Asia and I have met at last.

Well I am here, finally. After all that hell I hope it is worth it. For now I shall define Korea as interesting. I feel COMPLETELY out of my element. I guess the first sign should have been the double decker 747 vessel that bought me here jam packed with 98% Asian's and 2% other (obviously I fell into the other category) Somehow I was placed right next to a fellow American who had the wild disadvantage of scoring a middle seat on a 12 hour flight. He was so cute I would have maybe considered offering to switch with him half way through if he hadn't thrown his ipod ear buds in at the first chance he got. Rude. Anyways, I fought through his attempts at not communicating with me and upon descending prodded him for information on his voyage to "the land of fanny packs" as I know choose to refer to it. We swapped life stories, family trees, blood type, hopes and dreams and in that conversation I discovered he too was coming over to teach as well. I would like to declare him a friend but we parted without exchanging any information.

After exiting my vessel we were slightly poked and prodded by the health officials then off to immigration where my problems really started. The "nice looking lady" who I thought would buy my story of "traveling" through Korea and the "thats an old Korean visa in my passport" bull shit, I was promptly taken to an interrogation room by a fancy dressed officer gentleman (he didn't have a fanny pack, probably not a true Asian) There I slammed down on an unsturdy aluminum table, white lights in my face as they searched my person for hash as I kindly asked for a glass of water and a cigarette. That would probably have made for a better story but really they just took me into the room, looked over my documents, questioned the hell out of me, tried to call my bluff and finally escorted me out of immigration after one too many bats of the eyelashes. Then I claimed my 3 tons of luggage, schlepped it onto a rolly cart, breezed through customs where I was met by a bouncy man pointing to a sign with my name on it and you guessed it, wearing a fanny pack!!!! He bounded up to me and I stuck my hand out to introduce myself to him, he looked from me to my hand, then did that again, then proceeded to shake my hand sideways like it was a chicken leg he has just dropped in the dirt and wished to continue eating. Then he body checked me away from my rolly cart so his chivalry could take over and he pushed my luggage about 20 yards until we met up with his "friend" fanny pack and all. His friend then took over the chore of sherpa and heaved my crap onto an elevator before distributing me to a cab driver who had pink gerbera daisy plastered all over the walls of his cab and cork boards on the floor. At this point I prayed to whatever God was closest that I was in fact the person they were expecting and they were sending me to the right place. These men did not speak a word of English I may add. The cab driver was a piece of work. He was operating a walkie talkie, cell phone, gps system, and driving a stick shift at the same time. I was impressed and shitting myself at the same time!!! At one point he (while driving) turned around to me in the back seat and started pointing to the trunk over and over again like he needed something from me. After much pointing I figured that he wanted me to pull down the arm rest compartment, which I did and he then started flapping his elbow at me like the was auditioning for the chicken dance. I guess he was pretty hell bend on me using his arm rest cause he finally stopped flapping when I used it. Crazy man. After an hour and lots of screaming in Korean into his walkie talkie I was then transfered into the much more welcoming and capable hands of three women from school. They took me to my apartment and were super sweet. My place is really tiny but I don't need much. My bed is a bit bigger than a twin but not as big as a double and harder than Hercules' ab muscles. I have a tiny kitchen, decent closet, washer (no dryer), desk, tv, a/c, stolen internet and the craziest shower ever. It is just a shower head in the middle of the bathroom so everything gets soaked when I shower. Oh well, it is all part of the experience. More to come.