Safe in Korea. The flights were, well, awful, but that's to be expected. Aside from a couple of panic attacks during the flight to Tokyo I've been in good shape.
When I got to Tokyo, I may have had the most terrifying experience of life. You see, in Philly, I asked the lady at the check-in desk if I would have to pickup my luggage anywhere, or if it would make it to Seoul without me having to do anything. She told me that I wouldn't have to do anything in Texas, but that yes, in Tokyo I would have to get it. So, upon arrival in Tokyo I go through customs and immigration and a bunch of other nonsense that results in me getting a 90 day visa to stay in Japan, when all I want to do is get to the baggage pick-up area. I finally get all of that taken care of and navigate my way to the correct baggage claim and wouldn't you know it, my bag doesn't come out. I'm just standing there sweating bullets, nervous as all hell, wondering how in the world I'm going to find some one who speaks English to ask about this and still make my connecting flight to Seoul, and all the while there's some guy with a drug sniffing dog walking around me letting the dog take a few whiffs. I guess being a young American sweating nervously at the baggage claim area is a red flag for those guys.
Long story short, I find an English speaker at the baggage assistance counter and she assures me my bag will be waiting for me in Seoul, which it was.
Before I came here I had read that Koreans are compassionate towards outsiders and can show extraordinary random acts of kindness to them. I wasn't in their country for more than 10 minutes before I experienced this first hand. When I got on the bus that would take me from Seoul to my city of Daejeon, I was a little worried about which stop to get off at; I knew it was called "Dong-bu" but I wasn't sure how I was going to know when I was there. When the bus driver came around to take my ticket I pointed at myself and said, "Dong-bu" in hopes that he would understand what I was getting at, but he didn't. There was a 20 something year old Korean guy sitting in front of me who spoke English, and he told me he would help me. After about a 2.5 hour bus ride, my Korean friend had to get off, but before he did he told me how many more stops I had to wait until I got off, told the bus driver to make sure I got off at the right stop, and gave me his name and phone number to call him if anything went wrong.
I experienced more unsolicited kindness when I got off at my stop. My ride was not there yet, so I went to a phone booth to call him and let him know I was there. Another Korean guy saw me at the phone staring at it like an idiot and stopped and told m what to do to make it work. I talked to my ride who told me he was on his way, and the Korean guy who helped me stood there with me until the guy showed up.
I guess that's about all I have to say, or rather that's all I feel like typing right now. I get only two days of training and then I begin teaching on Monday, and my apartment isn't ready until this weekend so I'm living in my head teacher's spare room until then. I'm scared, nervous, and lonely, but I just keep telling myself to breathe.
Glad you made it ok, we'll be keeping up with the blog.
ReplyDeletePeople did the same thing for me when I was taking a bus around Madagascar. They looked at me like some kind of giant but weren't afraid to help me figure out where I was going. God knows that if they came to America we would tell them to learn English or get the hell out of our way.
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