Sunday, September 16, 2007

We have arrived--survival, camping, and other impressions

Right now it is Monday, 12:00 am Seoul time, and it is Sunday, 8:00 am West Coast time.  We are wide awake, of course, because our bodies are jet-lagged and are convinced that it is time to be up and about, having some breakfast and beginning the day.  Hmmm...  Well, we are cooking, but it is more of a dinner because we fell asleep about 3:00 pm and woke up around 11:00 pm.  Slept right through dinner, so now we are having a little dinner and trying to stay tired so we can go back to sleep in a couple hours.  Oh dear.

Some hightlights from the journey over here:
The Flight: Long, naturally, but very nice.  Food, on-demand movies, a screen that tracked the progress of our flight the whole way there, and great service!
Arrival: As promised, a taxi driver was in the airport, with our names on a sign, and he took us right to the doorstep of our school, where we met a teacher from the school and its director (we think that's who he was).  They and the taxi driver took us to our apartment (more to come on that subject).  The teachers told us what to do to get to work Monday, handed us some cash, and pretty much left.
Camping: Because the apartment is minimally furnished, we have been making lists of what we need.  Just now, we realized that we could not make spaghetti for dinner/breakfast because we do not have a can opener.  Blah.  Our apartment came with a bed, chest of drawers, TV, minimal kitchen tools, wireless internet woo-hoo!, and a washing machine.  We have nowhere to sit except our bed for now.
Other survival Tactics: Our neighborhood is great!  We are in the middle of just about everything we could need: a department and grocery store, restaurants, possibly a library, a park, and to our grateful discovery at breakfast time this morning, a Dunkin' Donuts.
Some problematic issues: This language is very difficult!  We are like babies.  All food labels are in Korean.  This blog page is in Korean--that is very annoying.  And our camera broke before we left, so we can't take pictures for all our adoring fans at home.

I'll stop for now.  We are doing okay--I think we are in shock or something.  Anyway, more to come later.  Love, us.

3 comments:

Stacy said...

woooow hoow! you made it! We were wondering... and we're SO glad to hear that you are safe and sound. You won't starve on Doughnuts, even if you can't find a can opener :) and sleep is a good thing. All will make much more sense in about 3 weeks - love you guys!

Megan said...

Oh I'm so glad you are there and safe!! And hey, a washing machine...that's more than you had here!! j/k
Anyway, we love and miss you and pray for you often. I can't wait to hear how your first day went!

Kortney said...

Welcome to Korea! (Stacy's sister Kortney here). I've been here for 3 weeks now. It sounds like you guys have a nice location. Something you may not have been told is that Chusok (the Korean thanksgiving) is next week, so you probably won't have school the 24th-26th. This could be a great time to get out and see Seoul, adjust to the time change, and finally furnish your apartment! If you need a big superstore for some one stop shopping, E-Mart (kinda like WalMart) is a good place to get everything you need. I think I'll be in the Seoul area sometime during Chusok and would love to meet up with you if you are interested. My cell number is 010-2086-0656. Feel free to call or email if you have any questions. My email is 1gurlrevolution@gmail.com. Have fun!