This is a messy, crazy, unorganized account of my time here thus far.
The first day you will arrive and you won't have much free time. You have to figure out your way to the school. For me this was a shuttle bus from Incheon Airport to Ehwa. Yes, I am studying at Yonsei, but if you take the Ehwa exit you can easily enter through the West Gate which is so much closer to the dorms! There is a bit of a hill, but it is nothing compared to the trip through the Main Gate with all your bags (don't do it!).
When they announce your stop (which they will do first in Korean and then in English) there is a button above your seat to press to stop the bus. After that it's two blocks and then one huge hill to get to SK Global (or, if you are less fortunate, International House). If you are most people you likely go out and explore! If you are a sane person you sleep after 2 straight days without!
The next day is full of orientations. No really. It was full. We started at 10am, broke between 12 and 2pm for lunch (where I ordered in Korean not once, but twice. The woman laughed at me, but I guess it was good enough because I got my correct order). Afterwards you return to orientation.
At this part of the program they discussed the different tours you can go on. MAKE SURE YOU BRING MONEY TO ORIENTATION!!! You have to pay right away for the tours that range from 5,000-30,000 won each and there is only space for about 50 people per tour and there were about 700 study abroad students. This orientation goes until 5pm! Afterwards, you are given the opportunity to buy your spots on the trips (this will be done in a mob, not in a line, and those from parts of the world who are good at pushing will be before you no matter how early you are! I am from the Pacific Northwest and we lack this skill. I couldn't, but if you can stomach it, be pushy because everyone else will) followed by an optional campus tour. I recommend the tour. Our tour guide did not speak English, but read something I couldn't understand from a piece of paper. Bring your mini map they give you at orientation and just keep on eye on which building is which so that you will be more familiar.
But oh wait, there is Mentor's Club afterwards.
Note: Mentor's club will keep you out until at the very least 2am this day. However, it is very, VERY worth it!
They talk to you about Mentor's club, break you up into groups, teach you how to cheer at Yon-Ko Jeon (which deserves more space than a paragraph and I will speak on later). At 7 they take you to food. Nervous to order? Fear not! They have already done so for you! Need something specific? Too bad! Sit down, shut up, and stare awkwardly at the chicken that they have placed in front of you.
After this there is "Welcome Night" or "Buddy Night". The choice of names is based on whether or not you were in the Mentor's club (hundreds of us were), which makes you not just an exchange student, but a buddy!
This is not your everyday orientation. The mentors at my other schools had a strict code of conduct that would not have allowed for this night to happen. We went to Barfly (a bar that plays American music) and for 5,000 won got a shot and a cocktail, though for 10,000 you could have gotten a shot and three cocktails. This will likely not be necessary, and I will explain why momentarily
Kabang is bag in Korean. When they yell that at you it means you can't go to the dance floor with your backpack and you will be forced to check it. It turns out that it was free that night to do the bag check, but that wasn't my only deterrent. Being paranoid, I had brought about 100,000 won with me that day. Though I had been bleed pretty dry by the events of the day (10,000 for a t-shirt, 30,000 for a tour, 3,000 for lunch, 10,000 for chicken I didn't eat, and 5,000 to get into barfly), I still didn't want to check my money. I don't trust people in the States to check my coat, so why I am expected to trust someone with my backpack which held all of my money, my SK Global cardkey, my new student ID, important paperwork, and my passport?
But I did. And everything was fine.
Next was 4 hours of dancing. "No way!" you may say, "There's no way these people from all different time zones were energetic enough to dance for 4 hours. Apparently we were. After the first hour or so, our mentors took the mics and announced there would be a dancing contest. A pole-dancing contest. The winners would be awarded a bottle of jager. My group looked at each other. They must have misspoke. That's fine, English isn't their first language.
Four winners were chosen! Four bottles of jager were passed out. This spurred the idea of people buying their own bottles. If I won a bottle of liquor, that would simply ensure my friends and I would drink A LOT! But these people used it as an opportunity to become incredibly popular, passing their bottles around whenever they entered a new dancing group. I certainly did not need more than my 5,000 won's worth of drinks.
Eventually we dragged ourselves back to the dorms. We left "early" around 2am, and three of us found our way back to the dorms, using Severance Hospital as our north star!
The first two days were a stark contrast to my third. My agenda was empty. I had a ton of time to miss home and my wonderful family and friends. I missed people smiling and making small talk. All of the gawking on the streets bore into me, but I would turn and expertly the Koreans would have already looked away. I embarrassed myself at the vegan restaurant by coming in early as I didn't have a watch and had to clue what time it was. When I tried to leave I pulled desperately on the door for a good ten seconds before I was informed that it was a button. "Kamsahabnida..." I said as I ducked out.
I spent the rest of the day nursing my pride and too scared to leave the dorm building.
If you are studying abroad, keep yourself busy. There is too much opportunity to start getting homesick, yes this early. I spent most of my second day feeling bad for myself, wondering why I had come. I didn't speak the language. I could have easily traversed the same scenario had I been in Japan! It wasn't until the end of the day that I started my list of "Phrases to make tomorrow better!" and made a list of things I wanted to accomplish for the next couple days.
I miss home already, but I know that this will get better, and it will get easier.
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