Over the Hills and Far Away

Korea’s been a blast so far. It’s kind of difficult to update regularly, because for now, the EPIK Orientation keeps us pretty busy, and when there is a little down time, we spend it resting and we spend the nights exploring and unwinding after lectures and classes.

We left Portland, Oregon at 6:00 am last Wednesday and had a layover in Los Angeles before heading out for Korea. The flight was 12.5 hours, and the in-flight radar showed the route we took skirting the Alaskan and Russian coasts before dipping south, over Japan and into Korea.

The flight itself was pretty intense: half a day of sitting in a coach seat, without many chances to stretch our legs. Each seat had its own monitor, so we could watch movies and TV shows and listen to all different kinds of music. The movies ran the gamut from new to classics. Beth watched Where the Wild Things Are and I watched the Mike Judge movie Extract. Neither of us was very impressed with our choice. For the most part, I avoided the monitor and slept or stuck to my iPod. Beth seemed to have a good time exploring all the options.

The Korean Air flight attendants took really good care of us, feeding us all the time with various snacks and meals, and all the soft drinks and juice and beer we could drink. I was kind of impressed with the way they handled the inevitable time difference as well. When it was supposed to be night, they made the passengers close all their windows and dimmed the lights to simulate the evening hours. (I’m sure this is a normal thing, but give me a break; it was my first international flight.)

When we landed, it was still daylight (about 5:00 pm local time), and we didn’t really have a problem navigating the Incheon International Airport. There weren’t too many English signs, but we found baggage claim and picked up our bags and secured some carts so we could roll our 300 pounds of luggage down the long corridors and through the crowds. It took us a little bit to find the other EPIK teachers, but we ended up just spotting some other Westerners and following them.

The sun finally went down and Beth slept a little on the bus ride to Eulji University – where Orientation is being held – and I looked at the sights: the glow of neon of the endless Korean signs, the height and expanse of the massive apartment blocks, the city streets lined with “bangs” and pizza parlors and bars and convenience stores.

So now we’re here and settled into our tiny dorm room, and we’ve already made some good friends and we’ve learned a lot, and we find that we’re so excited that we can hardly stand it, to finally be in another country and experiencing another culture firsthand.