The Flight

Goodbye party food!

Thanks Mom!

Wednesday, November 21^st, 2012

I thought I would try to write a blog so I can update everyone on my adventure to Korea!  This might not be the absolute best time to begin my blog considering I am in the middle of the extremely frustrating first leg of my journey that so far includes two flights, and two more to go.  My first flight to Chicago was delayed in Ottawa because of fog in Chicago.  After I arrived in Chicago, I found out my connecting flight to Seoul had in fact departed on time and there were limited other options.  .   At first I was re-routed from Chicago, to LA, to China, to Busan.  Once I arrived in Chicago I found out I needed a visa to enter China. I was re-routed again from Chicago, to LA, to Seoul and then after changing airports in Seoul, I would take a domestic flight to Busan.

Let me start at the beginning, I woke up at 5:15 am in Ottawa and had a fairly large breakfast to prepare myself for a long day of traveling.  My flight to Chicago and my flight to LAX offered no food.  I ate some crackers and a couple of chocolates and finally sat down to eat again at 10pm Ottawa time in LA.  I ordered a quesadilla at a Mexican fast food restaurant in the airport.  I arrived at LAX so much earlier than my actual flight; the airline hadn’t opened the check-in counter yet.  I figured I would try Mexican since I would be going to Asia and it would be nice to try something I might not be able to eat for a while.  I didn’t have that many options for food and I wasn’t in the mood to eat Asian food before going to Asia.   My quesadilla was not quite what imagined and while I forced myself to eat most of it because I hadn’t eaten all day, I struggled to finish it.   I was just grateful I had access to free WIFI for a little while and I was able to connect to my recruiters in Busan to tell them not to pick me up when they initially intended too and also inform a foreign friend that I would not be in Busan on time for our first meeting.  Meeting another foreigner was something I was really looking forward to when I first arrived and it was disappointing to know I was going to miss that meeting.  At that point, I was not sure if I would have enough time to visit my school on Friday before my first teaching day on Monday.   Either way, this was all out of my control and I had to roll with the punches. This was the reason I choose to start this blog in the middle of traveling and try to make good use of my extra time! I was hoping for good luck on the remaining 20 hours of traveling ahead of me!

To be continued…

Friday, November 23^rd, 2012

I waited until the check-in counter was open for my flight to Seoul and once it was, I went to go and wait in line.  At the check-in counter, the airline attendant told me I didn’t actually have a seat on this flight because it was full and I was going to be put on the stand-by list.  I was again struck by another obstacle.  She told me to walk back to the original terminal I can came from and talk to United Airlines about re-routing me to another flight. I walked back 7 terminals and talked to a United representative.  This girl was at least sympathetic and took her time looking into all other options.  She told me they should have confirmed I had a seat on the Seoul flight before sending me to LA.  After she called many people and did everything she could, it was concluded if I missed that flight, I would need to stay overnight in LA and take another flight in the morning to Seoul.  I would also need to wait another night on top of that to catch my flight to Busan.  I would have left Ottawa on a Wednesday morning, and arrived in Korea on SATURDAY!  I went back to wait for my stand-by flight and by some miracle, I managed to get a seat on the sold out flight to Seoul that night!  One of the airline attendances also pointed out a Korean Pop Star who was on the same flight!

My flight was comfortable.  They had a footrest like they do on greyhound buses, which I found made a drastic difference.  They had a little menu for the meals and I choose the western option.   They also had slippers for your feet, which were really comfy!  At the end of the flight, the TV screen showed a how – to video for giving yourself a massage to help heal certain types of body pain.  At the airport, I went through immigration and then to baggage claim to wait for my luggage.  The next obstacle I had to face was that I had made the flight but my bags did not.  I filled in the missing bags report and then went outside to find the shuttle bus to take from the international airport in Seoul to the domestic airport in Seoul.  At least I didn’t have to handle my luggage. 

At the domestic airport I changed my flight to the next earliest flight to Busan.  I had to talk to several people to use the phone to call my recruiter and let them know when I would be arriving.  The recruiters were sleeping in which was the reason I was having a hard time getting a hold of them.  I tried calling 4 separate numbers the first time with no success and then after a second attempt of calling, someone finally answered.   I caught my flight to Busan, arrived there safely and then called my recruiter again to get the update on when they would be picking me up.  They instructed me to take a taxi and one of them would meet me at my apartment.  I did what they instructed and was brought to my apartment.  The recruiter, Christine, met me wearing 5-inch heels while I was still wearing my clothes from Wednesday morning and had no luggage to change.  By this time it was Friday around noon in Korea.  She let me into my apartment and gave me the brief tour and instructions on how the heating and washer worked.   To me this was all a blur.

Sardines left in my apartment

Christine told me my director would be picking me up in an hour to take to me see the schools I would be working at.  I was pretty zonked at this point and a little bit worried about my first impression still wearing my flight attire.  The director came with another co-teacher because she could not speak English very well.  The co-teacher was the one I had the interview with over the phone.  I was driven to the school and met the other co-workers who all seemed really nice.  I saw some of the kids at the school who were excited to see me.  The director gave me a used cell phone and we added a bit of credit to it.  We also bought a metro card and put some credit on that.  I asked for some books to review over the weekend.  Other than that, I was given no further instructions on how to prepare for my first class the following week.  We then drove to the second school I would be working at on Mondays and Wednesdays.  I again was shown my classroom and this time she let me see the class schedule.  I asked for the books to review and then was on my way.  Nothing else, no other information, just here is your classroom and good luck.  They told me they would meet me at the metro to show me how to get to the schools the following week.

Back at the apartment I began cleaning a bit.  It wasn’t left in a horrible state but it did need a good cleaning.  I found some random things the old owners left behind.  They left a bag of dried up sardines.  They also left a couple of umbrellas, some toiletries, a bit of food, prunes in the sink, a printer, a pink heart pillow, you get my drift.  I was happy to find some of the useful devices at least!

To my relief, I was still able to connect with the foreign girl I was supposed to meet in the morning and she invited me to eat with her and some of her friends.  She introduced me to Korean BBQ.  We ordered pork in a marinade and grilled it at the table.  The traditional Korea sides were given to us at the table; I am still not familiar with all of the names.  One of the sides was plain garlic cloves.  She also ordered us rice and eggs.  The meat was actually really delicious and something I would get used of.   After the meal we went to a foreign bar to have a drink. I left around 10:30pm from the bar.  I was walked to the metro, which I would have never found on my own and then took the metro back to my apartment to get much-deserved good nights sleep!

Korean BBQ

A bit of humour, copy and paste the link:


http://kikinitinkorea.tumblr.com/post/35247369940/what-teaching-my-very-first-class-felt-like