Ok, so I am writing down my experiences I’ve had so far so that when I finally get internet access, I will be able to just paste them in there. Well, I better get started, there’s lots to talk about. So let’s start from the beginning…the plane ride over here. Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. Probably due to the fact that I was delusional from lack of sleep the night before, so I really can’t say I remember a lot of the details. From Phoenix to San Fran all I really remember is the couple next to me talking about getting nose rings. She wasn’t sure if it was professional, he said he knew lots of people that had them at work and assured her she would look very sexy with a nose ring. Blah blah blah, now you see why I was unconscious for most of this. Somehow I magically made it to the international section of the San Fran airport, had my carry on bag weighed twice to make sure it was only 15 lbs, which is ridiculous if you ask me. I guess I should have filled it up w/ cotton balls or goose feathers if I really wanted it to be full. 15 lbs is nothing! So, everything over 15 lbs they made me stuff into my backpack, which was already pushin 50 lbs, I swear, and it seemed so dumb because once I got on the plane, I couldn’t even fit my backpack under my seat, it was so full, so I had to put it up in the overhead anyway. Defeated the purpose. I’m glad no one died from my overweight backpack. Ok, so the food over was alright. The menus were pretty cool. I could have as much apple juice as my heart desired. The desserts were good. Apparently a chocolate delight= milky way bar, which was fine by me. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to the snack they handed out though. It was a roll that had some sort of meat squeezed into the middle like it was icing, and it was a cold and a little soggy. Honestly, I was too hungry to gag. I was wishing so bad that I had brought snacks with me, only to remember it didn’t really matter because I couldn’t get to my backpack since it was off far away in some overhead bin. Well, it was nice having a TV with all sorts of movies on it. I finally got to catch up on some that I never got to see. Luckily I knew the ratings of most of them, but I probably won’t be so lucky on the flight back. So let’s see, in the 15+ hrs it took to fly over I think I only watched about 4 movies…I say about since I couldn’t keep my eyes open during one of them. I really have no idea what happened in that movie. So I always like to have a window seat when I fly and I was lucky enough that I didn’t have anyone in the seat next to me, so it was just me and some man on the isle in our row. I couldn’t tell you what language he spoke, there were all sorts of people on this flight. They had movies in like 15 different languages. The only down side about the window seat was when I had to go to the bathroom and he was dead asleep. I tried nudging him (ok, shaking him would be a little more accurate) a few times but he didn’t wake up. So, I was seriously contemplating whether or not I would try to climb over him while he was still asleep, which was gonna be hard with the guy in front of him reclined so far back that it left less than a foot of space, but I didn’t know what would happen if he suddenly woke up w/ me squeezing past him, so I thought better of it. I probably could’ve done it if my legs weren’t so cramped from sitting so long. Yeah, instead I probably would’ve accidently kneed him in the face or something. Long flights are not good for my impeccable ninja skills. Later I actually had to ask if they had any pain killers, my legs were aching so badly. In the bathroom they had combs, razors, shaving cream, after shave, mouthwash and toothbrushes with toothpaste. But seriously, why would I want to shave my legs on an airplane? Sure, that’s great and all but what they didn’t have were paper towels to dry your hands after you actually used the restroom for what you came for. So, other cool things were instead of watching a movie, show, listening to music or seeing where in the world your plane was located, you could actually play games or learn things on these tv’s. I decided that it might be good to do a little language learning activity, so I practice my Korean for awhile. I also read up about Korea in another section that gave an overview of the culture, history, good and anything else I might want to know. I felt productive, but I didn’t retain much. Anyway, probably one of the coolest parts of the flight was when we flew over Japan. It was cool to see the lights and all but what was really breathtaking was seeing the snowcapped mountain ranges from the plane. Wow. You just never see a picture of something like that from that point of view. I love to take pictures from my window whenever I fly on a plane, and this really was incredible, but then I remembered that my camera was in my bag and I wouldn’t be able to get to it. That was probably the most frustrating part of my entire flight. So, shortly after Japan comes the moment we’ve all been waiting for…ok, maybe just me. Korea! Yeah baby. We land, (it’s Saturday night and I left Friday morning), I have to wait for pretty much everyone to get off before I can go back and grab my backpack (again, annoying that I couldn’t keep it with me) and then I head to get my luggage. This airport is seriously empty. I’m thinking it must be like 11 at night or something, but then my phone says it’s only 7. Only people around were the pilots and flight attendants. I make past the guards into the country and there my bags are already on a cart ready for me to take. Then I walk through customs w/o a second glance. Just hand them a card and bam, I’m outta there. Seriously, I could’ve written that my name was Bob Frunkenhymer III and that I brought 5 million machine guns and they wouldn’t have even looked at me twice. I didn’t even have a phone number or a place I was staying on that card. Oh well. So I easily found the people that came to pick me up and Kyeong Hee had a gift for me which was a scarf so I put it on right then. So sweet. We went to the car and I thought it was funny that they wouldn’t empty the trunk before they came to pick me up, so I think we could only fit one small bag in there. Anyway, we stopped at a nice restaurant to eat dinner and it was wonderful. There was so much I didn’t know how they could even begin to eat it all. I tried everything. The best was probably the meat that was cooking in the middle of the table. It reminds me of Mongolian beef, but way more tender and juicy. So, finally we make it back to her house and I just crash. That’s the end of the beginning!
