Love to Travel

I arrived at the airport about 4:30 am because my flight was supposed to leave at 6:00am but my flight was cancelled. So I was sent to chicago at 7:15am then to san fransisco and then to seoul. i walked the whole way from one end of o'hare to the other leaving me no time to sit and wait much less call people for a final goodbye. the same occurred in san fran but it all went smoothly and great. my flight for seoul left at 6am seoul time and then my plane landed at 7:30 pm. The flight was not bad at all. I think I got up once and watched 3 movies. (part of this might have been due to the upgrade to economy plus or perhaps it was the great service of united airlines?) I did decide to take a small nap around 4pm because i didn't want to be totally wrecked for whatever was going to happen once i landed.

once i landed again everything went very smoothly. the incheon airport was extremely clean and nice. i got through immigration and customs with no problem. then once you go through customs there is this automatic door that everyone goes through and as soon as you do there is a huge crowd of people waiting behind red tape. its pretty funny because you walk through the door and everyone is just staring at you and calling for other people, you kind of feel famous for a moment or two. :)

i easily found mr. kang who had a sign with my name on it. he quickly pushed my cart over to the bus stop outside. while doing this i talked to brant kim my ASK Now contact about my next few actions. mr. kang put me on a bus to Madeul Station and once he got me my ticket and got me a seat he found a woman to make sure i got off at the right station. though i could have done it because it is all in roman alphabet and also they tell you on the bus tv where they are stopping. but it was nice to have someone watching out for me. so after an hour on the bus my station came and i climbed out with my 2 human size suitcases and my rolling carry-on. It was at this point my luggage became a bit of a problem.

If i would have stayed put once i got off the bus i would have been fine, but brant wanted me to give him a call and luckily i had some coins on me. so i called him and he told me the headmaster was on his way to pick me up and he would be a little late because i was earlier than expected. confused as to what exactly was happening i told brant that i was at a subway station, which i was. there was a bus and subway station with 4 different exits and i didn't know if i was driving, riding the subway to my next stop so i thought i should meet my ride at the subway stop. so i wheel my luggage over to the subway stairs which have no elevator. i think a few times through this and look at the sheer amount of stairs and the fact that i really can't wheel all of my bags alone. so after waiting 10 minutes i call brant back. i told him there was no way i could get down to the subway station so i would stand by the "i love pizza" store and wait. the weather was fine and i didn't mind. within 5 minutes of me wheeling my suitcases over to the shop and enjoying the scene of everything that was going on around me Mr. Bae or Johan arrived with his daughter to pick me up.

After wrestling my luggage back over to his car at the bus station he drove me to my apartment. i am not in Seoul, i am in the "northeast sub city of Seoul" to quote a sign. but its still has tall buildings, lights and all kinds of good city stuff. hooray! first we went to my apartment which is right next to a police station. then we walked to the bakery and then to the grocery store. all the prices are readable, but i can't always or rarely can figure out what the products are. but we bought some muffins, milk, juice and strawberries! so far from what i can tell, prices look to be about the same as in the states. but i haven't gotten this all figured out yet.

then they asked me what i wanted to eat - korean, japanese...i said korean of course. haha, so we went to an authentic korean restaurant, sat on the floor and bbq our own meat. it was delicious! great! wonderful! we had to take our shoes off and wear slippers. it was great!

we finally finished around 11:30 and then i was left to get some sleep. so it was a great start. the director is great and his daughter who is also 22 was very nice and funny as well, though she says her english "is not skillful." i thought she did fine.

until next time