The Slightly Boring "this is an update on my life" Post

When I first started learning here at Sun Moon University, I had a lot of free time and not enough activities to fill it. I'm staying at a separate campus than the main one and there are almost no organized activities. So after two months I've finally gotten really involved, and now I travel to the main campus 2 or 3 times a week. Mondays there is a small group that meets together to discuss an important topic in english, such as racism, and gives korean students who want to come a chance to practice english. Wednesdays the same group watches an american movie with korean subtitles and we talk about the movie. This is also for korean students to practice english. I go because they wanted more native english speakers and it gives me a chance to talk and meet new people. Thursdays are culture nights in which a few people give a presentation about their country and we play some games and eat some food and then talk about what we could learn/gain from presentation. This is a chance for students from different countries to interact and meet each other, and the goal of the organization is to create a global family (which is also the name of the organization).

I've also started meeting with one or two korean students a few times a week so they can practice english conversation. And I do it just to be nice and to have fun talking to people. Then just this past weekend I picked up a job teaching english to a group of middle schoolers and a group of high schoolers. Its on Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 6:30, so its good chunk of time. Another teacher suddenly quit and so they were looking for someone to fill in. I decided to keep working for the rest of the year. Its gonna suck not being able to go do things on the weekends, I won't be able to visit Seoul for a month, but right now I could really use the money. Last week I found a one time job where they video recorded me reading children's books in english. It wasn't nearly as easy as it sounds (i had to improvise in making a story cuz it was mostly pictures, and i had to make it fun even though i was only talking to a camera and was surrounded by a studio set up) but I'm supposed to get like $200 for the 2 hours it took. Of course they won't be able to pay me for a month. Theres a few more things going on too: our class is practicing a song for a school festival and I'm supposed to make the dance, I'm supposed to be in a dance for a speech contest later too cuz they need foreigners, theres a thanksgiving dinner on thursday for westerners, and who knows what else.

These days its a little too busy, especially after I was getting used to having so much free time. So I haven't been focusing on learning Korean as much even though its getting more difficult. But busy is good. I also still have to figure out how to get my money from my american bank account to korea so I can pay for my school tuition (yea, I still haven't paid yet) and I need to figure out what I'm going to do during the break and next year.

Besides my the going-ons of my own life Korea is starting to get REALLY cold. I bought some milk and left it on the window sill to keep it cold (we can't have a fridge) and the next day when I was eating cereal there were some ice chunks. And supposedly today it could have snowed (although it didn't). And its still just halfway through November. I don't know how people survive (especially all the girls wearing short skirts! they're crazy!). I'm gonna have to buy some long johns and a fat snow jacket soon.

Aright, maybe next time I'll write a more interesting and thoughtful post. And fyi, I usually don't write the next post until I get at least one comment on the previous one ^^

My first time on an Island

On Thursday and Friday last week our school had midterms. The speaking portion was on Thursday, and for my class it was basically just a one on one interview with the teacher. I enjoy talking so even though it was a test I had fun. Then on Friday were the writing, reading, and listening tests. The week before and leading up to the test I had been pretty busy so I hadn't studied so much for the test (and its just my nature) so I didn't do so well on these. I got a 93 on the speaking and the rest where in the mid/upper 70's. But who's counting?

To take a break from class and to give the students a chance to experience more of Korea, the school organized a trip to Jeju Island. There was about 270 students (120 Chinese, 120 Japanese, 50 other ^^) so it was pretty crazy. But many Koreans like to travel and go on tours so it was actually kind of normal to have so many. It was a 2 hour trip by bus to the airport and then about an hour flight south to Jeju. We stayed at this hotel, but it was kind of like a mini hotel village. There were a lot of small buildings that could hold 5 people and then a few bigger ones that could hold more.

