The countdown begins

I'll be leaving for Seoul in 40 days.
My flight jets out of SeaTac International Airport on August 21 and I won't be landing back in the States until December 21. I'll be studying abroad for one semester at Yonsei University in Seoul. It's the first time I'll be traveling out of the country by myself. I'm anxious.

I have one year of Korean language experience thanks to the University of Washington, but I am nowhere near ready to plunge into a witty, fast-paced conversation with a native Korean speaker. I'll be lucky if I can order food or find my way to a bathroom before I resort to . . . other measures.

I suppose I still have 40 days to prepare.

During that time, I plan to read up on my Korean history and find a place to live while I'm there (my dorm room assignment is still pending). While I would enjoy living with other international students, I am also hoping to spend at least a few days crashing at a stranger's place couch surfing

Searching for "Seoul" and indicating my primary language is English yielded a healthy number of results on that Web site. I haven't talked to anyone yet, but I hope someone will take me in. I'm not a creep nor am I a crook. I promise.

For the time being, I'll be plenty busy with my summer job.

I am the editor-in-chief of the University of Washington's student newspaper, The Daily. This job has been greedily hoarding my summer away: so much for the sun. I only bring this aspect up because I am a journalism major and I've been a Daily staff writer for more than two years. I'm quite interested in pursuing news topics in Korea when I arrive.

If you'd like anything investigated or have any suggestions for me, I'd be delighted to do my research and see what I can find while I'm over there.

That's all for now. I'll be updating rather infrequently during the summer to detail my preparation, but certainly the more interesting and frequent posts will begin to pour onto this Web site when I arrive in Korea. I'll be supplementing my posts with photographs shot on my Nikon D50 and I am currently searching the market for a cheap video camera so I can upload videos to YouTube and paste them back here.

P.S.

Perhaps this is a moment of bliss that you may not appreciate, but it is wonderful and scary to be able to publish my writing by simply clicking "publish post." Where are the copy editors? I've read through once for clarity, but I'm afraid there might be a grammatical travesty lurking somewhere in this post.
Well, I suppose this is my introduction to blogging.




I was searching through YouTube for a video of Seoul or Yonsei and discovered this "guided tour." This fellow drives around on his motorcycle with a (shaky) camera. The raw tape is edited with text overlaying Yonsei's buildings and some of the surrounding neighborhood. According to this video, there seem to be plenty of places to eat cheap food and drink soju.