July 3, 2011


Welcome back to the wonderful travels of ClareHubbard in South Korea. Sorry to disappoint you all but I did not get on the wrong bus and essentially nothing bad happened to me except that the internet isn’t working for me but by the time all of that gets figured out it should be wor

king. I actually just got email but for some reason the internet quit again once I tried to find my blog. I am trying hard not to remember what time it is at home but I haven’t changed my computer’s clock yet and it’s 1:01am.

So far I have flown from Detroit to Chicago then in Chicago at the gate I recognized some girls from the facebook eta group and went over to say hi. I ended up sitting next to Lucy from West Virginia and we talked for the four hour plane ride. She will also be teaching early education like I am but she majored in it at college (West Virginia Weslyan). I also met Ashlee who played softball at Depauw (sp?) and Leslie who is Korean American and went to Knox. In LAX we met up with a whole bunch more ETAs and sat down for a big dinner then all sat at the gate together where we were bused out to our plane. On the plane I sat next to two Korean women and across the aisle was Ken, another Fulbright eta.

When we FINALLY got to Inchon customs and getting bags went by quickly but then we had to sit around waiting for the luggage truck (this was at 4:45am Korean time) then had to load everyone’s luggage. I met a bunch more people (obviously) including a boy named Charlie who used to row for some University I don’t remember where; Liza who went to Northwestern and is Leslie’s roommate; Elizabeth who is from New Mexico; Lisa who has a Korean grandmother but doesn’t look remotely Korean; and my roommate Ekatrina (riddle me that) who was born in Russia and then came over to the United States when she was 8... funny how both my roommates in Korea have been born in Russia.

On the bust ride (3 hours) I sat next to Leslie and we talked a lot but were both motion sick as well. I finally got to the dorm and my roommates bus was delayed because one of the kids got on the wrong bus and the other bus lost track of him for like an hour. Our shower is attached to our sink and is not a separate part of the bathroom there is just a drain in the middle of the room, which makes it super difficult to be clean about it.

We just had lunch and right now I am about to go on a tour of the campus. I will add pictures later!

Love,

Clare


Here are some pictures that I would like to add. Also, I'm sorry because even as I am writing I can tell how bland this post is, I think it has something to do with my exhaustion. In the 3 hour meeting that we had right after lunch we were told that we could not say anything bad about Fulbright and the program in anyway on blogs. This is a disclaimer that you won't be hearing me saying anything nasty... at least about the program. In the meeting we talked about rules, did some basic Korean culture and some short phrases. We did meet the ETAs bingo which is an activity I was not looking forward to because it means you have to get up and introduce yourself to everyone even though we were all exhausted. We also had to take pictures which will be given to anyone in the Fulbright program and be posted online. Something fun that has happened though is that Lucy, Leslie, Liza (Leslie's roommate) and I have signed up for Taekwando so I am super excited about that. Leslie and I are also doing a Korean cooking class. Leslie is fluent in Korean and during our tour the guide was too petrified to speak English so Leslie had to translate for our group it was pretty funny then we had dinner, got our fulbright tee shirts and went to our rooms. I hung out in Liza and Leslie's room and talked to them for a while mostly about the test we have to take tomorrow that will put us in our Korean classes. My goal tonight is to stay up until 10pm... hour and fifteen minutes to go!!


**Disclaimer: Photos were being weird but way too tired to figure out how to place them other places. The one of the pool is the view from my window and that pool is one of four pools on the campus... so far I have found 3. There is also a picture of my bathroom where the shower is that thing from the sink. Another picture is showing the divide in the room and Ekatrina is in it exiting my side and going onto her side. There is also another picture of just my part of the room where the closet is at the foot of my bed.


1 comment:

  1. I would call the bathroom and efficient way to use ones bathroom. Bruce teeth, use toilet, shower all still clean the bathroom. Time Saved!!

    ReplyDelete