My first Seoul ADVENTURE. 3/6/2010

I guess it has been a while since my last post! I have been either too busy or just too exhausted to post. Lets see.... my last post was a couple weeks back. I pick up where I left off.

I experienced my first true night out in Seoul on Saturday the 6th. And it WAS an experience. This was my first time riding the subway...or any subway. I got very detailed instructions from one of my co-teachers about what bus to take into Seoul, and what Subway entrance to take, train number, etc. I must say I was very proud of myself for doing it alone, and actually ending up where I had planned.  I met up with Paul, Sarah's friend, who came up to Seoul from the Busan area for the weekend. He and a few other teachers had gotten a hostel in Hongdae. Note to self: it is called HEY Backpackers. I think they paid $20 for the night. So I met Paul, we hung out for a bit in Sinchon, (pictured to the right) which was insanely packed with people. The sidewalks were literally over flowing into the streets, it was pretty crazy (but as I was to find out later that night, it was NOTHING compared to the number of people that would be out in Hongdae.) After being in Sinchon for an hour or two, Paul and I went to go be tourists and went to the Seoul Tower. So we hopped back on the subway and headed further into Seoul. By this time it was dark out. We got a cab and took it from the subway to the tower, which you could see from the streets. We told the taxi driver Seoul Tower, and he started driving the obvious wrong way. We started saying aneyo! (No!) Seoul Tower, and pointed behind us. He finally figured it out and turned around. Had I been Portland, or anywhere else in the western world, I probably would have pissed about the extra fare, but the cab ride (just like all cab rides) cost something like $4.00. Which, split between four people is nothing. We got to the bottom of the hill where the Tower is and took a tram up to the tower. It was freaking cooooold up there, but the city was beautiful. There were these flying human figures on wire. It looked really cool. When we got into the bottom of the tower we ended up having to wait for a good 30 minutes in line, we should have known better since it was 8pm on a Saturday night. On the elevator ride up which took 30 seconds or so, there was a little pomp piece talking about the tower's awesomeness. I learned that the tower has the highest toilets in Korea. After hearing this amazing news, Paul and I looked at each other and laughed pretty hard. (Of course I took a picture of these toilets!)  Up top, the view was insane. There was 360 degrees of city for as far as you could see. Population wise Seoul is over 20 times the size of Portland. But thats not including surrounding areas that are just as crowded as Seoul. City. City. City. Everywhere.

Tram ride up.

View from the top of the hill, under the tower.

Flying human shape. (I don't know what to call it!)

View from the top. This is about 1/20th of the city. 

Highest bathrooms in Korea!

After the tower we went back to Paul's hostel. I dropped my backpack off and some of his friends got ready for the evening. We went out into the streets and witnessed the ridiculous amount of people out and about. In this area there were no cars on the streets, just people. We needed food and settled on an Indian food restaurant. I was unenthused to say the least about the idea of Indian food. I was hungry and not really looking to be adventurous. But, the food was amazing. The chicken, the curry, the bread, the salad, everything was good. At the restaurant we all had wine, as it came with the meal. When the wine was being brought out, the waiter spilled four full glasses of red wine onto Paul's friend sitting next to me. It literally all landed on him. I didn't get a drop on me. The person on his other side didn't get a drop on them. Thank you, Jesus, that I wasn't sitting there.

After dinner we went in search of a bar. The streets were PACKED with people. Every bar we walked into was packed. While walking we were approached by many Koreans trying to get us to come to their bar. "Free for foreigners." We settled on a bar called Jane's Groove. One thing I miss about Oregon bars is the smoking ban. It was soooo smokey. The bar was fun, they played music I knew, and had a bunch of westerners. (Picture at right: Koreans wear clothes with English written on them... most of the time the English makes NO sense, as you can see here.) We stayed at this place until two or three (we didn't get there until close to midnight.) After that place we went to a noreabong (karaoke.) It was fun, I sang some Killers. The noreabong closed at 6am so thats when we left. (I don't like being out partying that late, its hard work! But you really have no choice since the public transportation (busses, subway) shuts down around 11:30pm and starts back up around 6:00am. So unless you have a group to split a cab with, 6am is your only option if you want to be out past 11pm.)

