OMG im in Korea

Hi everyone,
I can't upload photo's yet because I am at work. So that leaves me with writing a brief summary of some of the things that have happened here.

I am Dustin Robison and this is the longest day of my life. (enjoy the 24 reference) No not really the longest day of my life just a rather stressful day.

First off the plane flight from San Diego to San Fransico: zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Secondly the 3 hour layover and 12 hour flight from San Fransico to Incheon, Korea: First I had to find my flight and get my boarding pass which was.. interesting. I had some really good exercise running around the airport but I did eventually find everything and it worked out but I may have been at risk of a heart attack. Anyway that first part only took about 45 minutes but then everything worked out great, infact I was very bored for the rest of the lay over while i waited.

Now the 12 hour flight was with Singapore airlines! i.e. voted the nicest airlines in the world. Lucky me, I had a whole row of 3 seats on one side of the plane all to myself! And not only that but there was this awesome little TV infront of me that I could watch really awesome movies on. Inluding the new Star Treck!! I'm not a treckie by the way but that movie rocks. Not only that it had all these fun games on it AND a learn a langauge program so I worked on my Korean for a few hours.

Ya pretty sweet right!? NO! it was only pretty sweet for the first couple hours then I was wicked bored : / Then I decided I am going to Korea right? so of course i want the tea the very nice flight assistant was offering me. Umm... might have been a very bad idea instead of sleeping like this -_- i was much more awake like this O_O the whole time.

But whatever, i survived it but it was very long and boring because I couldnt bring myself to do much of anything i was so bored. Some middle aged Korean woman really impressed me because she played Bejeweled 2 for 9 of the 12 hours of the flight. I attempted to be as cool but I was bored after an hour of sucking big time compared to her.

One other cool thing is that there was a screen that showed our flight trajectory and we went north along alaska and then almost to the north pole and then back south along russia, then south past the east coast of Japan before turning north west to fly across japan to korea.

So when we finally landed it was a little scary because right as we exited the plane there were a bunch of dudes in hazmat suits that were scanning everyone with some machines and their masks said "QUARANTINE" on them. But their machines made a few beeps on me and they waved me through.

So as normal I was rather lost on where to go but I decided just to follow everyone else because they 'must' know where they are going. So the airport was totally different than a USA airport because in order to get to the baggage claim you have to take a subway and go through all these processing booths after walking for over a mile. So while it was scary not knowing where i was going or what I was doing it didnt compare to the next part.

So I finally got my baggage, and made a quick phone call to my mom I decided to walk out into the common area of the airport where people actually are other than the people I got off the plane with. There were crap loads of people holding signs and yelling names and the place was madness. I knew I had to find a bus to my town of ilsan and make a phone call to my korean contact but in all that madness with all that luggage I must have looked pretty hopeless.

Fortunately people in Korea are really nice. Some random dude grabbed my hand and showed me over to the pay phones but of course I didn't have any korean money to use the phone so he took out his own telephone and called my korean contact for me. He was very nice, i wish i had got his name and phone number but I was a little baffled.

Next I had to find the right bus. There were literally hundreds of buses and an amazing amount of people. But i found a bus ticket station and said my city and I got my ticket with some korean money a friends parent gave me before I left. Finding the right bus was very difficult, there are many Koreans who's job is to load peoples luggage onto their bus that stand in the street where the buses park and I would run around between them saying "Ilsan, Kintex!?!?! Ilsan, Kintex!?!?!" Yeah i was literally doing that. But hey, it kept me from getting on the wrong bus and then the next challenge came along.

What stop to get off at? Yeah so my korean contact just said get off when you see the big KINTEX sign (Kintex is some sort of international convention center). So after 40 minutes of riding the bust I see the sign but I see no bus stop. I look around a little bit and very nervously wait. We pass the kintex : / oh but then we take a right at the next stoplight so we are going along the side of it. I cant let that happen again right? So i wander up to the front of the bus (getting every odd stare imaginable) and say to the bus driver "Kintex?" He said something i couldnt understand and waved his arm around a little. I just decided to sit back down defeated and to think about what I should do.

HAHA we turned right and the KINTEX building was adjacent to me with a bus stop! ^_^

So now I had to find my director whom I have never seen before and talked to once before on the telephone because he was picking me up from the bus stop and taking me to my apartment. I was very very very nervous about this one because there could always be, "what if he doesnt show?" like where would I go then and what would i do? I cant figure out how to do anything in this country or read anything.

But i was lucky because as i was getting off the bus my director Mr. Cho said, "dustin?" So that worked out great. He drove me through this HUGE amazing city (I didnt see a building under 10 stories for miles) and showed me into my apartment.

It was on the 6th story of some building with a korean name (now I know it was Bobo county) and I was showed into my tiny little apartment. This was kinda a bummer because it was really really dirty and had just disgusting amounts of hair and dust all over the place.

Anyway it was okay, he handed me the keys for the place and then invited me out for a beer. I had been awake for 20+ hours (not counting the hour of sleep on the first airplane) but of course I was going to say yes to the only person I kinda know in Korea.

So we went to a fusion place and it was very tastey. Had some big Korean lite beers and I met another foreign teacher named Matt. Matt works at the same place as me and lives two floors above me. I will tell you more about him later but he has been really great and he is from orange county.

So Mr. Cho went home after a hour or so at the fusion resaraunt and Matt and I went out for some more beers at a foreigners bar. I met a lot of other very friendly foreigners who were delighted to see some 'new blood.' They filled my sleepy head with loads of advice from working in Korea for years which I can't honestly say I remember any of because I was soooo tired. Finally I told them I was about to collapse on the table and matt took me back to my apartment so I could get some much needed sleep.

We walked through the streets back to the apartment between skyscrapers and surrounded by Koreans but it didnt hit me until I laid down in bed and looked out my window.

Oh my god, I am in korea.


p.s. the reason I wrote so much is because my boss asked me to be at work at 10 am but I dont have a class to teach until 3:30 pm : / Well at least I am glad i wrote this because now I wont forget it.