Our Final Move Sarah Tuesday, February 21, 2012

My back aches.

We decided to set out for our big move to Yonsei at 9am. After dawdling a bit and having one of our hostel guys find the taxi driver to help them find their way to us at our hostel (as it’s quite hard to find the first time), we finally left by 9:45 ish. Our taxi driver got quite lost finding the East gate, which was closest to SK Global, our dorms, as he has never been through there before. Anyhow, we finally made the hectic trip to the sign in area. The process was quicker than I thought it be and something unexpected even happened. Apparently, I had signed up as a male when I applied for dorms and was placed on the guy’s floor (Yonsei separates floors according to your gender), but when I looked at the list of rooms to see who my roommate was, I didn’t notice because my roommate’s name was in Korean and I couldn’t tell the difference if it was a female or male name and had assumed it to be the former obviously. Thus, when I got to the front desk to grab my key, the lady looked flustered and ended up changing my room number on the card key and I was like to her why I was being moved to another floor. She told me they didn’t realize the mistake until they saw that my name was a female one, imagine if I had walked into my room with a male roommate already there…awkward.

I was ecstatic to settle into my room! It’s like the size of a small hotel room with a bathroom, shower and sink to share and a shelf, desk and small clothing and footwear closet to myself. My new roommate is from Russia and she has yet to arrive. I have noticed that the room I got switched into is not on the room list; I assume it’s probably a ‘just in case’ room if scenarios such as the one that happened to me occurred.

We decided to get some household items at Daiso in Myeongdong as we didn’t even have any necessities including toilet paper. The trip to Myeongdong was unexpectedly long as our dormitories are at the upper right hand side of the campus and the station was about a 20 to 30 minute walk, but the trip back was just horrendous. I was holding two big plastic bags that contained 12 rolls of toilet paper, a washroom mat and other toiletry necessities, a garbage can, slippers, tissue box, and a regular size shampoo and conditioner from Watsons (similar to a Shoppers Drug Mart). It so happened that the trains were packed so we looked so out of place and I felt so ‘see lai’/adjumma during the whole trip back (though you never do see older ladies holding large plastic bags of stuff). AND, we saw a Daiso and a Watsons on the way back in Sinchon, why did we go all the way to Myeondong again? Also, we decided it be shorter walking through the main gate, but not to our surprise, we had misjudged the size of Yonsei and the amount of trekking we had to do uphill; at one point it felt like a 45 degree angle walk. Never again will we venture on that route with bags of stuff weighing us down. Though, I must say it was a pretty good workout. In the evening, Ann and I headed out with the Australian exchange student we met, Chloe,to Sinchon for western food with the other Australian girls as they have been missing it in their diet. We were going to go to a place called Ashley's, but the wait was two hours too long, thus one of the guys from the hostel brought us to a place called Spaghettini Factory. This was a really fancy place and it smelled heavenly as we entered it. It was similar to The Spaghetti Factory, but they had a better selection of pasta and other dishes. I ordered a Fungi (mushroom) cream sauce fettuccine and it was so creamy and flavorful! Better than pasta back home I must say. Afterwards, we parted from the Australian girls as they (minus Chloe) were leaving Korea on Thursday, while Ann and I took the long dark walk back home.

I can’t believe that after two weeks, five flights and six moves, I finally have a place to call ‘home’ for the next four plus months.

Welcome to the official start of my student exchange experience. Tomorrow begins a long day of orientation.

Residence Sarah Monday, January 16, 2012

I have always wanted to experience living in dorms on campus. For one thing, I always felt you get more out of your post secondary experience as it would be more convenient for you to stay late at school or partake in more extracurricular activities/join clubs due to the shorter distance to get home. Well, at least for me, as I'm not the type of student that lingers longer than the duration of my classes or like to stay late unless I have to (but, I'm slowly learning to overcome this).

Being able to be an exchange student automatically signed me up for living in residence on campus. There were two choices for me, having a room with a washroom and shower in it, or a fridge. I chose the former as I rather have the convenience and cleanliness of my own bathroom and share a communal kitchen (with the risk of my own food being stolen) than share a communal bathroom and have food kept in a cool and bacteria-free place (as Korea tends to have a hot climate in the spring/summer, food spoils easily). I will be sharing a room and bathroom with an unknown roommate as of present and now that I'm in the shoes of a student anticipating to move into dorms, I'm starting to reflect on how life will be like sharing a room possibly smaller than my own bedroom. There will be less freedom for sure, and I will have to adjust to my mysterious roomie's sleeping patterns or potential annoying habits. I really hope and pray that I will get an accommodating and easy going roommate, though I was reminded the other day that you usually don't end up being too close as friends with your roommate as you will usually have to face this person everyday; and as human as we all are, you'll eventually get bored of each other. Also, knowing every hygienic and day to day details of that person sleeping across from the room from you may not be a friendly characteristic. Another tip I got was that you probably don't want to room with someone you know as once again, you may not want to learn all the nitty gritty things about so and so.

Another issue on my mind is the lack of space I'll have. I usually like to plop myself onto a couch in a living room and make myself comfortable with all the space I have-homework on the table, backpack on the floor, food from the kitchen and so on. With just half a room to myself and not a spacious house I take for granted, that might mean having to go into the shared common area or library to do my work. It's not a big deal, but another common thing with any on campus living is the noise and partying that goes on. I don't know what the dorm living culture or population at Yonsei will be like, but here's to crossing my fingers and hoping I can still concentrate and focus on my studies, despite being in an environment where more exciting and fun things will be calling my name (as if being in a whole new country was hard enough, here's another obstacle already).

Lastly, and this topic will deserve a post all to itself later on, is my limitations in bringing my necessities and "stuff" to my dorm room during my stay there. Luggage restrictions is one thing, but its definitely going to be hard to filter and cut down what I don't need vs. want to bring to Korea.

Three weeks left. Here it goes.