After noreabong, Paul and his friends all went back to their hostel. I could have stayed with them but didn't really feel like sleeping on a tiny sofa for a few hours, so I decided to just go home and sleep in my own bed. This is where my night, errr, morning gets interesting. I get back on the subway and head to the bus stop that will take me back to Suji. When entering the subway the first time, I neglected to take note of what entrance I came in, which is a big deal because there are up to a dozen entrances at each stop, each entrance going up to a different street, facing different directions. So, totally turned around and  not knowing where to go, I called my co-teacher that had given directions the day before. I felt terrible since it was 7:30am but had to do it. She helped guide me out to the right exit. Now, I knew I had to get on the number 5500 bus back to Suji. I guess in my exhausted state I wasn't thinking clearly and got on the number 5500-1. I just saw the 5500 and figured that was it. I started riding and was doing the head bobbing, dozing off thing. I lost the battle against sleep and was out cold. I woke up probably 45 minutes to an hour later to the bus driver yelling at me from the front. I looked around and saw I was the only one on the bus. I also looked out side and had nooooooo idea where I was. It looked like a college or something. It was not in the city and there was forested hill all around it.  I kept saying "Suji? Suji-gu?" and the driver kept shaking his head. I figured I had no choice but to get off the bus. There was a bus stop bench there so I sat and pondered my options. There were tons of busses in the back of the parking lot. It was obviously the end of the line and the turnaround. I was freezing and the most tired I have ever been. There were about five bus numbers going though the stop. I decided I should just ask them when they came by since I had no idea what bus went where. So after the fifth bus went by and the drivers shaking their heads when I said "Suji?" I just decided to get back on the 5500-1. If it took me back to Seoul I could try to find my way from there, or get a cab. So I got on the 5500-1 and started riding. i kept seeing signs that said Suji so I figured I was going the right way. Suji has pretty much all medium sized buildings. It only has one really tall building and it is very noticeable. I saw this building from the bus and knew I was doing good. I started to recognize things and realized I was in Jukjeon, a city neighboring Suji. As soon as I knew where I was I got off and started walking toward my apartments. It would have been one hell of a walk. I knew where I was going, but it was far. I managed to get a cab and directed him to my apartment. So, at 9:30am I made it home, closed the blinds, and slept.

What did I learn? Take a CAB home with friends!! And get on the right bus!! (Not that it would have mattered since I fell asleep.)

So Seoul was fun and the end of the night/morning made for a good story.

Super Fun Rocking Dance Party! (I should have checked it out!)

Pretty close to home...

Another picture from the top of the tower.

and another....

My first week of school.

My first week of school.

After much classroom observation, I was ready for my classes to start. Because of the holiday weekend our week was only going to be three days long, which I was grateful for.  Starting day one I met my kindergarteners. They walked into my room looking very scared and confused.  They all had their backpacks, coats, and shoes on so I had to show them where to hang their coats and where to put their shoes and backpacks. They didn’t understand me so I had to take my own coat off and show them. I had to hang most of their coats because they couldn’t figure out how to work the hanger. I also had to take off some of their coats. Those zippers and buttons are tricky when you’re six years old. We went through the day’s lesson very, very, very slowly. I think I’m going to struggle with this class. It is soooo hard to get anything across. And even if they do respond the way I want, I have no way of knowing if they know what they just said. Example: We have learned “What is your name?” and the response “My name is _______.” We also learned “How old are you?” and response “I am _____ years old.” The kids know the responses, but I don’t think they know what they mean. When I asked Monica how old she was, she said her name was Monica. 

On Thursday we had "science." We made balloon propelled trucks. It was fun until the kids started getting frustrated that their straws wouldn't fit in the truck. I pretty much had to make most of them for the kids. 

