Second Day in a New Land

- Originally posted via Facebook on 1/21/2010

Hello from the Land of the Morning Calm!

Well the sun has set on my second day here, and things have gone well so far. And I only expect things to improve.. :)

I got here yesterday at 530PM, after leaving from Atlanta at 530AM (on the previous day!). So it was looong, to say the least. I haven't traveled internationally much, but have taken a few transatlantic flights. Flying across the Pacific from the eastern US is a totally different ballgame! So on the 15+ hour leg from California to here, I got stuck with a window seat in a row of 3 (obviously it was a bit cramped). Although they did serve excellent food on the plane, and much better than I expected. We had some great Korean bibimbap, probably even better than the same type meal I had today for lunch!

I spoke to my new boss last night after getting settled. My apartment won't be ready for me until Monday, so I'll be staying in a hotel for another week or so until then. These first two nights have been in a place near the airport, and is run by a friendly man named Kwon. He speaks English pretty well, and has been a big help for me while I get acquainted. Tomorrow I'll be moving to a different place in Seoul, and staying there for another portion of my 'homeless phase'. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with a few friends here before our first work meeting on Mon morning. It may also take that long to get over this jet lag - it's an odd feeling as I write this at 9 o'clock at night, and feel both exhausted and wide awake at the same time. Kind of recalls those 0400 mornings in college while writing papers.. Although this could also be partly due to the espresso I drank to keep from falling asleep :)

I watched my first authentic Korean TV last night. They do have several English channels, but one can only watch 'Two and a Half Men' so many times, and I'm pretty sure I already reached my limit years ago (and actually only saw it a couple times). So I passed on the Fox channel and the Australian channel, and flipped to some sort of game show network. No idea what they were saying or what it was about, but it did give a sense of amusement/belonging/confusion to my first night in a new country.

Not much else yet to update. I'm planning to post these notes periodically, which should get more interesting as I get better material, and also have a place to actually use my computer to upload some pictures.

Until then,