Since I've already given a photo tour of the route to the School of Global Education and Exchange, this time I plan to illustrate what an SCH dorm looks like. What I knew before arriving was that every Global Village dorm is a suite with six ajoining bedrooms. Each bedroom has a bunk bed and space for two people's belongings. There are two shared bathroom/shower facilities and a common room with a big TV, sofa and cofee table.

What I wasn't prepared for was how small some of this has turned out to be, and other certain conditions. Above you'll see both my bed and the (at the time) unoccupied top bunk. Before coming to SCH I knew that the bed would be smaller than mine at home, SCH's only being a bunk twin size. The mattress is very firm, though, so it's hard to get used to sleeping on it; the first two weeks especially are rough. It's a good idea to look into getting some kind of bedding to make your sleep just a little more comfortable. For my bed, I was using a blanket I'd brought as extra padding - this seemed to work pretty well and helped me sleep better. After a while you'll get used to the SCH mattress, firm or not.

Each of these cabinet doors opens to a small wardrobe where you can hang jackets, pants, or whatever else you so choose. There's space on two bottom shelves for additional clothing, though this may be occupied by wire baskets. Said wire baskets are very helpful when used to put dirty clothing in, then transporting to the laundry downstairs. Other students put their laundry in large shopping bags, which is a very reasonable alternative. One just overfull basket is about a full load, though, so best to keep that in mind if you're doing laundry. There's also a laundry service that will wash and dry up to about 10 lbs of clothes for 4,000 won (around $4). I haven't used this yet, but may do so within the next week or so. If I do, I'll post here to let everyone know how it is.

The common area does have the sofa and tables promised, as well as a large television just below the large window overlooking the edge of campus and the local farmland. However this term the signal boxes (don't know what else to call them) were removed from all the dorms. Meaning that the TV is a useless oversized electronic device probably for the whole term. High speed internet is available in the dorms, though, and combined with other activities with friends you'll stay pretty busy. What did impress me was the view from the window; you can see it above. All of that green, combined with the mountains and the occasional apartment tower makes for unique scenery you're unlikely to find in Oregon at least. Just visible across the road in this picture is a blue roofed restaurant that turns out to be a vegetarian establishment. At night it lights up, and this is a pretty unique sight on its own.

And now we shift our attention to the bathroom. This is really where that smaller than expected feeling kicks in, and you really get the idea you're in a foreign country. Pictured above is the shower. It's a pretty narrow room, so if you're a little bigger you're going to have to be a bit flexible to get in and shut the door easily. Unlike in the west, you have a faucet with a hand-held shower head here. While strange to foreign eyes at first, it's really pretty simple to use and there are shelves for your shampoo, soap, towel, and clothing. Like many other things in Korea it just takes some adjustment on the foreigner's part to really get used to taking a shower like this.

Then we have the toilet. Some places in Korea have an eastern-style toilet, which amounts to a curved indentation in the floor and a hole. Many places, though, have western style toilets - though expect them to be of varying degrees of cleanliness. The ones at the Global Village are clean at least, though again the room is very narrow compared to what I was used to at home. They work like a toilet anywhere, but there's a big difference in how you use the bathroom here in Korea. Korea's plumbing is apparently unable to handle toilet paper. That means you'll need to deposit your used toilet paper in a garbage can usually found in the stall or bathroom you use.

Obviously, this is the sink. It's the same as in America, so there's really not much to say about it. In the dorms you bring your own soap, so you should consider investing in some liquid hand soap for ease of use. Also you'll need to buy your own toilet paper, as it will not be provided for you in the dorms. Outside the dorms you can usually find some in every restroom, but if you travel around you might consider taking a roll with you. Just in case.

And this wonderful device is a folding rack that represents the dorm's chief method of drying clothing. Dryers are rare in Korea so you'll need to use one of these racks to hang your clothes after washing them. This was a surprise to me - I'd known I'd have to dry my clothes in the suite, but having the rack was a nice bonus. It's so much easier to just set one up, put the wet clothes on it, and let it dry for a day than trying to find somewhere to hang them up in the room (really, there isn't anywhere). Usually it takes about 24 hours to really dry out your clothes, so I tend to do laundry every 3 days or so. This ensures that I'll still have enough clothes to wear for a couple days in case the laundry takes a little longer to dry. As for how to get the clothes washed in the first place, as I said before you'll need to head downstairs to the laundry room next to the Global Village lobby entrance.

It's pretty small as well, and when all of the Korean students are present during the week it can be hard to find an open machine. Optimally you should try and get to them at 6 am or close to curfew (midnight), or do laundry on the weekends. This ensures you'll be able to get to a machine with ease and without waiting. If you do have to wait, some people put their laundry or a box or other object on top of a machine to claim their spot as its next user. Besides the three machines you see above, another row of three lines the back wall. There are baskets along the wall next to the door, where unclaimed but finished laundry is deposited.

Recently while washing my clothes, the machine I was using stopped at 10 minutes. My clothes were still sitting in a good amount of water, and I was incredibly frustrated that the machine hadn't worked. Unsure of what to do I'd been about to take the soaked clothes out and over to the laundry service to have them dried. At that moment the security guard came over and assured me that if I did another cycle they'd be fine. Sure enough they were. Just another example of Koreans being willing to help you out if you're in need, and very much appreciated on my part.

To actually do your laundry, you open the lid and toss your clothes in. Inside the machine there's a tray you can pull out and deposit your detergent (either liquid or solid) in, not unlike back home. Next you'll need to press the button on the far left to set the temperature, the one next to it setting the time for your load. Finally you press the button on the far right (red one with a triangle in it) to start your load. Oddly the machines play a little jingle when they finish a load. But now you know how to do laundry... in KOREA!

