Where to start?

Having been in South Korea for 4 nights now, 

you would think I would have some idea about what to say... But I don't know where to start!

So, backtracking to Thursday (gonna skip over the teary goodbyes at the airport - lets just say it involved a lot of crying. Quick shout out to everyone who came to see me off and a BIG thank you to Anne and Jo for looking after me in customs and the international lounge).

The Flight

I flew with China Souther Air, and it actually wasn't that bad. I paid $725 for the flight so I wasn't expecting red carpet, but it was better than Jetstar thats for sure. The meals were Asian food so I wasn't that keen but all in all not bad. I got a little bit of sleep but I never sleep well on planes. I think its more the sitting upright.

There was a stop over in Guangzhou (?) in China, which was decidedly uneventful. I got changed into something less homeless looking as I knew I was being met in Incheon. We boarded the next flight and took off to Korea. The weather in China was HOT and the air con in the airport was shit house so I was looking a bit worse for wear when I got to Korea. 

Somewhere between China and Korea the clouds had rolled in, so when we landed it was still super muggy but raining pretty heavily. I was picked up by a cute little old Korean man who didn't really speak English at all but he tried. My bag felt like I had packed lead cannonballs but he offered to wheel it anyway. We got into his lovely van thing and headed off to Pyeongtaek.

NB

People drive on the wrong side of the road in Korea!!! No one told me that! The poor little man thought I wanted to drive lol

South Korea

The drive from the airport to Songtan took nearly 2 hours, mainly because of the traffic in shitty weather. The rain kept getting heavier so it was a downpour by the time we arrived at the school. The drive over was different to what I expected - the highways here are waaayyyy better than ours, and there were nice small mountains on either side so there was a lot of greenery. And there are these long ass bridges linking the airport island to the rest of the country - side note here is that the eastern side of South Korea has a heap of large islands. The airport appears to be on one of these...

I was so tired by the time I arrived at the school, but put on my bestest happy face and greeted my co-teacher, Jean (haha I know, that was my recruiters name too). I don't think thats how you spell it, but whatever.

He throughout I was arriving earlier, so all we really did was meet the principal and then got back in the car for him to take me to my little house/room/cave. I didn't get a good look at the school, but it looked pretty big. The plan was to go back the next day and have a proper look around.

My studio apartment

I know most of you will have already seen these pics on FB, but in case you haven't here are a few:

So its a bit hard to see, but I can get from one side to the other in 2 big steps. Its adorable and I love it! I am 3 minutes from the supermarket (Highwaymart), 5 minutes from the station and 10 minutes from my school. Walking, not driving. 

It also turns out I am in Songtan, not Pyeongtaek as I thought... This suits me just fine, as I am that little bit closer to Suwon, and there are a lot of people who speak English here because the Air Force Base in 15 minutes away (walking). It also means I am not stared at too much because the Koreans here are used to looking at Americans... I need to get a tee that says 'Australia' so they know the difference.

Anyway, I am dead tired tonight. It was my first day at school today, but there is so much to blog about for my first weekend that I don't want to launch into it. But now that my internet is working, and I have a plug adaptor there is no reason for me to hold anything back! So I will probe add a blog a day for a while so everyone can catch up on my news. 

I feel like I have done so much in such a short space of time. Its the weirdest thing, I don't feel scared or lonely or anything like that here. I wouldn't say I feel at home, because I don't, but it just doesn't feel that foreign. Maybe because I have spent so much time in Box Hill, or maybe because I have made my little cave into a warm fuzzy retreat with pics of home. Either way, Korea feels friendly, and I like it here. 

I think i'll stick around...

xoxo

Flights, camera, action?

The last few days have been pretty big

in both Korea land and also Stateside. 

I'll give you a run down on where we are at for Korea first.

We finally have dates!

Thats right citizens! I finally have a land date for Korea! I got an email from Jean on Thursday with my visa issuance number, which the visa people in Seoul give out. So the visa has been approved in Korea, it just needed to be issued and stuck into my passport. She had included the visa application form in the email as an attachment all pre-filled out so all I had to do was sign my name at the bottom once I printed it out. 

I was a bit hesitant sending it all to Canberra (which is where the Embassy is for the RoK) because I also had to send them my passport for them to stamp it. The lady told me thats how they do it and there isn't another way, but I am still not fully cool with the fact that my passport is floating around the Australian Postal system. Anyhoo I expect to see it back either late this week or early next week, apparently it takes 4 - 10 working days to process. 

I emailed Jean once I had posted the passport and visa application to let her know we were on track and she wrote back telling me that I can pick my flight. They school didn't care what airline I flew with but advised that they would only pay up to $800 for the ticket. I would need to buy the flight and they will reimburse me within my first month of work. 