It was pretty nice except it was a Korean style hotel. Which means you sleep on mats on the floor and the floors are heated. Heated floors are nice as it the weather is getting cold, but they get way too hot during the night. Honestly, I slept the best when we didn't use them. Also we were supposed to share blankets, but some of the guys didn't really. So I just used my jacket as a blanket. The first night I didn't have a pillow either, and because the floor made the room too hot I opened the window. Then I woke up around 2am because it was too cold and then I couldn't sleep because I had been bitten 5 times by mosquitos and was itching all over. The second night I had a pillow and made sure not to open the window, but something else strange happened. I was sleeping on my own mat and there really wasn't room for another person. But for some reason of the Mongolian guys came and laid down next to me at about 2am. He had already been sleeping in another spot, so I didn't know what was going on. Maybe the guy he was sleeping next to was snoring too loud. At first I thought ok, I'll just scoot over a little and it'll be fine. But after I scooted over, he took up more space. So then I turned to the side to move away more. But then he turned to the side too and started putting his arm on me. That was too much so I moved to the TV room and just slept on the floor with a shirt as a blanket and my backpack as a pillow. At around 4 or 5am the guy from Cameroon got up to watch soccer (cuz of the time difference some soccer games are really early in the morning) so I woke up and took his bed. Luckily the third night was uneventful.


Anyway, back to the trip. Jeju was very beautiful and we visited a lot of wonderful places. First we went on a short hike up a mountain. The veiw from up there was very beautiful and there was also something like a sniper pit. I'm not sure if thats what it really was, but it definitely could have been. It was a concrete structure built into the side of the mountain so that it was basically part of the mountain. And then inside were small rectangular windows to look out of, perfect for sniping enemy troop trying to come up the mountain. Just like in Counterstrike.
Then we went to a waterfall. Also very pretty.

We visited this huge Buddhist temple. Very tranquil. Drank some water thats supposed to be good for health.


And finally we got to go to a real beach!!!! Oh the beach was so wonderful. Not too different from beaches back in LA. The sand was nice and smooth, the water was clear. And you could walk out at least a 100 feet and the water was still less than a foot deep. The beach was definitely my favorite part of the visit.

We also visited some other coastal areas that were amazing. Jeju (I think) was originally a volcano so you can buy volcanic rock and they have these funny statues of men with big noses they make out of the rock. Mmmm we went to some other nice nature-y type places. And to a museum about how Jeju was created. A bunch of korean high school girls took pictures with me there, it was pretty funny. And we went to this folk village that is being preserved. They have this thing about feeding poop to pigs. And then they eat the pigs. I don't know. But I ate some pig that ate some poop. Hahaha, sometimes its fun being immature. Anyway. Jeju island was a lot of fun and we did a lot of things. I took a little over 200 pictures, but it takes too long to upload them here. Sorry, you'll just have to go there for yourself.

Its a Parade!

This week in Cheonan (the city I'm in) they're having some kind of festival. I think its just to celebrate the city itself... Anyway the festival is Saturday and there will be a bunch of different dance performances. Its actually a competition and I will be in one of the dances. But I'll write about that later.

In addition to the festival, there was a parade on Wednesday. And they want everyone that will be in the competition to also be in the parade. They like to especially have foreigners participate in these events, which is why I ended up being in the competition in the first place. For the parade I they had me wear traditional Korean clothing.

Haha, I loved wearing it. The pants were huge and the tie on the pants made the top stick out. There were actually two parades in the same day. One was for the smaller nearby city of Asan. I think there were actually more people in the parade than watching it, and it was an overcast day. So the first parade wasn't so great. But it was fun seeing all the different costumes people had.

This was the dance the Japanese students did. SUPER funny.

More pictures =)

