Day One

Wednesday, April 30, 2008

We are here in Korea. We arrived not even 24 hours ago yet. The flight was long and hot, but it was a smooth flight. We have all of our bags, nothing was missing from them, immigration took us two minutes and then we got on a 2 hour bus ride to our apartment in Wonju. The most frustrating part about the whole trip was the bus. We got dropped off in the front of a gas station and there was no one there to pick us up. We were getting a little stressed, not to mention completely exhausted from not sleeping for over 24 hours, but we could not understand what anyone was telling us to do. Luckily, there was a woman on the bus who had never been to Wonju either and was very confused and she spoke ENGLISH!!!! Yay!!! She helped us out and we followed her to the actual bus station which was through a back alley and around all the buses not being used. Talk about frustrating when you are severely lacking sleep and your body does not want to function.

We sat by the window on the plane and ate Korean food. Well, Kyle did, I got roast beef instead. But I did eat some of his bibimbap. It was really good. They gave us instructions on how to combine all the ingredients together to make the meal. Pretty funny.

Today, we woke up really early due to jetlag and we unpacked all of our stuff in the apartment. Still looks empty, but feels much more homey that it did about 10 hours ago when we got up. We went out for lunch with the married couple down the hall from Australia and a couple of Kyle's colleagues. We went for North American food at the Outback Steakhouse. It was good because I am not sure with how tired we are whether or not we would be ready for "real" Korean food yet. We have a pizza hut here and a baskin robbins, so I am assuming that somewhere... somewhere... there must be a McDonald's.

We went for a walk as well today and walked into a store to buy something to drink for at the apartment and we made fools of ourselves. Not only did no one understand us and everyone stare at us, but instead of giving 10,700 won, we counted out 17,000 won. The clerk laughed at us and we were kinda embarrassed, but smiled it off and had a good laugh when we left. Surprisingly, there are a lot of English signs and restaurants here. It makes me laugh that the menus are all in English, but the waiters and waitresses cannot speak English.

We also ran into a group of school kids, there is a middle school just up from our apartment, and then surrounded us and starting waving and saying Hi to us. It felt weird, but we laughed at it yet again. We are getting lots of stares, but that is to be expected. We really enjoy spending time with our neighbours. There is actually another teacher here from Victoria, BC who works with Kyle. Well... he is either from there or just went to school there. I am not sure. But we are excited to meet him. We went to Kyle's school today just for fun and to walk around. I love the people that he works with and wish we could have gone to my school to meet people too, but we didn't get a chance. There is also a Scottish guy who works with Kyle. He is excited about that. Everyone seems to be our age. The couple down the hall in our apartment are our age and the wife works with Kyle. The husband stays home and takes care of their two year old son in the evening. We are probably going out for dinner with him tonight. Not sure where. Supposedly, it is cheaper to eat out at Korean restaurants everyday than to buy groceries. Weird. I am definitely buying groceries though.

I am really nervous about tomorrow and hoping that all goes well. I heard that there is a teacher from the US there and that he is my age. So, I hope that he is there when I get there tomorrow and I can meet him and ask him questions. I am not sure what tomorrow holds, but I will let you know how it goes. I am very very nervous though.

We chatted with my parents this morning, with great difficulty, thanks to the connection we are mooching till our internet gets set up. So, we were teaching my Mom how to use MSN. It was really good to speak with them, but it really made me miss home and I cried. I really miss our family and friends and our cats. My mom said she thinks that Cedric misses me and that makes me really sad and almost makes me cry right now thinking about it.

Anyways, I think I might go and try to nap since our cable went out and Kyle is napping and has been for two hours now. Here is a website with photos for you to see....

http://s269.photobucket.com/albums/jj75/bongo_guy/Our%20Apartment/

Enjoy!!

I think we may become close friends with the family down the hall, but they are already 6 months through their stay and it will be sad to say bye to them when they leave.