Pictures!

Today was orientation day and I met so many people. My roommate came in early this morning because her flight got in at dawn, eek! After the morning orientation, I ate lunch at Omuto Tomato with her (Melody) and two of my other suitemates, Grace and Dianne. It was an omurice(omelette+rice) place and I had a sweet pumpkin puree dish:
Here's me and Melody:

After, we just walked around the Shinchon streets looking at stores and stuff cuz we had a couple of hours until the next orientation. I helped Melody at the bank because she didn't have any Korean money and doesn't speak a word of Korean! There are surprisingly so many people here like that on this program. Seriously, I met so many people today who have no experience whatsoever with the language or the country but just decided to come because they thought it would be fun. Props to them; I didn't even want to study abroad in Japan yet because I was too scared since I only have 2 years under my belt -.-
Oh yea! I couldn't fall asleep last night so I was a freak and stealthily took photos of the place while everyone slept:
Living room:

Cool monitor that's hooked up to a camera that shows who rings the doorbell:

Kitchen:
That little screen is a tv to watch as you cook, and it also shows the front door camera too:


Look! The silver panel opens up to reveal the microwave, and the "cabinets" are actually the fridge doors!

Laundry room:

My bedroom:

The closet area:
The area between the closet area and the bathroom is a little beauty counter thing:

Bathroom:
The shower doubles as a steam room so there's a little sauna chair in there:

The picture doesn't do the bathroom justice because it's huge!

Anyway, walking around school during the day was torture because it was so hot and the damn campus is huge and hilly. Shinchon was so hectic and crowded too! It's a college town area so it's packed with stores and restaurants for young people. After the afternoon orientation, EAP hosted a dinner for us at On the Border, a mexican restaurant. Kinda funny- you would think they would take us to Korean food. But it was pretty good. I didn't eat that much though because I was meeting my cousin after and I knew we were probably going to eat since what else do you do when you meet up with people just to hang out? Anyway, during dinner I talked to some guys from UCR who found out when they got here that they are on the waiting list for housing and have been sleeping in random places every night. How sad! And they don't speak ANY korean! Wow am I lucky.

So after I met up with my second cousin, Noah. He's 22 and graduated from Biola last year and is teaching English at a middle school in Seoul for a year to make money to pay off his loans. He also introduced me to a friend of his named Chris who's a junior at UCI and is also on the EAP program with me. The three of us hung out; we ate Korean fried chicken stuff (mmmmm soo good) and then had Red Mango (it's like Pinkberry) for dessert. While we were walking around Shinchon we saw a tv crew and a huge crowd! But we didn't recognize the people being filmed so it wasn't as exciting ^^;; After, I was gonna take the subway and go home, but Chris said he wanted to see his friends who are staying in the same place as me so we left together. Damn was that a good idea. I ended up leaving my stupid freaking cell phone on the subway and realized it as we were walking out of the station, so we ran back and were calling the phone the whole time. We were looking everywhere just in case I dropped it, since I didn't remember when I last had it. We were about to give up and leave but Chris decided to call one more time, and someone finally picked up!!!!! Some middle aged man said he would wait at his stop and we hopped on the subway and met up with the man. I was so thankful!!!! He waited 30 minutes for us!!! What an angel. I was so glad Chris was there because I would have been so scared. Finally I got home at like 12 instead of 10:30 like I expected hehe. I feel worse for Chris though because he had to only hang out with his friend a little and take a taxi home because he's staying with relatives near campus. I'm seriously so blessed and keep encountering really nice people! It must be a sign for me to do something nice for somebody else.

Here are some old pictures that I finally get to upload!
My little niece, Juri:
With Minshik oppa:


She likes getting her back scratched with that back scratcher.

My dad sending me off at the airport, 1 month ago!

My stopover at Narita airport in Japan:

With my grandma. This is when I first got there and she was still bed-ridden. She can walk around and everything now!


Mom's disgusting bruise from when she slipped as she was getting out of a van and banged into the door:

Me and mom after getting our hair done. You can't see my curls, thank god, because they were atrocious the first week.


At some historical tourist-y place with my mom, aunt, and Saerom unni:

Extremely steep stairs. It was even harder going down! My mom's in the red, climbing her way up using the sides HAHA!

Some cute handcrafts:


I zoomed in on this couple from afar. They're wearing "couple tee's", a common sight all over Korea, which I believe is a fashion no-no.


During the drive we stopped at a beach:


Oops I forgot to take pictures of my cross-stitching accomplishments. I've moved on from cell phone accessories to real stuff now. I'm making a cushion! Man I really need to take more photos.