Day 4 - Orientation II

It's the second day of orientation but it was a pretty short day in school. We reached the central square area at 0835hrs and it was totally empty. It was full of groups of local students drinking, mingling and playing games on the afternoon the day before- looked like they were picnicking! The main building is currently undergoing a facelift as you can tell in the photo. It's funny that they covered the renovation works with a large image to show what the building is supposed to look like. A speaker specifically highlighted this when addressing the auditorium as well.

There are many steep slopes within the school compound and this is just one of them which we had to take in order to reach Incheon Memorial hall. Usually slopes are quite hated but in cold weather I don't mind them as much. There's lots of stairs to climb in train stations too but it serves to provide daily exercise haha.

For day 2 of the orientation programme, we were given instructions on how to fill up a form for a Hana Bank account. Once created, they will issue a credit card which also serves as our KU student card. It will be ready in 3-4 weeks so in the meantime we will have to get a temporary barcode for access to the library and other school facilities.

We had lunch at a different canteen and the food was much better than yesterday's! A ₩5,000 coupon was given and we could pick out various items as long as the total price remained within that amount. And the amount of food we got from spending ₩5,000 left me totally stuffed and with a bunch of leftovers, even.

Returned back to the livingtel after lunch was done as I already had my SIM card/phone done upon arrival. We always walk by this very steep slope (I reckon it's 45 degrees) on our way to and from school and decided to show this to our friends back home. Their reactions were quite funny but it's also lucky that we don't actually have to use this slope to get anywhere so far.

My dinner time was spent with orientation group mates at a chicken & beer restaurant nearby. All orientation groups had a similar activity arranged and this particular restaurant I went to was entirely booked by KUBA. It was my first fried chicken meal in Korea so I was pretty excited to try out the food, since I loveeeee 4Fingers. Apparently 4Fingers is not from Korea itself though, since my korean buddy has never heard of them :/

Instead of chicken wings or drumsticks that we usually get from restaurants back home, we were served deboned chicken chunks. It was still tender on the inside and crisp on the outside. The reddish looking pieces come with a spicy glaze topped with almond bits. Very tasty! The chicken was served alongside rice (regular white rice or purple rice) and huge jugs of beer which resembled a barrel. Soju was available as well. We learnt various drinking games and got to know one another better :)

Here's a shot with those at my table! Most of them continued with the second stop for the night which was a soju place but I didn't join since I don't drink much. 

After the meal, it was back to the livingtel after to enjoy some shows and to retire for the night :}

#bininseoul

It's been too long since I last posted! Am currently in Korea for my final semester of study exchange so I guess there's no better time to get started on blogging again then right now.

It's day 3 today and we had our orientation in Korea University where everyone is split into large groups then sub-groups. Orientation was held in Incheon Memorial Hall and begun early in the morning at 0830hrs. Our school has really nice gothic style buildings but they all look pretty similar so I'm guessing that it won't be easy to find my way around when lessons begin. 

We were brought around the school for a campus tour after introductory talks by several speakers. The campus tour felt more like an opportunity for the entire group to have group photos taken but that's fine with me. There were plenty of chances for us to interact with the KUBA buddies and fellow exchange students while walking about.

Lunch was included and we were provided with a lunch coupon! We only one choice because the other option - Bibimbap (which sounded alot better!) had already ran out since our lunch was the later time slot. The kimbab was courtesy of my KUBA buddy who brought it along in her bag. See the last piece of kimbab which is exceptionally large? She stuffed the entire piece into her mouth after some contemplation about how it could be eaten and it was a comical sight because she spent a good minute or two after that trying to chew it.

After orientation was over, the bunch of us SIM-UOB folks staying at Rachel Livingtel had dinner at a place in Anam area, near our school and livingtel. This restaurant serves only korean army stew (부대찌개 / budae jjigae) and it was really yummy. I love the cheese they added into the soup which gave a deliciously creamy taste. Possibly my favourite meal here so far and very reasonably priced! The serving below was for 4 people and came with rice. It costed about ₩5700 each which is approximately SGD6.

Another long day tomorrow in school for more orientation activities, and more things to get used to before lessons start this Monday. Goodnight!