That's right, I survived my 12-hour flight to South Korea. Y'all can stop thinking I died along the way. Anyways, The flight was super uncomfortable. Well... You imagine having to stay seated for more than 2 hours. It's hard, right? And I couldn't stay asleep for the life of me. Once again, I flew delta. The food was actually pretty good, I had bibimbap with assorted fruits and the staff were very good about passing by every hour to see if we needed anything, though I think it's because they were as restless as I was.
Anyway, when I finally landed in Incheon, the first thing I though was "I feel like I'm back in college." Really, there were a shit-ton of Koreans, a few foreigners, and like, 4 other black people. Just like my Japanese courses. No lie. Anyway, Incheon airport is pretty nice. I didn't get to eat anything though, because I had to rush to the other terminal and then go through airport security for a second time.
Oh yeah! It turns out I had a pair of scissors in my backpack, in my pencil case, that I COMPLETELY forgot about, and they had me pull it out to check. How the heck does Korea catch that but the US airport security not? I thought the US is like... 5 times more paranoid with all of that. Anyway, after that, I went strait to my boarding area and waited a good 20 minutes before boarding my final plane to Busan. It was a short, 50-minute trip and it would have been comfortable if I hadn't just spent the last 12 hours on my bum, but what the heck, c'est la vie.
I passed through customs without a problem. That kinda surprised me, but I will not question a good thing. When I went to collect my bags, I didn't know which turnstile to go to because they displayed he wrong flight number, so I just watched out for the big burnt orange bag. I was like "If I see that, that's where I need to be." It was turnstile one, so I didn't have to travel very far. Leaving baggage, I saw two people with the TaLK signs and I was like, yup, dems my peeps, and went up. For my particular group, I was the first to arrive, so I just had to wait about 30 minutes for the rest of the people to arrive. There were about 15 of us in total.
The ride to the Busan University of Foreign Studies, where I will be staying for 2 weeks of orientation, was at night, so I couldn't see much of Busan, but the night skyline was pretty and I could tell this is a mountainous region. We got settled into our rooms and I was delighted to discover we all have our own rooms with bathrooms during orientation. Apparently this has never happened before. We got lucky! Hells yeah, I can dig it.
Anyway, They ordered McDonald's for dinner. That's right. Ordered. As in it was delivered. McDelivery, yo. They have it in S. Korea. They need it in the States. After eating, a few of us went outside to explore the campus. It was night time, so no one was there, and it was cold, so we didn't go far. But there were a lot of stairs and we were like "Now this is the reason why most Korean people are so damned skinny" because there really were a lot of stairs.
Anyway, after looking out at a lit-up Busan, we headed back into the dorms and got ready for bed. That was yesterday. Today I explored a bit of Busan and found 7-Eleven, a few other nice convenience stores, a hanbok (traditional Korean clothes) store, and a row of boutiques. I also met a lot of other scholars who were placed in Jeonnam, where I will be teaching. Tomorrow is officially the first day of orientation, so I don't know what to expect. I'm gonna bring the books they gave me, my tablet, and a pencil+highlighter just in case. I may have been out of college for a while, but that doesn't mean I've kicked the habit of carrying around certain supplies just in case.
Anyways, that's it for tonight, loves. Gonna hit the hay and call it a day.
Cheers~!
PS: My travel adapters for France also work here. Score.
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