Next day, Sunday. I wake up, shower, get ready for church, eat a nice breakfast of fruit, yogurt, juice and I cant even remember what else. She had to run off so it ended up just being me and her son Eric (that’s his English name) and he is about 12. He is a sweet kid and we got along great. He loves games and was asking about what American games that I play. I then tried to explain games like Mad Gab and Quelf, which is really hard when English isn’t someone’s first language. We also played the piano a little bit and I said that I would give him piano lessons and help with his English if he would teach me some Korean. I also started to teach him some Italian and showed him a couple books that I brought that were in Italian. Later she gave me a call to let me know that she stopped by the church but they were already almost done with services, so we would only make it to the last bit of church. I went and the Elders were given permission to give me the sacrament and then we left since there wasn’t much time left. After that is when my Sunday got a little crazy. She bought me a hamburger from McDonalds (because of course that’s what I would want my first day in korea, ror…raugh out roud) which is funny because I don’t even go to McDonalds when I’m in America. Unless, of course, it’s for breakfast. Totally different. Mmmm. Anyway, I learned something at McDonalds in Korea. They have a special discount during lunch hours every day so it’s actually cheaper from like 12-2. Good to know, just in case I ever need to go there again someday. Of course, they closed the McDonalds a few days later for remodeling. Great timing. After that she took me around to buy things for my new apartment. So, she takes me to this little bedding shop and asks me which color I would like. Well, I tell her that I like blue and then when she asks the sales lady she tells me “oh, well, blue isn’t in season because it’s wintertime” and I’m like, uh, ok, then what about all the blue bedding that’s already in here? It’s pretty much everywhere, but I guess she wouldn’t sell it because it’s not the season for blue bedding. I still don’t get why it’s a big deal, I mean don’t most people keep the same bedding on year round? Well all the bedding is like little kid bedding anyway. You know, bright neon colors with big cartoon flowers. I’m thinking, do I seriously look like I’m 5? Anyway, the whole bedding thing becomes a horrible week and a half long nightmare that I don’t think I’m gonna get into. So, we go and get some simple supplies like a couple dishes, a pot and pan, some rags, soap and toilet paper. Then she just leaves me for an eternity standing with these supplies in this huge store while she goes to do something, which I still have no idea what it was. While I was waiting, a man from the school that doesn’t speak any English came to pick up the supplies but told me to still stay where I was. So in this giant multilevel store they have walking escalators, you know, kinda like the ones at the airports except these are angled up or down so you can take a shopping cart on each level. You really don’t want to be wearing heals on those…especially going down; you pretty much can’t stand up unless you go down facing backwards. Anyway, I was left by the escalators by the main entrance next to a cell phone station w/ a whole bunch of sales reps yelling at any person that walked by. Well, I’m assuming they were trying to sell... I dunno, maybe they were yelling other stuff. Anyway, it was a little awkward standing next to them forever, not gonna lie. I got to people watch a little while I was stranded there, though. I noticed that a lot of people were walking around in their pajama pants. We’re talking flannel cartoon character little kid pants. I think they were mostly teens or younger, but there were definitely some adults too. Lots of people have Ugg boots and they all kinda have the same glasses: big, boxy frames. I saw some twin little boys that had balloons and were totally adorable, and I know what you’re thinking, “Krystal, how could you know if they were twins? Everyone looks exactly the same.” Not so. These little boys were the same size, wearing the same clothes but they were NOT identical. So, since they were in the same cart I assumed they must be related. Well, eventually she returned and we left the giant store, went back to her place to pick up my luggage, and finally headed to my apartment. Oh, and while we were driving she had the radio on and all the sudden I’m hearing Neon Trees song Animal while in Korea. Totally awesome. So, we arrived at the apartment, and I got yelled at for stepping on my tip toe to place a bag inside the room w/o taking my shoes off. I seriously thought they were going to have hernias. But, it’s all good now, b/c I’m getting the whole shoe thing down. Sometimes I’m bad though and walk around my house in slippers…shhhh, don’t tell. ;) Well, after bringing the luggage in they left me at it, and I basically just unpacked and went to bed. But first, the