Life back "home"

It's been a while since I've last posted on this blog. That's partly due to an 8 day visit to California where internet was almost impossible to get. The other reason was the more shameful one; procrastination... I've been in Korea with great internet (the fastest in the world) for quite some time now and I've been pushing off this blog post day after day... I finally felt like I should update my side of the adventure after Jack posted his third post. So, here it is!

I landed at the Incheon (인천) International Airport around 11 PM on Friday, June 17th with my brother. Walking through the airport I got a wave of nostalgia but at the same time, it was different and new. The airport was really empty since it was so late at night but that wasn't the only difference. The airport felt warmer than what I last remembered. I soon learned that Korea passed a law (I think?) that prevents public places from turning the AC on to lower the temperature below I think 22 degrees C. It's all for energy saving which I find is excellent but I was pretty hot while walking through the airport... There were other things that I felt was different but that's not really that important so I'll move on now. After my brother and I collected our bags we went outside and saw our parents. I haven't seen my mom since November and my dad for at least 2 years so it was pretty darn good to see their faces again. We drove home to their apartment and talked about life and such. I ended up going to sleep at 5 in the morning and then waking up at 7. Needless to say two hours of sleep is not enough... but I managed throughout the day without taking any naps (WHOO!). So it was the 18th and it was a Saturday and what better way to spend a Saturday than to meet up with a friend from Michigan! I meet Yong Il Kwon who's an Mechanical Engineer at UofM and we had lunch together with him and my family. Apparently my dad knew his dad from when they both went to Tokyo University for their studies so it was a cool thing; the fathers and sons meet at school. After that we headed off to see family relatives. I got to see my mom's older sister and her husband who recently had a stroke but is recovering very well. I also got to see one of my dad's younger brothers and we ate dinner with my dad's older brother and his family. Seeing my cousins (who are a lot older than me) after 5 years was pretty shocking. When I left 5 years ago one of my cousins just got married and the other one was dating his soon-to-be wife. Now between the two of them they have five children and two more on the way! A pretty busy family. But it was fun to be an uncle to them. We played rock paper scissors and other sorts of fun games. It also made me feel old... but that's sometimes a good thing right? Right... After visiting family we slept at a hotel and then headed down south towards Ulsan and UNIST. A busy first full day for me. I slept a lot in the car ride down... but UNIST was waiting for me and boy what a fun four days it has been!

So it's Sunday and I arrive late... great first impression right? I gave UNIST a heads up on my late arrival so it was all good. And for your information I didn't arrive on Michigan time... it was more like a couple hours late. Anyways, I ate dinner with the head of the international affairs at UNIST and with the three other Michiganders who are participating in this program; Jack, Clayton, and Labiba. We ate at this pizza place called Bella di Notte; pretty good pizza for Korea! It was pretty cheap too. After that, I went to my dorm room and basically fell asleep at 10 PM. I was dead tired and we had class in the morning so I thought "Let's get a lot of sleep!"... NOT! I woke up at 4 AM and stayed awake till the class started. I think I've gotten used to sleeping for 6 hours or less cause I can't seem to sleep longer than that. I automatically wake up after 6 hours... not a pleasant thing. Anyways, before we start our research us Michiganders are taking a introduction to the Korean language and culture course; except that's really not necessary for me. So the first day I helped the teacher with teaching the other three consonants and vowels. It was pretty fun. But alas, the fun died when the teacher decided to give me this test to see where my Korean is at in terms of proficiency... So now, instead of having the knowledge that I'll be A+-ing the course, I'm faced with writing paragraphs in Korean, which is very difficult for me... My level of Korean is that of a middle school student. That's not good. We'll see how the test goes tomorrow...

Other than the language course, I've been having a blast eating Korean food, playing frisbee, "studying" for the GRE and just relaxing in Korea. Jack basically told what happened in terms of activities in the last couple of days so I won't reiterate them. We actually discussed the blog and decided that we'd alternate weeks so that we don't run into the issue of recovering stuff that the first blogger posted.

For the weekend, I'm going back up to Seoul this weekend to spend time with my parents and brother which should be good. But I'm actually pretty excited to get the research started. Guess I'll have to wait until July 4th for that. At least I can celebrate two things that day!

Well, I'm going to sign off for now. Hopefully I can get some sleep so that I don't absolutely blank on my test tomorrow. See you guys soon!

As always, Go Blue!