I Have Arrived!

Well, it's 20 to 8 Wednesday evening here in Korea, and I have arrived safe and sound. The flight to Vancouver was uneventful, sat next to a very chatty fellow who wouldn't let me sleep so the time passed quickly. In Vancouver I had time to look around the airport a bit before boarding my flight. I checked out the Olympics Shop but didn't end up finding anything I really liked. The airports all seem to have free wireless now, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to connect to the internet with it; had to fall back on the credit card in the computer vending machine plan to get a quick email out to mom.

So it didn't really even hit me that I was indeed going back to Korea until I was lining up in the Vancouver airport with the bazillion Koreans and smattering of other foreigners. One push, another shove and an "aiiiish" and it all came flooding back to me. When we got settled in the plane time passed quickly. I watched Bruce Willis' "Surrogates" (fairly good), Matt Damon's "Informant!" (quite bad), and two other movies that were so good that I forgot them already! Mind you, that could be the lack of sleep, considering the fact that it's 3:45 in the morning at home, and I didn't really sleep the night before getting on the plane!!

Between movies, napping, magazines and food the flight went by quickly. I sat next to a student who had been in NS studying English for the past 7 months, and he was friendly and chatty, but also kept to himself once conversation had politely exhausted itself. I'd say that Mags spent about 1/2 the flight in my lap because I felt so bad for her tucked away under the seat on her own. ALTHOUGH, she was a super-trooper the whole trip, she did so good it was amazing!! She didn't make a peep the whole 12 hours on the plane. She had a quick pee when I finally cleared customs, and that was that... talk about a well-adjusted pup!!

When I arrived at the airport in Incheon I cleared customs (20 minute wait in line), caught the mini subway to the baggage terminal and found my bags waiting for me (as yet unchecked at this point as to whether all of their contents arrived!), brought Mags over to the animal quarantine window (5 minutes, no fees, no problems), and found Walter, my recruiter, waiting for me at the gate - perfect!! I found an international bank machine so I could take out some bucks and then we flagged down a call van and I was on my way to my new apartment!!  Andy, my new boss, met the taxi on the street after our hour drive into Bundang, hopped in and brought me right over to the apartment building (a block and a half from my school, awesome!). Turns out "my" apartment won't be ready until Saturday, so I'm in an alternate apartment until then, and it's just perfect for now. Andy bought all new furniture for me and is having it all delivered, and then he and his friend are going to move everything on Saturday when the new suite is available (yay!). I'll be on the 9th floor, and my building is an office tower that is full of services on the 2nd floor. I'll explore more tomorrow once I've had some sleep, but so far it's awesomely great!

We had a quick tour around the school and then went out for some sun dubu jigye (soft tofu kim chee soup/stew) so I could warm up (myapartment had no heat on when I arrived). Now I'm headed back there to take Mags for a walk around the block and then have myself an awesome hot shower and crawl into bed. Obviously I'm very tired (and very excited) and I have found myself using the adjective awesome too many times - a sign that it's time to sign off and start making moves to get myself off to bed! More on my adventures tomorrow... Yay 4 Korea!!!

PS - Cell phone might be 2 weeks away (I need my alien resident card which takes about 2 weeks), and I'll check into internet once I have my apartment set up this weekend. I'll take care to write at least once a day (probably more often!) and if I can find a good spot to upload some photos I'll do that too, so stay tuned!!