Bathing naked

One of the things korean is famous for (or infamous for depending on how you feel about it) is its public baths, or jjimjilbang (찜질방) in korean. This past week I had the opportunity to go to one in Busan. When I first heard of them, I thought there was no way I could go to one. But since I've been adjusting to the Korean lifestyle I was willing to try it out. The jjimjilbang was inside of a mall type building on the third floor, which I thought was kind of weird. The first thing you do when you walk in is take off your shoes at the entrance and put them in a shoe locker. One side is for boys and one side for girls. The lockers are free and you take the key with you to the front counter. At the counter you can then choose to either pay for just using the baths, or for using the entire jjimjilbang. Its about 8$ for the whole thing and $5 for just the baths, or somewhere around that. You give them your shoe locker key and then they give you another locker key that has a wristband. And if you paid full price they give you a shirt and pair of shorts. Then the guys and girls separate to different bathing areas. First you go to a locker area and undress and put all your things in your assigned locker. So now you are basically naked. And there are other naked people around you. It was weird. Then you can go into the bathing area. If you want to, there are also shaving razors and toothbrushes to purchase. On the way into the bathing area you grab a scrubbing towel and first go to the showers to scrub yourself with soap. Then there are various baths you can go in. Well, it was really weird just walking in all naked, and then seeing a room full of naked men of various ages, old to young. And of course I'm the only non-korean. First I went into what was basically a large jacuzzi. I was able to get over the anxiety/weirdness of being fully naked in front of other people. Just like everything else in society, if everyone else does it then it becomes normal and accepted. Being naked was actually kind of... fulfilling. You just feel a lot of freedom. Like when you were a kid and ran around naked all the time. After the jacuzzi, I went into a tea bath. Some days it is green tea, and other days like the day I went it was barley tea (I think). The water definitely looked kind of shady (there was brown stuff floating around in it) but I thought maybe it was the tea stuff? Better not to think about it... Then I went into this other super hot tub. Yea, it was really hot. This one was special because the tub was made with some kind of special Japanese wood or something like that, I forget the name. Next to it is a cold bath. Its supposedly good for your skin to switch between the hot and cold baths a few times. Definitely it was refreshing. Because it was on during the holidays, the jjimjilbang was actually not very crowded. And there was this young kid, maybe 13, who was by himself and he kept staring at me. So I stared back and then started talking to him in korean. It was kind of cool being able to just become friends with someone so easily even if he was just a kid(and funny because we were both naked).
Once you've had enough of bathing, you go to another area where there are sit-down shower stalls. Its a bit odd sitting on a stool naked. But anyway theres a removable showerhead and you rinse down. Then you grab the soap and scrub (which you arent the first one to use...) and scrub yourself down. This is the point where if you are with friends or something you can scrub their back and wherever else you want to scrub...
Thats the end of the bathing area. I then walked out, grabbed a hand towel to dry down and went back to my locker. Now is when you put on the clothes they gave you if you paid the full price. They were pretty comfortable actually, I liked them. After that I headed downstairs. In this area since everyone is clothed (and all the clothing is the same) both guys and girls can go. When you first walk down, there is a big open area where people can sit and talk or lay down. Along one wall are various rock igloo type looking structures. These are basically various types of saunas. Some are super hot, some are hot, and some are just warm. First we went into a hot one for about 10 minutes and came out with a good sweat. Then we took a break and got some juice. I had freshly made pinapple juice, it was pretty good. One of the people I was with got a peach drink, and it was in one of those pitcher containers where the lid has a hole in it that you can cover. Kind of interesting that they would give it to you in that, but I guess so they could put a lot of ice? Anyway then we went to the super hot room. It was seriously like an oven. After being in there for 15 minutes my shirt was soaked in sweat. To finish off we then went to the warm room in which the walls were gold and silver. Its also possible to stay over night in jjimjilbangs. Most of them are open 24 hours and have blankets and places to sleep. Some also have a karaoke room, a pc room, and a movie room.

Tone Setting

Ooh, what a long week. Things are finally a little busier, but now I'm extra tired =) I found a small job teaching English on Fridays. Its an English school, and its only for an hour, but at least its something. Today was my first day, and it was pretty crazy. First of all, I wasn't really told much going into this. A friend helped me find the job, and then she talked to the manager for me. And although I was present during this discussion, it was in Korean so I only understood a little. I thought since today was my first day I would probably meet with someone first and find out what the basics are. But actually that wasn't the case. I thought I was told the job started at 4pm, but it was actually 3pm. Luckily I know another person that works there and she told me I had to be there at 3. So then I was going to meet her and go together since I didn't know how to get there, but I was late. She couldn't wait, so then I just took a taxi and barely made it on time. I found out that I'm supposed to take off my shoes and wear slippers. And then my friend told me this was my classroom and my kids were inside already.

