Back to the Future (aka Korea)!!

Greetings from Korea (the future)!

Hello everyone! As I write this it is around 1:20pm on Thursday in Korea, but 11:20pm EST (or 10:20 for you St. Louis readers) on Wednesday. Boy is that time change a pain. I have woken up ridiculously early every day and been exhausted by the end of the workday. It is getting better though. The first day I woke up at 3am but this morning I managed to sleep until 6am. Progress!

Anyway, as you can imagine, a lot has happened since I last updated. So this post will serve to catch everyone (aka my sister and maybe one of my cousins) up on everything that happened my first day in Korea. Tomorrow I'll try to post about my first few days here. After that we will continue with our regularly scheduled programming -aka themed posts about shit that goes down in Korea-town. Or that's what I'm hoping at least. I don't have it all figured out yet, and I'm too tired to think right now. Feel free to give me requests on things you'd like to hear about (food, my apartment, the kids etc.).

So, as I'm sure you've figured out by now, I did finally get on a flight to Korea! There was a lot of doubt when I woke up Sunday morning -I THINK it was Sunday but who the f knows with the time difference- because Chicago weather was simply awful. We'd gotten at least 10 inches of snow overnight and it was still coming down. But I did make it to the airport and let me tell you this -the international terminal at O'Hare is the titties! Literally the only nice thing I can say about O'Hare. It was fancy! Nice leather chairs, and cafes, and wide, non-crowded hallways! International is the way to go! Trust me, I wouldn't use all these exclamation points on just anything!

My plane. The photo quality isn't as ter as it appears -it was actually that white out!

Totes the best way! Berry fancy indeed!

Once I got on my flight, we had to sit there for about an hour while they de-iced the plane (suck it, Chicago weather). Luckily, I had some free slippers to occupy my time with. Oh, and a TV screen (see what I mean, fancy!) to examine.

De-icing the plane with this weird orange and green junk

Very stylish slippers

The flight wasn't too bad. I got a window seat and there was an empty seat between myself and the lady in the row with me. I watched three movies, but I couldn't sleep. This might have had something to do with the lady sitting behind me who had wedged her foot between the wall and my seat, on my armrest! Every now and then, she'd move her toes and they'd rest on my arm. Luckily for her, I have no clue how to translate GTFO in Korean. So I tried my best to ignore it by watching a movie about Chris Hemsworth's abs. At least I think that's what is was about because its the only time I paid any attention.

Oh, herro!!!! (Asian for hello, duh)

We had 2 meals on the plane -they were pretty good for plane food. I chose the western options both times because the beef sounded good and they octopus sounded scary. The most interesting thing about the flight was flying through time zones. The ride was about 14 hours and I saw the sunset and rise and then set again. Except we were supposed to keep the window covers  down, so every time I looked outside I got glared at my a dozen grumpy Koreans.

Sunset over northern Canada

Sunrise over somewhere in Asia (I think)

Once at the airport, I went through immigration and I'm pretty sure I met the quiet Asian girl from Pitch Perfect. She whispered everything!

After retrieving my baggage, I was picked up by Mr. Cho who had a sign with my name on it (I'm a pretty big deal). He showed me to my bus to Cheonan and I settled in for the two hour ride. I probably should have been looking out the window in wonderment, but I was so damn tired that I slept for the first time in 24 hours. I was met at the bus station by my school's director William who took me to my new apartment to drop my things. He then drove me to dinner (even after I said I wasn't hungry) at 10:30pm (8:30am my time). In case you're doing the math, I was going on 2 hours of sleep in over 26 hours at this point. He took me to a little place on the bottom floor of the building my school is in. I tiredly chose the first thing -which turned out to be an egg, cheese and lettuce sandwich. He then walked me home -the whole time pointing out landmarks so I could find my way back the next morning. I just remember being dead tired and having this little old Asian man point at things and say "memory!".

I finally crawled into bed just after midnight.

Well my laptop battery is dying and since I can't plug it into the asian sockets at my school that means I've gotta goooo! Until tomorrow (hopefully but no promises), you guys!