Above is a pretty striking example of a cultural or at least organizational difference between Korea and America. I first noticed it while exploring the part of Asan closest to our campus, trying to find what sort of shops and dining establishments were close by. As I did so there were two or three incidences of multiple piles of filled garbage bags out on the street. Just sitting there. At first glance it seemed pretty unsanitary - and this in a place where the plumbing can't handle toilet paper going through the pipes.

Then I stopped and thought, ultimately coming to understand that it's not a bad thing just because of how different it is from what I see in the States. Later I was able to see why these little mountains of trash were just left out on the street like that. A garbage truck came by later in the day, and when I checked outside the dorm afterwards, all the trash was gone. What I'd thought was just maybe poor santiation was actually a convenient way for places with lots of trash to leave it all out for disposal pickup. There aren't nearly as many garbage cans on campus as you might find at an American school, and Korea has a pretty thorough recycling program from what I've heard. So the moral of this observation was that things are different, not worse. I'd thought I knew better than that, but it took garbage to show me otherwise.

When I first arrived on campus, I'd already seen a lot of new buildings going up all along the way from Incheon airport. There's even a parking structure/apartment building still under construction next to our campus. These are all signs of the rapid rebuilding the country has undergone since the devastation of the Korean War. As Judith Sachs, one of our coordinators put it, "They've come from the devastation of that war in 60 years to become the 12th largest economy in the world. It's really a miracle." In so many places I look now, I see this resurgence still going on in all the apartment buildings that are being built. Even in Myeongdong, a center for fashion and discount (often, seemingly, illegal) name brand goods, there was a building undergoing rennovation.

On the SoonChunHyang Campus, this drive for construction has been most visible in a long flight of stairs that were under construction when we arrived. You can see the the fountain at their top, still under construction itself, above. They were, I assume, built to grant an alternative to the narrow wooden plank staircase that's the only other way down in that part of the campus. All throughout the day there were a couple of people working on it, but I was sure it'd take a little while longer to complete. Therefore I was astonished to find they'd been completed, including the fountain, within just 3 days of arriving on campus. While they were certainly under construction longer than those 3 days, it was still an impressive feat all the same. Similarly, buildings that are under construction seem to be completed at a more rapid rate than would be seen in America.

Something that I'm starting to find out while abroad is that you have to just give in to whims of inspiration sometimes. It'll start just as something little you notice or read about. The more you think about it the more you want to go and see it, find out what it's really like rather than just seeing the pictures. The only way to really satisfy your mind afterwards is to make the effort to go and see what it is that caught your attention in person.

This was the case when I noticed flyers posted around the SCH campus for a production of Chicago. Mildly curious at first, the more I thought about it, the more I really wanted to see the show. Korea as I understand it has been a fairly conservative culture, based on the foundations of Confucianism and its emphasis on filial piety. So a show in which the chorus girls are dressed in the manner of flappers and dancers seemed like an intriguing choice of material.

As for the show itself, I found it to be well directed and acted. Even though I couldn't understand most of what was being said or sung, the hard work put in to the production was obvious. The cast performed with much energy and charisma, especially the leads, and it was a lot of fun to watch. Despite only having been here one week, I think this will be one of the better memories of my time in Korea. Something both familiar and alien - an American play performed in Korean - was someting I'd never imagined finding here. Yet when I did, it was that random inspiration that drove me to investigate further, and ultimately get quite a bit of enjoyment out of it.

In-Korea Tips, Week 1

After careful consideration, I've elected to use my second text blog update of each week to provide advice for those considering coming to Korea. This is mostly for those who, like me, plan to be in the country for an extended period of time. So each week I'll bring you one post about cultural, historical and personal experiences here in South Korea and one about how to survive while in-country.

Today, I'll try to breifly discuss what you'll need to buy if you're studying abroad. Many of these things may not seem obvious at first but once you're here they'll become fairly important. They might even be things that you'll want to pack with you rather than purchasing them in Korea. Most of these came up during a shopping trip I made with other international students this past Tuesday, and I'll have a small picture supplement after this post to illustrate a few items.

First of all you're going to need to buy your own toilet paper. This is vital. It will not be provided in your dorm room for you. Unless you want to continually travel down to a public restroom that does have it, you'll eventually need to purchase your own. Since I have not done so yet (I admittedly do just run down to the public restroom), I can't give you any guess as to how much this will cost in Korea. A bit more expensive than in America to be sure.

Secondly you'll be doing your own laundry, so laundry soap is obviously a must. Soonchunhyang University does have a laundry room where you can take your clothes to be washed for a small fee. But to really save cash you're going to want to get your own. A 2.02 liter bag of detergent cost me 7,800 won - about $7.80. It should last at least half the semester though, so the price is right.

Especially for the warmer summer and late spring here, getting a water bottle that you can reuse is very useful. This is one item you can acquire very cheaply in Korea. I myself purchesed a 2 liter bottle for 880 won, about 88 cents in the US. SCH has water coolers on every odd floor of the Global Village dorm, so you can easily find somewhere to refill your bottle when it gets low. It's really nice to have that cold (or lukewarm, depending on how long you've been out) water ready with how humid it gets in addition to the warmth here.

Finally if you can find a way to pack it safely, bring shampoo with you. This is another item that is prohibitively expensive in Korea compared to being dirt cheap in the USA. A more or less regular sized bottle of Head & Shoulders cost me almost $10 here! It should last a while, but it's still pretty spendy when you're also worrying about how to pay for food and the like.

Hopefully this has been informational to you readers out there. As always I really encourage reader interaction, so if you have any feedback, questions or comments, send them to my email address: HangukMartyn@yahoo.com.