Here are just several clips from my first 24-48 hours of travel to South Korea, taken from a diary I did my best to keep for the first several weeks:
"Monday, August 15th...9:30 am: arrive at O'Hare International, tearful good-bye with Mom, getting butterflies like crazy...10:00 am: meet up with Aaron from the program, good dude, butterflies easing up a bit...11:00 am: quick walk around the terminal, pretty quiet, nerves easing, our gate is absolutely packed, but not too many young foreigners in sight...12:30 pm: board our 13-and-a-half-hour flight #0038 to Incheon, economy class, plane is 8-9 seats wide, service is unreal, stewardesses are babes...2:30 pm: first meal consists of pasta, beef, veggies, fruit, salad, a roll, and wine, with green tea after...7:00 pm: 2nd meal consists of bread, filled with some sort of sesame and/or beef, more wine, and Coca Cola...10:00 pm: 3rd meal consists of pasta with tomato, cheese, beans, greens, and cake, with green tea after...2:00 am (now 4:00 pm Korea time): pilot announces we're about to land, butterflies come right back...4:30 pm Korea time: touch down in overcast, buy ticket, look for shuttle, arrive at Gimo International (in Seoul) at about 6:30 pm...side note: met up with Anna (sitting in front of us on the plane the whole time!) from Kansas City circa 5:00 pm, and meet Kaylie (also on the flight) from Ames, Iowa at customs...very cool ladies, Midwest is in the house."
What blew my mind initially about Korea, and is still going to blow my mind each day, is knowing that I am 14 hours ahead of the rest of my life back in the United States. Because of this, it never actually got dark on our plane ride until we finally transferred to Gimpo, which is Seoul's domestic airport (Incheon being South Korea's main hub about 35 miles away from Seoul). These next excerpts begin on Tuesday night (Korea time):
"Tuesday, August 16th...7:30 pm: snacks after security (mine was a crab/beef/egg sushi roll with ginger, only about $2!)...catching up, talking about where we came from and how this bears no resemblance, waiting for our 8:45 flight to Gwangju...turns out other folks from our program are also here at the airport, but everyone seems too tired to seriously get to know each other...that's what orientation is for, right?...8:45 pm: depart Gimpo, plane about 1/4 full, sleep the whole way (only about 45 minutes)...9:45 pm: touch down in Gwangju, our final destination...find bags as quickly as possible upon arrival, can't wait to sleep...meet Supervisor Kim, a friendly lady...Aaron stops, gazes out into the street, and says to me: "welcome home." the journey is almost over, just a 40-minute bus ride to the hotel, need sleep...bus is full of folks from my program, all in good spirits, half asleep...10:45 pm: arrive at Shin Yang Park Hotel, our final destination...check-in is as simple as handshakes with our employers and supervisors, Shane Finnie and Chris Devison, everyone is very exhausted, me and Aaron (turns out the dude was my roommate!) get our key to room 512 and crash within the hour. The journey has ended, for now."
Aaron, Anna, and Kaylie psyched to finally be on Korean soil.
The whole journal idea didn't last very long, as it never really does when I try on these long trips. But here's a little bit of an account of the first few days of orientation.
"Wednesday, August 17th...7:20 am: Aaron and I wake up, can't seem to sleep much more, as much as I'd like, but feeling pretty good...step onto porch and realize that WE ARE NOT IN WISCONSIN ANYMORE....the view from our room is incredible, it's something we couldn't appreciate in the dark last night...7:45 am: head down to breakfast, a buffet full of eggs, sausage, bacon, bread, peaches and other fruit, coffee and juice, just like home...coffee tastes like straight-up espresso, good stuff...meet Nathan and Rachel, a very friendly and pleasant couple straight out of Boone, North Carolina, one of my favorite places...also at the table is Shari Beaver, straight out of small-town Ontario, who promptly tells me to "call her Beav"...also at the table is Marie, a bubbly girl with doll-like curly hair from California, and Burkley, a bodybuilder straight out of Durban, South Africa...great folks who, with the exception of Nathan and Rachel, are returning for a 2nd, 3rd, or 4th year...8:30-11:00 am: nap, read, unpack, catch up with the world on the computer in our room for a while...12:00 pm: lunch, mostly kimchi and fish soup!...1:00 pm: orientation until 4:30, mostly just paperwork and welcome/business matters...4:30 pm: came back to hotel room, absolutely crashed, wake up at 8:30 to realize we've missed dinner and bar-goers for the night...too tired to care, back to sleep, will get social tomorrow...11:00 pm: Korean Baseball League highlights and more sleep."
"Thursday, August 18th, 7:00 am: surprise drug test this morning, who knew?...drinking lots of water in hopes I can pee in a cup...7:30 am: breakfast, where I met Krystal (from South Carolina), Gabriel (from San Francisco), Holly (from Missouri), and Beverly (from Canada)...great people, great addition of pancakes to the menu today...run back to room, get swagged out in a shirt and tie...9:00-11:45 am: hospital visit, first taste of streets of Gwangju, lots of people!...12:00 pm: lunch with Chris (from Britain), Nathan and Rachel (Boone, N.C. crew), Kaylie and Sam (Kaylie from the plane from Iowa and her boyfriend Sam, from Britain), as well as Zach and Sara, two Minnesota folks!...from Duluth and Anoka, I do believe?...really good food at lunch...1-4:00 pm: elementary English intro and lesson planning, huge power point, but very interactive and very helpful...back to room with Aaron to get ready for the Kia Tigers game...psyched for some beer and fried chicken and baseball, three of my favorite tastes of home just days into my new life..."
And unfortunately this is where my journal cut out for a while (so inconsistent, but cool to capture just how nervous I was and how new everything in Korea was). Here are a few pictures from the baseball game. Gwangju's team, one of 8 teams in the Korean League, is the Kia Tigers. The baseball games are an absolute blast; the stadium is much small than, say, Target field, but infinitely more rockin'. Get about 10,000 people together chanting and singing and drinking beer, soju, and chicken for 3 hours (and oh yeah, there's a game going on...), and you have a Kia Tigers game.
The view from our seats.
Getting tickets, beer, soju, and fried chicken at the gate.
Me and Aaron hanging with a fan, nice and hopped up on soju.
I'd love to keep this rolling, but I should get a little sleep. Considering I'm almost two months removed from all of this new orientation business (the boozing, the baseball, the food, basically everything but sleeping), I'm keeping the schedule of an old, old dude. We'll call this blog post the first in a series of 2 or 3 that I'll have about orientation, and then really pick up the pace in the coming days to update you all on what I'm actually here to do (hang out with adorable Korean kids, and sometimes teach English) and all the cool places I've been. Keep checking in; I promise a new blog post every other day, if not every day, for however long it takes me to finally tell you what I'm currently doing. Thanks for checking it out, and check back in again soon! Missing all of you back in the States and elsewhere in the world, but truly enjoying every moment here and really reveling at how just lucky I am to have this opportunity every day. It's been the busiest, most nerve-racking, most exciting, and most rewarding 8 weeks of my life, and it shows no signs of slowing down. All the best, love to all.
-Sam
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