South Korea, I have arrived!

Hello everyone! I am Janine Mabuti and I am a Sophomore and I am currently studying abroad in South Korea at Soonchunhyang University! It has been a month since I have arrived to South Korea and let me just tell you, I am having a blast. I have met many amazing people who have made this experience so much fun. The food here is AMAZING, and to be in a place that is so different from Hawaii is something that I feel honored to be able to experience.

In the month since I have been here, I have been to many different cities such as Onyang, Cheonan, Suwon. My friends and I have even traveled to Seoul and visited Myeongdong, Hongdae, Han River, Namsan Tower in our free time. I have been to Seoul before a year ago with my family and to come back was phenomenal. I am proud of myself for working hard in school to be able to come back to South Korea and study abroad.

For the living situation, there are 12 people to a suite, there are a total of 6 rooms with 2 people in reach room. Usually in each room, there is one foreign student and one Korean student. But there are times where in the very last room of the suite, there can be 2 Korean students which was the case for my suite. There are four buildings in Global Village, building A, B,  C, and D. I currently live in building D and my suite mates are very friendly and nice people that welcomed me easily. We have spent a lot of time staying up late to just chat with each other in our living room and just overall get to know each other better.

Classes and exchanges have started and my schedule is pretty packed during the weekdays. I am currently taking Korean Speaking, Korean Writing, Global Marketing, and International Trade and Finance. The two business classes are very interesting and it's a new subject that I have never really delved into, but I am excited for what we are going to learn and do in that class. My Korean classes on the other hand are a little tricky and difficult depending on what we are learning. I am proud to say though, that I am able to finally read hangul, which is something that I have always wanted to do. My speaking skills weren't bad before coming to Korea but I hope to improve my speaking and writing by the end of the semester.

We have also had our first Coffee Hour which was on the first day of Soonchunhyang's School Festival. I took part in Coffee Hour with the dance team, UNITED, where my friends and I did a cover to Red Velvet's Power up. It was a fun filled night with dancing and games. The dance team ate out all together afterwords and bonding some more over food. After that, we all headed on over to the school festival which was awesome. The entertainment was exciting and there were so many food booths that made my tummy happy. I enjoyed the night so much and I was ecstatic by the food and the good company.

Below are some photos from my one month here so far. Enjoy! Look forward to more blogs in the future!