Tuesday, June 4, 2013

Breaking News: DMZ excitement!!

I get to go to the DMZ this Friday for my last culture class trip of this semester! I am so excited since it was the number one thing on my Korean bucket list!! I will leave another blog post after Friday so I can talk about my experience in more detail later! Thank you for keeping an interest in my travels around Korea and reading my blog!! :)

Open House at Korea University!

May 20th-22nd was Open House at Korea University. It was kind of like a mini festival on campus. Let me explain the fact that the dorm life here at Korea University is very different than dorm life at Central Michigan University. Here in Korea the dorms are not co-ed, they are split so there is a boy side and then a girl side and the opposite sex is not allowed on the other sides. Also, if you live off campus you are not allowed in the dorms, because we are not allowed to have visitors. In addition to these differences, we have a curfew at midnight which is really annoying. Therefore, it is safe to say that living on Korea University's campus is way more restrictive than living on the campus of Central Michigan University and definitely hard to adjust to. I am actually still trying to adjust to it and I have been here for just over 3 months.

Therefore, this relates to the Open House and all of the festivities connected to it, because on the first day it really was like an open house. Everyone who lives in the dorms could go anywhere they wanted to in any of the dorms to see the differences between all of the dorms and it even gave people the opportunity to play tricks on other people. Semi-Classic was not successful, thanks to a nice warning I received from a good friend of mine that heard about the schemes of the Semi-Classic members. However, I had class the entire time so I was not able to participate in playing tricks on anyone.

Later that night they brought in a DJ and it was like a club on campus for everyone to just dance and have a good time. This event helped extend our curfew until 1am. It was fun but tiring.

On the next two days there were more booths to look at and games to play to win fun prizes. During the night there was a concert with some Korea University bands and then a professional group called Dynamic Duo. They were pretty good and we were even given money from the ITS office for food and drinks so we had a party for free. Then there were the awesome Korea University cheerleaders that led us in Korean cheers. And Korean cheer leading is also different from American cheer leading in terms of Korean cheer leading is not just chanting, it is more like them leading the school in cheer songs about how awesome Korea University is in comparison to Yonsei University. One of my really good Korean friends is actually a Korea University Cheer Captain!! Here are some pictures to follow up this long blog post.



B.J. my cheer leading captain friend!!


Another picture of Captain B.J.


Rehearsal for the Cheer leading of Korea University!


Dynamic Duo! 


While Dynamic Duo was performing! 


All of the members of ITS that participated in Open House!