I'm in Korea!

Hey everone!

I made it. After almost 16 hours of travel by air and by bus, we got to the Dankook University late Thursday night to start our week of training and orientation.

To say the last few days have been emotional is an understatement. It's one thing to talk and think about leaving and saying goodbye to everyone, but I'm not sure you can be fully prepared for how difficult it really is. Granted I haven't died or anything and I'll be in frequent touch with everyone, it was still tough to say goodbye to people that I'm accustomed to seeing on a daily/weekly basis.

The flight from San Francisco to Seoul was great. Singapore Airlines easily is the best airline company I've ever flown with. The service was truly amazing. They were so friendly and it felt like they were coming around with a drink or snack like every 20 minutes. We were given hot towels as soon as we were in our seats and again later in the flight. Everyone had their own t.v. screen with the option to watch movies or television shows and play games. There was even a language learning game, which I utilized to learn how to count in Korean! The whole experience was really great. To make a 13 hour flight feel as comfortable as they did was really a great way to start off this trip.

When we got to the aiport and got off the plane, there was a Singapore Airlines hostess standing there with a sign that had my name on it. At first I thought it had something to do with the EPIK program, but when there was noone there with Brent's name, I figured it had something to do with my luggage. That was confirmed when she told me I needed to go to baggage claim and talk to one of the employees down there. It didn't end up being that big of a deal. Basically one of my bags didn't make the flight, so I still had the main bag I packed with all my clothes and toiletries. I'm still waiting for my other bag to show up, which I was told should be today.

We were greeted by snowfall as we left the airport and it's snowed on and off yesterday as well. Man, it's freaking cold here! I'm told that it won't be this cold in Busan however. Anyway, we hopped on a bus and drove for 2.5 more hours to get to Dankook University where we're going through orientation and training. Sitting on that bus was honestly the last thing I wanted after sitting on the plane for so long. Plus by the end of the bus ride I had to pee so bad!

When we got to the university, we registered, got our room assignments and were given a welcome bag with a couple training books, outlet adapter, EPIK t-shirt, croissant and a tangerine. Brent and I were able to request a dorm room together, avoiding either of us having to awkwardly share a room with a complete stranger, as everyone else had to do.

The room itself isn't bad. Actually if my apartment is anything like this dorm room, I'll be pretty happy. It's small of course, with two beds, two desks and two wardrobes for each of us. The bathroom is of the "all in one" variety, but it's okay. The shower section is far enough away from the sink and toilet that it's not really a problem. The only thing that sucks is that the entire bathroom floor gets competely wet. The beds in the room are not exactly the most comfortable, but they're getting the job done. I've attached a couple pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. You can see the view from our dorm room as well. It's not much, but there's a lake right outside, so it's kind of cool. The dorm looks Ikea furnished, but I don't think it is. The name of the brand that I see on all the furniture is "Neoce." My guess is that Mariana and Troy are probably the ones who cared to hear about that part.

Our first couple days of training have been cool. We attended an opening ceremony last night and had medical checkups this morning. We also set up our Korean bank accounts and signed up for Korean cell phone service yesterday. The food has definitely been different. I can feel my stomach trying to figure it out, but it hasn't been bad or anything. Just different. This next bit of news will excite some of you. During lunch yesterday when were getting our food served to us, I asked the Korean lady standing by one of the dishes what exactly a certain type of food was. Well, she thought I was asking her to serve me, so she grabbed the big spoon and lopped a bunch of this noodle-looking stuff on my tray. When we sat down, I had Brent try it and he said it tasted like spicy nooodles. So, of course I thought, "Oh cool, no problem." Well I ate it and it was good, then came to find out it was dried squid. Fantastic. I didn't even make it past lunch on the first freaking day!

We've met a lot of cool people so far. So many of them have done stuff like this before in other countries and you can tell they just love to travel. It's really inspiring. I can officially say I have friends from England, New Zealand and Canada. How cool is that? There's a pretty big group of us here that are going to Busan, so it's nice to meet everyone here and then be able to reconnect when we get there. It also looks like I'm going to have to finally break down and start a Facebook account. Everyone here has it and are starting to form groups on there so we can all be in touch while we're here. So for those of you that have been on me to get one, your wish is about to come true.

Anyway, I realize this is getting pretty long now, so I'll stop here. I'll try and update this thing in a few days and share more of my experience. We have a field trip to a local Korean folk village tomorrow, so hopefully there will be some interesting stories from that.