too late for regrets

No regrets at buying this set. Woke up at 7 before my alarm rang (and then it didn't even though I waited) with sore arms and shoulders.

Cute cheapy little alarm clock I got that I spent forever trying to figure out how to make it ring (apparently there was still some plastic covering on one of the batteries and that's what made it not have noise so I guess one of the batteries is for the sound system). I took a shower with the randomly grabbed shampoo/conditioner/bodywash I bought at E-Mart. It actually works pretty well? My hair was nice all day, but maybe because this is the first time I've really used conditioner.

Here's the view outside my window in the morning. Kind of dreary today too. There were people shoveling the dirty snow off of the walkways and into bushes.

I kind of rushed Joy out to buy brunch because I saw bakeries around the campus and I really enjoy bakeries.

Today was freshmen orientation so there were people in really cute uniforms greeting people at the gate.

We ended up going to this cute bakery very close to campus called Le Pommier.

I get really excited about bread. Here's the elevator that only goes to odd floors.

I got a mini castella cake, a coffee bun/roll/thing and a cream puff. Also some whole milk (way too rich and creamy for me). The coffee roll was great and delicious and so was the cream puff. Oh man bakeries I am going to get so fat. I got full so my castella cake is chilling on the window sill to cool.

(though later on my roommate said the sun was shining directly on it so it warmed up, my bad)

Shameless OOTD shot of myself in Joy's mirror.

We need to go meet up with the Head of the Computer Engineering department to talk about classes since my major is Electrical/Computer Engineering at UT but in SKKU they have each engineering division separate which made registering for classes "outside" of my major a major pain.

They also keep on pushing our questions until orientation, and there's a lot of things we cannot do without ID cards (which we were supposed to get tomorrow, but they extended it to March 5th instead). I can't open a bank until I get an ID card as well so I need to budget a bit more...

Here's a picture of the snow we have just laying about. Apparently the roads are heated so it doesn't really frost over (info courtesy of Ryan).

Also there were posters of the uniforms for student ambassadors (instead of creepily taking pictures of people wearing them across the street), which you need to be good looking to even apply for. But wow really cute uniforms, seriously.

And here's pics of the letterman jackets (around 69,000 won I think?). I want one so bad but I don't know if I'll actually use it a lot.

Here's the exterior of the beautiful Samsung Library. We stopped inside to check our registration, and we couldn't really log in.

Samsung Library toilets have heated seats. I was surprised when I sat down. I think I pressed all of the buttons haha.

After failing at logging into the school computers (something we can't do until we have our ID), we trudged back to the dorms, and there was this cute car along the way.

Course planning again--(well for Glen anyway). One of the other kids (Vik) on our program was arriving today, so we were making plans to meet up and maybe eat dinner together. Also, a Turkish exchange student (nicknamed John by Glen) wanted to go play pool so we met up with him since Vik wouldn't get here until later.

However we were really hungry so we visited the conbini on the bottom floor of Side B and both Glen and Joy got onigiri, while Ryan got seafood flavored snacks. I wanted to get a bulgogi burger, but it was cold and I didn't see the microwave until I left the store. Picture of Glen learning how to open onigiri packages.

Really cute dog we saw when trying to find a pool place. I want it.

We went through like 3 different places before we found a place where there was a table with pockets. It's so elusive, like a unicorn.

(picture by Joy)

I agreed to play pool even though I suck at everything to even things out. First team, was Team Glen (Glen and me) vs Super Pro Pool Players (John and Ryan)

Joy didn't want to play haha so I gave her my camera. (picture by Joy also)

(picture by Joy--ok tbh I think the rest of the pictures of pool are by Joy unless mentioned otherwise)

I was just very bad at things.

Also my arms were too short a lot of the time to reach the cue ball.

Spider/Bridge/Thingamagigger

Chalk to rub smooth out your hands (picture by me)

picture by me because Joy is in the picture--

I think also by me?

Sometimes I had lucky streaks but most of the time I didn't.

I had a lot of fun though!

There was this one game where Glen and John forgot to call out solids/stripes and did a scratch, so the game ended up being all solids (win going to Glen and Ryan) so only the stripes were left on the table...(photo by me)

After pool for about an hour, we went back to dorms to try to meet up with Vik. We ended up meeting Vik. And a foreign exchange student from Finland. And my Hi-Club buddy Joonsoo. And then everyone like, came out of their dorms and greeted everyone else, so our party of around maybe 6-7 turned into around 14.

