Safe & Sound in SoKo

I'm sitting in my little hotel room, looking outside at the sun rising over the mountains and the skyscrapers of Sanbon, yet it still hasn't totally set in that I'm actually in South Korea.

My flight from Atlanta to Incheon was about 16 hours long, and the entire time I had to keep trying to convince myself that I was actually headed to the other side of the world. After landing, my employer Sione picked me up from the airport and took me out to dinner with his family where we had bulgogi, which is one of the dishes that Koreans are known for. Of course, there was kimchi, too! It was delicious, but my jet lag was really catching up with me.

Sione took me to my hotel, which looks nothing like an American hotel by any stretch of the imagination, except that it has a bed. There's a little hallway for you to keep your shoes in and the room is heated through the floor. In the bathroom, there isn't a shower curtain, and all the water from the sink and shower flow to a drain in the middle of the floor. It's a little wet in there after showering! The bedroom itself has a computer, bed with no top sheet and a little bistro table and chairs, as well as a large TV and a water cooler like you'd find in an office. Koreans do not drink tap water.

I spent most of the day yesterday sleeping on and off and I ventured out once to wander around and see Sanbon. I bought a sandwich from a "French" bakery for 4,000 won. (That's a little less than $4.)

It's Monday morning now and I'm about to get ready for my first day at school. I will be teaching the kindergarteners, which I'm excited about. I had dinner with some of the other American teachers last night and got the scoop on what to expect, and I think I'll really like it here.

Sorry no pictures yet, I'm trying to find a safe way to connect to my laptop, so for now I'm using the computer in the hotel room.