Yonsei is such a huge campus and compared to University of Alberta, it's nothing. Orientation started at 10am in The Centennial Hall building. It started off with a one hour session of general first year exchange/visiting student university information from the President of the Office of International Affiars (OIA) and other important information regarding the academic calendar.

In between the three hour break until our FSK (First Step to Korea) orientation, Chloe, Ann and I headed to Sinchon to grab some more necessary items at Daiso. We all agreed that there would be many more trips to Daiso for future needs such as school supplies. At first, we wanted to find a kimbab (Korean sushi, but cooked) eatery we saw when we ate at the tofu stew restaurant a few days ago, but after a couple rounds of walking around the area and no luck (Sinchon can be a maze sometimes), we ventured into this place known for pan fried rice where they cook it in front of you. We ordered a galbi fried rice and a seafood pancake as well. Watching our high skilled server cook our galbi and rice was quite a sight, he didn’t get any out of the pan at all when cooking with the wooden spoon. I can’t even mix salad without something flying out, let along rice! The pancake was alright, it had a lot of chives in it that weren’t diced, making it hard to separate; it was quite doughy and didn’t have as much flavor as I thought it would. FSK started with once again, introductions from the President. Then it got more interesting as they showcased the abundance of clubs Yonsei has to offer for their students. There was even a Taekwando demonstration from the Taekwando club; it was amusing to watch some of them show their moves as they didn’t have the best skill and would do clumsy things or shout in very childish ways. So far I’m most interested in Emmaus, an English speaking Christian Fellowship club on campus, Global Angel, a group that volunteers and gives back to the community during the year, and KCE, which hosts three main events throughout the term: Nanta (an entertainment live show), Kite making & flying, and Korean food making class. Perhaps I might even take up the hiking club which is only once a month and you get to hike up mountains and other potentially precarious areas.The rest of the orientation was quite dry and I even fell asleep during one lady’s splurb.

Later, we were separated into three groups, according to what we studied for the partial campus tour as Yonsei is too big to be seen all together. My group consisted of science, human ecology and engineer students as those buildings were most close together. It’s similar how the human ecology department in Samsung Hall is at the far right side of campus and up on a hill (and I thought the hecol building at U of A was bad), and some things never change, majority of the students are female and the student touring us said it was the best place for guys to be, while the soccer field and area was the best place for the ladies haha.

The last part of today was the best part, as it was Mentor's club, where Yonsei organizes 3-5 exchange students with a local student from Yonsei, forming a Buddy group. Four buddy groups would make up a ‘cell’ and so our cell went out to eat tonight after brief introductions. I had my first samkeubsal (literally fatty bacon) dinner, basically Korean BBQ with the main grilled meat being the fatty pork. I met lots of new people from my cell and bonded with a group of girls. We ended off the night back at Ice Berry where we had a king size patbingsu and a regular one for the eight of us to share while other students hit Barfly, a popular Yonsei students bar. Apparently in Korea, there is no fees for females who go to the bars, only for the males. Overall, my mentor is super nice and friendly and I’m glad I can say the same for everyone else too. Everyone is so willing to help you and give tips on how to travel or what to know regarding academics, it felt so Canadian! The weather today reminded me of Edmonton too, the sun was out, it got warmer, and there was no snow on the ground as usual. I can’t wait for our next mentor session already.