A few notes about the plane ride:
- Korean Air flight attendants are the most meticulously dressed women I have seen in my life. The ladies look exactly like the commercial portrays them. Not one hair out of place, not one wrinkle in their skirt, and not one love handle to be seen.
- The invention of personal tvs is genius. A 15 hour flight goes by quickly with Friends, Everybody Loves Raymond, 2 American movies, 1 Korean movie, Korean pop music, and best of all: flight maps! There's something really exciting about flying over Siberia ;-)
- Korean Air is excellent and I highly recommend it. If nothing else can convince you, the super comfy blanket they provide is like heaven. HOWEVER, do NOT try to open a window when the plane is dark and a flight attendant is nearby, or a meticulously dressed Korean lady will snap at you.
The bus ride into Seoul was mind-boggling! The mountains are magnificent and the vegetation is so, for lack of a better word, Asian. If it had not been for the Korean road signs, different trees, and villages of high-rises, I could have been in East Tennessee and not known the difference. Traffic in the city was awful, especially on the stop-and-go-make-you-throw-up bus. Jet lagged and famished on a jolting bus is probably very similar to a hangover on a jolting bus. After about 2 hours, we finally reached the City Air Terminal and met up with more Chungdahm teachers to catch call vans to our hotel. We reached home sweet home, atleast for this week, a little while later.
Sad to say, my fellow teacher Angela from Atlanta and I were so hungry that we ate dinner at the closest place that was readable, meaning not in Korean characters. That closest place happened to be a TGI Fridays, which would also be the setting for our first real helping of culture shock. No one came to our table for a good 10 minutes. I'm pretty sure the waiter whose section we were in did not speak a lick of English and was scared to greet or come over to us. The hostess gave us English menus, but that's as far as the communication went that night. I had a baked potato and soup, the serving sizes of which were much smaller than those in the U.S. This could be a good thing :-) The whole meal was awkward because our waiter was scared to try to approach us and we had no idea what to say to him. Amid the awkward smiles and nods, both parties were lost in translation. On the walk back, we stopped at a corner store for some snacks: overpriced pineapple cookies, honey biscuits, and seaweed rice soup. Everything so far has been delicious!
Sunday was the biggest culture shock so far: the local Korean supermarket. My roommate and fellow teacher, Elaine from Chicago, wanted to stock up on some food. Thank God for pictures on food products. Without them, we would have had no clue about half the stuff we bought. I also tried to buy a set of headphones but couldn't approach a Korean worker to have them get the pair I liked out of the case for me. Sad day, I went home with no headphones, but picked up a sweet microphone for Skype. All in all, we spent a good 2 hours in there and filled the buggy up. Now, we did something that maybe only an American would do: stole the buggy. Well, we returned it an hour later, but I can only imagine what people thought as the 2 American girls with a full shopping cart passed them on the rickety brick sidewalk. Props to the makers of the cart---it had swivel wheels.
When we got back to the hotel, I felt very sick and didn't know why. Well, I pretty much hadn't had any water and the humidity is ridiculous here. Apparently, between the humidity, jet lag, humidity headache, and lack of a filling meal, I wasn't feeling so hot. However, a 7 hour nap fixed me right up.
Sunday night was definately the most fun I have had so far, mainly because I didn't feel completely uncomfortable and confused during the meal. One of the teachers, Carrie from Philadelphia, has a Korean boyfriend who took us to a cheap local place. Those are generally the places with absolutely no roman lettering on the signs or menus. Thank goodness he was with us to translate, because the meal was AMAZING and so cheap! I fell in love with kimchi cakes, pork with bean paste, and everything else that went along with that meal.
Today (Monday, August 23) was a big day! It was our first day of training. All of the Chungdahm teachers are staying in Seoul for the week for training and then moving to our respective cities throughout the country at the end of the week. I passed all the pre-training tests, which was nice because I was very nervous about them. Today was just an orientation and a medical exam. We all went to Seoul Medical Center for a checkup consisting of the whole package: height, weight, blood pressure, eyesight, chest xray, blood test, and urine test.
Following the physical, me, Angela from Atlanta, and Angela from St. Louis walked a few blocks to COEX, which is right next to the Seoul World Trade Center. In COEX, there is a really nice mall, and we all needed a few items. I purchased an umbrella, watch, Korean dictionary, and headphones. The Korean version of Claire's was hectic because of employees shouting things about sale items, and one watching my every move. Maybe he thought I would steal something? I ended up buying a sweet purse/bag. Thats another thing: everyone here has a satchel/purse/man purse. After our visit to the mall, I rode my first Seoul subway. Seoul has the largest subway system in the world and we all know how I love trains, so you can imagine my excitment. The stop we got off on had 12 different exits, which was very confusing, but we worked it out.
A few sidenotes to wrap up this post:
- I'm in love with Korean fashion! Many women are dressed to the nines, and almost everyone has on a different pair of adorable heels or flats. Many women wear big decorative bows in their hair, short skirts, belted dresses, wonderful shoes. Walking around the mall is like flipping through the fashion issue of Elle.
- I have not seen ONE person with sunglasses. I wonder if they think I'm weird for wearing them.
- I saw (and took a picture of) a Korean globe today. For those of you who know me, this is big news.
- Traffic and driving is crazy in Seoul. Buses do U-turns in the middle of these multi-lane-packed-with-cars streets and cars park on the sidewalks since there are no shoulders to pull off. I'm not sure what the laws are, but parking on the sidewalks is new to me!
- I'll have pictures soon!
