How Did I Get Here?

Getting to Korea

On Tuesday, August 20 I left Hawaii to start my study abroad experience in South Korea. (yay!) With my parents, I took a direct flight from Honolulu to Incheon and arrived at around 9 P.M. Wednesday night. Since it was late, my family decided to stay at a hotel in Incheon for a night as the airport is about an hour away from Seoul. At the airport, we also added money to our T-Money cards which my brother’s girlfriend’s family had already purchased for us. The T-Money card is needed for transportation on Korea’s subway and bus systems. We used the hotel’s free shuttle service to get from the airport to our hotel. 

Hotels

After staying at the hotel in Incheon, my family took a taxi to a hotel in Hongdae as it’s the closest major neighborhood to Yonsei. The hotel in Incheon was able to coordinate a jumbo taxi for us to accommodate all of our luggage. I would definitely recommend staying in Hongdae before moving in as it's a busy area with many stores so I could purchase items that I would need for my dorm and living in Korea. Being close to Yonsei also made the moving-in process easier as I was quickly able to travel to and from my dorm. 

Mini hotel buffet compilation

Dorm

I am currently staying at Yonsei’s SK Global House in a single room, meaning I have no roommate. As someone who is very introverted, I really like having a room to myself. My dorm is quite small but I have my own mini fridge, bathroom, and balcony so I don’t really have any complaints. Exchange students have the option of staying at SK Global House, International House, or finding their own place to live (ex. a goshiwon). Getting a spot in the dorms is highly competitive and I was lucky enough to get accepted after getting waitlisted. 

Welcome Events

My first Yonsei event was the dorm orientation. This included residents from SK Global House and International House. They went over basic information and rules but the whole PowerPoint was emailed to us after as well. Next, was the study abroad orientation which was two hours long and included all the exchange students at Yonsei. They opened the orientation with K-Pop performances which was pretty cool. The next day, I decided to go on a campus tour which taught me a bit about the history of the campus, but not really where any of my classes would be. 

Orientation and campus tour photos

First Few Days of School

The night before the first day of school, I overheard some people in the kitchen talking about how we needed our student ID for attendance in our classes. That was when I realized that I had in fact forgot to get my student ID. So, the next morning, before class I had to go to the Office of International Affairs to get mine. I got quite lost trying to find the office as well as my class for that day but luckily I allotted a decent amount of time to figure out where I was going. Also, the machine to scan our IDs was broken in my class so I guess I didn’t need to worry. 

Thoughts & Things That I’ve Learned So Far

While studying abroad and going to a completely new place where you know nobody can be terrifying, it’s comforting knowing that everyone else is also scared. We’re all experiencing these things for the first time and are all trying to make new friends. Something that I’ve realized recently is that there are so many hours in a day to fill up. I have so much time to do literally anything that I want. It’s going to be a wild 4 months. Thanks for reading <3