Day 1: The Flight & Getting to Ewha Womans University

Hey everyone! I am now back from my trip (I was way too busy doing everything and being tired in Korea to blog about my experience), so I would like to start writing blog posts about my whole experience and give a rundown through everything amazing that has happened to me (and not so amazing). So, without further ado, here's day 1!

06.24.18 (EST) ~ 06.25.18 (KST)

Our airline was China Eastern, an airline I have never taken before, but since all of us found out about our Ewha Womans University acceptance a little late in the game (I heard back from them around late February, early March), we had no choice to pick the cheapest flight that was available for the date June 24th. 

My scheduled flight to get me to Korea was an indirect flight, starting at New York JFK and stopping in Shanghai PVG for a few hours, before taking another flight to my final destination: Incheon, South Korea (ICN). The flight to Shanghai was scheduled for 1:50am on June 24th and I was at the JFK airport by 11:00pm to check-in both of my luggage -- a small luggage and a big luggage -- and get a head-start on TSA and immigration. Most of this process was pretty easy, and all I had to do was wait for the flight to start boarding once I passed through. I met up with a friend from Rutgers during check-in, who was set to take the same flight as me and be one of my classmates in the Ewha program so it wasn't too boring, waiting the couple hours for the flight. 

Flight duration was a painful 14 hours, but I've been to Hong Kong a few times and that direct flight is 16 hours -- this flight was bearable. The food was not too bad, and I had downloaded a few episodes of Korean dramas to entertain myself during the long hours. When I landed, everything went pretty smoothly. We landed around 4:00am though, so nothing was open at all and it was all warm in the airport (I guess air conditioning isn't turned on during such early times). We had to wait until around 6:00am so we could grab real food for breakfast, finally. We opted for Tsui Wah Restaurant, a Hong Kong breakfast restaurant, that was located conveniently near the immigration that we got out of and where we were hanging out for a couple of hours.

The food price was in yuan, of course, but my friend Samantha had brought some yuan to spend during our stop in Shanghai. I don't exactly remember how much the meal was, but it was a reasonable price and we were frankly starving and craving some authentic Chinese food. We ordered Set A and Set C (I think), sets that came with tea or coffee as well as toast and eggs. I got the Satay Beef Instant Noodles with the HK milk tea!

Closest is Satay Beef Instant Noodles with HK Milk Tea. Further is macaroni with ham and HK milk tea.

After eating and more dawdling, we finally boarded the flight to Seoul which involved us getting into an airport bus and physically boarding ourselves onto the plane. Breathe in the super nice summer Shanghai air, hahaha. It was hot and humid and definitely a nice wake-up call that we were in China.

After an average meal and super short flight (I don't think I really ate much of the meal since I already ate in Shanghai), we arrived at Incheon Airport in around two hours. The first thing we did was take the airport air train to the main terminal and retrieve our baggage.

After retrieving our baggage, we prioritized picking up our pre-ordered SIM cards from the KT booth (we pre-ordered the unlimited data 30-day card from Trazy). Call us desperate but we really did need our data to function like knowledgeable human beings in a foreign country. After picking up our SIM cards, I made sure to notify the fam that I've arrived safely in Korea -- I proceeded to give some detailed updates just in case things went wrong.

I knew we needed to figure out about bus times and how to get to Ewha. However, we were starving. So before we found the ticket booth, we went to eat. It was kind of hard to navigate the airport, but we ended up finding a small food court where we had the opportunity to order lunch (in Korean) for the first time.

I ordered something called Itaewon Pork Rice Soup (이태원재육덮밥) and it was pretty good. Not sure if I was just starving, or maybe the first bite in Korea was really that worth it. After devouring our food, we took a few moments to rest before rolling our two luggages back downstairs to find the ticket booths for our way to Ewha Womans University.

Before I packed up and left to go to Korea, my family and I read and watched a lot of blogs and videos about how to get to Ewha Womans University from the airport (as it takes about an hour to get there), including methods like the airport subway line and the direct airport limousine bus. The subway was definitely cheaper, but it included one transfer from the airport line onto the green line 2 subway. We also didn't think dragging our luggage around sounded any appealing, so we opted for the 10,000 won 6002 airport limousine bus which would bring us from the airport straight to one of Ewha Womans University's bus stops.

You can locate the ticket booth near Exit 5 of Terminal 1. There, you can ask for tickets to the bus that goes to Ewha Womans University and pay the woman 10,000 won. She will offer you a deal to also buy a T-Money card there (the transportation card that works everywhere in Korea, at convenience stores, subways, and buses) and get the ticket for cheaper, but I advise either sticking to the Ewha Womans University Student ID card (which works as a T-Money card) or buying any of the super cute assortments sold at any convenenience store or brandname store that has T-Money card designs.

The bus ride itself was very comfortable and was basically the duration of an hour. When you board the bus, the ahjussi driver takes your ticket and helps you load the luggages into the compartments under the bus. They then put a sticker on your luggage and give you the corresponding number ticket so they will know which luggage is yours. When you are about to reach your destination stop, you can just press the "stop" button and hand the ticket to the ahjussi who will help you unload the luggages at the stop. It's honestly really convenient and I think that the 10 bucks were 100% worth it.

Sam and I were lucky to run into a professor on the bus that was also taking it to get to Ewha. He was a professor from a UC school in California and was there to participate in the Ewha International Summer College program as an instructor. He knew the way to the Ewha Housing Office and kindly offered to lead us all the way there. At the Office, we checked in and handled some paperwork before moving into the dorm rooms and lightly unpacking. By that time, it was almost time for dinner and Sam and I met up with our other friend from Rutgers University in order to find dinner near Ewha.

After spending forever walking around and being indecisive, we settled on a place called Mom's Touch Kimbap and I ordered a cheese tonkatsu for dinner. My friends ordered a Stone Bibimbap as well as knife-cut noodles.

Dinner was pretty satisfying and low-cost. After eating to our heart's content, we set out to Daiso to buy rolls of toilet paper since the dorms do not provide toilet paper for everyone. We dropped off bottles of water and packs of toilet paper at the dorms before going out to get some dessert.

There is a cafe really near the front door of Ewha called Cafe Pera, and our Korean teacher back at Rutgers recommended it to us (she is an Ewha alumni!). Originally, we were planning to sit in the cafe for a bit but they had a rule where if you sat in, you had to buy one thing per person...so we ended up getting takeout for a slice of tiramisu and devouring it back in the dorm rooms. It was gooooood.

After we were done enjoying our dessert, it was time to really settle in, unpack, and sleep. The next day was scheduled for an orientation and campus tour and we all had to wake up by 9am (which we thought was pretty early, but we were also jetlagged and confused). 

So that was the end of Day 1!! 😋