GEPIK Orientation

Monday morning I took my prepacked backpack which I'd spent the last 3 nights living out of and caught the number 7 bus to Yongin. I figured the best way to catch it would be to head away from Suwon Station and Suwon station is towards Seoul (kinda) and I am away from Seoul (kinda)...nope, I caught the bus heading the wrong way. I had to get off the bus, get back on the bus heading the opposite way and sit on the bus for like 2 hours. Oh fun!

I call my friend Cheryl (she's a couchsurfer...I know I know that post is coming) to see if she's there yet, she agrees to meet me at the bus station and I run my but over there. There are two people in the street wearing yellow nametags and I smile. Thank GOD! An organized orientation who knows us Waguks (think...gringos...) will surely get lost. They point us the right way and we hop on a bus to the Hyundai Learning Center...note to self, no taxi driver will know where this place is...hmmm

We get there and get divided into rooms. They put us into rooms based on where we live so we'd get to know who was in our city, that was nice I suppose, but I felt bad for the couples that got divided. We had our first lecture which was some cultural fun stuff (music, dancing etc...I'll upload videos tonight)

There are some fun drinking stories but since mommy and daddy read this log and worry enough about me as it is, let me keep it to one. So the store in the learning center was not supposed to sell us alcohol (I guess) but I found that using my AMAZING Korean I could get myself a beer. It went like this.

"Anyo haseyo" Hello

Lady gestures that she cannot sell me beer and says something about how they won't let her.

*smiling* "Hana" One "Shhh" Put finger to your lips and make the shh sound, point to your purse and say , "kamsamneeda" Thank You.

Keep smiling, insist that you won't tell anyone "Abseyo" Literally...there is none...yeah its as close as I could get

She says they won't let her again but looks around, nods, puts a finger on her lips and sells me the beer.

SUCCESS!!

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 0

Then of course later, we were at a Hof (bar) and I tried to get an empty glass to share a pitcher with friends...I ened up with another pitcher...

Communications majors: 1
Language Barriers: 1

Drat!

So, let it suffice to say that I am safe, alive and still doing pretty good at making friends in random countries.

The orientation was a blast I made amazing friends, picked up a few tips and tricks and feel a bit less lost and confused...or at least like there's lots of other people who are lost and confused.

Oh, this a an older video its awful, but if you listen closely you can hear some music, that was the b-boys random tournamentI walked into a while ago.