Annyonghaseyo! I have a few minutes between lunch and our meeting the the head of KAEC so I thought I'd write a short post. Day 2 of Fulbright Orientation was interesting to say the least. A little background knowledge- Korea has been very wary of foreigners who enter the country ever since the H1N1 outbreak. KNU was worried about us coming to their campus before we even arrived. So...One of the guys in our group woke up feeling sick Monday morning, so the orientation counselors decided to take him to the hospital just to get him checked out. KNU found out and told the counselors they wanted all of us to wear masks (which the couselors rejected). So KNU quarantined us for the whole day. We were only allowed in our dorms and in the classroom building. They wanted to shuttle us back and forth in buses, but that never happened. We also had to eat at different times when the cafeteria wasn't as busy. The one OC said she is going to make "I survived H1N1" t-shirts. For some reason however, we were still allowed to go on our field trip to E-mart...the Korean version of Walmart. I probably could have spent all of my money at that place. Everything has cute little cartoons on it with funny English words that don't make any sense. To friends and family- be prepared to get these things for holidays!
This morning we had a wonderful suprise at the cafeteria. I was dreading eating rice and kimchi for breakfast again, but to my surprise it was "Western Breakfast Day" at the dining hall. Our "western breakfast" consisted of slices of white bread (no butter or toaster), a tiny square of ham, salad, potato soup, unpasteurized milk, and a single slice of Kraft American cheese, still in the wrapper of course. I have never been so excited to have salad at 8am!
We also started our Korean language classes today too. By the end of the 4 hours, I thought my brain was going to explode. My two teachers are the cutest Asian women. Neither of my teachers spoke any English the entire time, minus a few words here and there. Instead they spoke Korean and acted out everything they were saying. I wish I could have videotaped it...I think I smiled the entire time. I did manage to learn the alphabet, how to say "hello" and "my name is" and "what is your name?" and "I'm glad to meet you".
Well I'm off to another meeting. I have more pictures to post later! Xo.