A quick summary of our grueling itinerary of the blur that
was our last 24 hours (or more? It’s hard to keep track):
9am EST: final breakfast with family in the States.
11am: arrive at airport, go through security, get to
gate.
12:15pm: Starbucks with sister before she flies to
Vegas.
12:50pm: board (tiny) plane.
1:40pm: take off.
3:00pm: land in Detroit.
3:30pm: board (enormous) plane. (Seriously, I’ve never seen
a plane so big in my life. It had a second floor. 12 lavatories. Over 70 rows of seats. 3-4-3 configuration. And it was a 14 hour nightmare).
4:10pm: take off.
5:00pm EST – 6am EST: be miserable.
·
To eat (in the following installments): 1. Peanuts,
pretzels; 2. Chicken with gravy, mashed potatoes and corn, a roll, a cracker
with cheese, a teeny salad consisting of three cucumber slices and a couple
rippy bits of iceberg lettuce and cabbage, and brownie; 3. An apple; a teeny
ham and cheese sandwich; Milano cookies; 4. A breakfast of egg, sausage and
potato with fruit salad and a roll (or Kimchi fried rice); I refused both
because the smell made me nauseous.
·
To drink: ginger ale (thrice); a bottle of
water.
·
To do: Tony watched Zootopia, The Jungle Book,
Point Break, Creed. I tried to watch John Oliver and a special on Japanese culture but
couldn’t hear anything. So I played 4 games of virtual solitaire, 3 games of
Sudoku, 2 games of Word Scramble, and 1 game of Bejeweled. I read a book about teaching
ESL in Korea and finished it. I journaled ideas for lessons. I tried to sleep,
to little avail. I obsessively tracked the route of the plane over Canada,
Alaska, the Bering Strait, Russia, China, North Korea, and finally, my new
home.
6am EST (7pm KST): land in Incheon International airport. We
were too exhausted, famished, and unsettled to even be fully aware of our
surroundings or to kiss the ground. Baggage claim took forever (imagine all
those rows of seats, times two: Delta allows two free checked bags to Asia!) We
loaded up two trolleys, went through customs, exchanged our last US dollars, bought
a bus ticket with the help of a scarcely bilingual man that our recruiter had
been in contact with, and had an hour to collect ourselves.
7:45am EST (8:45pm KST): board the most pristine,
comfortable, and spacious bus I’ve ever seen. We left Incheon over a long
bridge and through Seoul. Fortunately, since we were so close to the capital,
we managed to enjoy the views before dozing off (initial thoughts: clean,
bright, and aesthetic).
9:20am EST (10:20pm KST): Get off bus to meet our wonderful
director, Heather! She was the cutest. Very smiley, excited to see us. She and
a man (her friend? husband? Does he work at the school? We weren't sure, but she
translated to us that he offered to have us for dinner sometime). Helped us
with our luggage and we got in a minivan and headed to our new place! She told
us it’s in walking distance to school – awesome!
9:45am EST (10:45pm KST): Heather gave us a tour of our small,
new apartment and apologized profusely that the furniture wouldn’t arrive til
the next morning, so she gave us a mat to sleep on. She also translated some of
the settings on our washing machine (yes, exciting, no more laundromats for
us!), air conditioner, etc. I was floored to see where I’m now living for the
next year. Before, I was simply hoping it would be in a safe neighborhood and
be free of pests. I did not expect to be the first tenant in a newly built,
Samsung-for-every-appliance, home.
11:45am EST (12:45am KST): pass out after unpacking halfway.
Our day had begun with us waking up at 7am in Pennsylvania on Sunday, July 31;
we finally ended the Longest Day Ever at nearly 1am on Tuesday, August 2. Don’t
you ever wish you could skip Mondays?
Now, it’s 7:30am KST, and you can expect me to stop using
Eastern Standard from now on. I’m going to try to sleep a bit more before we
begin Day 1 of our adventure – which, according to Heather, should include new
furniture, WiFi, our first visit to the school (they have off this week), and
getting a new phone. Also, FOOD.
*Note: this was written before I had access to WiFi, so times do not correspond to time posted on blog.
*Note: this was written before I had access to WiFi, so times do not correspond to time posted on blog.
So happy to get your update. That is so cool that you guys got in to a new place. How does does it compare to your old apartment in Savage?
ReplyDeleteIt is waaay nicer. Above and beyond my expectations, small but quite high-tech. The building is called Smartvill. It has Samsung everything: appliances, intercom system, AC, etc. Next post will be about our place, I think!
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