Bye Yonsei~

I recently came back from my trip to Vietnam. I left right after finals week was over. It was a very bittersweet moment to say goodbye to all the friends I made at Yonsei. We had our last lunch at Abiko Curry (my favorite retaurant near the dorm!) I packed all my belongings and head out to the airport.

During my trip, it was a bit inconvenient to wrap everything up from school. It is required to complete course evaluation in order to view your grades online during a specific period. Also, you can only do it on a windows computer with internet explorer that meets the requirement on the website.. I have a macbook, and limited access to the internet therefore, very inconvenient for me. Yonsei's advisor told me to ask a friend from Korea to complete the evaluation for me (one option if you have the same problem I did). After the course evaluation, you can view your grades only during the specific time period.

AKARAKA Performances

Here are the videos from Akaraka. I especially loved Kim Bum Soo's performance best! Enjoy!

Kim Bum Soo singing Bogoshipda (my all time favorite Korean Karaoke song!)

EXO

Rainbow

LeeSsang

Psy singing Gangnam Style

Tips 101: Need a cellphone in Korea?

I use my Hawaii phone here in Korea. If you have T-Mobile as your service provider, they allow data roaming and text messages in 200+ countries I believe. South Korea is one of them!! So good news for those of you who have T-Mobile. 

I didn't buy any data plan or created a phone number here in Korea. I just use my Hawaii number for text messaging friends back home and internet data to communicate with the people here. Majority of the people will use Katalk (aka Kakao, a free chat messaging app). Katalk uses data to send messages and you can also make free calls as long as you're connected to data or wifi. I saved so much money from opening a phone account here. Only downside is that I can't make calls. T-Mobile charges for every minute of phone calls. I mainly use Katalk to call my friends. And don't worry, Korea has free wifi almost everywhere, like cafes, restaurants, etc. Just have to ask the servers if they provide wifi for customers!

So check with T-Mobile if your plan provides international data roaming and messages. If you don't have T-Mobile, the dorm building has "Olleh" which is a phone service provider. You can buy minutes and data from them, as well as rent a phone for the semester. I think it is pretty pricey though.. You can always bring an unlocked phone to use!

Akaraka Festival Week (Day 2 & 3)

Day 2 - I didn't go... I had to meet for group projects and was too exhausted. I heard it was similar to the first day but more students attended.

Day 3 - AKARAKA DAY!!

I entered the amphitheater around 5pm and that was when more people arrived. The concert was definitely amazing!! I got to see many of my favorite kpop artists! Some I didn't even expected. In my last post, I said that Psy, JYP, and EXID was rumored to perform. However, JYP and EXID did not attend. Instead, we had other awesome performers!!! I was very happy with who Yonsei brought to the concert.

Rainbow - a girl group
Leessang - hip hop duo (I was very happy!!!)
Kim Bum Soo - he sang two of my all time favorite karaoke songs. I got to sing along! In addition, he did a lot of rapping and hip hop too. He really got the crowd going!
PSY - Can't complete Psy's performance without Gangnam Style! All the foreigners were definitely waiting for that :P
EXO - a Chinese-South Korean boy band based in Seoul. They have a really big fan base! I was pretty excited to see them live. A large group of wild fangirls were waiting outside trying to get in but they couldn't. I even witnessed many of them trying to transfer the stamps from one hand to another...

At the start of Akaraka and the ending, we did a lot of chanting and cheering. I really loved singing the Yonsei song:

사랑한다 연세~ 사랑한다 연세~
(I love you Yonsei~ I love you Yonsei~)
내 가슴속에 영원히 남을 사랑이 되어라~
(Remain forever in my heart, and be loved~)

It really made me feel like I was a part of the school, not just an exchange student for one semester.
We all stood for about 5-6 hours with no breaks in between. It was constant dancing and cheering! I could barely feel my leg the next day but it was worth it. Definitely best experience of my exchange program!

Below are some of the photos I took from Akaraka. I'll post videos in another blogpost another time :)

Around 5pm when I entered. Already so many people in the sea of blue! (Yonsei's school color)

Kim Bum Soo performing Show Me Your BBA SAE (빠세)! 

PSY's opening performance

Some of my exchange friends posing for a selfie!

It got darker, so many students! 

EXO on stage!!

View of the stage at night

Fireworks poppin' after EXO's performance

The ending of Akaraka - more cheering and dancing moves!

Hope you all enjoy this! If you attend Yonsei during the spring, don't forget about Akaraka in May!!!

Akaraka Festival Week (Day 1)

Akaraka Festival Week is a week filled with events hosted by different clubs, organizations, and community groups that lead to the actual Akaraka Festival Concert. Akaraka is the most famous and BEST festival throughout all of the other Korean universities because of Yonsei's pride, enthusiastic student body, and the performers that they bring down. I'm not being bias but other students from the other universities told me this :P The other universities also have their own version of the festival.