I had a look online using Expedia.com to find flights. In the end I chose a China Southern flight, as it was leaving Melbourne at a good time and arriving in Incheon at an equally good time. I do have to stop over in China for I think 3 hours, but thats not too bad. All up the flight time is supposed to be 15 hours I think. Some of the others were up to 25 hours!

Something interesting to note about the QANTAS flights - you only fly QANTAS or Jetstar to Sydney or Singapore, then you change flights to either a China Southern flight or a Singapore Airlines flight. You don't actually fly QANTAS the whole way... Totally not worth paying an extra $500 odd bucks to fly an Australian airline to Sydney when you still are stuck on an Asian airline for the bulk of the trip. 

Another interesting thing was that the return flights were cheaper than one way. Stupid huh? One of the flights was $1200 and something one way, and only $800 and something return. Go figure. 

And a FINAL interesting thing regarding flights - China Southern have a baggage limit of 1 bag @ 21kgs whereas China Eastern you can have x2 bags @21kgs... I will try and fly home China Eastern because I am sure I will have WAY more stuff coming home than what I leave with!

So I fly out of Melbourne in the evening of the 29th August, and land in Korea after lunch on the 30th August. Its all set in stone! I emailed Jean the details and she said it was a great flight (the times were very reasonable and so was the price) and to book. Yesterday morning mum and I went up to Bella Jet Travel in Wandin (great travel agents, go see them if you need any travel stuff booked) and organised the flight. So there you go, all set!

Jean said someone will pick me up from the airport, and then either take me to the school ir to my new home where my co-teacher will meet up with me. Wooooo! So exciting!

They have not yet found anywhere for me to live. Fingers crossed its not somewhere gross :s

Learning Korean

It is one of my goals for this year (my year in Korea, not 2012) to try and learn Korean. Sounds simple enough yeah? Well, I have started trying to get the basics and I am having trouble already. When I get there I want to sign up and hopefully go to some language classes or something. 

Its a funny thing, all these different languages. I really hope that countries and ethnic groups around the globe keep their languages alive, and not let them all die out to English. I see that it is important to learn English, especially as it has become the international language of business and trade and aviation and all that, but its kinda fun knowing there are so many languages out there. 

There should be a bigger push in Australian schools for kids to learn a second language. There have been studies that show that people who have another language are faster learners and have better reading and writing skills. Plus it encourages travel and learning about other cultures. Only good things!

I will keep practicing my Korean, i can say hello and thank you, and yes and no. Its a pretty good start! 

Stateside news

I am a bit sick atm, nothing terrible just a flu of some sort. Sore throat, runny nose etc. It has meant that my weekend has been made up of me sitting around in bed, although I have gone out Friday night, Saturday night and Sunday morning. Maybe shoulda given something a miss as i am feeling pretty ratshit now. 

Friday night went to Cafe Moretto in Glen Waverley for Bec's birthday dinner. I ordered the gnocchi which took a million years to come out, and was a little dry. Apart from that it was tasty though and reasonably prices. It was $18 for the meal, and it was a really good size. I think that these days many meals are way too bug, and I feel obliged to eat everything I order (I paid for this, i'm gonna finish it dammit!) even if I don't actually need to eat it all. This meal was probably on the smaller side, but it was a really good amount of food for me. If you are a super hungry person who likes giant serves you would have been disappointed with this dish. I didn't take any pics because I forgot. Fail.

Saturday night went out with Nay, Jess and Maria to Nudle at Knox City and I had a really tasty meal, I cannot remember for the life of me what it was called but it was chicken and rice. Kung Po Chicken maybe??? Either way it was delish, I am trying to eat a bit more flavoursome foods lately to prepare myself for Korean food, and this one had garlic, ginger and chilli. I tend to stay well clear of chilli but this was quite mild and I really enjoyed it. As usual I ate too slowly and ended up with gluggy cold rice. Boo :(

This morning the family (me, Nay, Kirst and Dan) all went on a roadtrip to Sorrento this time, to the Ghanda outlet there. The jacket Kirsty got at Torquay was too big so we needed to get a smaller size. I ended up buying a heap of cute undies and some sunglasses. We had her little niece with us too so we looked like a 'real' family. 

The main downside of feeling crummy is that i have not had a chance to go and play with the horses this weekend. Billie was a bit of a ragbag for Georgia last week and I really wanted to get some work into her but I just can't be fagged getting off the couch. I will need to get up at some point, because my mug is empty and I need more tea. 

I finish up flowers this week so i will have the next week and a half to spend with the horses so PLEASE GOD GIVE US SOME NICE DAYS so I can go outside and play.

Also, thank you everyone who has been reading, I hit 500 views to this blog during the week! So keep reading, please feel free to drop me a comment or email whenever you want and subscribe to come along for the ride :)
Its great that so many people have had a look, its like getting a hug every time someone views the blog.

Thats all for now. I will prob do another post later this week and I might have another go at a video.

xx