The second half of the day flies by. I love it. I have kinder’s in the morning, and then I have first graders. These kids were kindergarteners last week. They have had a year of English under their belt so it is like night and day communicating with them. It is soooo much easier when the kids understand me. They understand most of what I say. My next classes are second or third graders, depending on the day of the week. One of my classes on T/TH is actually pretty old, 10 I think. They speak English better than I do! We were talking about idioms and going over some pretty tough vocabulary.

In my MWF 4:00pm class I have a very stinky kid. He is definitely poor compared to the other kids. He looks dirty and his clothes are pretty nasty. I can’t describe the smell. I had to open a window and turn on a fan. The kids complained it was cold, but I couldn’t close the window or else I would puke!

By Friday I kiiind of felt like I had a grasp of things. It really isn’t that difficult of a job. The kindergarteners will be a struggle for me, at least for a few months, until they learn enough so I don’t have to do charades every time I say something. The older kids are fun to teach for the most part and like I said, the day goes by pretty fast with them. We’ll see how this full week goes. I was so incredibly exhausted by the end of classes on Friday. 

After work five of us went to Jukjeon to a place called Gecko’s for a burger and a beer. The burger was amazing. Gecko’s is a chain restaurant and is very western. After dinner we went to Steve’s apartment, which is freaking massive compared to the little hole I live in.  All the teachers eventually showed up there. It was fun having everyone together since it seems like people are always off doing their own thing. I called it a night at 1:30am but most of the others went to noreabong (noreabong is a private karaoke room that a group of people can rent out. Norea = sing, bong = room) until god knows when.  

Sorry if this post is short and not very coherent. I am extremely tired. I had a long day yesterday that I will share in my next blog.

My first weekend through Tuesday.

My first weekend.

I shadowed a series of teachers Tuesday through Friday at LCI. It was extremely confusing because of the schedule the Korean staff gave us to “help” explain how the classes were taught. Basically, the Korean staff makes each week or month’s lesson plans ahead of time and gives them to us to teach. The lesson plans are very hard to decipher because 1. There are multiple classes I teach, 2. There are multiple books I’m using in each class. Anyway, I finally got a grasp (kind of) on how everything works by Friday.

The weekend was a long holiday weekend. Monday was the Korean Independence Day from Japan, so there was no school Monday or Tuesday. I was definitely happy because the first week had absolutely drained me and I was ready to relax. Friday night the school director, Melanie, took all of the teachers and staff out for dinner and drinks. The dinner was a send off to the five teachers that were leaving us, and a welcome to the four new teachers coming onboard. We went straight from school to a western style restaurant called VIPS. It looks like it is part of the same corporation as Cold Stone and some other American chains. I ordered the ribeye steak. It cost about 36,000 ₩ which is about $30.00. The director was paying for everything so all the teachers were looking for the most expensive steaks possible. Plus, they said it had been about a year since they had had regular American style steaks. I sat with all the guys at one end of the table. We drank all the Cass beer the restaurant had, then drank all the Hite beer they had.  Then we drank all the Budweiser they had. I can’t even imagine how expensive the bill was since there were at least 20 in our party. Fun fact: you do NOT tip in Korea. It is actually impolite to tip when eating out. Because of this I felt bad for the waitress. She spoke broken English, was very confused most of the time, and was constantly running to get more drinks for everyone. She would have walked with over $100 easy if it were the US.  After dinner four of us got in a cab and paid a whopping 3,400 ₩ ($3.25) total to get to a Noreabong (I don’t know if I spelled that correctly.) A Noreabong is a place that rents out rooms by the hour for you to sing karaoke in. We sand karaoke and drank Soju for probably a couple hours. The school director was there with us, she sang, and the Korean staff sang. It was a really good time. After that we went to a place called Batman Bar. The Koreans all left us at this point. Batman Bar is pretty much a western bar. They had the staple western drinks on hand. I got a shot of Makers Mark, which I definitely did not need. I didn’t stay too long as I had overdone it so I walked back to the hotel I was staying at with one of the other new teachers. I got home at the perfect time because I was able to skype with a bunch of friends back home. c

