as a landmark on my way home). So we finally choose a place where there are a lot of Koreans who seem to be enjoying their meal. They bring us a menu and we point at what we thought would be a small bowl of things to grill. Not so much. Turns out it was bim bim bap (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap). There was a chilli sauce to mix into a bowl of salad and hot rice. What tripped me up was that on top was a raw egg over strips of raw meat. Not gonna lie, I had a cultural moment of fear wondering how my stomach would handle what seemed to be impeding salmonella. Some how I didn't get sick.



Just as we are finishing eating a guy comes in and asks us if he and his friend can come and talk to us. We said sure, and another adventure ensued. It started off very friendly, they being all excited to practice their English with three girls, one of whom “looked like” a singer in 2NE1, the band with the number one single in Korea right now (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve-Z3RBR_84). This would of course turn into them hitting on us, wanting to know if we liked men because they wanted to play matchmakers for us. One of the girls (the one with a boyfriend, naturally) had it the worst. Let’s just say the guy sitting next to her offered to fight for her hand and propositioned her quite openly. I knew there was a common perception that American women were loose, but my god I had no idea how bad it is…So we definitely ran away as soon as possible, which is much more difficult to do if you are five stories high.

The Adventure Begins

Overall, the airline portion of the trip was rather uneventful. I met up with the three girls in San Francisco, and found four other people on our flight who were also heading to Yonsei. The 12.5 hour flight went surprisingly fast, but then again I guess that's what happens when you catch up on over a weeks worth of sleep in one shot. I did attempt to learn the alphabet, but only got through about half of it in between all the eating and napping.

I love traveling overseas and comparing the airline food from one destination to the next, especially if it's on a single airline (in this case United). Granted, airline food isn't all that appetizing, but it is interesting to see how they botch the different ethnic cuisines. When I flew to China last year they eased us in, with the first meal being of an American variety and not serving ramen and the like until after we hit the international dateline. Not this time, it was Asian food the whole way. The ramen definitely topped the "chicken curry", and I was extremely impressed with the chicken and noodle dish before landing. I must say, it is soo much more enjoyable to sip on a cup of brewed green tea instead of the Lipton's variety you get in intercontinental travel.


Funny note on my seatmate. She was a Jehovah's witness who was going to Korea for an international conference. At one point she pulled out a Watchtower magazine and starting reading this article called "Sharing Truth With Your Neighbor". I was worried she was going to try to put some of the tips into practice, but I can thankfully say I made the entire trek without being proselytized to.

On my way over I finally did have those moments o f "wow, I'm really doing this...", but it truly wasn't until my crazy adventure of getting to campus that it really sunk in. I had signed up for a shuttle service through the international club, thinking that when they said it would be students escorting us on a shuttle bus from the airport that it would be point a to point b. Not quite...


It turns out that the "shuttle bus" we took was an airport limousine where they stow your luggage underneath the bus (my biggest worry about transporting myself to school was of schlepping the bags). Well there were 4 of us Americas, 3 Korean guys (only one of whom spoke that much English) and a lot of baggage. It took us 3 tries to get onto the bus, and the first one involved a VERY angry bus driver who kept yelling at us. Cultural lesson for everyone dealing with non-native speakers: Increasing your volume will in NO way make someone who doesn't speak your language understand you.

All is well until we get in Sinchon (I think...) where we were to take taxis. Problem was that with all the bags it was not possible to fit 2 girls with one guy in the cab. This meant that someone would have to go by themselves. I volunteered, thinking that if the guy told the driver where to go it would be no big deal. Apparently the International House where we are staying is not a well known destination. What ended up happening is that I got in a cab and was told to find the "boy in pink" who would be waiting for me somewhere near the entrance of Yonsei, where he would get in the cab and direct the driver the rest of the way. At this point I had lost a bit of faith in the plan, but there wasn't really another option. Somehow it worked though, and I finally made it to the right place. Bear in mind that I paid $50 for this grueling experience, and was less than thrilled to find out that the other students we had met on the plane had made it just fine (before us) for only $10 on their own. What an experience though!

After checking in (and having my bags carried upstairs by one of the pickup guys, worth the cost of the ordeal in and of itself...), I found my way to my "quaint" room for the next semester. Truthfully, I was surprised with the amount of close space, and have moved in fine. The bedding set is kind of interesting-who knew I would be supplied with an official "Yonsei University" embroidered duvet set. I slept on top of that last night, partially because it is rather hot and humid here, but mostly because the mattress itself is basically a rock slab with a slight spring. Goal for today is definitely to find something to make the sleeping experience more enjoyable.

A group of us did go out to eat last night. We found an all you can eat meat grill type of place (I'll find the official term for this later...). It was around $7 for that, but kind of a waste since most of us were too tired to really eat. Good to know its there, but will definitely be waiting until I have more of an appetite to go back. The restaurant was about a 15 minute walk from campus, and the entire way there was when it start to hit me that I was indeed in Korea. Right now it is a bit intimidating, not being able to read anything or understand anyone really. Yes there are people who speak English, but well from what I have experienced so far it is really more of an Engrish that is challenging to understand. I know things will get better though, and am looking forward when I can walk down the same street and at least able to read, if not understand, all of the signs.

The Journey of a Thousand Miles...

Begins with a bunch of boxes, that neatly fit into a 5x5 storage unit no less.


I've been saying for over a year now that I would be spending my final fall semester away from campus, but no matter how many times I said it out loud it never really sunk in. Well, after moving out of my Reds apartment and packing my life into storage it has become a little bit more real. I have now thrown the rest of my stuff into two suit cases, left campus, and am hours away from heading to PDX to begin the miles intensive portion of my journey. Truthfully, it still hasn't sunk in yet. Chances are it won't until I'm landing in Seoul.

I'll be flying to San Francisco at 7am tomorrow, where I will have a 5 hour layover before my direct flight to Seoul. I found out that there are 3 other girls on my flight that will be taking the same shuttle to Yonsei's campus. We've emailed back and forth, and will be meeting up before boarding. Luckily my school booked through United, so the perks of my Premier status is that I upgrade to Economy Plus for the 12.5 hour flight.

I'll be spending the semester studying at Yonsei University, living on campus at the International House. I was planning on taking International Political Economy, East Asian International Relations, Politics of North/South Korea, and Korean Language. The registration process was...challenging to say the least, and I only was able to get into the last two classes. I'm hoping to be able to get signed into some classes, but if not I might enter into intensive language classes. No matter what I end up taking, I know it will be an amazing experience.

More than anything I am looking forward to the opportunity to spend a full semester away from campus, immersed in another culture. I hope to post pretty regularly to keep everyone updated on my travels and the progress of my "necessary character development"* over the semester.

*Special thanks to Abby for the inspiration behind the title*