Hello to my very few followers!


I'm not sure what I should write about and I don't want to bore all of you. I'll try to keep this short & I'd appreciate any feedback of what to write about. I think I'll just give you a breakdown of what I've been doing since I left LK.

Departed LK early Wednesday morning, had a very uneventful trip via San Francisco to Seoul. Boring flight, bad movies, horrible amenities on the plane. I guess that is what you get when you fly US based airlines who don’t care about customer service or the customer in general.

Upon arrival, the EPIK (English Program in Korea) staff was there to greet us and put us on buses to the orientation site in downtown Seoul. I attempted to stay awake to see the sites along the way, but failed miserably and fell asleep within the first five minutes. I should mention the airport is about 60 minutes from Seoul on an island called Incheon.

Thursday night was really easy, we did check-in, room assignments, and DINNER (which I will get to later). After dinner a couple of girls and I went out for a walk around the area. I was really out of it from jet lag and lack of sleep in the three days before, but the highlights were – carved topiary bushes, stumbling across a side street full of brothels, and cocktails served in Capri-punch like pouches on the street. We came back around 9 PM as we were all too tired to stay awake much longer.

Friday we were assigned to our classes, which were based upon what province you are going to. Within five minutes of being in my group, I met a very nice couple who hail from Kansas City, which led to a very conversation over Lawrence, Kansas City, and of course KU sports (I mainly listened to that part). Even better than having a bit of Kansas here is that they have already taught here for a year and were very liberal with advice and patiently answered all my inane questions.

In the afternoon we had our official welcome ceremony, highlighted by a world famous Tae-Kwon Do troop made up of little kids with very VERY dirty feet and some high kicks, we also a traditional Korean music performance, and a lecture over the history and politics of Korea. I missed a lot of the lecture as my jet-lag was still keeping me down, I will say the professor had some very interesting insights into the NoKo-SoKo conflict.

Last night my roommate and I decided neither of us had the energy to go anywhere or attempt to do sight-seeing, so instead we watched Entourage and fell asleep pretty early.

I just completed my very involved medical test which included – BMI, sight test, hearing test (fastest one I’ve ever taken – she told me to raise my hands when I heard the beeps which came immediately after I put the head phones on; nothing like those long ones that we were forced to take in elementary school), we had blood drawn, and a chest X-Ray (on some sort of large bus that they brought to the University). It was like a machine the way they moved us through each station. They have done 150 involved medical tests in less than 3 hours, I was thoroughly impressed.

Now, for my favorite part. FOOD. I will post the menu for this week later in picture form and discuss my favorite parts in a more involved break down. But, I will tell you this. I LOVE KIMCHI. It is a spicier, tangier, crunchier, more heavenly sauerkraut. As many of you are aware, I have an addiction to sauerkraut and would eat it with any meal, including my cereal, but this seems to be frowned upon/grosses people out in the US, but in Korea kimchi comes with EVERY meal. The more I eat the happier the Koreans get, as it is what they are none for and are very proud of. Kimchi has officially taken the number spot in my heart of favorite food.
If you made it to the end of this, thanks. I found it boring when I re-read it. So, PLEASE if you have suggestions, let me know!

Bye bye!