EPIK Orientation at Jeonju University

After a very long bus ride from Incheon we arrived at Jeonju University where are orientation was held. Epik or English Program in Korea is a government sponsored program. The Korean government put us up for a week in dormitories to hold our orientation. On my way to my room I met Dave, a young Aussie who ended up puking up soju the next day. He mentioned that a few people were going out for drinks. So Ryan, Sandra and I walked with our new friends Dave and his roommate James from Ireland to the only bar in town. It became an all night event. Many pitchers and bottles of Soju later I was in an electronic music discussion with my new friend Tristan. Tristan is from Tazmania Australia and after a few drinks I could barely understand him (He is a huge soccer fan and we played most nights. Like other Americans, I was dominated by New Zealanders, Aussies, and brits.)

Every night we went back to the same bar. Shauna and Randy joined us frequently and we met Rhys, Nicky, Reena, Stew, Dave, Vicki, Joe, Rob, and Meg. We were all going to Ulsan and shared classes. They are all great people. Ulsan definitely has the best crew of people and everyone seems to like to drink.

We were also lucky to have Nicole and Zeno as our group leaders for Ulsan. Zeno is a native of China but apparently his Korean is so good that it fooled everyone and Nicole is the only Korean girl who will hug me (Big no no to hug the opposite sex). She is also very awesome. I also had a really great roommate who unfortunately drank too much soju one night and threw up every 3 hours until class the next morning. Orientation was more like a summer camp than anything else. You make really good friends and part ways. I actually saw people cry.

I could not have been more impressed with EPIK. They put us up in great dorms, transported us all over Korea, gave us an opening ceremony that I thought couldn't be topped (until the closing ceremony) with drummers and knife dancers that were out of this world.