Welcome to Korea!

I have arrived! It's amazing to think that everything I left in the US is just kinda over. Hamline, McVay, school in general, etc. But I'm very ready for something new. And I think this is most definitely going to be something new.

I packed everything into one huge backpack, one smaller backpack, a guitar case, and a laptop bag. Which is either "light packing" or incredibly stupid. Time will tell.

Woke up at 4am Thursday to get to the airport by 5(ish) to leave at 7. The guy who was checking bags let me slide through without having to pay the heavy bag fee ($140!!! what?!). Godsend. 4 hours to San Fran. 4 hours in San Fran without a phone (lost mine in the plane somewhere... of course) but with wireless, so I talked to Senegal, Minnesota, and Wisconsin again before boarding (nearly last because I hate boarding early) for 11h35m to the Incheon-Seoul airport. Some people were wondering if I'd be home for Christmas. After that travel day, definitely not coming home to necessitate doing that twice in a two-week period. Sorry.

Eddie (his American name), the manager of the foreign students, the smiley 28-year-old nephew of the director, came to pick me up at the airport. And with all the traffic and all the rain (monsoon season is probably gonna get pretty old pretty quickly), it took us 3 hours to get from the airport to my city. And I was exhausted so I probably wasn't very good company. Haha. It was nice to have a friendly face there.

Right now, I'm staying with Krista, another teacher at the school, who seems really nice and really enthusiastic. I also met Chris, the teacher I'm replacing. Who actually teaches 10-14 year olds. So, great!!! We'll see what ends up happening. I'll get his cell phone when he leaves next week, so until then, I'm stuck using Skype without any means of calling people around here. Hope that works out alright. Hmmmm.

Seoul is huge. It is so developed. Looking out my window in the suburbs looks like looking out into the heart of Minneapolis (Korean-style). I'm excited to go exploring today and tomorrow before I start training/orientation on Monday!

I don't want this to be one-way communication! Keep in touch! I have Skype, internet access as much as I want (alhamdoulilahi), email, and I'll put up my good ole-fashioned address when I get into my new place. I want to hear from you!

This is definitely going to be an adventure!