More EPIK Orientation

Today is the first day of Orientation.

When we got to our dorm, we were given name tags, shirts, a theromometer to make sure we don't have the swine flu, towels, toothpaste, mugs, converter, snacks, alarm clocks, and books. They all have either the EPIK logo or JJ University logo on them. My temperature today when I took it was 35.8 Celcius. We have to keep track of it everyday, and keep a log of it in our books.

The room is very nice. It is smaller than the dorms at UWEC, but we have our own bathroom. It looks like IKEA designed the room. There is a nice view of the city and mountains. Our closet and storage area take up an entire wall.

Breakfast was served at 7:30 am today, and because I woke up so early, our group got there early and had good seats. The food at breakfast was an odd combination of American and Korean food. Some of the foods were: Kimchi, Cornflakes, Salad with Thousand Island dressing, Cream of Broccoli Soup, Crescent Rolls, Tomato Slices, French Fries, Coffee, sliced pickles, Rice, scrambled eggs, and cooked ham slices. Really bizarre, but since I hadn't eaten for 14 hours, it was delicious!

The campus is close to a 7-11, so some friends and I checked that out before our campus tour. Because there are over 550 of us here, we are broken down into 8 groups that we do our activities with. My group is group 3, and it is a combination of the Gwangju and Incheon teachers.

The teachers seem to be from everywhere! There are people from England, Australia, Toronto, Quebec, FL, NY, MI, MN, WI, IL, CA, and everywhere inbetween. I was suprised at the diversity and various backgrounds of everyone. There seem to be many Korean Americans and Korean Canadians doing EPIK.

Today we had the tour, but because there are more than 50 of us in group 3, it was hard to hear much. I think we saw the place where we are having the opening ceremony and welcoming dinner later on today. The campus is very scenic. Our dorm was completed in March 2009, and it looks even newer. Many buildings look like they are from the space age. The flora is also very nice. Because it is warm and humid here, there is a wide variety of plant life. I'm so glad all the buildings are air conditioned!