Saturday was a very, very, very long day. I was supposed to move into my apartment on Saturday at 2:00pm. I was downstairs ready at 2, and my ride was not there. Thank GOD I received a cell phone earlier that day so I could call my supervisor at the school and see what was up. Long story short, my ride didn’t show up until after 4:00pm. They took me and another new teacher to her apartment first. It was right where I figured it would be since all the teachers live in the same area. When it was my turn, they drove me to another part of town (which was cause for concern) and I only vaguely knew where I was in relation to the school and the other teachers’ apartments. So these guys drop me off at this high rise, take me up to the 13^th floor and put my stuff down at a door. I had keys, but this door required a PIN number to be put into a PIN pad. These guys spoke NO English so I stared at them, and they stared at me, and I tried to get it across that I had no idea what number needed to go in the pad! So I call my supervisor again, she says there should be no pin pad on my door and that I’m in the wrong place. MEANWHILE the guys that had dropped me off had left! So here I was on the 13^th floor of some random high rise. I went back downstairs, and preparing myself to start walking with two very large and heavy suitcases. Luckily the supervisor must have contacted the guys who had dropped me off because they came back and picked me up and took me to my correct apartment. The apartment is small. It is like living in the dorms again. I have a short refrigerator, sink, two burner stove top, no microwave, no oven, bathroom that had a shower head coming out of the sink, bed, desk, closet, drying room, and washing machine. The internet and TV do not work as of Wednesday. Hopefully I get Internet going this week. I don’t care if the TV gets set up, I doubt I’d find anything to watch. So Saturday was very stressful. And to top it off I had started to feel sick on Thursday, so I was fighting a cold. I was drained. I needed some good food for dinner that I knew I would like. So we went to E-Mart, which is a huge 5-story target/Wal-Mart/mall a few blocks away. I had Popeye’s chicken, and it was delicious.  There was also wifi in the food court so I could check my email on my iPhone.

Sunday I tried to sleep in but was unsuccessful. I tried to figure out the thermostat/water heater contraption on my wall and ended up taking a cold shower. I just kept telling myself “it’s just like camping, it’s just like camping” and dove in. Two other new teachers and I went to Lotte Mart (low-tay) where we got a bunch of stuff for our apartments. We also ran into one of the other veteran teachers and her boyfriend and they suggested we go into Seoul for the night. So we got directions, bus numbers, and names and went that night into Itaewon, which is neighborhood in Seoul, like Manhattan is to New York. The bus took about 35 minutes. After going into Seoul, I realized how small Suji actually is. Itaewon was filled with foreigners. There were TONS of American (soldiers) out and about. It was shocking – I could understand what people were saying as they walked by me! And I could read the majority of the signs! There were a couple Starbucks, and other American restaurants and stores. We went to a place called Gecko’s. It was probably split 70-30, the majority being Americans. I had a few Cass beers, but wasn’t really excited about being out since I was still exhausted and fighting my cold. We called it an early night and tried to take a taxi back to the bus station. The taxi driver didn’t really understand what we were asking and drove right past what I assumed was our bus stop. I didn’t feel like trying (or even knew how) to explain that we needed to turn around so I just said “Suji-gu! Suji-gu!” which is where we live. I wrote down “straight, left, right, and stop” from my dictionary so that helped us once we got back into Suji since I knew where we were. The taxi from Itaewon to Suji cost about 28,000₩. Not bad! Especially after being split three ways ($7-ish.) A cab ride like that back home would have been over $50.