Akaraka happens every May! So if you are studying abroad in the Spring semester, look out for the announcement and grab your ticket AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! Especially in the first round of ticket sales which is to be reserved online. There are second and third round as well but those are really competitive.. It's like a scavenger hunt to find where the ticket sales are located. I sat on my computer between 9-11am refreshing my page to check for the location release. They make it even harder for exchange students because the notice is in Korean! Then we have to run around campus just to find the location, and the line is already long.. I was very fortunate to be able to get my ticket in the second round of ticket sale.

If you're studying abroad in the Fall semester, don't be too sad about missing Akaraka. There is the Yon-Ko-Jeon (연고전) event, which is a massive sports competition between Yonsei University (Yon) and Korea University (Ko). I heard it is really fun and competitive between the two rival universities!

The first day of the Akaraka festival this year started today, which is Wednesday. I am a part of the Yonsei International Community (IYC), a club that supports international relationships between Korean students and exchange students. IYC hosted a cooking festival for Akaraka today and I participated in this event. Korean students and exchange students work together in 4 different groups representing 4 different countries. This year we have American, Italian, Mexican, and Japanese dishes to be sold at the booth. I was in the American group and we made hamburgers and hotdogs. It was a great seller and possibly the most sold amongst the other groups. I felt like I was home again with my family out at the beach cooking some barbeque :)

Day 1 of Akaraka did not finish yet but I finished my shift for the cooking festival. It was a great experience and I recommend you guys to JOIN A CLUB! IYC would be a great one to consider because they try to work really close with the exchange students and always inviting us to participate in their events.

Also I heard this year Akaraka concert performers is rumored to include:
PSY - famous singer for the song Gangnam Style!
EXID - a 5 member South Korean girl group, also known as Exceed in Dreaming
JYP - also known as Park Jin Young. He is the CEO and founder of JYP Entertainment that produce famous artists such as Wonder Girls, Miss A, 2AM, 2PM, Rain, etc. He is also a singer and record producer. Best of all, he is a Yonsei University alumni!

I will update again about Day 2 and Day 3 (final day with the Akaraka concert!). I'm so excited for what's coming up this week!! I can't wait to finish all my classes and go back to check out the other booths.

IYC Cooking Festival food from the 4 different countries! 

We have Hamburgers/Hot Dogs from USA; Quesadilla/Nachos from Mexico; Okonomiyaki/Yakitori from Japan; and Pasta from Italy

Yummy food photos: Part 1

Korean food is what I love best about Korea so far! I am a foodie so I always take pictures of my food and share them. I want to start a blog category of my food pictures so you all can enjoy them as well! I probably won't remember exactly where I ate the food, but if you message me, I'd probably can tell you the area of where the restaurant may be located!

Tips 101: Convenience stores

I live in SK Global and there is a GS25 convenience store located within the building. It's definitely convenient but I wouldn't recommend that you buy your necessities there! Especially TOILET PAPER, towels, shampoo/conditioner, toothpaste, etc. It's really overpriced. I bought toilet paper for $25.... Buy most of your necessities at DAISO! There is a Daiso in Sinchon, very close to the Sinchon Station (exit 3,4). Everything is about 1000-3000WON ($1-$3). I bought my pillows, toothpaste, shampoo, towels, etc from there. 

Also if you need to buy one of those outlet converters, don't buy from GS25 at SK. I believe it was $15 during the first few weeks of school and now they are about $10. Go to a different GS25 or convenience store near Yonsei. There are about 3 convenience stores within a 5-10 minute walk. I bought 2 from a different GS25 store and they were about $1.50 each! Way cheaper than the ones I brought with me from Hawaii.

So to summarize: CHECK OUT DAISO TO BUY EVERYTHING :)

Tips 101: WIFI in dorm room

Can you imagine not having wifi in your room? My first three weeks of school was terrible in my room trying to connect to Yonsei's wifi.. Apparently we dont get wifi connection in our room, just the lounge and study room on our floor. Some are lucky to get some sort of connection in their room.

I discovered that I can use my MacBook as my personal wifi hotspot! Not sure if this will be helpful for those who have a windows computer.

Just buy an ethernet cable downstairs at GS25. It cost about $2USD. Plug the ethernet to your macbook, and open network preference to set the ethernet up as a wifi hotspot. You can create your own personal wifi name and password! The connection in my room is amazing now! I can easily access wifi on my phone and ipad. However, when you need to use wifi, your macbook must be plugged in with the ethernet cable. 

Cheers!

Midterm week

I really like how Yonsei has a week designated to midterm. It's similar to a finals week back at UHM. It was a rough week for everyone to study. Cafes, study rooms, library, lounges, are filled with Yonsei students studying for their exam. I can see that the Korean students are very serious with their study. My Korean friend told me that the students would study very hard then pass out and miss their exam (this is pretty common..). All that studying for nothing! I also saw many students sleeping on their books during the day.

