Placement!

A couple weeks ago I got my host family! I will be living in Eunpyeong-gu, Seoul! Eunpyeong is on the edge of Seoul, near the mountains, and it's a newer district and still developing So, it's a little more on the "country" side of Seoul, or at least that's what I've gathered from the internet. Apparently a lot of Koreans go here to go hiking!

So, in my opinion, it looks like a great mix of both the modern city life and natural sights that Seoul has to offer. I CANNOT wait. :D Eunpyeong looks fantastic. I've outlined it in green in the map above, and the college where I will be taking Korean classes everyday, Sogang University, is in Mapo-gu, which I've outlined in purple. So, I'm not too far away! Using Google Maps I've been able to figure out that my daily commute will be roughly 40 minutes by bus, which is not too bad at all! It's actually quite similar to the time it took me to get to school in Japan. And I love public transit (in Asia, haha), so I'm quite happy.

Now, for my host family, I have a host father who's an architect, a host mom who's a cook (YUMMY KOREAN FOOD! <3), a host grandmother, and a 21 year-old host sister. However, there was also a message attached to my host family information that my program sent me, and I had the message translated (since my Korean is...ah, well...yeah). The message said was from my host sister, who said she was 18, and she also said that there are five people in her family, and that's she's excited and wants to go to the movies and visit rice fields with me on the weekends and such. Sounds great, right? And it is! I'm thrilled with my host family, they sound fantastic. The only problem I have is that my information from NSLI-Y said that there are only FOUR members in my host family (the mom, dad, grandmother, and 21 year old sister), but the message was from someone who said she's eighteen, and who also said there's five people in her family. So, I'm a little confused, but I'd be totally happy with either situation, haha. Unfortunately, I cannot contact my host family at this time. The email address NSLI-Y included with the information is wrong. I wrote up an email to my host family, and when I tried to send it, the email bounced back, and gmail said that the email address did not exist. So, either my host family wrote it down wrong or NSLI-Y made a mistake. When I discovered this I emailed NSLI-Y, but unfortunately they don't have any other email address listed. So, I guess I'll find out about my host family situation when I get there! But it's all good since I love surprises. :P

I leave on Sunday! :O Oh my goodness. There's still a ton left for me to do! I have to finish packing and last minute shopping, and I need to buy host family gifts as well! So, I'll update soon!