DMZ and then some...

CIEE has kept us sooooo busy! We don't even get time to eat, seriously! no joke.

Yesterday - Highlights: -switched dorms. The International House, which is on campus and where we were living is under construction, so we moved to CasaVille which is off campus into the center of Sinchon and REALLY nice! -we also went to a noribang aka. we went karaoking! I have to admit it wasctually really fun! *ROOMS* we went from this to this:

 

Noribang:














Today's Highlights:
-visited the DMZ!Demilitarized Zone (38 parallel) that divides North and South Korea
*here are some pics from the DMZ. There are a lot of places that cameras and pictures are not allowed.
-wandered around Sinchon  This is ranked the 3rd most dangerous golf course and was shown in Sports Illustrated!

my first glimpse of North Korea - mountains

The blue buildings belong to South Korea, the one in the back plus the silver buildings on the side which you can't see in this pic belong to the North Koreans.

The pic to the right is a North Korean soldier; I zoomed my lens as far as it would go! Me and a South Korean soldier. They are not allowed to talk or interact with anyone, like the British soldiers at Buckingham Palace. Well, I should go pack. We are off tomorrow morning bright and early to go on a three day excursion to Busan, Gyungju, and other cities. -Lia *the lay out is a bit messed up. not all the captions match the pictures, but I'm still trying to figure out how to use this. sorry!

Arrival!

Hi everyone, I'm here in Korea!!! Not a whole lot has happened so far. Yesterday, no, I guess it was two days ago?... I left home at 4:15 am to get to the Mpls/St. Paul airport. I took a 6 am flight to Chicago. The only upside was that I saw the sunrise! I was in Chicago for about 4 hours and then took Korean Air from O'Hare to Korea. I was so impressed with Korean Air! The flight attendants were so meticulous and helpful. I saw one flight attendant come around with a lint roller and clean the floor in the aisle!!! Crazy.

 

I got into Korea around 4:30 pm (Korea time; 1:30 am MN time) and had to go through customs etc. Two people from my program, the Resident Director and a fellow student were at the exit holding a large yellow CIEE sign, and soon after that I met up with my friend Pang, who I met during my summer Korean course at the U of M. Coincidentally we are on the same study abroad program! The first thing I ate in Korea was those little triangle sushi/kimbop wraps from a convenient store in the airport. I totally couldn't figure out how to unwrap it. There were directions, but it didn't work... I failed. I met the other kids who arrived yesterday at the airport pick-up, (there were about 5 of us) and we rode to Yonsei. 

However, in total there are 18 students in the CIEE program. We checked in and received our bedding and then ordered-in Jajangmyun; yum! I met some of the other girls in our program and then attempted to go to sleep which didn't work so well... Today we had Yonsei orientation as well as the start of our CIEE orientation. I got up around 7:30 due to jetlag and tried to find breakfast. A bunch of us found this restaurant, but there wasn't a whole lot to eat. I ended up with banana milk and dduk (rice cakes).

 The orientation was your average orientation; lots of info conveyed via powerpoint. Afterwards, we had our CIEE orientation. We received some reading materials and a schedule. It looks like we are booked for this week! we're going on an overnight excursion the day after tomorrow. Today we set up bank accounts at Woori Bank (which took forever and a day) and got a tour of Sinchon. We finally ate dinner at around 7 pm. Everyone was famished; all I had had until then was the dduk and banana milk from breakfast! It was pretty fun. I'm gonna go to bed now. I think I've gotten approximately 5 hours of sleep in the last 36 hours... I probably wont write so much in future posts, but I just wanted to give you some background and info on my beginnings in Korea. hope you enjoy!