The Long Road
We arrived in Korea on Saturday May 7th after over 30 hours and 10,000 km. I had only slept for about an hour before we got up at 4am to catch the plane, and had only five hours sleep the night before. As usual i couldn't get my mind to stop long enough to sleep. As i had thought, sleep for me on the plane was impossible. While the ride from San Francisco was comfortable for the first eight hours, i only managed to doze during the middle of "National Treasure". I'm sure i only managed about a half hour. The head teacher of our school, Robert, picked us up at Incheon Airport west of Seoul. On the way to Wonju we took a wrong turn and had to drive through Seoul. That was a trip in itself. I have never seen anything like it. Every major artery was a parking lot. I'm sure i'll never see as many cars in one place in my life again. A trip that would have taken less than two hours in good traffic ended up being four and a half hours. About half way through the drive i think we passed out from exhaustion. I remembered seeing a sign that said 'Wonju 85 km'. When i woke up probably a half hour later the next sign i saw said 'Wonju 75 km'. Our first impression of Korea was not a good one.
We finally arrived in Wonju at somewhere close to midnight, i think. Everything was a blur at that point. The director of the school and us had us in for our first Korean meal when we finally stopped moving. They are both extremely nice and go out of their way to help us. As nice as the meal as soon as we arrived was, all we really wanted to do was see the apartment and pass out. Unfortunately i don't think seeing the apartment in the dark when we first arrived was a good idea. It was very dark and dingy and we could tell the "cleaning lady" they hired had not done a good job. As soon as we walked in the door i wanted to turn around and go home. The giant garbage bag sitting in the doorway didn't help things. I can only imagine how C felt. She can get very emotion at (all) times. I don't blame her though. I think tears were shed by her, but i can't remember much from that point until we slept. We are feeling much better about the apartment now that we have had a chance to clean a little ourselves. We got some furniture this weekend from the apartment of one of the teachers we replaced and it's starting to feel like home.
We spent Sunday with the teachers we would replace, Chris and Jessica. We spent the day walking around town. They showed us around and we went and saw "Kingdom of Heaven", which was forgettable. It was nice to know that we can see some North American movies. Jessica has been amazing with all the information and help she's given us. Shopping has been interesting. Most of the packages have no English, so figuring out what everything is has been fun. That night we went out for a typical Korean supper. We sat on the floor around a table and in a huge pan on the table a dish of cabbage, chicken, and other assorted vegetables was cooked. It was very good and not too spicy. I really thought it would be harder to find western food then it is. There seems to be a lot of pizza and fried chicken places here. The pizza is a little different as some has corn on it. We were told that the Dominos and Pizza hut in the city have English service, which will come in handy when we're feeling homesick. There's even a McDonald's at the E-Mart (like a Wal-Mart) and we even saw a Dunkin Donuts downtown. There's also something like a Korean McDonald's at the supermarket not far from here called Lotteria.
Chris and Jessica left on the 19th to go back to the states before taking off for Japan. Now the real test starts with no English speakers near our age around that we know. I wish we could've got to know them better. They never got to see how funny i am once you get to know me. It's hard to joke with people you don't know since you're not sure where the boundaries are. They both were very nice and i think we all could have been good friends if we lived within 2000 km of each other. I wish them the best and hope they enjoy Japan as much as they did Korea.
-insomniac out.
We finally arrived in Wonju at somewhere close to midnight, i think. Everything was a blur at that point. The director of the school and us had us in for our first Korean meal when we finally stopped moving. They are both extremely nice and go out of their way to help us. As nice as the meal as soon as we arrived was, all we really wanted to do was see the apartment and pass out. Unfortunately i don't think seeing the apartment in the dark when we first arrived was a good idea. It was very dark and dingy and we could tell the "cleaning lady" they hired had not done a good job. As soon as we walked in the door i wanted to turn around and go home. The giant garbage bag sitting in the doorway didn't help things. I can only imagine how C felt. She can get very emotion at (all) times. I don't blame her though. I think tears were shed by her, but i can't remember much from that point until we slept. We are feeling much better about the apartment now that we have had a chance to clean a little ourselves. We got some furniture this weekend from the apartment of one of the teachers we replaced and it's starting to feel like home.
We spent Sunday with the teachers we would replace, Chris and Jessica. We spent the day walking around town. They showed us around and we went and saw "Kingdom of Heaven", which was forgettable. It was nice to know that we can see some North American movies. Jessica has been amazing with all the information and help she's given us. Shopping has been interesting. Most of the packages have no English, so figuring out what everything is has been fun. That night we went out for a typical Korean supper. We sat on the floor around a table and in a huge pan on the table a dish of cabbage, chicken, and other assorted vegetables was cooked. It was very good and not too spicy. I really thought it would be harder to find western food then it is. There seems to be a lot of pizza and fried chicken places here. The pizza is a little different as some has corn on it. We were told that the Dominos and Pizza hut in the city have English service, which will come in handy when we're feeling homesick. There's even a McDonald's at the E-Mart (like a Wal-Mart) and we even saw a Dunkin Donuts downtown. There's also something like a Korean McDonald's at the supermarket not far from here called Lotteria.
Chris and Jessica left on the 19th to go back to the states before taking off for Japan. Now the real test starts with no English speakers near our age around that we know. I wish we could've got to know them better. They never got to see how funny i am once you get to know me. It's hard to joke with people you don't know since you're not sure where the boundaries are. They both were very nice and i think we all could have been good friends if we lived within 2000 km of each other. I wish them the best and hope they enjoy Japan as much as they did Korea.
-insomniac out.
posted by insomniac at 1:03 a.m.
1 Comments:
Hi Isomniac, just stumbled upon your blog. I too am in Korea,Iksan and blogging my reactions and images. Cheers. hang in there, the crazy ride is worth it....andy, eyesage.blogspot
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