Korea 101

Where to begin!!!

I guess I can begin with welcome to Korea! This statement should be followed with a small bow...

Saturday was a very interesting day. It consisted of a 2 hour drive to STL, a flight to catch to Chicago at 9am, then a 14 hour long plane ride to Incheon international airport in Seoul, Korea.

The plane ride was long and grueling. 14 hours seems like yeah I'll just sleep and the time will fly by, before I know it I will be in Korea. Wrong! I was sandwiched between two people, both of them very nice, but not so fun on an airplane. The lady who sat next to me was wearing very strong old lady perfume that gave me a headache the entire flight and also had the luxury of the aisle seat.. The Korean guy to the right of me on the window seat was nice and spoke English but difficult for me to understand. They both easily fell asleep on the flight over there using part of my chair for comfort. It is difficult to fall asleep when you have elbows and hips all over you making it impossible for you to move! Next flight I am definitely making it a necessity to get an aisle seat. Unfortunately, for this flight I had no choice but next flight I should have a little more advance notice on booking the flight.

After the plane touched down in Korea it took some time getting through Immigration and collecting my bags. After everything was squared away and I had my money exchanged for Korean Won I looked for the people who were picking me up. I assumed this is what was happening since I did not get any other information regarding arrival in Korea except one name and his phone number as a contact.

While looking around the airport I started to become worried. No one had a sign with my name on it! I ran across some another American, Muhamed, who was having the same problem. He had not gotten any information about arrival in Korea either so we stood together looking lost when another American, Mark wandered up to us asking if we were having the same problem. After a bit more standing yet another guy came up and said he was trying to figure out where to go as well. The four of us huddled together and took turns watching bags, trying to figure out how to make phone calls, and talking with the girls at the information desk.

The information desk called my contact for me and he told me what to do. I needed to take a bus to a certain location, then a cab ride to the hotel. It sounds simple enough right? Wrong! The people I had met in the airport could not get a hold of their contacts so I waited around with them for a couple of hours in the airport while they exhausted all possible resources.

After a while I went ahead and followed the instructions and bought a bus ticked for the bus ride, the lady did not understand me and sold me the wrong ticket. Luckily another Korean guy caught it and directed me towards the window to exchange my ticket for the right one. Everything went fine and dandy until I got to the hotel.

When checking in I was informed I had a roommate and that there was only one key. I made it up to my room and knocked, no answer, then I knocked again. After the 4th time of knocking I started to worry. I was so sick of lugging around my luggage there was no way I wanted to take it all the way back downstairs to the reception desk. That was my roommate opened the door in a towel! She had been in the shower and did not know that she had a roommate either when she opened the door. So here I am with my large bags wheeling them in the room while she is fresh out of the shower. It made for an interesting introduction.

I was tired, hungry, and jet lagged so after getting situated and a shower after a good 26 hours of adventure I was knocked out for the night. What an interesting first few hours in Korea!

I will keep this updated often! I hope to type up my adventures daily to share with all of my friends and family.