Monday was more doing stuff around the apartment. Just trying to get settled. Another trip to Lotte Mart. I found the other Portlander, Nick, living not too far away. It was nice talking to someone from home that knew the places that came up in conversation. We found a really good Chinese-style restaurant. We had no idea what the name was so we called it Red Lantern since there were a hundred red lanterns out front. I hope no major expenses come up because I’ve blown through about half of the 500,000₩ I brought! I should be fine. I spent over 100,000 on Sunday alone because I was buying apartment stuff, which is a one time expense.

On Tuesday I went into the school. There were no classes but I wanted to take a look at my lesson plans and take a look at my classroom. I am teaching five? classes. I teach morning kindergarten 7-1 Monday-Friday. Which means they are seven years old and are first year students. (7 really means 6 in US years, see my first or second blog.) I have four other afternoon classes that rotate between M,W,F and T,TH. I’m excited about the social studies class. They are 3^rd graders and should be speaking English fairly well. I stayed for 5 hours or so then went to get dinner. I wasn’t that hungry so I got Subway to take home for later. It was actually very good. I was scared they were going to screw it up. I also recharged my phone with minutes at one of the 12 phone shops (literally) within two blocks of the school. 10,000₩ ($8.90) should last for about a month. It is also cheaper to text than call here, contrary to the US.

I’ve had many conversations with the other teachers about Minnesota. Carla (from Arizona) and I are the only teachers who aren’t from Minnesota. Its nice having been there multiple times so I can connect with them on some level, other than pointing out their accents. They asked if I saw “the game” when I was in Seoul over the weekend. I was like…uhh what “game?” The hockey game between US and Canada, of course!! Somehow I was completely unaware of any such game. Oregonians and Minnesotans obviously have different pastimes.

I’m excited to be getting along just fine in a totally different country where few people understand what I’m trying to say. I started studying my Korean dictionary in earnest yesterday after having spent the entire weekend without any of the veteran teachers around to hold my hand. 

 

Ok do the blogger webpage stopped letting me put pictures in my text. So the above is us at Noreabong.

  

This is in Itaewon. The name of the store is Athlete's Foot. HAHA!

  

Taco Bell coming soon. You know I'll be back!!

Dandelions anyone? 

Wood chips anyone? (These are in the produce isle.)

Looking into my room from the hallway.

 

My bathroom. All of it. Notice the shower head attached to the sink. I have to turn the water heater on 10 minutes before showering if I want a hot shower. Korea is very energy efficient, heating water 24/7 in a tank is not an option. 

My desk. I'm lucky because I actually have a desk.

Looking to the left of my desk. A TV that I will probably never watch. 

 

The kitchen. Notice the two feet of space between the bed and stove. No microwave or oven. I am also lucky to have a medium sized fridge. 

This is the washing machine. It is to the left of the desk and closet. I have no idea what settings it is on. I just turned it on and hoped for the best. There is only cold water going into it so I figured nothing could get too screwed up.

Opposite of the washing machine in the "drying room." The window opens to the outside so the wet clothes can dry. 

Can you figure this out? It took me four days and three cold or barely warm showers to figure it out. The top dial is room temperature in Celsius. It warms the floor with warm water, I believe. The middle dial is a timer for something I haven't figured out. The bottom is the hot water temperature. The top button on the right should be on when heating the room. Dont know the second button. The third button needs to be pushed to get hot water in the shower. Dont know the fourth button. The red button resets everything. 

My first day at school and dinner after.

The first day at school.

Today was my first day. I didn’t teach, I just shadowed a half dozen teachers during each of the classes. There are five teachers leaving and four new ones due to fewer enrolled students. All the teachers were very nice and extremely helpful and informative. The first half of the day is all kindergarteners. There are different age groups and proficiency levels. For example the MK 7-1 class is the “morning kindergarten, age 7, first year students.” Kids who are 7 in Korea are not 7 in the US. In Korea, when you are born, you are one. So, a kid born December 31^st is “one.” Even weirder, on January 1^st, every kid who was born the previous year adds one year. So, that kid born December 31^st would be “two” on January 1^st. So, that means at the beginning of the school year, my MK 7-1 class will be full of 5-6 year olds buy American years. (By the end of the year, they are pretty much all 6.)

