Happy Friday to us! After months of waiting, we finally got to make our journey into Seoul and explore the beautiful campus of Yonsei University. Before arriving, people had warned us that Yonsei would be full of hills and extremely hot, but we truly did not understand the magnitude of this warning until Friday afternoon. “Hot” does not even begin to describe the insane humidity, and “hills” is not an accurate description of these giant mini-mountains that one must traverse to get anywhere on campus. Luckily for us, we had the two best guides anyone could hope for in a foreign country. Youn Jung and Jungeun, two library students at Yonsei, met us at the airport Friday morning to guide us into Seoul on the buses and helped us get lunch and settle in our dorms. You will definitely see pictures of them both later! Youn Jung will actually be joining us in Boston this fall to study at GSLIS so she was very excited to make friends so we can help each other out a lot over the next few months. She has been a WONDERFUL guide and host and we can’t wait to return the favor and show her around Boston in the Fall.
FINALLY, we arrived here:
Welcome to Yonsei University!
This is the main gate of Yonsei University Main Campus – our home for the next two weeks. It may be hilly and hot, but we think it’s pretty perfect. The landscape is breathtaking (literally and figuratively)! Professor Hussey checked into her dorm in Allen Hall and we checked into the international dorms at Muak Dormitory. There are students here from all over the world so it has been an interesting place to stay on campus.
Here we are waiting outside of Muak to unpack and explore the campus:
The dorms are pretty standard in terms of what you would expect from a dormitory. Two small beds, two desks, and a small air unit (thank god). Fortunately for us we don’t plan on spending any time in the dorms because we plan to take in as much of the city as possible.
Friday evening was spent in a variety of ways by different students. Candice, Laura, Jen and Shana did some exploring of the campus and Laura met up with a friend who was kind enough to help them with shopping for extra dorm supplies. Here is a few photos from their Friday adventure:
Beautiful views on campus
The center of campus!
We have wans, maps, and Hi Seoul cards (like a Charlie Card), will travel!
With KRW, Subway cards, and guidebooks in hand, the crew headed into the city to meet up with Laura’s friend MJ who took them to a dollar store and to get some tasty bing su treats:
Laura & MJ
MJ helps navigate Seoul!
Strawberry Bing Su
The ladies eventually made it to Insa dong, an area pretty near to our campus that is famous for great art, souvenirs, and traditional tea houses!
Meanwhile, back towards campus: myself, Lisa and Matt decided to pursue a different route for the evening! Taking the suggestion of Jungeun, our group walked to Hong dae which is home to Hongik University – and only one subway stop from Yonsei (we were much to tired to venture into Insadong – kudos to the ladies!). Hong dae is a district famous for nightclubs and bars and has the largest concentration of young people and college students due to the proximity to several major universities. We decided to walk around the area, scope out some good bars for future use, and kick back with a beer while discussing our travel plans for the week!
First, we found this amazing sign, and had to take a photo (naturally):
Luxury Chicken for the whole family! What I always wanted!
Matt and I sampling the Korean beer selection with a Cass (the slogan is “Cass….The sound of vitality” – ???) and a Cafri. Lisa stuck with a smoothie that was super delicious!
a
Notice that Ice House is a foreign beer selection….oof!
For dinner we had our first Korean cold noodles. This is probably the first time I’ve ever sat down at a restaurant and been brought an empty cup and a pair of scissors? We had to look around at other guests to figure out what to do with them….pretty awesome expression on our faces:
Something I’ve never received at an American restaurant after sitting down!
When they say “spicy noodles” in Korea,….they aren’t kidding at all.
Apparently you cut the noodles with the scissors so you can eat them- Lisa is learning to use the chopsticks here – getting better!
His didn’t need scissors & he was satisfied – more bibimbap!
After all of this – Insadong, Hongdae, and exploring campus with our new Korean friends,….we were once again exhausted. We all met back at the dorm, where our pillows are basically a mesh bag full of cut up drinking straws (shockingly pretty comfortable though), and passed out to this lovely view out our dorm window:
Goodnight, Seoul!