Arrival

So, I've actually been in Korea for nearly a month now but haven't had a chance to document anything so I'm using my time off for Chuseok to catch up.

Getting here was a flurry of packing, visiting family and navigating my way through the Incheon Int'l Airport while fighting off some intense jet-lag. 

I had spent the 5ish months leading up to orientation living and working in Atlanta, GA - thousands of miles from my family in Utah already. I missed a lot while I was gone and then barely had a week back in Utah to prepare before taking off on my latest venture. I spent as much time as I possible could with my sisters and my friends, Cho and Kummer, all while stressing over packing and getting the right documentation for living abroad. My anxiety was through the roof.

My last night, my parents threw a little open house so people could stop by and say goodbye. Me and Haley (Okay, mostly Haley) made about a hundred or so cookies for the event and I could barely tear myself away from my suitcases to go socialize. Cho came over a little early to find me pulling out my hair and shoving things into bags. I went to make an appearance as people started arriving and came back to find her carefully wrapping my liquid containers in saran wrap and rearranging things in my suitcases. That and her knowledge of life in Korea have been a godsend.


I spent the rest of the night goofing off with my sisters, each bout of laughter coupled with a pang of sadness that I wouldn't be doing this again for a very long time. It didn't help that we'd barely seen each other in the past 6 months.

(missing Ashley and Brady :/)

Before I knew it, I was hugging my parents goodbye and rushing to my terminal. (And not a word of complaint was heard from either of them about the hour they had to get up to drive me to the airport.) The plane ride was a blur. 13 hours in the air was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be. I sat next to an oceanographer and an exchange student returning to Korea. Both were very nice and friendly and didn't mind when I scrambled over them to use the restroom.

Walking into Incheon Airport was bizarre. It was unnaturally clean and all the passengers on the shuttle were far too well-dressed to have just gotten off a plane. While I meandered around make-up free and disheveled in my tie-dye leggings and oversized hoodie, women strutted past in stilettos and tailored outfits. Was this Stepford? Eventually, the pressure got to me and I ducked into a restroom to at least throw on some mascara. The notion of fitting-in would eventually pass as I got acclimated to Korea.

This was my first time in a country where I hardly knew a word of the language so I had a hard time reacting to people at first. I've usually been able to at least fake it because I was always in Spanish-speaking countries before and even before I became fluent, I could piece things together. This was different, everything came up blank for me. It took me a while to find someone who spoke English so I could locate an ATM and I just nodded stupidly at the man in customs and shoved all the documentation I had at him.

Eventually, I ran into the EPIK people who kept giving me directions on where to stand and who to give my name to. My head was so foggy by that point that they might as well have been speaking Korean. I had probably been awake for nearly 36 or so hours at that point and the fact that the sun was out was really confusing my brain.

I don't remember this but apparently one of the Gangwon crew came up and greeted me and I was a complete arsehole to him. I don't even remember talking to anyone, I must have blacked out. We made amends later on and he recounted how hostile I was - I was a little mortified.

Thankfully, arrival at orientation just meant getting our room keys and relaxing. Unfortunately, I got shanghai'd by a pack of Canadians. Okay, they were actually really fun girls and I enjoyed it. My roommate, Shankary, came from Toronto but is originally from Sri Lanka. She had come with other girls from Toronto and (like true Canadians) they insisted on helping new arrivals with their bags. So we spent the evening running back and forth directing people and toting their extra luggage. It was a nice opportunity to mingle with the other EPIK teachers.  Before that, me and Shankary bonded over trying to translate the TV movie we tuned to in our dorm, it was good fun.

The other EPIKers come from all over. Lots of Americans and Canadians, of course, but we had a fair amount of folks from the UK, New Zealand, Australia, and South Africa. We had at least a few representatives from each in our Gangwon group. It made for a load of funny banter and culture-clash (like when I learned that "fanny" is basically the "C" word in Australia and the UK. Will not be referring to it as a "fanny-pack" anymore).

When we finally returned to our rooms, I was beyond exhausted. The beds were hard and our pillows were a weird texture (turns out they were stuffed with recycled drinking straws) but I passed out anyway and probably had the best sleep of my life.

Oh boy.