Costly preparations

Well before I head to Korea, I have to get some things done that will cost me a shiny penny. Today I went to get my travel insurance done. I have it set for 6 months from February 25th -August 18th 2007. I went through BCAA because I am a member there, and the total came to $201cdn. What that includes is basically I am covered for most injuries and emergencies while I am traveling excluding America. If anything happens to me, my insurance will take of me instead of me having to spend money. They don't really call it insurance, but "peace of mind". I also had to spend $13 for a Korea Visa picture. That will add to the $65 for the actual visa itself. That is on top of my $1003 school semester tuition. So, so far it has been roughly $1832cdn(Langara tuition, airfare [one way], insurance, visa photo) for my trip to Korea. I will keep adding the total to find out the final cost and hopefully I can stay on budget.

메리 크리스마스

Sung Tan Chuk Ha - Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful holiday and I wish you guys all the best of luck in the new year as well.

Help a poor student out

I have added some extra links on the side that will help my college fund. If you are a new blogger and want to find ways on how to share your blog to hundreds of others or want to learn how to make money, please help by clicking the links and you too can also add them to your blog. I have also added a PayPal donate button on the top. Please, if you can spare, help donate to my overpriced college tuition. Donations can be made with major credit cards or via PayPal. Anyone who donates will get a special post on my blog thanking them for their kindness. I will also add a side section listing all the names of those who have donated. Thanks alot :)

Dinner with my Korean friends

Because this program is a student exchange, that means that students from Korea are able to come to Langara College as well. For the fall '06 semester, there are three Korean students studying English in Vancouver. Their names are Hyong Ki (Andre), Hyemi (Hailie) and Shinae (Shelly). The names in the brackets are their English names that I suggested they create. Well, I had gotten to know them a bit through talking with each other at Langara so I suggested we would all go to Shabusen (a Korean BBQ/Sushi place). It was a great cultural experience because I was able to bring a friend from Toyoko Japan, Ken Susuzki, and my other friend from Beijing China, Justin Tsang. We had a great timing sharing stories and talking about how each culture does things differently. Not only that, but the food was great. We had all you can eat for $25 and it was well worth it.

Expensing my trip

Although the student exchange trip is a steal, I will still need to work hard to help pay for additional costs. For the program, I get to pay my tuition to Langara college and Soonchunhyang covers the remaining of my fees. This makes it so I do not have to pay international student fees. It is basically a scholarship allowing me to study there. I also get a free room in the English Village dorm rooms at the university. While staying there, I will be expected to work 15 hours a week interacting with students to help them learn more about West culture and the English language. I will be paid 150,000 won (roughly $150usd) a week. Another plus is that the SCH will also give me a cellphone to use while I am there. So to sum it up, free room, free cellphone, $150usd a week allowance! That is a pretty good deal. On top of that, they will be paying me $800usd to help pay for my flight tickets. So I am basically covered for everything except for food, which from what I hear, is somewhat cheap.

But still, all that money is not enough. I am working my butt off at HP as a product specialist to help give me extra money for Korea. I am working long hours and picking up more shifts during the holiday time. Next week I am working from Dec 26th-Dec31st straight! That is after a week of full-time work. My plan is to earn extra money so after my semester in June, I could travel around Asia. I want to go to Hong Kong and Beijing and Japan. So I am just working and saving as much as I can so I can enjoy my summer after school.

My itinerary

Ok so I had been looking for flights for my trip to Korea and all the prices seem to be the same. I went to expedia.ca and www.mobissimo.com. www.mobissimo.com is great because it shows a list of a bunch of online websites and it will show you the cheapest of the cheap. I found that by going online, the flights were much cheaper than flight center and other travel agencies. So I went through www.mobissimo.comand selected a site that was called www.orbitz.com. I booked my airline tickets with them because they were the cheapest. $737 USD for one way leaving Sunday Feb 25th. So I booked and confirmed. I went back to their site to see my itinerary and I saw a link to their affiliate site for student travels. I looked around and saw a flight for $478usd! So I quickly booked it and canceled by other flight. This was an amazing deal. This website is for students and faculty staff members. THey give amazing deals which is great for those who are in college and travel. The website address is:

https://www.studentuniverse.com

I highly recommend people using this site if they are looking for cheap tickets, students of course.

My first post in my first blog

Welcome all! This is my first real blog so I hope you guys enjoy it. This is my first post so it will be short. I created this blog, StudentInKorea, to write down my journeys and experience being a Canadian student studying abroad in South Korea. I am currently attending Langara College in beautiful Vancouver, British Columbia and next semester (Spring 07) I will be embarking a journey overseas to Soonchunhyan University to study there. I am very excited! I will be posting more before I leave and LOTS while I am in Asan South Korea so check been often for live updates :)

- Bryan Leung