This post is gonna be long. Prepare!

Heyyyy there!

It's been a while, hasn't it?

Not my fault! I've been getting moved in and ready and things are CRAZY here right now, but don't worry, I'm about to fill you in.

This is not going to follow a very fluid line, by the way. It's going all over the place.

But anyways, yeah, the first thing I want to talk about is tiny Korean cocoa puffs.

They might seem inconsequential to you, but if you had them, you would know what I'm talking about. They're like little perfect versions of the real cocoa puffs and they're SO good. I want to eat those cute little things every day. I had them this morning at breakfast - SK Global House (my dorm) is attached to a little shop area that has a 식당 (cafeteria) called Cafe Kkini where they have this great breakfast buffet for $5.00 (keeps me full for hours, seriously) including eggs, fried rice, breakfast ham, pineapple juice, TINY COCOA PUFFS!, milk, Americano (black coffee...which is literally $3.00 for a small cup here), lychee-like fruit, salad, toast, pineapple jelly stuff, etc. I am well-fed on the mornings that I get up early enough to enjoy this buffet.

Anyways, also in the shopping area is a GS25 convenience store, where I can get lunch for $1.00, and also a Caribou Coffee! It's so convenient. My dorm is the best.

However, there is a place called Burger&Shake that I despise. I will explain why.

I love milkshakes. I can't explain how much I love milkshakes. Korea is lacking in very few areas, but one of them is milkshakes. I was excited that there was a place named Burger&Shake next to my dorm, and went there pretty soon after moving in. Guess what? They don't have shakes. There are no milkshakes. At Burger&Shakes. What?! They have YOGURT SMOOTHIES. I don't want a yogurt smoothie! I want a shake! Like the one in your name! Burger&Shake! Ugh. Anyways, that and no good cheese, and expensive peanut butter. Other than that I love Korean food places. (Apparently Mexican food is terrible in Korea, but I don't eat Mexican, so it doesn't affect me.)

One of the places affected by the lack of good cheese is Pizza restaurants. American pizza places (i.e. Domino's and Pizza Hut) are pretty high-class here. A large pizza is around $30.00 a pop, which is pretty incredible. They have a pretty nice place here called Mr. Pizza, whose catch phrase is, get this, "Love for Women." Haha! Apparently they have "all the things that a woman can love" at their restaurant. Which is pretty true, because at the salad bar they have a yogurt station which includes tiny cocoa puffs!!! They truly do know what a woman like me needs. The cheese is kind of gluey, though, but I'm getting used to it.

McDonalds is MUCH better in Korea, by the way. But their milkshakes are very....meh. My recommendation? Go for the McFlurry instead.

I've started to get used to people pretending not to be staring at me on the subway. I go into "subway mode" which is basically me staring directly above everyone's head with a blank expression on my face, and makes me kind of blend in. Sort of. It's really interesting that in this country, if you're traveling on a bus or a subway with strangers who also happen to speak English, everyone assumes you're with them, even if you're across the bus and not looking at them. I was riding a bus the other day and when some other foreigners were getting off, the person next to me moved over as though making room for my simultaneous disembarkation. As though all foreigners have a hive mind and all must return to our White People nest together. Hahah. Another great thing about that same bus ride was the little kid sitting in front of me. He was hopping around in his dad's lap and staring around and sucking on his fingers and then turned and looked at me - and stopped. His eyes grew enormously wide and he sucked in a gasp. "아빠! 미국 사람! 아빠! 아빠!!! 미국사람있어요!!!!!" he starts shouting and pounding on his dad's shoulder. ["DAD! AMERICAN!! DAD! DAD!!! THERE'S AN AMERICAN!!!"] (Apparently all white people are American.) The dad tried to shush his kid, and so he turns to his mom and starts screaming the same thing. Everyone on the whole bus was pretty uncomfortable at that time and kept looking at me as though not sure how I would react (Does she know Korean? Does she know what he's saying?) So I turned to the little boy and asked "미국사람들 자주 봐요?" [Do you often see Americans?] and this kid FLIPPED. He starts jumping up and down and then settled down into playing peek-a-boo and making his hands attack me. He was so cute.

Anyways, back to Yonsei stuff. I am finally moved in and ALMOST completely settled. I was able to get my passport back today - I may be going to Immigration tomorrow to settle everything with my Alien Registration Card, depending on how soon I can figure everything out. Things are getting much easier! On Friday I'm going for my Dorm Residency-required chest X-ray and Hep-B scan. (Ya know, just in case I'm carrying highly infectious diseases.)

My roommate's name is Taylor. She goes to Baylor (haha it rhymes!) and she's really nice. She's from New Orleans. We're both clean people and like Korean dramas, and since we're both friendly I think we'll have a good year. I'm really excited! She was two days late moving in, so I was worried that she was lost somewhere but she eventually showed up, haha.

When I had to move in I was worried because I had so much stuff, but my friends Bomi, Changmin, Kevin, and Ryan got a van and helped me move everything! It was so nice! It was also really funny because I was the only person with an entire entourage coming with me. I got a lot of quizzical stares, but it was worth it because I barely had to carry anything, hahah. I gave Changmin and Bomi little maple syrups (and one for Dayoung but she wasn't there) because they have been such helpful people and good friends to me. They asked me what it was for!!! I told them "pancakes and waffles," which Changmin restated for Bomi (팬케이크, 와풀 - "paen-keh-i-keu, wah-pul") and they were both a little confused and very excited. I also gave thank you cards (be proud, Mommy!) and said thanks almost a little too much.

