My name is Sara, and I arrived in Korea on August 14th I had three weeks before the start of my internship and I had an eventful start to the Korean culture. 

#My first impression upon arriving in Korea

Once I set foot in Korea, I couldn’t really believe that I made it, it felt so fake as If I was still in my hometown in my room looking at Korea through a screen. The feelings I had were very vague it was a mix of excitement and a smidge of fear. The first thing I noticed was that it was very hot I began sweating as soon as I stepped out of the plane. 

#Recollection of my first day in Korea

We were greeted by two friends who were already in Korea, and they welcomed us with banana milk and hugs, so it felt very familiar right away. After that, we went to our taxi which came to pick us up and drop us off at our Airbnb we dropped off our luggage and went to a Korean BBQ place and decided to walk around the neighborhood to sightsee. The first surprise was at the KBBQ it surprised me that you could put your bag inside of the chair so that it wasn’t in the way nor took in the smell of the BBQ. The second surprise was that the cutlery was in the drawer next to us. The third one was the self-service and free water, in Korea it’s normal to take as many side dishes as you want and on top of that the water is free too.

#Biggest culture shocks in Korea

The public transport culture, I think I still have to get accustomed to it because in the Netherlands we don’t have to keep quiet and we can sit in the handicapped/pregnant seats so that is my biggest culture shock.

In conclusion, it still feels very surreal to be here and I think I’ll have more and more culture shocks but I also think that it will also feel more like home as time goes by. I think that that fearful feeling will slowly fade away and I won’t have to worry as much.