Well, I’m finally here. After about 25 hours of flights and layovers, I have finally made it. I can tell you that it is definitely no fun traveling for long when you are by yourself. The highlight of my trip was the route from Detroit to Tokyo; I had the whole row to myself. So if I wanted a window seat, I had one. If I wanted an aisle seat, I had one. If I wanted to lay down, I could. Even though the rest of the cabin had their windows down, I had the ability to keep my partly open without much problem. That worked great with my plan to stay awake during the flight (I was trying to adjust my internal clock to Korea time). I did have some problems with the movies. I plugged in my headphones to listen to the movie, but the American movies were in some funky language like Russian or something. So I couldn’t watch the movies; I found out later that there were different stations for different languages. I wish I had found that out sooner.
While waiting in Tokyo, I really wanted to just leave the airport and explore the area. That was my third time in Tokyo without the ability to see Tokyo; so disappointing. I did befriend some Americans there. I had sat next to them in the Detroit airport, and I ran into them again while waiting in Detroit. They were waiting for the same flight to Seoul, and they had sat down beside me to watch the Olympics on TV.
The flight to Seoul was pretty uneventful. I dosed off a few times while watching Toy Story on the personal entertainment display. The food was the best on this flight; we had sushi! Well, I finally made it to Seoul. I got through immigration without incident. My American friends helped me out at luggage claim by getting me a luggage cart. I would have probably toted around my stuff myself otherwise. The head western teacher and one of the Korean teachers greeted me with signs outside luggage claim. I was so excited that I hugged the western teacher (a woman) without thinking; I hope she didn’t think anything.
Anyways, they drove me off to my new home in town of Bucheon. It was pretty exciting driving along the interstate and having them point to my new home. It is in a rather
developed side of town; I’m really in the center of the action. It is kind of strange living in the middle of the city after spending years living in Church Hill and Jefferson City. It’s rather nice. Anyways, the apartment is great. I live in the Good Morning Building and on the penthouse floor. I have a bathroom, kitchen, living area, and a bedroom/loft. I like to call it my party loft! I have a view of the city whith a slight mountain view between some buildings. The school has done a lot for me in terms of my apartment. The head western teacher spent a lot of time cleaning the apartment, and the school put a lot of effort into finding a great apartment for me. They collected a lot of things for me from the other teachers and bought some stuff for me that they thought I would need. I even have a cell phone because one of the western teachers doesn’t use it that much and let me use his for a while. I was missing a bed the first night, but the teachers brought some mats that I used as my bed that first night.After I got my luggage in my room, they wanted to take me out; luckily, I wasn’t too bad in terms of jet lag. I met up with the rest of the western teachers, the head Korean teacher, the Korean that drove us, and a couple of other westerners. The head Korean teacher is dating this guy from Ireland so she had an Irish accent; it is so funny. But they treated me, and we had a good night. They actually have some high expectations of me. The recruiter had told them some good things about me so I hope I don’t let them down.
The weekend was pretty good. I arrived on Thursday, but Friday was a national holiday so I had the day off. I met a couple of friends that day. One of which left that same day for America; I thought it was funny that we were exchanging countries for a year. That night, I went shopping at a Wal-Mart equivalent called Home Plus (I feel that I might start to love it as much as Wal-Mart). I also found the equivalent of Greased Lightning; it is called Anywhere (appropriate name I thought). I then ate
dinner at my favorite Korean fast-food joint – Lotteria! On Saturday, I got to visit the school and review my books. The western teachers and I then headed for Incheon were we visited the memorial to General McArthur (Incheon is where McArthur and his troops stormed into Korea during the Korean War). We then looked around Chinatown before heading back. On Sunday, I spent most of my time walking around the town and figuring out what was around. Some interesting things I found was a huge shopping mall with the tree of life in the middle. A random Korean woman stopped me on the street and had a 15-minute conversation with me. A Popeye’s, Outback, TGIF, and Toys R Us are all near by. There are also some nice trails and parks across the street from me.
Monday was the first day of school for me. I was supposed to be ready by 10 because one of the western teachers was to come by and walk with me to school. Well, my alarm went off at 9, but it stopped and never turned back on. I didn’t wake up again until about 10 so I jumped out of bed and scrambled to get ready. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait too long for me. The other Korean teachers were really nice to me, and I look forward to getting to know them more. I found out just the night before that I had some kindergarten classes to teach right off; they mostly gave me blank stares. I observed another class, and then it was to myself. Some classes were pretty cool; other classes were not that cool, but I survived. The kids kept calling me handsome all day and would keep staring at me. That was pretty nice, sort of. When I met the receptionist, she told the other receptionist that I was handsome with realizing that I might know that word in Korean; I thought that was a little funny.Anyways, things are going pretty good here in Korea. I have a great apartment, I’m living in a good city, and I have a job that isn’t that bad. I’m sure everything might not be so spiffy in the future, but everything is alright for now. However, I did miss watching the Olympics on TV; at least seeing Americans in the Olympics.
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