This is the place Joonsoo took us to go eat.

Glen getting confused at counting people.

Delicious water--Glen, Vik and Joonsoo's hand.

Waiting for this spicy chicken (I already forgot what it was called) to cook.

Rice wine that Glen ended drinking 4 bowls of.

Jesus, Alberto and John.

It's finally done cooking! It was a bit spicy but it was so good (because I was so hungry).

After eating a sizable portion of the chicken, rice and seaweed gets added to the mix and fried.

So good!

After the food, we kind of just wandered around and Joonsoo pointed things out to us (like bars and saunas). I'm eating my castella cake right now while relaxing and typing this entry, so maybe I'll stop by the bakery again tomorrow for more baked goods. Good night everyone! I hope this blog is somewhat interesting so far, and always there's Glen's blog for another viewpoint: http://gmiglin.tumblr.com/

I'm an electrical/computer engineer at University of Texas at Austin who is studying abroad at Sungkyunkwan University in Spring 2013. Just started my study abroad at SKKU so here is some lovely photos with commentary about these adventures. Feel free to contact if you have any questions at: irisatseng@yahoo.com or on a comment down below.

So I took a flight on Asiana Airways (because cheapest) and they had an interactive section on the screen in front, where there were movies, games, etc. I ended up on slots and when I got 777 I didn't get anything why.

Immigration lines were so long. I traveled with Joy, another exchange student on the program.

But we're finally in Korea!

Here's the exterior of the Incheon Airport, where we were waiting for pick-up from Sky Hotel (since we got here a day earlier than move-in dates). Honestly I think it was for the better, since we arrived at 5:40PM and travelling to SKKU was such an ordeal (more on this later).

Got a double for around $70 USD a night, it was really nice and quiet. The pick-up service was great too, after settling a miscommunication with where to get picked up. Felt really bad since my luggage handle was fine before check-in (at the gate too, no less) and when I received it at baggage claim, it was broken. So the escort guy tried to pick it up to help me and it just kind of completely broke on him. He was so apologetic I felt so bad. I tried to explain how it was already broken, but I don't think he understood.

My bed partner for the next 6 months.

Met up with Glen (here's his blog), another exchange student also on the UT/SKKU program. He was surprisingly only 2 doors down from us at Sky Hotel, so we decided to wander around before getting some rest (and buy some toothpaste).

Joy being happy about something--

There's snow around the place but to be honest, it's dirty snow haha. I don't know if it even melts.

Bright lights in Incheon.

Less blurry picture of the area around Sky Hotel.

My loot from a conbini near by. Milk bread, free water from the hotel, and green tea toothpaste because I can't resist anything with green-tea flavor.

Sky Hotel did a wake-up call service, as well as a shuttle back to the airport, so we took it since we have a handy Powerpoint on how to get to the Suwon campus from Incheon.

Glen looking shady on the bus to Anyang Station.

There's really a lot of interesting architecture around here.

Mountains out of Glen's window.

Joy gave me such a judging look haha.

Anyang Station!

Trying to figure out the ticketing system to the Korean metro system.

After a lot of flights of stairs we finally reached the right metro.

Just like the Powerpoint. Oh god the trip to SKKU was so tedious. The handle of my luggage had broken so it was kind of pain to drag everything everywhere. There's so many stairs everywhere and there's so many different distances to travel. I recommend travelling with a friend unless you know a lot of Korean. Definitely taking the taxi next time. Check-in was a hassle to find, but we finally did it! I was sweating in my coat to be honest.

My dorm room number.

It looks really nice to be honest.

So excited we get our own bathroom.

Picking the right side because that was the side I took in Jester. We met up again with Glen to go eat.

We ended up going to a meat grill place/self-bar.

I don't think any of us knew what we were cooking.

Like seriously.

I like how these two had the same expression.

My favorite part of the grill.

After that, we ran into Ryan on the street, and we went to go buy some bedding thanks to Ryan's proficiency in Korean. I ended up getting the more expensive matching set haha...

Super cute u~u