Annyung Haseyo!

“Annyung haseyo” from Korea! I’m finally getting used to saying “hello” in Korean to people I meet. At first I was a little hesitant because I wasn’t sure I was saying it right, but with a little help from my students, I’ve got it down. It’s easy: ‘Annyung’ (also written as annyeong) is basically like saying ‘year’ in Spanish-- ano (not sure how to make the squiggle over the n). And haseyo is said just as it’s written. Now you can say hello in Korean too!

This trip started off in the most disastrous of ways. David wrote about it in his blog, so I’ll let you go to that to get the full story (davidwalburn.blogspot.com). Basically, we missed our flight out of St. Louis to Chicago, and I freaked out, as usual, because that’s what I do in stressful situations. Then, a lady from United Airlines put us on an American Airlines flight to San Francisco so that we would make our flight to Seoul. And they did not charge us! Just so you know, that is completely unheard of! Our travel agent said that he has never in his 20 years experience had an airline book someone on a competitor’s flight for free. I chalk it up to my patheticness: I was sitting on the floor outside the gate crying and nearly hyperventilating, my bags sprawled out around me. Then, I ran to the nearest trashcan and dry heaved a couple times. Yeah, people were staring. But I think that might have something to do with why we made it to Seoul--because I’m so dramatic :) I hope, by now, you are laughing at me.

On the flight from St. Louis to San Fran, we looked around, and there were no open seats. How did we get on this flight only an hour and a half before it took off?? Were there really only 2 seats left?? Wow.

Now we’re on the plane to Seoul, exhausted, shaking our heads at each other, saying, “Can you believe the morning we had?” Our next worry is now whether or not David will get into the country without a visa. We took the necessary precautions: he booked a flight to Shanghai for January (bc he has to leave the country within 90 days) and he printed off his bank statement to prove he has “sufficient funds” to stay. We decide to just not worry yet. The food was pretty good--all Asian of course. We had a beer each and played Gin Rummy. I made risky moves by picking up large piles of high-valued cards, and soon after David would go out, so I was negative 65 points after two games. We decided to stop keeping score. I watched “My Sister’s Keeper,” “Night at the Museum 2,” parts of “The Hangover” and “The Proposal” and the same damn episode of “The Simpsons” a handful of times. Did lots of sleeping too, which was nice since I only slept for about 2 and a half hours the previous night. Jitters, maybe.

The flight attendant paged us over the PA when we landed. Our bags didn’t make our flight, and they wouldn’t arrive until 9 PM the following day (that’s about 27 hours after we landed). And they would be delivered to our apartment around midnight of that day. They were put on a flight from San Fran to Tokyo to Seoul--so my clothes have been to Japan--kinda cool. Why do I feel like Korea doesn't want me here?

We made it through customs fine. We switched lines, thinking that we’d make it through faster. Nope, we chose the slowest line. I mean, this lady must have needed a coffee break or something, she was a snail. I just can't win today. I went through first and was allowed into the country--yes! Next was David, and boy, was I nervous. Success!

There was a man waiting with a sign with my name on it outside the gate at the airport. He led us outside to the taxi/limousine. I breathed in a big gulp of Korean air, and shouted, “Yay! Korea! I’m here!” The taxi driver apparently didn’t know where to take us. Really? What else could go wrong at this point!? He hands me a phone and says, “Speak.” Oh geez, he doesn’t speak English. There is another man on the other end who tries to figure out where to take me, and he speaks English. We made a random stop and picked up what the taxi driver called his “friend.” All right, then. For the entire drive, the taxi driver has the “Fast and the Furious” playing on his GPS (which is so much more high tech than what we have), and I watched him take a few peeks at the screen while we were on the highway. A little scary.

We arrived to our apartment fine, and a man from the school named Park was there to meet us. The girl who I replaced had not moved out. Her things were packed, but not out of the apartment. So we left our bags (just carry-ons) in the bathroom and headed for the school. It is very close, about a block away on the other side of the street from our apartment. It takes less than 5 minutes to get from the fifth floor of our building (where we live) to the fourth floor of the school--that includes waiting for two elevators and crossing at a crosswalk (because jaywalking is practically the leading cause of death in this country).

When we got to Kang Tae Woo English Academy, a lady sat us down and explained that if we were feeling sick, she would take us to the hospital the next day. That is the very first thing she says, so that gives me a clue that swine flu is kind of a big deal here. My next clue comes days later when I see little children with decorated cloth masks on. Do you like pink with yellow stars? Maybe powder blue with clouds is more your style? They marketed the sh*t out of this pandemic. Very Smart. Anyway, then she tells me that I’m starting teaching tomorrow. What?! I was so jetlagged and delirious, I just kind of nodded so she’d stop talking, and I could get out of there and go to bed! I literally couldn’t think or process any information. I met my coworkers--two Canadians and an American (Hawaiian). The girl I replaced left me her lesson plans for the week, so that was really nice to have something to jump off from. We went back home (weird to call Korea home now) and went straight to sleep.

If you made it through all that rambling, thanks for sticking it out! I’ll write next about our first few days: the incredible food we’ve had and teaching in Korea--stay tuned ya’ll!

Xx
hh