Today I spent some more time just walking around getting accustomed to 대학동 / 신림9동.  I finally found a big super market here.  I’ve been looking all over for one.  The stores that say 슈퍼 are more often than not really small food stores.  There fine to stop at to get something small, but there’s not always a big variety.  This one is called 대성마트 and is located close to where 신림로 meets 호암길 if anyone needs to know (I know I’ve got some readers who are coming this direction so you might be interested).

I stopped by Lotteria (롯데리아) for lunch and got their special 불새버거 (Bulgogi and Shrimp burger) combo which was pretty good.  I liked the bulgogi half of it so that’s what I would probably get if I go back.

I also walked from my place down to the end of 대학동 where the mountain trail starts and got a great view of the city (I’ll go back and take pics when it’s less foggy).  I met a Korean there who talked to me for a super long time about the three kingdoms and China and Japan’s history in regards to Korea.  I understood probably less than half of what he said since I’m used to much more ‘normal’ conversations.  On my way back down I walked by this sign and giggled a little inside:

For those that don’t know what a dike is, search for it in an online slang dictionary.  I have NO earthly reason why they wrote DIKE instead of DK.  The actual Korean is pronounced as what English speakers would say reading ‘DK’.

I also got my T-money card today (mine looks exactly like the blue and black card above).  It seems pretty cool and easy to use.  You just bump it to the sensor when you get on and off the bus or subway.  I highly recommend you get one of these cards (T-money or Ucard seems to be the most popular).  By using one of these electronic cards you gate a 100원 discount on the base price and free transfers for like 30 minutes or an hour.  There doesn’t seem to be a big difference between the two types of cards.  From my research the only difference seems to be that the T-money card can be used for non-transportation purchases at stores like GS25.  From what I can tell, T-money has become more popular and is more broadly used.  The card costs 2,500원 or 5,000원 if you want to buy a little accessory with the T-money chip inside.  You can recharge your T-money card at any subway station pretty easily.

I’ve been trying out some more really good food as well.  I got some 호떡 (balls instead of the pancake-like one), 붕어빵 (4 for 1,000원!), barbecue (on a stick), and spicy 오뎅 (again on a stick).  I got some 딸기맛우유 (strawberry milk), but I think the banana one is better.

Tomorrow I’ll go into the SNU office of international studies and hopefully make it to the immigration office to apply for my foreigner card before going to the new SNU student party which will take the whole day.

After making a quick and dirty video of my apartment (see last post) I decided to go to SNU to see the campus.  I decided to go the long route so I walked east to a big road after which I followed it up to the main road which leads to the SNU gate.  I also wanted to see how long it would take to get to SNU, which didn’t turn out to be that long.  I stopped at 김밥마을 to have lunch.  김밥 was only 1,500원 and came with 김치 and a miso-like soup. It was a pretty darn good meal for ~$1.50.

On my way to SNU I remembered that I needed to get some adapters for my US electronics.  I stopped by one little but they didn’t have them.  One of the workers told me to go over to 리빙& 홈 to get the plugs.  I went there and low and behold they had the little buggers for only 300원 each, not too shabby.

It took me about 30 minutes to walk from my place to campus, which isn’t too bad.  I tried going to the 농협은행 but they were closed (I knew they would be, but I wanted to find it anyway).  I also got a map of the SNU campus which should prove useful in the future.  There seems like there’s some nice little cafes on campus, so you should be able to find something to suit your fancy wherever you are.

One of the interesting places I went to was the library.  Before walking in, you can swipe your SNU card and reserve a place to study.  I’m sure that’s a useful feature, the library seems like it’s used a LOT.  Well, I walked in the first floor and convinced the worker to let me in (you have to swipe your SNU card, which I didn’t have).  I was expecting to see books, but I walked around all three floors and all that was there were places to study and lockers.  I asked a student passing by where I could find the books and he explained I had to exit the third floor and go up to the fourth floor which I did.

After looking around the library I also walked around the Student Center.  There’s a bunch of stores and floors where school club rooms are located.  That’s pretty cool how each club gets it’s own room.  Anyways, there’s a bookstore, stationary store, SNU souvenir shop, etc.  Most of the regular school places where closed since it’s a Saturday.

After going further down south to see the engineering building I’ll be having most of my classes in, I noticed a bunch of people walking by with hiking poles and shoes.  Curious to see where they came from I started to walk to the most southern part of campus.  I found out that there was a trail which went back to 불성사 (a Buddhist temple) and a marvelous view.  I asked a passerby how to use the machine to get coffee since I never used a coffee-dispensing machine before (and felt so stupid afterwards.  Yes, all vending machines are the same.  Put in the money, choose product, enjoy).  He was a really nice guy and invited me to join him and his friend to hike to the other side of the mountain.  I accepted and we were on our way.  We stopped a little bit further to eat some 떡 (rice cake) and home-made 호박죽 (pumpkin porridge, which was really good).  While we were sitting there I decided to take this set of pics and merge them into a panorama.

The city you see down there is located in 동안구.  We arrived at the bottom at 5 PM, them having left at 10AM and me having left at 12PM.  I walked all the way from my apartment to SNU and up and down the mountain to 동안구 which is pretty stinking far.  At the bottom we stopped by a little restaurant and ordered some food (해물파전 and 김치찌개, both excellent):

That was the first time I ever tried 막걸리 (Korean rice wine) and I’ve got to say, it might be my favorite alcohol beverage so far.  I generally hate most drinks, but there’s something about this one that just let me drink at least a whole bottle.  I was SO lucky to run into these people, they totally made my day memorable and fun.  I was definitely tipsy afterwards, but we all managed to get home safe.  We took line 4 and I transferred to line 2 and got off at 서울대학교입구역.  I could have taken a bus back to 신림9동, but I decided it would be cool to just walk and look at all the stores and things on the way.  Plus I was curious how long it would take to travel between my house and the station.  Walking at a slow pace it took about an hour.

Well, that was my awesome day!

Well, I’m writing my first post IN Korea.  All I’ve got to say is heck. yeah.

All in all it was a pretty smooth trip.  It really felt exactly the same as a domestic flight except I had to show my passport when I got on the airplane and after I got off.  Oh yeah, and it took like 10 hours.  The really nice entertainment system definitely helped me get through that though.  I’ve had ‘District 9′ and ‘Surrogates’ on my t0-watch list and both were available for free so I watched them (along with ’9′).  The service on Korean Air was exceptional, I got offered drinks very often and the meals were the best airline food I’ve ever had.  Here’s a pic of the Bibimbap I had:

The view outside the window when I first saw Korea was pretty nice:

After going through customs and getting my bags I was bombarded with taxi drivers wanting to take me all the way to SNU.  Taking a taxi that far is like 10 times the price as a limousine bus albeit the taxi might be faster.  I only paid 8,000 Won to go from the Incheon Airport to SNU which is a stinking good price IMO.

Anyways, I was picked up at that point and shown to my room.  I settled in and immediately walked around outside looking for a good place to eat.  In the end I got some 라볶이 (Rabokki, just Deokbokki with Raman) which was way good.  It cost 4,000 Won and filled me up pretty well.  I walked around a little bit, bought some 붕어빵 (Bungeoppang), and went home to write this up and go to bed.  So tired …

My next post will most likely be a report on how it is with some pics and/or video (yeah, yeah, every foreigner takes a video of their apartment lol)