Sungkyunkwan Orientation and After-party

To day was Orientation day for foreign exchange students at Sungkyunkwan University. The lucky few of us studying at the Suwon campus had to make the hour-long journey to Seoul. When the subway ride was over, we completed the short walk to the Seoul campus from the subway station and entered the International Affairs building about 30 minutes late. No worries.

The international affairs director knew that we were on our way so he stalled with an introductory video of which we caught the last few minutes. The orientation took us through mostly all the information we would need to become permanently settled into SKKU. The GSN HI-Club (Global Student Network Help & Information Club) presented information on using the library printing services and different services available around the campuses (health, computers, etc.). After the presentation of information to the exchange students, we went outside to take a quick, group picture and went back inside for a reception. The reception had a wide variety of finger foods to snack on as we exchange students mingled.

I found out quickly enough that I had already met all the exchange students staying in Suwon. The group that I travelled with to the orientation was everyone, twelve of us in total. Everyone else, probably more than one hundred students, were studying at the Humanities and Social Sciences campus in Seoul. I met some nice guys from Holland and Germany, but I may very well not ever see them again just because we are at different campuses. Realizing the possible futility of meeting people studying in Seoul, I went back to talking with the Suwon students and members of HI-Club. All of the HI-Club members speak English very well, by the way, and they are very helpful.

After the reception, the few of us that said we were still a little hungry went out to get a meal before the after-party scheduled at 20:00. We went to a restaurant near the Seoul campus that exclusively served 부대볶음 (if I remember correctly). Budaebokgum was a mix of bean sprouts and cabbage with bacon and sliced hotdog thrown into a kind of shallow stew. Eat that with some rice, and you have yourself a solid college meal. After eating, we went to a nearby dormitory to kill a couple hours before the after-party.

We arrived at I-house, one of the Seoul campus dormitories. Killing time commenced. We chit-chatted and met some new people. Good times happened. Come 19:40, we left I-house and went toward the bar  in which the party would be held. HI-Club charged everyone a ₩10,000 entry fee. This money, as far as I know, payed for all the alcohol you could drink. [I never payed a dime outside of the entry fee.] Huge pitchers of beer hit the table, and the party began.

For the most part, students from the same parts of the world seemed to stick together. Germans with Germans. French with French. Americans with Americans. After a bit of drinking more people started wandering from table to table to meet new people. One of the highlights of my night was being introduced to a couple of Japanese girls who spoke Japanese, Korean, and a little bit of English, enough to help me out. We enjoyed a friendly conversation of "what are you studying?" and "what do you want to do?" My Japanese is much worse than my Korean, so when I tried speaking Japanese, Korean vocabulary would sneak in, and I would confuse myself. It was very good practice though, as I was almost completely barred from using English. Almost every time I tried to resort to english one of us had to pull out a dictionary, because the language was simply not understood. I had to mix and match my Japanese and Korean vocabulary to express myself. One of the more complex topics of our conversation was the word "practice." The girls didn't understand the Korean word that I had learned for "practice," so I had to try to define it. In Korean, I tried explaining "practice" as when you do something over and over until you become better at that thing. This became a game. Almost like Taboo, but the only reason I couldn't give better hints at the goal word was because I just didn't know how. After about 15 minutes, this puzzle was solved, and we talked about something else, but on top of the beer and soju, that conversation, like a game of chess, had mentally exhausted me.

The night continued with more drinking and talking. I did some dancing with the group of Brazilians who are studying in Suwon with me, and we made plans to take a trip to Gangdam to dance at a club. Since our dorm in Suwon has a 01:00 curfew, we had to leave the bar in Seoul at 23:30. The entire trip back, I practiced Korean with a couple guys from HI-Club. I used more Korean and Japanese tonight than I had in a few months. It was refreshing. I think in 6 months, I might be able to call myself "fluent." Maybe.  Until then, I will practice as much as I can.

Now, we are all home safe and sound after a drunken, hour-long subway ride. Sorry about the lack of pictures. My camera has no business being in a bar. I will take pictures of the campus this weekend so that you all can see my new habitat.

Regardless, the night was very fun, the people I have met are very friendly, and I can only hope the rest of the semester is half as interesting as the last four hours.

~I'll get lost when I wake up tomorrow. 잘자 (sleep well) -_-