All the teachers went to go get lunch together. The school does serve lunch for free for the teachers, but fish head soup was being served so everyone went to go find something else. Some of the teachers went to go get some regular Korean food, and some were going to a Chinese style restaurant. I know I like Chinese so I decided to go with the option that I was most familiar with since I hadn’t eaten a real meal in quite a while.  The food was pretty good. I just told the other teachers what I wanted and one of them ended up just pointing at the picture of the dish I wanted since I couldn’t read what it said and had no way of saying “I’ll take the one on the left.” The food was good. The other teachers at my table said they came to Korea without any chopstick experience. I’m no stranger to chopsticks so it wasn't a big deal.

The second half of the day was PK and EIC students. Post kindergarten and … I couldn’t get a definition for the EIC. I’m going to guess it is English Intensive Course because those kids are BRILLIANT!! The kids spoke English almost fluently and were reading stories out loud and able to answer comprehension questions about the reading. Other classes were taking vocabulary tests… the words were very advanced, and the kids had to write definitions for each word and use two of them in a sentence. Incite, undoubtedly, monotonous, hoist, parched, etc. Some of the kids barely had an accent, some had memorized multiple lines from a play they were reading. Impressive.

After a long day of watching and taking notes, I went to get some dinner with another group of teachers. We went to a Korea BBQ restaurant. We had some BBQ beef, a bunch of pickled side dishes, spicy salad stuff, salty spicy stuff, and a Hite beer. The food was good. I ate mostly just the beef, rice and some of the salad. 

At first I equated the beer to a PBR, but it was less “harsh” than that, so maybe more like a regular Coors or Budweiser. I got stuffed and had a liter of beer for just 12,000 ₩ which is about $10.50. The other teachers said this was a pretty expensive meal. Oh, and lunch was only 4,500 ₩ which is about $4.00. 

Something interesting I’ve noticed is the loyalty Koreans have toward Korean made goods.  90% of the cars on the road are Korean made, the 42 inch flat screen in my hotel is LG, the stool in front of the computer is LG, and other random appliances and non-appliances are made by Hyundai, Samsung, etc. Imagine how much better off the US economy would be with that kind of loyalty!

I forgot my belt for nice clothes so I’m going to stop by a Union Bay I saw down the street on my way into school in the morning. (I know, Union Bay??) The other new male teacher Josh and I have to dress up because the parents are coming into one of the classes today, so they want to introduce us. 

Leaving PDX and arriving in ICN (Incheon Airport)

The plane ride from Portland to Los Angeles was rather nostalgic at first. Taking off I could see the silhouette of Mt. Hood against the early morning dawn. I couldn’t help but think about how this was going to be the last time I would see the iconic peak that I grew up seeing every single day for an entire year. 

The plane took off heading east and I could see i205 and the Columbia River below. Then flew over the part of the Columbia where we went wakeboarding last summer, which was neat… only to see that just beyond the trees about 100 feet way was a massive sewage treatment facility. Yaaay! (I thought the water felt warm that day…) Then the plane turned south and we flew down the east end of the Willamette valley. Again, took in Mt. Hood for the last time and enjoyed the early morning light reflecting off of Timothy Lake and Clear Lake (where I won’t be camping this year with my friends.) As we headed south Mt Jefferson was looking very white. We flew right over Detroit Lake, which looked to be about half full. 

