Everything I Did During My First Week in South Korea! Part Two

Check out part one first!

Sunday

Today was the first day we didn’t have a set schedule. In the morning, I went to Homeplus Express to look for fruits and vegetables. I ended up only buying bananas and two giant carrots since produce is so expensive here. Then I went to Daiso, where I bought a lot of cleaning and laundry supplies. I did some laundry and tried out a nearby kimbap place for lunch, which was super delicious. I then headed back to Daiso because I wanted more hooks for my bathroom. I also needed to buy a new hair brush because mine fell in the toilet the previous night, ew. For dinner, some friends and I got dumplings and chatted in the lobby of our dorm for a few hours.

Monday

Today there was an optional field trip to The Academy of Korean Studies. About 30 students and I took a 45 minute bus ride down south towards the school. They greeted us with lots of Korean snacks, a pretty fan, and some stickers. We took a tour and saw some important Korean artifacts, including old original books, maps, and hunting drawings carved into rock. We also got to see North Korean books and newspapers but weren’t allowed to post any pictures of them. We then ate lunch in their school cafeteria, which was soybean paste stew and black bean sauce over rice. Next was a 90-minute Korean history lecture on Seoul and its 600 years of history by one of the academy’s professors. It was so interesting that I decided to drop one of my Yonsei music courses and pick up a history course instead.

After driving back to Dongdaemun around 4pm, my friends and I went out for dinner. We had jjajangmyeon and sweet and sour pork. I wasn’t a huge fan of the black bean sauce, the same we had for lunch, but the pork was really good. For dessert, the six of us bought a 27-cube ice cream cake to share from Baskin Robbins. We then did some late night shopping around Dongdaemun, which has multiple wholesale stores open until 5am. After heading back home, I applied for my RC card online through Yonsei’s group application.

Tuesday

Yonsei’s SAY orientation was in the afternoon today. My friends and I took the subway to Sinchon then got sotbab for lunch. Afterwards we made the long walk up towards Yonsei’s campus. We checked out their COOP store then walked to the main auditorium for orientation. During orientation, we got to see Yonsei’s dance teams perform Dynamite by BTS and Pink Venom by Blackpink which was cool. After orientation ended, we stood in line for an hour to buy tickets to a Mentors Club event that was going to be held at two bars in Hongdae on Thursday. By this time, everyone was hungry, so we got tonkatsu for dinner. It was my first time trying it and it ended up being one of my favorite meals in Korea so far. After dinner, we went to a noraebang for some karaoke. It was quite fun but too loud for my ears. To end the evening, we got some froyo for dessert.

Wednesday

This morning we headed back to Yonsei in order to pick up our student IDs. We had missed the original pickup window, which was on Monday, the day of our field trip to The Academy of Korean Studies. Afterwards, we got Mom’s Touch for lunch, which is a popular burger and chicken sandwich chain. Then we headed over to Seongsu, a popular shopping area. I bought two bags and a wallet from NYU NYU and my total was only $30. We took a break at a nearby cafe where I got to try an Einspanner for the first time as we waited for some other friends to join us. After more shopping, we headed back to Dongdaemun where we got soba noodles for dinner in the food court of Hyundai Mall.