As a consequence of my giving gifts to them, they decided to take me out to dinner a few days ago to a naengmyun place that gives free Korean beef (Daddy would like this place, haha) for only $5.50. Delicious. Afterward we all got coffee, and they surprised me with a present! It's a little plant called 워터코인 (water coin) which is apparently called Pennywort in America and is a much-hated lawn weed that grows in over-watered lawns. Here in Seoul there aren't many lawns, so people haven't grown a hate for it. It's really cute!! There are long stalks and tiny button-shaped perfectly round leaves on top. They told me to pick a name for it, and I asked for ideas, and we came up with 몽쉘 (mong-shuehl) which is the Korean way to write "mon cher" ('my dear' in French - can also be taken as 'my expensive thing' if you look at it from a Korean grammatical standpoint). It turns out my little plant's name is pretty complicated. The Korean sound/ onomatopoeia word for "puffy" is 몽글몽글 (mong-geul mong-geul) and so mong-geul is somewhat like mong-shuehl in that way. 'My dear' stands for how it's a very cute plant and I love it, and 'my expensive thing' signifies how the little leaves look like coins (in America the name can also be 'water dollar'). Phew. That was a long explanation. Anyways, I love it!

Here at Yonsei I've been meeting a lot of great people, including Matt, Annie, Grace, Jagi and Chang, but the person who has been the most friendly and welcoming to me so far is Peter. He's like my older brother here and is always checking in and asking to hang out, and refers to me as his bro. He's really great. We all went out the other night to a bar and just hung out and chatted (in Korean it's called 놀다 - literally "to play") and had a good time. I'm getting to know a lot of people. I'm going to be meeting up with some girls I met when I went to HB (two of which coincidentally now go to Yonsei!) including Taehee, Jongmin, and Dongrim. The fourth of the South Korean visitors to HB is named Eunkyung/Jenna and I already met with her the other day. She bought me dinner! It was this really good fish dish (오징어 - cuttlefish) and then there was a stew afterward. We went for coffee when we were all done and just hung out and talked. It was a lot less awkward than I thought it would be.

Yesterday I met with Mia's friend's daughter Jiae and her friend whose name I (regretfully) cannot remember. She was really sweet, and so was her friend, but they aren't very fluent at English. We eventually were able to communicate pretty well once we felt less inhibited by nervousness, and they told me I have good Korean intonation for a foreigner (yay!...?) and we went to a restaurant called 콩불, which is an abbreviation for 콩나물 볼고기 (bean sprout bulgogi) and had bean sprouts fried with spicy sauce and greens and bulgogi and cuttlefish. More cuttlefish! I really like it. It was good and spicy. We had a really tasty peach drink and beer and water with the meal. I need to find out where to buy that peach drink because it's almost as good as tiny cocoa puffs.

Before I met Jiae, I was at Hyundai department store and bought a down winter coat with a fur-lined hood for $40 (yes, incredible deal) and some new running shoes for $50 (yet another great deal) because those are two things I've really been wanting. Korean winters can be harsh and my old running shoes had a few too many miles on them (gotta be careful not to injure myself with old shoes) so now I'm well stocked and feel very thrifty.

I also went to cold stone and got a scoop of German chocolate cake ice cream. When i I went to order, I ordered in the Korean and the lady surprised me with speaking English with nearly no Korean accent. I was startled into not being able to talk at all. Maybe I fooled her into thinking I can't speak English. I guess I can pretend I just speak French, haha. (Although with my luck, she'd know French, too!) While I was walking around with my ice cream I saw something that was TOO adorable, but also very sad. A woman in the subway had three boxes with her - one full of chicks, one full of kittens, and one with a tiny puppy! The puppy was going for $70, the kittens for around $50, and the chicks for around $10. They were the most adorable things ever. However, most subway-sold items are either bootleg or made in China. These little animals were most likely raised on a baby animal farm in China where they basically make animals create mass litters of animals and then sell them with very little medical and pedigree regulation. So, although the animals were so so very cute, there was probably a lot of evil going on behind the scenes, which is so so not cute.

Recently I went down to 인천 (Incheon) to visit 인천대공원 (Incheon Grand Park) which was giant and beautiful. You could rent tandem bikes and four-person pedal carriages to ride around. There were a lot of big rocks and interesting sculptures and waterfalls/creeks, etc. It was gorgeous.

Yesterday I met up with Hyunjin in Anguk! We went around the area looking at little shops and jewelry and shoes, and had lunch at this place called 별다방 미스리 (Star Dabang Miss Lee) which is apparently a throwback to the older generation, where cafés called Dabangs would be the place guys would go to in order to hit on girls. We had some old-school lunch followed by these gummy fruit things for dessert. After walking around we got some AMAZING bingsu at a café that was once an old house and then converted into a coffee place. I had a really great time hanging out with her.

Anyways, that's all for now! I'm going to post a video of my room and lots of pictures!

If I think of anything else I forgot to say, I'll put it in a new post.

Oh, by the way, classes start tomorrow, and I have my Korean class placement test - gotta study!! Wish me luck!

Love,

Janet

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo