In Seoul, S.Korea!

I'm in korea now. I had orientation for a couple days at berkeley from the 25 to 27. It was fun. There was a lot of food.. basically a buffet for breakfast lunch and dinner. Met some nice people there. It was kind of sad to leave because the day before the flight, I met some awesome Korean university students that were studying at Berkeley for the summer. Great to practice Korean with, and good for them too to practice English.
Here's some pics from Berkeley / San Francisco!:

^ In the shuttle bus going to Berkeley! with 4 other people in the van lol

^ An awesome CD/DVD store nearby Berkeley

^ They had pinball machines on the top floor too

^a thrift store I think?

^ UC Berkeley!

^ crazy overloaded with all kinds of different papers

^ UC Berkeley

^ UC Berkeley Student Union

^ the view from my dorm (Freeborn Hall)

 In the morning on our last day at Berkeley, we left for the airport and got on the united airlines flight to Incheon, S.Korea. The flight was around 11 hours and not that bad overall. There were some movies that were actually good like how to train your dragon. I was kind of disappointed in that they didnt have the individual screens for the passengers... but it was a nice flight nevertheless. They gave us too much food. Here's some pics as to what the food looked like:

^Lunch-Chicken, rice, vegetables, salad, bread, brownie (pretzels = snack)

^ Dinner - chips, turkey and cheese sandwhich, and some kind of bread/snack

Once we got to korea, there were a lot of people from YES International waiting for us. We hopped on a bus and went to the seoul youth hostel and ate dinner there. We didnt really do much after that, just wandered around the hostel. The view from the rooftop was amazing. It overlooked the nightlife of Seoul, and I could even see Namsan Tower (aka Seoul Tower). Stayed at the youth hostel from the 28th to 30th.

Here's some pictures from Incheon airport and my stay at the Seoul Youth Hostel:

^ the bathrooms in Incheon airport. first korean bathroom ever.

^ Incheon airport's toilet haha

^ arrival in Incheon airport :)

^ haha

^ Welcome to Seoul!

^ subway in airport

^ first subway ride in korea! haha.. we're just getting a ride to the immigration place though

^ YES International with the NSLI-Y banner

^ huge. in the front of Incheon airport

^ amazing bus! we were jamming to some kpop music on our way to the hostel. (the music came with the mv in the front of the bus)

^ night view from the hostel's rooftop

^ lots of colors

^pretty lol

^ the rooftop

^ our room! with 10 people total in there. my bunk is the farthest in, top right one.

^ gifts from YES International

^ came down stairs the next morning, and what do we find? a camera crew making a commercial or some kind of television show in the front lobby! the camera guy was japanese.. odd..maybe for a japanese show.

 

^ everyone is looking at the camera crew lol, but here's a pic of the entrance to the hostel

^ breakfast at the hostel! (forgot to take pics of lunch and dinner)

^ took a walk around the hostel and found a trail leading up the mountain. you can see the neat excercise equipment in the background!

^ at the top there was a mini waterfall. very pretty! the picture is sideways fyi

Okay this took insanely long to post. I'm at my host family's house (as of Wednesday, the 30th). They're very nice. I'll post later about my outings to Myungdong and etc later.

Update (업데이트)

Wow, I haven't posted in a while...There's a lot of catching up to do!
I took my oral proficiency test on Monday June 14, 2010. I have to admit, it was pretty bad... I could tell that I had a huge accent and wasn't speaking that well...very choppy and slowed down Korean... lol  Let's see, the two questions they asked me (if i can remember right):
1. Tell me about yourself.
2. Tell me about a book / movie / etc/ that you may have read recently or in the past and what you thought of it. (This is definitely not exactly what she said- just what I remember of it...and this happened a week ago..)

& I got my domestic and international travel information (will put up later for privacy reasons..)
and I also found out that I will be staying at UC Berkeley for a couple days for orientation.
Once we get to S.Korea, we will have another orientation for a week?
Then we're off to our host families! Exciting! My host-sister actually emailed and friended me on facebook yesterday. I'm so happy that I have a host-sibling. I didn't get any info about my host family from iEARN yet... so you can imagine how shocked and excited I was when I received an email from my host-sis. I'm supposed to get the official info about my host family on Monday.

p.s. I only have 3 more days of school! They're all for final exams, so I get out 3 hours early! :) It doesn't really matter that much what I get on my finals since they wont really change my grade (unless I do horrifically and fail them and literally get an E). I've already taken the one that really mattered last Friday. Junior year is almost over! (Surprisingly, it was the easiest school year of high school for me...when it's supposed to be the hardest.)
I also got my camera last Thursday! And last Friday was also my nephew's birthday. I'll post pics later since my internet is not letting me upload for some peculiar reason. --^