Yonsei has many cafes on campus and I recommend to study at a cafe. The atmosphere is great and not too serious. You can enjoy some coffee and music while studying. I think the cafe was a much better environment for me to study in compare to a library. The fact that there are students every studying made me much more motivated. 

I have 4 midterms and 2 papers due all in a 1-2 weeks time period. Most of my time outside of class is spent at a cafe.

Week one done!

I went to my last two classes - Production and operations management and Corporate finance. Overall, I really enjoy my classes! Production and operations will probably be my most challenging class because it includes a lot of readings and daily pop quizzes, as well as many write ups and group projects. However, I think this will help me keep myself busy so I can manage my time better for other things. My corporate finance class is very interesting too. The professor lectured us about analyzing and deciding in finance. He related it to drinking alcohol (because Korea has a big drinking culture) and taught us how to analyze and decide how to drink safely while impressing our friends.

I will find some time this week to upload all the delicious food I've been eating!

First day of school

Above is my current schedule for this semester. Today was the first day of school so on Monday, I only have 2 classes - Free Trade Agreements and Global Business Environment. Both are very interesting and on the topics that I can see myself enjoying. When looking at the syllabus, it didn't appeal to me, however, the professors really do make the class enjoyable with their sense of korean humor. I'm probably going to be keeping these two classes.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow to check out my production and operations management class. It'll be a short day for me! Which means I'll have some time to explore shinchon and run some errands.

I moved into my dorms

It's been a few days since I moved into my dorm room. I'm currently staying at SK Global and I have my own room! I was talking with a few students today about the double room and single room; the double room didn't have their own mini fridge but I have! It's awesome because I can store everything in my room without sharing the public refrigerator a few floors below. I recommend that you pay a little bit more for your own room because it has the mini fridge, own bathroom, and a lot more privacy, which I think is worth it. SK Global is actually pretty far away from the Shinchon subway station. I think it takes me about 15-20 minutes to walk every time I need to travel somewhere.

We had orientation on the 24th; it started at 9am with the housing orientation then to the general orientation for the rest of the day. A lot of important topics were covered such as requirements, expectations, and the general life of being an exchange student at Yonsei. If I remember correctly, Yonsei mentioned that there are about 700 international students!

The next day, I had to go to the Seoul Immigration Office to complete my alien registration card. All foreigners living in Korea has to do this. I wish Yonsei provided me with this information prior to arriving at the school. They mentioned about this during the orientation but not much information was provided.. I had to look up the information online as well as look through the blogs of previous Freeman Scholarship recipients. I recommend that you check out Alex Chen's blog regarding the Seoul Immigration Office directions: https://teachmehowtokorea.wordpress.com/2014/08/31/day-9/
It was very helpful and easy to understand! I had no problem going there by myself. After applying for the alien registration card on the 3rd floor, you have to return back in about 2 weeks to pick it up. I requested mines to be mailed to be for an extra 3,000 Won (I paid a total of 33,000 Won for the application and mailing). It's definitely worth it because the walk to the Seoul Immigration office is pretty far (maybe 10-15minutes)! Also the wait is sooo long. I spent a total of 3.5 hours completing everything and I got there at 10:00am. I recommend you arrive there ASAP, maybe as soon as they open the office. They tend to get through each customer slower during lunch time because they alternate taking lunch breaks. Also at the office, you can make copies of your passport for 200 Won and take 6 passport photos for 7,000 Won (they only take exact change!). Make sure you have all your documents with you so you don't have to return again another day :)

I'm in Korea!!

I finally got access to using my computer! I left Hawaii on February 18th and arrived here on the 19th. It was a long journey to get here... I had a layover in Japan. Getting out of the Incheon airport was not so bad; just follow everyone else or look at the signs. I don't speak Korean but navigating around was alright especially since there are english signs everywhere. I caught a limousine bus to Hongik university area (where I'm living until I can move into the dorms).

I'm currently staying at a guest house with another friend who's studying at Sogang University. The guest house is in Mapo gu Hongdae area. We found it through the website airbnb.com. I recommend you check it out if you plan to come to Korea and have no place to stay for a while. It's definitely way cheaper than getting a room at a hotel! My guest house is in a very convenient location to restaurants, shopping, and fun night life! In addition, this guest house is extremely awesome! The ahjumma and ahjussi is very nice to us. They make us breakfast every morning, and if we're home, they make us lunch/dinner! I do miss Hawaii a lot, but the way they care for us, makes me feel like I'm back at home. I'm very thankful to have met such great hosts.

I won't be able to move into my dorm room at Yonsei until the 23rd so I'm currently using this time to explore Korea with my friend and meet up with other Korean friends that I met in Hawaii. On the 24th we will be having our orientation so I'm excited to meet the rest of the other exchange students!

I will update again after the orientation and will most likely update on my set class schedule, dorm room, and experience of Korea so far.