Why Korea? Why not.

So a lot of people asked me why I wanted to study abroad in Seoul, South Korea. Why not?! That is my answer. Of course, there’s the fact that North Korea is always threatening South Korea, but even the native Korean citizens don’t think too much about it. Okay truthfully, I really like the food. And the dramas. And the music. And the language. And the customs… so just about everything.

It didn’t really hit me that I was going to Seoul for an entire semester until a week before I was supposed to leave. My school, Hanyang University, actually starts and ends a month later than the regular spring semester at Temple. Ideally, I should have been well prepared for the trip. However, I only packed the bare essentials, which really gives me an excuse to go on a shopping spree when I get to Korea. My family was also worried because I had to get myself from the airport to the University when I only knew one semester’s worth of Korean language. When the day finally came for me to leave, it took two flights and a total of 16 hours and 55 minutes plus a 13 hour layover in Shanghai for me to finally arrive in Korea. I was exhausted and sick from the nasty airplane food and snacks that my mother forced me to bring along. Now, I had to figure out how to get from the airport to my dorm at Hanyang University. Luckily, it was easy to buy an airport bus ticket by following the instructions given to me by the school. After getting off the bus, the only trouble I had was telling the taxi driver how to get to the dormitory when I knew no Korean and he knew no English, but somehow I made it there. Not a bad start for my first day in Korea. That day was also the first day that I got to meet my roommate! Her name is Hazwani and she is from Malaysia. She is at Hanyang to take Korean courses and eventually take engineering classes in Korean.