The 14 hour flight, hospitality, and kararoke

Attention, friends and family,

I have arrived! It was a very uncomfortable 14 hours, but the destination is totally worth it. Okay, so the airport. After tearful hugs with my family, Kyle, and Kyle's mom, I went on my way. After security, I got to the other side and just stared at my boarding pass. What the heck do I do about finding which gate I was? I couldn't find a tv screen to look at, so I went up to a random stranger. Emotional after the goodbyes, I totally cried to this group of middle-aged men and women and asked for help. They were so nice, thank god. I found my gate and then decided that I did not want to be the helpless little girl on her first real trip anymore. You'll all be happy to know, I haven't cried since. haha.

On the flight, I watched Moulin Rouge, Easy A, Horrible Bosses, The Office, How I Met Your Mother, Friends, and a few more I can't remember, played MarioKart, failed at sleeping, and stood up and stretched like 7 times. I was stuck in the middle of the middle of the plane so I couldn't look outside and I had to wake up the two sleepers sitting next to me almost every time. The one kid sitting next to me was super nice. He helped me lift my luggage and talked to me. He's originally from Korea and he lived in the U.S. for a year learning English. He was really excited that I was coming here to teach.

Moving forward. We took a 2 hour long trip on a bus to get to Jochiwon from the Icheon airport. Jochiwon is where Korea University is, and we're staying the dorms. They're so clean and spacious.

We woke up the next day (oh, wow, I can't believe that's today. My internal clock is soooo confused right now.) and we went to breakfast. Wieners, kim chi, eggs, and toast were the options. After breakfast, we decided to go around campus and see what was what. Our lecture hall is right across the street, the cafeteria and laundry (which they'll do for you) and the gym is behind our dorms. It's gorgeous. Everything's so new and every building looks different which is so helpful.

After that, we decided to walk into the city of Jochiwon. We had no idea what where we were going, just exploring. We found this cute Good Will-type shop and I'm not sure what made us go in. I think we wanted directions to the train station. It was the best decision in the world. We met Kim Mi Soon there along with her mother and her husband. She told us all to sit down (she spoke very, very broken English) and she gave us all delicious coffee and bits of chocolate. She asked us our names and our ages. She even made us guess her age! We all though 30, but she has great genes and is older.

We found out her daughter is/was Miss Korea and she was so proud. We all took pictures with her and she made us bring along grape juice. We tried to leave money for her hospitality, but she wouldn't take it at first. After we left and had walked a while, Aaron realized he had left his back pack in the shop. He went back and she told him that she had called the train station to tell them that she had his bag. She is seriously the sweetest woman in the world. I loved her.

We were exhausted so we ate lunch and dinner back the dorm. We surprised Julie with an ice cream cake we picked up at the convenience store and had a little Korean drama party in the basement. After dinner, we went out to karaoke and we had a blast! There was N'SYNC, Ricky Martin, and Destiny's Child, so where can you go wrong? I think a video will be posted soon on Facebook.

Overall, a great day and tomorrow we're going to Seoul for the opening ceremony and a scavanger hunt. Not sure what that means, we'll see.

LESSONS LEARNED TODAY:
Koreans are so helpful and nice to foreigners. Their hospitality is incredible. The man on the plane and the woman in the shop did nothing but help us out and I wish Americans would treat foreigners the same way.