My life as an exchange student when my travel companion, Benny Leono, during my first week in Seoul departed for Osaka, back to where he was all this time. Truthfully, I felt overwhelmed and lost without any companions back then. However, throughout my days in this week, I met many new people (and new friends, of course)! There was a really strange, yet surprising condition that I was happened to be in, but I will save that for the end of this post.
First, I met friends from my SNU Buddy Group 8 going for Seoul Immigration Office to apply our alien registration card (some kind of foreign ID card). I met Akbal from Mexico, Jeff from Singapore and Mien-Fang from Taiwan. Of course, I met my one-on-one SNU buddy too! Choi Hong Seok. They were my first friends when I kick-started my exchange student life.
After the immigration stuff was settled on that morning, I followed Jeff to Office of International Affairs' inauguration party and again, I met a lot of new people! I met Nathalie and Christine from Germany as well as Kim Min Soo and Lee Jin Hyung as my SNU seniors. I made many new acquaintances from this party! It was a formal party with people in suites and all that, but I have a lot of fun and excitement going on with talking to a complete stranger while attempting to exchange culture and information. Alright, to round up, during this period of time, I met Fion from Hong Kong, Park Nam Young from Japan, Winston from Brazil, Cyril from France, Michael and Carina from Sweden, Thomas from USA and seriously many more. After the party ended, SNU Buddy asked us to have a dinner together with them, so here we go again. Chatting and exchanging country cultures and interesting stuff will never cease as a topic. We talked non-stop! I can't remember when was the last time I was THAT interested to talk about Indonesia. XD Anyway, after the dinner, we went for a coffee and basically, I have made friends with most of them. It was really an awesome experience to have such friends across geographical borders.
On this week, we have a one-day orientation too! Unlike Singapore whose orientations spanned for a week and more, Korea only utilize one single day for you to orientate yourselves into the campus systems and life. That's pretty overwhelming for me as I am still unsure how to get around and stuff like that. Again, I met many people out of the orientation! =)
On the first day of school, I had 3 classes. All of my teachers always paused a while before reading my name and all of them responded similarly, "Where were you from? KELVIN ANGGARA is definitely not a Korean name" said my German teachers teaching in my surface chemistry course. Well, I had a great time except one. My organometallic class supposed to deliver the lecture in English, but to my shock, it was delivered by Korean! I quickly raised my hand and interrupted the lecturer. He responded eagerly saying that he decided to deliver the lecture by Korean, while having the presentation slides in English. Well, that's tricky if you really give a thinking into it. I guess I was not in the position to make complaints or whatsoever as there were only 3 foreigners in the class including me. Such a democratic way of life. XD
I experienced my first hurricane encounter here in Seoul too! It was really disasterrific! Puddles were dislocated by the winds, scattered all around places whereas trees and bushes were on the verge of being pulled out. The peak of the hurricane was around 4 AM in the morning. When I woke up for class at around 7 AM, the wind was still of considerable strength with drizzles. It was really cold outside with winds blowing all around you. Well, it was an amazing experience though, nevertheless.
IOP would be the last to talk about. SNU buddy organized this party just for the exchange students. Coming from a non-drinking background and culture, I was quite overwhelmed when I learned the fact that parties were actually mean drinking-sessions. Well, I guess I was just being conservative. Learning to accept differences were why I would be an exchange student after all. So, I decided to join and well, it was really fun! I drank a glass of beers and couple small cups of soju and that's all. On the bright side, I managed to make couple good friends from this party! I would now agree that alcohol was a social-lubricant. However, I would like to add that, there were still countless ways not to involve alcohol. =)
Inventory-wise, I have my cellphone working now. I also learned how to go for a supermarket for groceries. I need ample supplies of fruits, cereals and milk! =)
OK. For the weird thing. I didn't feel a single homesick feeling. It was really surprising to me! I could get homesick at Singapore even if I have gotten used to it. But, Seoul? With nobody that I really know well? How is that even possible? Maybe I went out of my comfort zone too much and had ample amount of fun with new friends. Maybe I was staying at a double room here? HAHA! It was still a mystery for me.
peace
vixklen
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