Good Morning Korea!

(Edit: Btw, I thought it may be pertinent to tell anyone that I've found my man-bag since my last blog! Phew!)

All of this build up and now it’s finally that time. I’m sitting here in my dorm in the University of Korea, looking out over the cityscape of the town I’m in (I won’t even try to butcher it’s name. I’m about an hour and forty-five minutes from Incheon airport, let’s just say) and it all seems pretty surreal. I’m actually in Korea.

To be honest it really isn’t that much different from the U.S. For some unexplainable reason I thought that it would be significantly different. My assumptions were proven incorrect. Honestly the largest difference is the fact that everything has Hangul written all over it.

...hmm...so I guess I’ll tell you about some things I’ve had to learn were a bit altered from their American counterparts. Namely, the dual elevators that only go to even numbers on the left, and odd numbers on the right. At the ground level I made the sour mistake of hoping aboard the odd numbered elevator. Regrettably my room is on the eighth floor so I had to take a trip back down, still carrying these monster bags in toe, and then through the other elevator and then back up. I didn’t realize I had to switch elevators till I was up on the seventh floor of the odd numbered elevator. Bother.

Then of course the shower that isn’t really a shower. In fact, the bathroom really isn’t a bathroom, it’s a shower room. The shower head isn’t blocked off or in a bathtub or anything. It’s just on the wall in the middle of the room. That’s fine by my standards, I don’t mind getting everything wet...except for my dry clothes that I carry in to change into once I’m done. I almost got them entirely soaked when I placed them in the far corner of the room and didn’t realize the water was slowly creeping up to it. Note to self: don’t leave anything on the floor of the bathroom, anywhere, while showering. It will get wet.

So I’ve experienced a minor amount of culture shock. Silly thing is I sort of new about these things already and am still interested at the fact that I’m still a bit shocked by it...that and I have to take my shoes off every time I enter my dorm. Not a biggie, but I keep forgetting! Sigh.

The flight itself ruled though. There were really nice Korean ladies that brought us awesome food. That was pretty much the best part of the flight, oh and the fact that the in flight media player ruled! I saw so many sweet movies that I’ve been wanting to see. They even had Imogen Heaps new album on it. Score. And they had these really awesome roll things with sweet meat in the middle. I was scrumptious.

Now all I need to do is get my time schedule set. Annoyingly so, my circadian clock is forcibly hardwired to Central Standard Time. I was wide away at 4:00am this morning (2:00pm in the U.S) and had the most horrible time trying to go back to bed...most likely from the air conditioner that isn’t working for some reason, being off and burning me to a lovely sweat all night long.

My roomie seems nice enough too. David from Chicago, Korean-American, what’s not to like? :) He says he can speak enough Korea to get by, but I don’t think he realizes that if he spends any time with me, I’ll be asking him to translate a lot. I hope he’s better than he says he is :P. First things first though, I’m going to see if he can read the Hangul on the thermostat. I’m burning up!

Alright, now I guess I should get in the shower and great ready for breakfast. Hamburgers and french-fries is what I’m told the people who already arrived have been having for breakfast. Man, Koreans know Americans so well.