[ An - yang - ha - seh - o ] !
That means hello in Korean! I have successfully been in Korea only one day, but have already managed to say important things like hello, rabbit, and gas station in Korean.
I arrived in Seoul around 4:00 am (Korean time) after roughly 16 hours of traveling. Fortunately, I was able to meet up with a couple other Fulbrighters who flew out of LAX, and eventually joined with the entire group early Sunday morning upon arrival to Korea. From Seoul we had to travel another 3 hours by bus to make it to Kangwon University - where we will be staying for the first 6 weeks. Since arrival, we have had little down time ... only a couple hours in the early morning to unpack, get settled, and meet our roomates.
After a delicious breakfast of cold rice, kimchi (spicy cabbage), and water, we began Orientation with a rousing 5+ hours of informational meetings and get to know you games.
We played "Fulbright Bingo" where you have to try to find people to fit specific character traits or have done certain things, and fill your board about cute things about each person . Again, as always, I was the "token vegan/vegetarian" and had to sign that box on everyone's bingo board. It doesn't end - even half way around the world.
After all of our meetings we were given a tour by the Key Club at Kangwon University - a club dedicated to studying English. They were really nice and helpful and I was able to have fairly good conversations with many of the members in English - but maybe tomorrow we will start speaking in Korean, since I'm obviously a pro already.
(We all take a language assessment test tomorrow to place us in specific classes that correspond to our knowledge of Korean. I'm pretty much a master at the alphabet now, so maybe they will ask me to teach a class on that. Otherwise I will most likely find myself in the extreme beginnger's course).
As our tour ended we headed into dinner - eggplant, rice, and sausage soup. The eggplant was delicious; the sausage soup did not look appetizing. I now am done for the day at 7:00. They are giving us some time to catch up on sleep and interact with all the other Fulbrighters.
I will continue to update later, but must find my way into bed tonight.

Lauren