Holy Shit I'm in South Korea!

Alright noble followers, the last 24 hours or so have been the most awakening and eye-opening of my life. Compared to living in Germany, I merged pretty well but 2 blonde, white guys are a bit of an exotic species around these parts. Stares are prominent and I have yet to decipher the Korean alphabet so everything is up in the air right now. I'll break down the past major events of this trip.

Chicago Airport: This conversation took place between myself, Blake and a Chinese Canadian woman.

*Over the airport intercom* "The threat level has been increased to orange"
Myself: *Chuckles*
Chinese Lady: What does that mean?
Myself: Well it's basically a joke more than anything. The government increases the level whenever they want.
Blake: Yeah, have you ever read Orwell? It's basically a scare tactic.
Myself: Yeah I just laugh when I hear something like that. It doesn't mean anything really. It's kind of like the weather. "Oh today it's going to be orange" I wouldn't worry about it.

Refer to David Cross' stand-up for further humor*

We spent 5 hours in Chicago until our flight at 1 A.M. heading for Incheon International Airport and made some final phone calls and text messages :-D to pass the time.

The Plane Ride:

We sat in the middle of the plane and I was stuck in between Blake and a fat Korean guy. Overall the 14 hours were spent well and we got some good rest in and had our first Korean meal which the old lady next to Blake help explain how to eat. The korean ugh, gentleman next to me fell asleep with his head up against the LCD screen which I found quite humorous.

Arriving at Incheon Airport:

We were met by a Korean taxi driver holding signs with our names on them welcoming us to Korea! Surprise, he spoke no English haha. So in our tired state, we were wondering if we we were going to be A: tortured, B: stabbed in a forest C: sent to a labor camp or D: any mix of the previous three. Thankfully he was heading us to our direction of Yeongwol, our destination.

Korean drivers operate their automobiles pretty freely. By that I mean, traffic rules are somewhat of a suggestion than anything. A great example of this came about when our driver mistakenly thought he took the wrong turn. So clearly the safest decision was to stop on the narrow shoulder and contemplate throwing that car in reverse! But alas! In my dire attempt arrive in Korea in one piece, convinced the driver with hand signals and saying the city "Yeongwol" to continue on the path we were on!

Welcome To Saekyung College! :

We arrived to meet our head honcho, Director Ian Choi (Chey), who was very pleased and excited to meet us. We went up to the English Language Village building and met the staff and the level where we will be working. Pictures will be up soon to show you some of the cool rooms that they have set up to teach in real-life settings, it's like an SNL stage! We also playfully, refer to Mr. Choi as The Choister in a laid-back Californian accent. The food is pretty cheap especially at our cafeteria where we can get a full meal for about 2 dollars and so is the drink. One of the students also thought I looked like David Beckham... I'll take it as a compliment.

There is one girl here, Songlee, who is going to help us hang out and show us around the town and hopefully some more of Korea which is extremely nice considering the majority of the public speaks no English, we can't read Korean, and nor do we know anyone else. And to be honest, upon the first few frantic ours of getting settled we contemplated whether we made the right decision or not. But our first day has been pretty interesting and in the long run it should be quite beneficial. We had to take over a couple small classes and communicated with students who have minimal English language knowledge but it went over pretty well I'd say. I'm also on facebook as we speak shhh... I get paid for this....

Our apartment is not too shabby, we have three rooms, a kitchen, a living room with couch, coffee table and television with cable. This was extremely entertaining watching the infomercials and we have a ton of sport shown, European and US so I'm getting my daily footie in from around the globe. Along the lines of "soccer" (shall be referred to as football from this point), our school apparently has a football team which I will try to get involved in if eligible to either play and/or coach. Thankfully, I have my handy Wayne Harrison guide to training methods to aid me in my footballing ways, thanks Wayne!

Overall, these past couple days have been really amazing and I mean that in the good and strange ways. It's tough leaving your friends and family but also exciting to be in a new environment. The city by the way is gorgeous and we are surrounded by mountains and hopefully my photos will portray that in the best way possible. I am also extremely glad one of my best friends, Blake Wergeland is with me. It makes that much of a difference having someone in a foreign land.

Hopefully this has been informative and entertaining enough and not too dull to skim over but more will be on the way.

I also want to congratulate and thank my high school's girls varsity soccer team for an amazing season, winning Sections, placing second in State and accepting me as one of the gang and most importantly the one and only, Big Time Charlie, Sir Wayne Harrison for allowing me to watch him work and learn a great deal. Leaving was that much harder after getting to know this team. I hope whoever wants to, stays in touch and lets me know what's going on their lives as well!

Until next time, miss you all, stay in touch, much love!

P.S. I voted for Obama. Suck it McCain.