grand tour of the apartment!!! This is some great stuff, so here we go. Well, since I am “special” they have gone out of their way to do nicer things for me than they have ever done for any other English teacher, which I totally wasn’t expecting, and I kinda wish they hadn’t…because most of it just makes things harder for me. So, because I’m “special” they got me a bigger apartment than anyone else, which I totally wasn’t prepared for. Of course, that means my apartment is nowhere near the school I’ll be teaching at…yay for hours of public transportation. I tried explaining to her before I came here that just because my parents have a big house doesn’t mean I have never lived in a small space. She totally didn’t get that. I’ve lived abroad, I’ve had small apartments and I’ve had to share my tiny space w/ up to 6 people at a time. I can do it, no problem. So, my apartment here is pretty big. It has a 12 foot ceiling and a loft, which is where they put my bed, so now I have to crawl to my bed every night, haha. Since it’s a new apartment, there is nothing in it. Literally, nothing. No furnishings. I just have this big, huge, empty room downstairs. It’s kinda funny really. It’s like I have a giant dance floor. Fun times there. My back wall is this huge window, the size of my 12 foot wall, and it faces a hospital. My first night here I took a look out the window just to kinda take things in and had an interesting surprise…most of the hospital windows’ blinds are open, and when the lights are on at night you can see everything going on, and I mean EVERYTHING. Yeah, nothing quite says “welcome to Korea” like getting mooned by Korean hospital patients. KK (that’s how they write laughing (“haha”) in Korean….I thought they were just calling me by my initials, kk, kk). Ok, so let talk about other surprises in my apartment. Well, how about the light switches. They are all in one spot, in the middle of the apartment. Yep, so if I have to go to the bathroom, I have to turn on the light over by the stairs. Pretty annoying. The stairs are kinda funny too. They are super tall, probably each about a foot high, and for the first week couple of weeks I couldn’t go up the stairs w/o stubbing my toes… then of course I would hit my head on the ceiling when I was getting up in the morning, so it made for some interesting times. Ok, kitchen, there is a sink (good) a washer (great) a tiny stove (something) and an itty bitty fridge that smells horrible all the time no matter what. Yeah, no bueno. Well, that’s it for the kitchen. No oven or microwave, and definitely no toaster (these Koreans don’t even know what they’re missing). So, I knew that I wouldn’t have a dryer, and it’s all good b/c I’ve lived without one before, but when they handed me a rope and said, you can try to tie this up around your apartment to dry your clothes, I’m like “tie it to what?!” Yeah, it’s not like I can hang them outside to dry. Next thing on my list to buy, clothes dry rack. As for the bathroom, I was happy to see a sink , a toilet and a showerhead (no tub), but on closer examination I noticed something was missing. Where is the drain for the shower? Oh, it’s under the sink…yeah, so the water from the shower goes across the whole bathroom floor, around the toilet to the drain under the sink. Man, I know my Dad taught me that some things aren’t wrong, they’re just different, but this most certainly seems designed wrong. Pretty annoying when you’re trying to get ready after you shower (since that’s the general order of things) and the floor is soaking wet. Shower shoe man is totally making bank. He’s probably in cahoots with Korean-shower-drain man. So my first night in my apartment I’m thinking, man, is it morning already? It always seems like the sun is coming up from all the lights outside. Curse my giant window.
Well, that’s pretty much my apartment in a nutshell. Oh, and funny thing is that Pizza Hut, Baskin Robins, McDonalds and KFC are all a 5 minute walk from my apartment. So much for leaving the States. So now you have a small taste of my first 2 days here in Korea. Now is where we get to the fun stuff, so things will go a lot quicker. I will post my weekly highlights over the last month as soon as possible so you know what has been goin’ on over here. It’s some good stuff, so hopefully I didn’t bore you to death with this first post. I haven’t really had internet access, so that’s why things have been going a little slower than anticipated. So much to tell!!! So little time!! Sorry this took forever to put up. Same thing happened when I started my mission, haha. No letters for weeks. I’ll get in a better groove, though. Anyway, just because you can read what I’m up to doesn’t mean I know what you’re up to, so please drop me a line!!! I want to hear from you all. Ok, buh bye for now!
PS Wow, that was long....my bad. Just so you know, I don't really read through these once I write them. I just kinda see where I left off and continue writing. So please excuse the parts that don't make sense.