I could see all the peaks until the Three Sisters. The front side of the Sisters were visible, but there were clouds butting up against the back of them so I didn’t get the full effect. The clouds also meant I couldn’t see Mt Bachelor. There was pretty much cloud cover the rest of the way until just north of Los Angeles, which looked very pretty since the hills were all green. I think it was Santa Barbara, not LA. The LA airport was mediocre. It was hard to find my way around, and not many food options in the international wing. I did find a sandwich and banana ($11.50!!) at a Sam Adams café thingy; the beer was tempting, but decided against it as it was 9:30 in the morning. There was a duty free shop in the international wing too. A liter of Absolut Vodka for $21.00. Cheap. Leaving LA was uneventful visually, obviously, since we were flying directly into and over the ocean. The culture shock began to set in at that point. I was pretty much the only non-Asian in sight and every one was speaking and everything was in Korean.

 I was in the middle row on the left side of the plane. There were 10 rows in the plane, plus the second level. It was huge. For some reason the person next to me switched with an American, thank god. He was from Dallas and on his way to the Philippines.  It was nice having someone to talk to. I fell asleep for a little while and jerked myself awake rather embarrassingly. I dozed a couple times after that, but never really did sleep. 

At 4:15 pm Portland time the little airplane icon on the screen in the head rest in front of me showed us where we were in the world and said we were less than a 1/3^rd of the way there and showed us a few hundred miles away from flying directly over Anchorage, Alaska. (It’s the closest I’ve been to Alaska!) At this point we were at 38,000 feet and traveling 567 mph and it was -76 degrees outside the plane. 

The flight went from LA, north up the coast, over Anchorage, over Nome, the Bering Strait, and over Russia! (Now I understand how Sarah Palin can see Russian from her house, she’s at 40,000 feet) Stupid clouds though… I couldn’t see anything over Siberia.

The last hour was brutal. It was like we just stayed in one spot on the map over the ocean east of Korea, not moving.

I watched a ton of videos to pass the time. The first one I watched on the screen in front of me was Where the Wild Things Are. I didn’t like it at all.  The second was The Invention of Lying, which I thought was pretty funny. On my computer and phone I watched a Sunny episode, I Love you Man, part of Inglorious Bastards, and part of Valkyrie. I kept getting interrupted.

Oh, I also had Sprite spilled on my arm, lap, and a little on my computer. That was fun. There’s nothing like a clammy butt when sitting for 13.5 hours!! It happened when we were flying over the International Date Line.

I’m definitely buying some duty free stuff when I come home. That stuff was so cheap. High end Scotches were ½ to 1/3 the cost in Oregon.

The landing was uneventful as well. It was foggy/hazy so I couldn’t see much.

In the hotel:

It took about an hour to get from the airport to the hotel due to rush hour traffic. 90% of the traffic we passed was either Kia or Hyundai. Unfortunately it was dark and foggy so I couldn’t take in what I’m sure is a beautiful view of Seoul. What I could see was high-rises. Everywhere. The bridge from the Incheon airport to Seoul is the 5^th longest in the world and is very impressive.  The hotel is … interesting. After trying to figure out how to turn the lights on for a few minutes I had to ask the guy who was helping Carla bring her bags into her room. Unfortunately, no wifi here. So after arriving, I was tired (as I had been up for at least 24 hours), I was hungry, and slightly uneasy in my new surroundings. So Carla and I went on a mission for food. It was a nice brisk night. The hotel sits about two feet off the main road so we went along the backside to find something to eat. It was classic neon lights and businesses packed into small buildings. And I couldn’t read a thing. We walked a couple blocks and we both mentioned that we were soooo glad we weren’t walking down this dark semi-alley alone. There was a sign with a picture of food on it, so we figured that was a restaurant, we also saw another sign that actually said pizza. It looked like a pretty sketchy establishment, so we opted for a 7-11 looking place on the corner. I got some cup-o-noodles that had a pretty picture.  While there we ran into the guy from Portland that was on both flights with me! Small world, edh? He was with another teacher who just arrived from “Sunny England” as he called it. They were in the hotel down the block from ours. We walked back to out respective hotels and I ate about five bites of my noodles. They were very spicy and I was so tired I couldn’t stand it. So I went to bed. And that was my first day! 

Hello everyone! I will be updating this blog for friends and family during my stay in Korea. Enjoy!