Saturday, June 30, 2012

Korea University!

Today I bade a temporary farewell to my buddies Jacqueline and Kangwei as I moved out of Chocolate Tree and into Korea University's Frontier House. Hope they are doing well now (: Past few days have been fun and all but I think they'd appreciate the privacy without me.

Anyway I took a cab from Chocolate Tree (Sinchon) to Korea University (Anam). It was a pretty long trip due to heavy traffic conditions, which was a result of the rain and the weekend. The taxi driver uncle seemed friendly but a bit too much for my comfort. He kept trying to talk to me when I didn't want to talk to him because my Korean still sucks, and he didn't speak or understand much English. 

He appeared nice until we reached our destination. You see, he couldn't find where Frontier House is. So we had a hard time. In the end, we got picked up by Mr. Jang at the main gate so he could send me into Frontier House.

The taxi uncle charged me an extra 2,000won! >:(

I didn't know why, but gave him the 20,000 won in the end la. Argue also no use. At least saved me the trouble of traveling using the public transport. Mr. Jang told me that he charged me extra because he had to wait. Seriously, WHY??

It isn't exactly my fault that he couldn't find the place! I even called KU Hotline to guide him there. What a scam.

Well anyways check-in was really quick and I got settled down well. Went out with Caili to get our necessities. I bought about 40,000 won of stuff for my personal usage. Damn I'm spending so much.

We went to Seoul Station's Lotte Mart. Before that we had lunch. Caili had Seafood Fried Rice and I had Tuna Kimbap. It was cool because the provided soup and pickled radish along with the Kimbap. Had a fun time learning the norms of a Korean food court.
Really love Kimbap to the max. It's so easy to eat, and it is packed full of delicious ingredients!

Norms of a Korean Foodcourt (or at least the one I went to)
1. You order your food at the counter at the entrance. There should be a menu there.
2. You pay for your food and are issued a receipt.
3. Find a seat and wait for your number (printed along with receipt) to be displayed on the screens.
4. Go to the stall dispensing your food and give the staff your receipt stub.
5. Enjoy your food!
6. Water is usually provided free of charge. 
7. You have to return your tray to the respective return points (usually near the stall) after you finish your food.

After that we headed to Lotte Mart and bought lots of stuff. Caili and I initially wanted to buy bedsheets, because she didn't have any, and the bedsheets I brought couldn't fit onto the mattress in the dorms. However, we realized that Koreans have a different system of lining their beds.

They have a fitted comforter/quilt layer. This is different from Singapore's as we usually have this layer elastic banded onto the top of the naked mattress. This layer in Korea is fitted on like a bedsheet. Then they have another layer placed on top. I think they call it a bedspread, and this layer is movable. And then they have the blanket.

In the end we got so confused that we just ditched the bedsheets and decided to use the weird piece of cloth issued to us as bedsheet and just live with it. Frontier house provided pillow, bedsheet and blanket! The room also has air conditioning. There's even a bathroom inside the room! The desk is spacious and organization-friendly. 
A brief view of my room, super obvious which side of the room mine is... The only problem is that my tabletop LAN port isn't working! I had to use my own LAN wire to connect to the wall port directly before getting any internet access.

So anyways we bought a lot of stuff from Lotte Mart and had to carry them back without the use of plastic bags. Caili brought two huge recyclable bags and we had to squeeze everything in... Until we saw a boxing counter. We put most of our things into two boxes and carried them back to our room. Fortunately it wasn't all that heavy.


Oh, another thing that made us sad was that there was no refrigerator anywhere! This means that we can't buy milk to drink because it'll spoil. ): Both Caili and I are people who like to drink milk. But unfortunately that won't happen. We can only buy in small cartons to drink.

Anyway that concludes our day for today. We missed the dinner period in campus so we had to eat the cup noodles we bought earlier. Hope tomorrow we get to eat normal food /=

Until then, see ya and thanks for reading! (:

12 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yep! I am doing a summer programme with Korea University. (:

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    2. I'm not taking language here coz I can't transfer the full credits back to Sg... But learning everyday when talking to people!

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  2. i see.. so u were taking psychology?

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    Replies
    1. Yep! Taking two psychology courses and one media! My major is Life Sciences though, which makes my courses more fun to study!

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  3. How was the lesson? The lecturer teach in english?

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    1. Yep, all lectures conducted in English! It was fun for me coz it's not a Science subject!

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  4. Hey there, whats the difference between Frontier house and CJ-I house?

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  5. Hello, I don't know if you would answer me. Since, you posted this blog post two years ago. I recently got accepted to Korea University's summer program as well and I had to select the Frontier (Edu) 21 double. Is that the same room in your picture?

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  6. Hi Cassie, are you still in Korea? If no, may I know if you still have your KT Olleh SIM Card? Any reply will be appreciated, thank you!!

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