Now comes the fun part =) So theres 8 kids, about kindergarten age - 2 girls, 5 boys. They're already running around and wrestling with each other. When I came they were really excited when I told them I was from America and I sort of introduced myself in Korea. My friend had given me some flashcards with letters and numbers to practice with them, and a music cd with songs to help learn the letters and numbers. However, I'm not very good with being strict. My method is usually patiently wait for them to listen. This was totally the wrong way to deal with some of these kids. Haha, I think if the president of the school saw my classroom I would have probably already been have fired or something. I started by trying to get them all just to sit down in chairs, about 5 of them sat down at at time. They liked to rotate running around the room. It was definitely an interesting experience trying to talk/command them in my limited Korean. And then they started asking me if I knew what certain words were, and I didn't and they started laughing. Hopefully they weren't bad words =) I wasn't sure if I should be really strict and yell or anything, so I didn't yell. I tried grabbing some of them and sitting them down, but they didn't really follow that either. So I just tried to work with the 5 or so that would cooperate. They liked the flashcards, but they actually already knew almost all the letters and a lot of the numbers. I tried to play a game with the letters and numbers, but it was difficult trying to get them to listen let alone explaining it in my limited Korean. One game sort of worked for a while. But then more kids were running around and some were kind of wrestling/fighting so then I tried using one of the songs on the cd i had. At first they liked it and some of them were dancing around, but the troublemaker kids kept trying to push the buttons on the cd player to make it stop and they tried turning up the volume and everything. When I stopped one, the other kid would come. And so that didn't really work. So then I thought maybe I would try another game - duck duck goose. I got most of them to sit down next to me on the ground, but they were too noisy for me to try and explain how it worked. Whenever I told them "hey!" or "stop it" or "you can't do that" or various other phrases in Korean they would laugh because I was speaking Korean.

Basically it ended up being an hour of them playing and me trying to keep them from fighting with each other too much or from breaking anything. Four of the kids were really good, but the other four were rascals. I felt bad for the good kids. Afterwards, my friend that works there told me that you just leave. That was kind of weird, cuz I felt like I should meet or talk to someone about how the first day went or something like that. But no, just come, spend an hour with the kids, and then go... So yea, the first day was definitely a failure. I asked my friend who also teaches kids somewhere else about it, and she said yea you have to set the tone. She told me to slam my hand on the table, bring a book and slam that on the table. And that they listen to yelling. Maybe next time I also shouldn't smile so much. And I should learn how to say be quiet in Korean.

Its Raining Its Pouring

So apparently theres a typhoon or something coming through Korea, so there is a lot of rain these days. I saw pictures on the news of people walking through waist deep water... hopefully that won't happen here.

Some observations about Korea:

Drivers in Korea are crazy. Like even though there are red lights, people don't always follow it. Especially motorcycles and taxis. So when you cross the street, even though the little green man lights up you better look both ways. Also when you get off the bus sometimes because the bus driver is in a hurry, he doesn't pull all the way over to the side of the road. So in order to beat traffic, sometimes a motorcycle will be driving on the side of the road between the bus and the sidewalk, so you also have to look both ways when getting off the bus. And there are a lot of narrow streets and two way streets/alleys that only have enough room for one car. And parking seems to be something you can do anywhere, rather than in assigned areas. I'm not really sure. Along with the narrow streets, there are a lot of small cars in Korea. They look kind of like toys. Like pickup trucks the size of a four door car and minivans the size of a four door car.

Also, every car (that I've been in) has this little gadget on top of the dashboard. It tells you what the speed limit is where you are, if you are passing the speed limit, and if there are any police nearby. I don't know why you wouldn't already know the speed limit, but maybe there aren't always signs? And isn't bad to know when the cops are around? But its a common thing.

Going back to the craziness, korean drivers have no patience. There was a broken traffic signal and it was crazy. The traffic from one street wouldn't stop, so a bus was trying to edge its way through. But people wouldn't stop for the bus, they would just go around it. Eventually the bus got through and the flow of traffic changed. And forget about people making left turns. I thought there was going to be an accident or that everyone would get stuck, it almost happened to. In spite of all that, I haven't seen any traffic accidents though. But I would be scared driving around here.

My first trip to Seoul

Hi everyone, I am going to try to update this about once a week so you know how often to check it.

This past week I went with my friend, Yasunori, to go visit Seoul. There's not much to do around my dormitory, so its nice to get away on the weekend. We took the subway to get there.

The Subway
The subway system in Seoul is very good and its really cheap. It only costs me 2,300 won to get to Seoul from Cheonan, which is a 2 hour ride. And get around in the city usually costs from 1000 won to 1300. I'm not entirely sure how it works, but I think there are zones in the city and the cost of the ticket depends on how many zones you travel through. Also you can buy a T-Pass, which is a card you can charge. And then instead of buying a ticket you just wave it over the machine when you enter and again when you leave and it automatically deducts the proper amount. Its also a little bit cheaper than just buying a ticket. You can also use it on the city buses and its free to transfer from the subway to the bus if its within 30 minutes. At the subway station, you don't have to wait very long in between trains and it goes fairly quickly. Also they have many signs in English so that if you don't know Korean you don't get too lost. Often around subway stations there are a lot of stores, kind of like an underground shopping mall. And for major intersections you sometimes have to go underground to cross the street. When you are travelling on the subway, it can become very crowded. Like there is no more standing room crowded. And when people stand, they usually face towards the sides rather than the middle. So if you are sitting, there is usually someone standing over you. Its a little weird at first, but because its just normal for everyone its not big deal. In Korea, people don't have as much of a comfort zone. Its common to kind of get pushed around a little as people try get on and off quickly, but its not impolite. Its just normal. Also the subways are really nice. You don't have to worry about sitting on gum or the smell of urine. Some of them even have TVs built in. Once in a while someone will come around selling things on the subway. I saw one guy selling razors and a woman selling handbags.

