Home Plus is a Must!

Hey everyone! So I’ve made it to South Korea in one piece. The flight over was very long (13 ½ hours), but overall uneventful. Watched a few movies, slept a few hours, ate a few meals. The usual. We basically flew straight north out of Chicago and then around the Arctic Circle (sort of). At first it looked like we were on track to fly straight over North Korea, but planes aren’t allowed to fly over their airspace, so we had to detour around North Korea.

We landed at Incheon Int’l Airport, which is the main airport servicing Seoul. It was 28 degrees (that’s Celsius) out and soooo humid. We were herded into the Swine Flu check where they ask a quick health history of the past 7 days, and then take your temperature. Easy stuff. Then we claimed our luggage and got through customs and waiting on the other side for me was my good friend Jane! She knew I was coming and met me at the airport to say hello. It was great to see a friendly face after 13 hours of sitting on a plane. She had a little gift for me and a big poster she made for my wall and made me cry…but it was so good to see her! Also waiting for me was my co-teacher Sang-Jin Kim (but I just call her Jin). She was so friendly and helpful, and I’m really excited to work with her this year. She’s younger, maybe 26-28ish and incredibly nice. She helped me wheel my two huge oversize bags of luggage through the masses outside Incheon. The cart I had wasn’t working very well and we had trouble controlling it. Jin and I are about the same size (so not very big at all), we must’ve looked crazy giggling and spiraling out of control with my luggage. From the airport it was about an hour bus ride to my apartment.

Speaking of my apartment…remember everything I said in the last entry about how I was going to live in Dongducheon and Anna would be living in Uijeongbu and we were close together and everything was going to be great? I take all of that back. None of it is true. Something I’m going to have to learn is to be extremely flexible because these people make changes last minute and don’t seem to mention it to anyone. I’m not sure if there was a mix-up somehow or what, but now I’m living in Uijeongbu, which I think has a population of about 400,000 and is just outside of Seoul. Anna’s school made an error and already has an English teacher, so now she is south of Seoul teaching in Yongin. So we’re probably 2-2 ½ hours away from each other by public transportation now.

So far Uijeongbu is great. It’s seems pretty crowded and literally nothing is in English except for the occasional street sign which is going to be a huge challenge. I'm not sure how prevalent English is here so watching me try to communicate is going to be hilarious. I live in a loft apartment and have a great view of the mountains. There’s a Dominoes, Pizza Hut, Dunkin Donuts, and Baskin Robbins all within 2 blocks of my apartment – although based on the dinner I had with Jin I won’t be needing that American stuff for a long time. After we struggled with my luggage to my apartment, Jin and I went out for dinner. She chose the place and did a fantastic job of explaining to me exactly what I was eating. We got kimbap – a sort of sushi tuna roll which was excellent, and something called to-po-i (at least that's how its said phoenetically). It was these weird sort of “rice cakes” which actually looked like oversize pieces of penne pasta, covered in vegetables and a really spicy sauce. It also had, um, a kraft single thrown on top with sesame seeds over it. I thought it was strange but I went with it. Jin failed to mention to me that it was spicy and it wasn’t until my eyes started watering that she offered up a polite “oh sorry…its spicy”. Yep. I got that. Thanks. But honestly it was very good and I’m sort of craving it again now. Dinner was extremely cheap – only about 5000 won total for the two of us, so I offered to pay for all of it to thank Jin for her help.

After dinner we made a list of all the things I needed to buy and then Jin introduced me to Home Plus. It’s this huge 6 floor complex that is basically a super super SUPER Target and its awesome. I would live in there if I could. Remember that movie where Natalie Portman has a baby and lives in the WalMart? Definitely could be done here. You could probably keep an army happy in this place. So Jin helped me find my way around and we bought some of the basic stuff, dishes, sheets, food, etc. for my apartment. I attempted to pick out shampoo and conditioner, but I couldn't read it since it was all in Korean and Jin seemed to be struggling with the translation so I'm pretty sure I just bought two bottles of shampoo, but at least I'll be clean. I think I'm going to need her help every time I go there because almost nothing is in English so its impossible for me to know what I'm buying. She also took me to the Korean version of a dollar store – except here its 1000 won store. She helped me back to my apartment and then left me to unpack and go to sleep. I’m still incredibly jet-lagged…I’ve been up since about 6:30am. I'm also eating some sort of Korean version of Frosted Flakes. They aren't that bad actually. I tried to sleep but I literally can’t so I’m going to try to hack into some more illegal internet (which I'm pretty sure I'm connected to) and then work on unpacking since I passed out immediately last night.

I’m in between the place that I’m from and the place that I’m in…a city I've never been. - The Fray