Orientation

It's been a few days since I last blogged, but I've been extremely busy with orientation, which was amazing. Day 1 started off with an adventure to campus. We walked through a construction site detour, up a huge hill, up a huge staircase, past a temple, down a huge hill, through a hole in a gate, and then finally arrived  on campus. The building was very large with a stone exterior. Inside we signed in and met up with our KUBA, Korea University Buddy Association, buddy. It turns out mine is a lot like me. He is an international student from Washington state and he's spending the year at KU. He played football in high school and we got along really well. 

The KU higher ups told us about KU's commitment to globalization and how excited they were that we were here. Then they showed us this video that made KU look like the coolest place ever. GW looks like a steaming shitheap compared to this school. They had people doing science stuff, students at sporting events, artifacts from its history, and messages from former university presidents. Then they sang the KU fight song and it was a lot like the scene from Hunt for Red October where all the sailors sing. I have no idea what it means, but it still got me very excited for my time at KU. 

We then went to get cell phones. They had smartphones so I got the cheapest one. I got what I paid for. Alexander Graham Bell's first phone would serve me better than this brick. It uses a 20 pin charger, runs android v1 and won't sync my google account. I'm *this* close to having my parents send me my Galaxy s3 and rooting that bad boy. 

Lunch in the KU dining hall was great, and yet again, puts GW to shame. I got blood sausage, two kinds of kimchi, rice with seaweed, plum juice, Vienna sausage, and more rice, for less than $5. I can get used to this.

The campus tour was good, we got to see a lot of beautiful campus buildings. Their main lawn was all dead grass from the snow, but it still put U Yard to shame. U Yard looks like the Somme after an artillery barrage. The part of the tour that had the most lasting impact was THE RAMPANT DAY DRINKING. Korea's semester system is reversed, (This is their first semester, not second, hence my unnaturally long winter break), so all the incoming freshmen get together by major and get absolutely wasted together. I mean RIPPED. Asian glow is most certainly a thing, and at 2PM these kids looked sunburned. The lawn was full of people playing what looked like duck-duck goose with 2 cases, yes, cases, of 40s in the middle of the circle. Outside that circle was an EMPTY case of Soju, Korean liquor. All the bottles in the pile next to the box were empty too. Now imagine this scene 18 times around the lawn, but with even more alcohol. People were going on liquor store runs and coming back with the stuff. These freshmen were hazing themselves and loving it, it was a really bizarre situation. Needless to say, America would be a lot more fun with a 19 year drinking age and no open container laws. 

The next day was much more relaxed. We signed up for our student cards, ate lunch, and registered for any classes we missed during online registration. We then went to a PS3 room, a big room with couches and TVs where people play PS3 with friends. Then we went bowling in the area by a women's university. There were some serious cuties in that neighborhood. Bowling was fun but I am terrible at it. One of my friends could spin the ball and got a few strikes that way. It was really cool to see and made me appreciate The Big Lebowski more. Since my team lost we picked up the cab fare home; it cost a whopping $2. This may sound strange, but the best part of that outing was when we got out of the cab, the people we went with all thanked me for paying instead of gloating. It made me think of how I interact with others. Sorry for the PSA.

Our orientation group then met up for a night of drinking and eating. We first got fried chicken and beer, which was an experience. We sat down and the first thing we get is this HUGE pitcher of beer. It was at least a gallon, and it was the only drink on the table. Two huge plates of fried chicken came next, one with hot sauce the other just crispy. We were given 2 forks so we could pull the meat off the bones, which was ingenious because it made eating chicken easy, kept your hands clean, and made you feel like a cannibalistic surgeon. Then we learned the drinking games. They involved patterns, quick responses to changing motions, and a lot of yelling. They were clearly designed to exponentially increase drinking as you got more drunk. We then went to another restaurant and repeated the same process; eat and drink. This time we got Soju, which after we took shots we just poured into the pitcher to fortify the beer. Science. Since we started around 6, we finished around 1 and went back to our rooms to go to bed. Tonight's events definitely confirmed all the stories I heard about KU. This country is a lot of fun.