I believe this is the first year Yonsei set up a Foreigner Alien Card office on campus. Thank God for that because the process was much quicker not having to trek to the Seoul Immigration office elsewhere and wait among other non-students in order to get our alien card application done.

In between the pre-registration (handing in paperwork and getting a number for later on) and the actual registration, we went to Sinchon and ate at a place known for their 만두 (Korean dumplings, "man-du"). I ordered a mandu soup and it was filled with these giant dumplings! About double or even triple the size of Chinese dumplings. Nomnomnom. I couldn't figure out what was exactly inside, but its some sort of meat, flour, and chive/leek concoction. There was an ajussi (middle age man) and ajumma constantly making them non stop (super fast too) in the back and I went to ask how much they make per day. I couldn't remember the exact number they said, but it was a LOT!

Chloe brought us to the Hyundai Department store to get some macaroons after lunch. Ann was craving them since abandoning Duchess back home and they had so many more flavors here to offer. The price point was about the same as back home with some flavors being 10-20 cents more, though they looked just a teeny bit bigger than the ones at Duchess.

We hunted down Lotte 999, which just happened to be right across the department store. This was another grocery store recommended to us and we wanted to check out their pricing. Fruits were a tad cheaper, with bananas being the cheapest. I have a feeling I will lose interest in this beneficial potassium filled fruit very soon though if that's my only choice. Chloe and I also got cereal and milk to share for our breakfast as she has her own room with a fridge in it for us to keep our food chilled and safe.

During the second part of the foreigner's card registration where we hand to do a fingerprint scan, there was a session on Korea's cuisine courtesy of the Institute of Korean Royal Cuisine going on at the same time. Basically, a group of ajummas came to demonstrate how to cook 떡볶이 (rice cake 'ddeokbokgi') and served us a mini set meal. It felt like a live cooking show with all these ajummas in their aprons and handing out food.

The highlight of my day and best post secondary experience thus far happened today. I never felt so much school spirit in my life-ever. The mentor's club organized tonight as a Cheering Orientation for us foreign students. Every term, Yonsei University and its rival, Korea University has a cheering competition that happens during the term. This isn't just your cheer leading squad tossing around and shouting with pompoms, this is EPIC. I never seen anything quite like it. There is a group of dancers known as The Blue Knights dressed in black and white with a royal blue tie on (Yonsei's school colour is a royal blue), who leads everyone to their dance moves (different for every song!) while other Yonsei students sang and taught us the song lyrics. I lost track of how many songs we did, but there must have been at least twenty; pop culture and classic songs that have had their lyrics changed. For example, the "We Will We Will Rock You" song was rewritten and titled as GO Yonsei, "Over the Rainbow" also had its lyrics changed to a Yonsei themed song. I had so much fun and I wouldn't mind singing and dancing each day with everyone to these songs despite not knowing what majority of the lyrics meant. Due to the active and involved crowd, a tentative hour of cheering turned into two hours as encore was a must. The auditorium in Baekyang Hall became a dance party mob of students! I will never forget this memorable experience I had tonight. The clip below doesn't justify this event at all, but it does give you a sense of the cheering culture-Yonsei style.
We didn't expect to sing and dance so much until our legs and arms were giving out, and as a result, we had to turn down our original plans to go 노래방 (karaoke). We were all so tired, sweaty, and feeling like our voices were about to give out from all the screaming we did. In the end, we decided to have dinner with a part of my cell group and a couple of new friends at a modern and simply chic eatery called The Cup, known for their fusion of Asian and Western noodles/pastas/rice that come in a take out box even if you eat in.

It's been exactly a week since I've been here and I cannot wait for what the rest of this term has in store! Go Yonsei!

P.S. The dorm electrical man came to fix my laptop connection today, hello access to the world again =)