Living in Seoul

Last Friday, I got on a bus and headed up to Seoul, where I'll be for a little more than three weeks. I'm living in the Graduate dorm on the campus of Ewha Women's University, and am living with Nicola. She is helping me to be more of a hippie. This is good.

It was less than 24 hours before we were sneaking boys up to the floor, and the entire time we were giggling like we were 18. While there were many other differences, at least now I'm drinking Pinot Grigio as opposed to Boone's Farm. Go, adulthood. (Just to clarify, some people went bouldering today, so the guys came up last night. I have decided that climbing in below-freezing temperatures is crazy and not in keeping with my new "peace, love and happiness" zen of climbing, so I passed and went and did things like go out to lunch, go to bookstores and get my hair did.)

Saturday I took the placement test for the Korean course I'll be taking for the next few weeks, and was placed in the beginner level, which was sort of to be expected. I mean, if they had tested me on how well I could tell kids they were crazy or had a roll play where charades were allowed, it would have been TOTALLY different. But anyway, this will be good, as I think I'll learn a lot but it won't be overwhelming enough for me to not be able to enjoy living in Seoul.

I have a cool little "T-money" token (subway/bus pass) on my cell phone now, just like all the cool kids do, and I've bounced around this side of the city a bit in the past few days. Book and yarn stores and just learning my way around this place. This will be fun!

Also, I went to get my hair colored and cut, and for the first time I walked out of a salon in Korea with a great cut!! Yay, Seoul! We'll see if I'm able to maintain it without the army of people all blowing out my hair for me.