Day 35: Whoa, an update??

This is long over due! I've been in Korea for over a month and I've only posted once! This will be a quick summary to what I've been up to....



This is Eco Geo in Suncheon Bay, we took a bus and spent the day there as a school trip in my first week here. It was really pretty but unfortunately it rained later!

I also went to the Hello Kitty Cafe in Eunhaeng-dong! Too bad I can't find my photos ;P

After that classes started and nothing much eventful happened. Other than some walking around.

Korea has the best walkways!

Then we had a break! Chuseok is kind of like Korean Thanksgiving so we got September 18-20th off. I decided to visit Seoul while I had a time.

  

Ddeokbokki (rice cakes in sweet-spicy sauce), Sundae (blood sausage), and Korean BBQ!

I also visited Lotte World, an indoor amusement park....

And Everland, another park, who was had a discount for Chuseok! Below is the best roller coaster I've ever ridden. It was wooden but so smooth and the tracks didn't shake at all like normal wooden coasters. The tracks actually turned in a way that you went under the previous track to make 4 layers!

 Of course I wasn't going to leave Seoul without shopping. This is in Edae near Ehwa Women's University. It had so many small shops crammed into confusing streets but were mostly cheap!

 And Daiso! This is a Japanese dollar store. Nothing is over 5,000 won ($5) and everything is so cute! I passed at least 5 and bought something from every single one...

I also visited the World's Tallest Art Museum (previously World's Tallest Building), Building 63!

Once back in Daejeon, I climbed Gyejoksan Mountain. It had several temples at the bottom and it was very very tiring but worth the view!

 

 And that's all for now! Maybe I'll update more often, but who knows.....

-Kara

Day 1-2

I departed on Aug 25th at 12:30am GA time and arrived Aug 26th 4am Korea time. The flight was long and hard to get comfortable enough to sleep but the plane was awesome. They had TVs in every seat with movies and a map of where the plane was :D

Customs and baggage claim was fast, then I got coffee, Dunkin Donuts was covered in Korean idols. The bus left at 6:20 and took 2.5 from Incheon to Daejeon, with lots of scenery in between. Then we took a 10 min taxi ride (only $4 right to the dorm) and checked into our dorms. Check in was supposed to be at 3 but I had no problems at 10am.

I'm in the newest dorm and all the rooms are really nice and high-tech. The locks are electronic and you put your student card in a slot to turn on the power. My room has its own bathroom too!

KAIST is huge and spread out, with lots of grass and trees. In one day I walked at least 2-3 miles just going around campus to eat and buy things.

Not many workers speak English, but it's not too hard to communicate and other students can help translate. The bathroom in one of the buildings has fancy toilets with heated seats:

Food and stuff in general is really cheap. A meal costs me no more than $3 and I can't even finish what they give me. A lot of yummy choices too!

This week is all orientations and tours and I'll probably explore Daejeon :)

Oh, and jet lag sucks. I went to bed at 8pm and have been up since 2:30am and there is no food to eat, my stomach is so loud!

On Tuesday we visited Home Plus, which is like a giant Walmart! It's 4 stories with clothes, books, a separate area that has a normal Walmart, and a food court.

 I also bought a KAIST jacket for myself:

On Thursday we take a trip to Suncheon Bay, which has a bunch of parks and temples :)

-Kara