Monday, December 17
Well, Emily and I started the day (at 4 am) with a few observances:
“It’s indecent to wake up before the morning newspaper is delivered.” EM
“I can’t believe we’re on the road before the stoplights are working. This is just so wrong.” LM
I began my journey by going to the wrong concourse at SFO – hope this isn’t a harbinger of the year ahead. The flight from SFO to Vancouver was uneventful, but I was too excited to sleep. Had to clear customs in Vancouver, even though I wasn’t leaving the airport (???). My apologies to my Canadian friends, but your agents are not friendly. At all. I was interrogated by a female agent. She stamped my immigration card and I started walking towards the exit. As I was walking, a male agent stopped me, “Lady, come this way.” You know it’s never a good sign when someone calls you “lady.” I went to his window and he examined my immigration card and passport. He then wanted to know why I was at his window when I had already cleared customs. Hello??? You stopped me and brought me back to your window.
Found my gate, had a few minutes to kill before boarding the plane. Looked around the boarding area. Pretty crowded. Looked like a lot of people were going home for the holidays. Since I was in the next to the last row of the airplane, I was one of the first to board – lucky me! I thought leg room on United was sparse. On Air Canada it’s even more limited. But, looking on the bright side, if we crashed, I wasn’t going anywhere. I was securely wedged in between my seat and the seat in front of me. As lunch was being served, the flight attendant spilled a bottle of water on me. My first thought was, “How did Katie get on this flight?” 🙂 Met one of my new colleagues, Brian, on the plane. He had one of the flight attendants (same one who spilled on me) ask me if I was going to Korea to teach and if my name was Lori. I asked him how he knew it was me. Another lady statement. “Lady, how many Caucasian women do you see on this flight?” Good point.
Once we arrived in Seoul Brian and I had to transfer to Gimpo, the domestic airport. That is where we would catch our flight to Daegu. The bus ride to Gimpo took about 30 minutes. Brian was getting pretty edgy. I asked him what was wrong. He pointed at the clock. It was 7:35 pm. I said I thought we’d have plenty of time to catch our 8:30 flight. We would have. Except that our flight was at 7:50, not 8:30. We ran to the Korean Air ticket counter. The women at the counter looked at our tickets and squealed. Then she walkie talkied someone. Then some men came over. They grabbed our bags, then grabbed us. Wait! Another walkie talkie transmission. The men took us back to the security area. I had to unlock my suitcase to show them my iron. Lots of bows and smiles, and my suitcases were on the conveyer belt again. Another man is assigned to take us to the gate. Not take, exactly. Run. Very fast. The three of us are running through the concourse (I’m in high heeled boots, not the most practical footwear for jaunts through the airport, but . . .) and I’m thinking – we are *not* going to make this flight. And even if we do, our bags will not. But, alas, we make it to the gate; they’ve held the plane for us. We get on – our seats are, once again, in the next to the last row. As I’m walking down the aisle, I think to myself, “Wow. I am in Korea. I’m really here.” I also was thinking that there is no way in hell that we would have gotten such outstanding customer service anywhere else in the world. We arrived to the airport 15 minutes before our flight, and they made it their mission to see to it that we boarded that plane.
After a 30 minute flight, we land in Daegu. Amazingly, so do our bags. We exit, and there is “Mr. Bijing” from the school to meet us. As I look around, I notice that I’m considerably taller than most people in the airport. Mr. Bijing takes us to a hotel, he thinks we will be more comfortable there for the night (it’s already after 10 pm); we can see our apartments tomorrow. At this point, I’ve hit the wall. I just want to sleep. A hotel sounds great. As we walk into the lobby, I notice playing cards strewn across the floor at the doorway. I look closer. There’s naked women on the cards. What kind of hotel are we at? Mr. Bijing talks to the hotel clerk, again, lots of nodding and bowing. He tells Brian and me that our rooms are ready. I ask him if he has the keys. He looks at me very surprised. “Why do you need a key?” Well, I guess I don’t. But it would be nice to lock the door. Brian and I exchange looks. But, he appeases us and gives us keys. Mr. Bijing takes me to my room first. I pass a shelf of videos. If I wasn’t so tired, I would grab one to watch. I look again – most are porn. Where am I???? Mr. Bijing opens the door, there are slippers in the entryway. I gasp; I think we’ve walked into someone else’s room. He keeps motioning for me to enter; I ask him who the slippers belong to. He laughed and said they were for me.
The room was perfect. Small, but with a most comfortable bed and a heated floor. Ahhhhh . . . . Sweet dreams . . .
Wednesday, December 19
The next morning I wake up well rested, but really desiring a hot shower. The bathroom has a bathtub with a showerhead, but no shower curtain. I try to take a bath, but the tub is so narrow, I can barely fit my hips into the tub. Hmmm . . . So I shower, proceeding to get water all over the bathroom. But I did get clean, and was feeling quite refreshed.
Mr. Bijing met us in the hotel lobby and took us to a restaurant for a typical Korean breakfast. First thing I learned, shoes always come off when you enter a restaurant or someone’s home. Again, boots are not the most convenient for this. We sat on the floor and had a most delicious pancake with scallions and octopus in it then bebimpop – a conglomeration of lots of spices, vegetables, and rice that you mix together in a bowl. And lots of kim chi. Stas, you would be in heaven – so hot and spicy!
We arrived at the school, which is still under construction. Met Ted, the head teacher. And many Mr. Kims. Smiled and bowed a lot. Waited a lot. Saw many apartments (since I was the first female, I got to choose which one I wanted). They didn’t quite look like the apartments I had been promised in the States. Actually, they didn’t look anything like the pictures I was shown. I settled on one near the school on the second floor of a building (I have a balcony). It is a true studio. One room. The bed in one corner, the kitchen in the other. But, I do have a washing machine on the balcony. Don’t know how to use it, all the instructions are in Korean, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out. And the bathrooms here are interesting. A western style toilet, which they promised. And a sink. I asked where the shower was. They pointed to the corner. A hand held shower head attached to the sink. That’s your shower. I guess it will make cleaning the bathroom easier. Glad I didn’t bring my bubble bath with me . . .
Back at the school Ted showed me a brochure for the school that they’ve been distributing throughout the city. There was a section with the teachers and their pictures. I didn’t see my picture, so I said, “Oh, I guess my information arrived too late to publish.” Ted said, “No, here you are.” And sure enough, there was my name, and my university, but someone else’s picture. I told him (obviously) that that wasn’t me. He said they didn’t have a picture of me, so they just picked one. As they did with all the other teachers. I guess I should be thankful they at least got my gender correct (on many others’ they didn’t).
Students arrived today for placement testing. Ted showed me the test, then put me to work. About 2:30 the secretary announced we would break for lunch. She had order pizza. With cheese and crab in the crust. Okay . . . We tested students until about 7:30 then Ted and I walked to the department store. I needed to get a towel (that’s not included in a “furnished” apartment). I procured a towel, Ted got a coffee maker, and we proceeded to walk home. Or try to. I thought I knew the way. But suddenly all the landmarks and all the signs (all in Korean, of course) looked the same. We wandered for about 20 minutes before my building magically appeared. At that moment one of the Mr. Kims (one of our bosses) called and said he wanted to meet us for dinner. Even though we were exhausted, Ted strongly reccommended we attend. So we met him in downtown Daegu at Bennigan’s. Yes, Bennigan’s. I don’t even eat at Bennigan’s in the States. But when in Rome . . .
LoriLoo 