Hello all! I have finally arrived in Jeonju, South Korea. This post is long and boring. Much like my flight.
My departure came rapidly, as I finally received my visa (and new laptop) on Thursday. My recruiter asked me "Can you leave tomorrow?" and I said sure, why not. Unfortunately the only Fargo to Chicago flight was at 5:50 a.m.! There was a lot of turbulence on the way to Chicago, they didn't turn the seat belt sign off once.
We landed in Chicago O'Hare a little bit before 8:00. The Chicago to Seoul flight was scheduled to leave around noon. Once I found out I had to be in terminal 5 (there was nothing on the ticket saying it but the second the helpful United lady looked at it she knew where I had to be), I decided I might as well make my over there. I arrived at the international terminal to find what can best be described as a ghost town. None of the counters were open or showed any sign of workers, and there were only a handful of travelers waiting for them to open. I stopped to get a muffin and chilled until about 9:00 before getting my boarding pass and going through security. To illustrate just how dead this place was, I was the only one going through security at the time. I passed by later about 11:00 and the place had a long line so it's good I went through when I did.
The plane coming in was late, so our flight time got delayed by an hour, but by the time we actually left the ground it was about a quarter to 2:00, so almost two hours behind schedule. Nothing like a four hour layover turning into six. I was very tired of Gate M12, to say nothing of the fact that there is NOTHING past security, just a place for pop and coffee. Of course, the TSA agents warn you about this when you go through, but there was at least five people/families that asked the gate staff "Where can you eat around here?" People, I tell ya!
Once we finally took off, I was surprised at how empty the plane was. A Filipino man who was sitting the row behind me with his wife and daughter apparently was not interested in sharing space with them for 12 hours, and moved a row up to sit with me. Which was a bummer, because not only did I almost have three seats to myself, but he slept like a log the entire flight and any time I had to get up I had to practically molest the poor fellow. I envied his ability to sleep however, as I had only about 3 hours so far in a day. I didn't sleep well on the plane, maybe about two or three hours. After I gave up on that I watched Jake Gyllenhal's
Source Code, which was decent enough. It was either that or Bob the Builder for English language shows.
About two and a half hours before our landing the flight staff started the final meal services. It was at this point that nature decided to mess with all of us and throw some turbulence in our way. The captain came over the intercom and explained that we were experiencing "moderate" turbulence, and they were suspending meal service until they flew out of it. (Which didn't happen until we landed in Seoul). His wording and demeanor reminded me of the Firefly movie
Serenity.
Wash: Well if she doesn't fix it, this landing is going to get pretty interesting.
Mal: Define "interesting."
Wash: *deadpan* "Oh God, Oh God, we're all going to die?"
Mal: [over the intercom] This is the captain. We have a little problem with our entry sequence, so we may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode.
Thankfully, we did not explode and landed more or less in one piece. My red suitcase was pretty much toast before getting here, but now its buddy the old blue suitcase has, I believe, joined it. It was about 5:00 p.m. in Seoul before I got out of customs and to the bus ticket station...I bought a ticket, made my way to the stop, where someone asked if I was going to Jeonju. I said "Yes." Then he randomly offered me his cell phone, and I had to call the school director to let him know I had not exploded and when to pick me up.
The director talked to this guy also (who spoke no English) and found out apparently he was a Pepsi driver and he had driven up from Jeonju to Seoul in the morning for a delivery and was now on his way back and he wanted a few passengers to make it worth his while. The director told me it would cost the same as a bus ticket and might get me to Jeonju sooner, so I figured why not. We also picked up a young-ish married couple also going to Jeonju. It took about four hours, traffic out of Seoul was insane. At this point, I was approaching 36 hours with no substantial sleep, and on the car I was more fading in and out of unconsciousness than actually sleeping! In any case, I finally ended up at my apartment around 11 p.m. This made for a journey of almost 27 hours. I am glad I will not have to do that again for at least a year!
My apartment is fully furnished, although maybe a little too much furniture for my needs/taste, but it's better than underfurnished. Chris, who is a Canadian and is the managing director of Giving Tree, and another teacher at the school Travis (who has been here two years) have both been very helpful in the less-than-24-hours I have been here. Travis took me this afternoon to Home Plus, which is a WalMart on steroids, and I picked up some bedding and a few items and food.
Anyway, I'm probably not going to get too comfortable, as Travis says there is a new apartment building that Giving Tree is going to rent out when it is completed, and we will all be moving there. He isn't sure when that is, it might not be for a while, but even still that would be pretty sweet!
I haven't seen much of the town, since I'm still pretty exhausted (even after almost two days with no real sleep, I was still only able to sleep from about 1-5:30 this morning), but it seems like a quiet little town. Of course, Monday is a holiday here, so I think there might be a lot of people on holiday, but even still traffic didn't seem to be too crazy.
Well, that was long and rambling enough. Don't worry I'm sure I'll be doing something more interesting sooner or later! :)
