My first week in Korea was a bit of a hectic one. I started the week by driving to the airport for my 15-hour flight. I was anxious due to it being my first time flying, but I was going with my friend, so my nerves weren’t as bad. When the airplane took off, I felt like my heart was jumping out of my chest, but then I realized that the sensation reminded me of a roller coaster, and I quickly calmed down. Immediately after take off, we had our first meal. I was struggling to open the rice container, so the person at the end of the aisle offered to help.
For most of the flight, I listened to music and tried to get some sleep. I remember watching two movies on the flight, Aladdin and Single in Seoul. However, time still seemed to pass by slowly. What felt like an hour was actually 20-30 minutes. I felt like I had lost perception of time. By the end of the flight, I was very happy to land and get my journey started. Check-in time for my dorm ended at 7 pm, and our flight landed at 5:15 pm. Going through immigration took forever, and by the time we got in our taxi, we had less than an hour until check-in was over. We spent almost two hours in the taxi because we couldn’t find the place to check in.
Since we missed our check-in time, we were fortunate to be able to get the last guest room that the campus had. We spent most of our time exploring the city and trying different things. I was mostly shocked by the number of cafes on each block. The amount of matcha lattes I drank within 3 days should beat a world record. My favorite part of the week was meeting the other exchange students. I became friends with people from Australia, Finland, Mexico, Germany, Taiwan, etc. They talked about their views on life and why they chose to study abroad in Korea. I spent the rest of my week exploring Hongdae with my friends and getting ready for classes to start.