sun moon university

we took the ktx train from busan to cheonan. its a bullet train that travels at like 300km/hr (186mi/hr) which is crazy fast. and then at the train station they had dunkin donuts! it was really nice, like a fancy cafe. except it sold mainly donuts! and they had green tea donuts! anyway from there we took a taxi to sun moon university.

a side not about sun moon - there are two campuses, cheonan campus and asan campus. the cheonan campus is the original campus and is very small. it has one big building with classrooms and offices and a dormitory. that is where the korean language institute is (which is what i'm doing) and also the theology major students stay in the dormitory as well (but they have to commute to the other campus everyday). yea, the cheonan campus really doesn't have much besides those two buildings. there is a soccer field, basketball courts, and some clay/sand tennis courts. the asan campus is the main campus and looks like a real university (although still not that big). there are maybe 9 big buildings, not including the dormitories. its a very nice campus though. there is a shuttle bus that you can take between the campuses, although it can take anywhere from 25 to 40 min.

so i arrived at the cheonan campus and checked in at the kli (korean language institute). one thing about this school is they don't tell you very much. besides getting the papers for my visa, they haven't really told me much about the school or what i need or what i should do. when i checked in, the guy just gave me a business card and told me to call if i needed anything. and to go to the dormitory and they would give me a room. so i went to the dormitory, but there was no one in the office there. someone told me they would come at 7pm, and it was 3pm. so i sat and waited and watched bleach on my computer. i started getting hungry, so i followed my intuition and went downstairs and found the cafeteria. i got in line and grabbed a tray, and then i was supposed to pay. so i pulled out my korean money and then showed it to the lady and she counted how much i needed. it was kind of funny. when the dormitory office opened, i signed some paper, and they gave me a card, some keys, two sheets, and told me to press * then the room number then # and the door to my room would open. eventually i figured out the card was to get into the men's dormitory area (the building is divided in half on every floor between the men's and women's rooms) and the keys were for some drawers you could lock in your room to keep things safe.

there was no one else in the room yet, and it seemed like there was almost no one else on the campus. i'd seen a total of maybe 30 people, but they were all asian and and i only saw most of them when i ate dinner. i wasn't told about any kind of schedule or what i should be doing or anything. the whole thing was kind of strange. there were some public computers in the lobby with internet, so i used those and watched more bleach on my computer. haha, i watched a lot of bleach during that time.

the next day i walked back to the kli office to ask the guy about what was going on because i still didn't really know anything. i had a couple questions answered, then he introduced me to another american girl, tiffany, and a korean girl, kimjin and he told them to tell me about school life. they were both really cool and i went with tiffany to the asan campus. i met some of her friends from nepal that were doing their PhD there (the classes were in english) and at night we went to dinner at kimjin's mom's restaurant with some other kli students from angola. so the second day at sun moon turned out really well. i went from having no idea what to do to going out the entire day.

besides that i didn't do too much the next few days. i had arrived on wednesday, and classes didn't start until monday. so i spent a lot of time just playing warcraft III and watching bleach. haha, i love my computer.

busan

My first week in Korea was spent in Busan. More and more people in Korea live in these huge apartment complexes. The apartment I was in had the main living room area, a small kitchen, a bathroom, a balcony, and three other rooms. The parents stayed in one room, another lady who kind of was like a nanny but more of a friend stayed in another room (last time I was here her husband and child were also there) and then the kids just sleep in the living room. I slept in the third room, which was kind of the computer room/study room. So it was nice, but kind of crowded. And while there is a kitchen table and chairs, the living room has no sitting furniture. Most of the time you just sit on the floor, which is kind of cool. But not for long periods of time when you're not really used to it.

