First Few Days in Korea

I made it to Korea! After a long 13+ hour flight from Chicago, I landed at Incheon International Airport in Seoul and got through immigration and customs without any problems and all my luggage. Getting to Korea safely without any difficulty was an answer to prayer in and of itself, but God went beyond that in providing for this trip. On my flight to Korea, I originally had a middle seat :(. It was all I was able to get when I booked my flight. However, when I checked in at Chicago, the attendant called to see if there was an aisle seat for me, without being asked by me. At that point there wasn't, but she was going to try to get me one. And she did. And not only did I now have an aisle seat, but I had an aisle seat only 5 rows from the front of economy class, meaning I was one of the first people off the airplane. Before I was about 5 rows from the back of the plane. It was a much better seat.

Well, that was Monday. It is now Thursday in Korea, and I am settling into my apartment, learning about my neighborhood, working on necessary items for the immigration office, and starting to set up my classroom. After crashing Monday night, I spent Tuesday unpacking and going to the grocery store. Wednesday included a short trip to school, enough for a tour and a quick perusal of my classroom, before going to the hospital. Don't worry, nothing was wrong, I didn't do something stupid to injure myself. One of the requirements of the immigration office is a health check. So we spent several hours at the hospital getting various tests done (lots of waiting!). We had to do a urine test, a blood test, a chest x-ray for tuberculosis, height/weight measurements, hearing test, vision test, and a consult with one of the doctors. The staff at the hospital were very helpful and used their limited English to tell us where to go, where to sit, and what to do. The 6 of us stuck out a lot at the Korean hospital.

Today was mostly spent at school, setting up my classroom. I got all my furniture arranged, including the student desks, and mostly have all the books on the shelves. I plan to go back tomorrow and finish that and hopefully get through all the other boxes. We start orientation on Monday, and I would like to have my classroom set up enough so that I can start working on lesson plans and syllabi during the work time. Sometime in there I will decorate, but that's not my number one priority right now. I will say that having a couple years teaching experience definitely helped me set up my classroom faster. I knew what I liked for furniture placement and what I didn't like. I didn't have the space to arrange the student desks exactly how I would like them, but I am content with how I have them arranged. Once everything is done, I will post pictures of my classroom. One wall is basically all windows, and it looks out onto a rice patty. It's nice to see some green after looking out at the concrete jungle that is the city I live in.

Speaking of where I live, my apartment is on the 8th floor of a 10 story apartment building. That's pretty comparable to the other buildings in this area. My building stands out a bit, however, because it is on top of a hill, a hill that I will have the joy of walking up and down every single time I want to go somewhere. Carrying groceries in the middle of winter, especially if it's icy, will be a lot of fun. However, that makes my building a little bit of the way, though it is bordered on two sides by busy streets, so it's not necessarily quieter. Overall, though, I like it. I have two roommates, one of whom is here already, while the other gets in tomorrow. I have my own room, though I have to share a bathroom. There is also a spare bedroom that we use as office space. The apartment does have an A/C unit, which is very important right now as Korea is very hot and humid during the summer (though it is cooler than Iowa right now). One side of my apartment looks onto another apartment building, and the other side looks out onto the rest of the city of Songtan. In case I haven't explained, all the teachers live in Songtan, which is very near Osan Air Force Base, but the school is in Pyongtaek. We carpool in teacher vans each day (15 passenger vans), which take about 20-30 minutes to get to school (depending on traffic). Below are some pictures of Songtan from my apartment. This is the view out my bedroom window. This is also part of the flight path of the jets from Osan, so you can sometimes see them flying by (you can definitely hear them!).

The area I live in has restaurants and shops all around. There are several small grocery stores not far away. All the teachers live within a 10 minute walk of each other, so it is really nice.

While there is so much more I could tell you, I think I will wait for another day, maybe with more pictures of the area. I'm sure as time passes I will get more fun stories to tell. In the meantime, keep up the prayers, as the transition to Korea is definitely not complete yet. One of the next things I need to do is start learning Korean, which will definitely be a challenge. Though hopefully with a little bit of work, it will start looking less like a bunch of lines and circles and sounding less like gibberish and start turning into comprehensible words.