During my time in Busan I got to do a little sightseeing. First we went to Haewondo, which has a famous beach. We didn't go to the actual beach, but we went to this really beautiful area next to it. It was kind of like a really small hill/peninsula. It was covered with these beautiful trees that are kind of tall and mostly just have a bunch of leaves a the top, but not so much on the trunk. The coast there was rocky, but very beautiful. There was also a lighthouse and the APEC building. I don't know too much about it, but there was some big summit meeting about the world economy with various world leaders in 2005 and it was held there. There was a picture there of President Bush, along with other world leaders, wearing traditional Korean dress and I thought that was pretty funny because he's so... white (I mean I am too, but anyway).

Afterwards we went to this really nice bakery in Korea. There are a lot of bakeries in Korea that sell bread and a lot of really nice little pastries and cakes. We stopped for snacks and drinks and met a few other people. One of the people we met was the architect for the APEC building along with the city hall for Busan. Pretty amazing. Still, he wasn't as amazing as the red bean shaved ice we had. Really good. The bakery was kind of like a cafe too. There was an outdoor seating area and they played music (popular American music from maybe 10 years ago like Aaliyah and Destiny's Child) and the area was decorated really nicely. There were these wooden planters that were painted in nice pastel colors and had little phrases written on them. Some were in French, and some were in English, such as "It's nice as it is genuine, the savor full of love." Haha, I love it. I also went to the downtown area in Busan. During the day it is super humid in Korea, so I guess people go out a lot at night. Even though it was dark, the streets in the downtown were packed with stores and street vendors selling phones, socks, hats, belts, clothes, food, whatever. There were lots of restaurants and bars and other stores. Really there were so many stores, and each building is several stories. So there are stores on upper floors and lower floors below the ground. And there were young people everywhere, it was a lot of fun just walking around.

leaving my homeland

I went to the bay area first from LA to visit friends. I hung out with Chirag and Sophia in Sacramento, then I got a ride to church with Dave, Meadow, and Skyla. Went out to lunch with a bunch of people and watched a movie at Chris and Paul's apartment. Stayed at the Sehers and then just hung out all day playing dota with Thad. For dinner we went to Ariella's apartment. We/she set up a big dinner party with a bunch of people and we went bowling afterwards. It was really good seeing everyone and meeting new people, especially Amalia's husband and seeing them together since we're in the same boat (her husband is korean). Took the BART the next to the airport. Traveling with your life packed into a backpack, a laptop bag, and two huge bags is kind of crazy. Definitely not easy. On the airplane I ended up sitting next to this old beautiful korean woman. She was born in Korea, but she grew up in Laguna Beach and went to Stanford and majored in engineering. Later she got into business and got her MBA from Columbia. It was really cool talking to her and hearing about her experiences. Now she is retired and just recently got married. She never had kids, although her husband already had one when they got married. But the kid was already a 30 year old adult. A very accomplished and amazing woman, but I think not having kids is really big. Besides that, the in-flight movies sucked. I think the ride was around 10 or so hours. Upon arriving in Incheon, the international airport in Korea, this Korean man came up to me. Well first someone asked if i was in the military, but this guy asked me where I was going and I said Busan (I had a connecting domestic flight to Busan). Then he said ok and grabbed one of my bags and started walking. I was like, whoa is he trying to steal my stuff? I kept a hand on my bag at first, but he seemed nice so I started walking with him. I was really suspicious though because it was just really random, and he wasn't wearing any uniform. But he knew some English and seemed genuinely nice so I kept walking with him. He said he was taking me to where my flight was. But then when we walked into the parking structure and he opened up the trunk of a non-descript mini van I was like, yea right I'm outta here. I told him my flight was leaving here and I needed to go to the Korean Air front desk. Apparently almost all domestic flights are from the Gimpo airport in Seoul, which is about an hour away and so he thought I needed to go there. I guess he was part of some kind of shuttle service? Although he and his van had no indication of such. But he took me back to the airpot area and told me where to go. So I guess he had no bad inclinations, but it was just really weird.

Anyway I found the check in desk and got on the plane for an hour ride down to Busan.

where do i start?

i've already been in korea for a week and a half. so many things have happened, i can't even describe all of it here. its been somewhat of an emotional roller coaster with many ups and many downs. but for the sake of organization and clarity i'll go back and start from the beginning of my trip.

a title for the first post

the first post