Well, I made it to South Korea (and to the correct hotel) in one piece -with all the heavy luggage in tow, and am now sitting at a small cafe in Seoul trying to focus on finishing my pre-training assignments before training week begins. “Trying” being the key word here, I’m really too excited to start exploring my new home to properly focus.

I was dropped off at LAX airport yesterday morning after sitting in a typical little traffic jam on the 405, said goodbye/see-you-soon to my lovely boyfriend who’s following me in a couple days, and dragged my luggage through the terminal to wait in the long line for baggage check. It struck me how emotional these last couple weeks have been. From tying up all the loose ends to saying goodbye to family and friends. It felt completely unreal to be about to embark on this year abroad. After the plane took off and I looked out over what I could see of LA (it was really foggy, so it wasn’t much) I started to get that feeling of butterflies again- like when you meet someone who you really like for the first time, or you have a deep kiss with the person you love…thrilling and special. Haha I guess those butterflies have been floating around in there on and off for a few weeks.

After exiting the plane, going through immigration etc – I walked out into freezing Incheon… I knew it was going to be cold – but wow. California has definitely made me forget what cold is. One long bus ride later in rush hour traffic to Seoul and the City Air Terminal, I eventually got a taxi (after a lot of teeth chattering in the cold windy air waiting for one to show up. I became a veritable human icicle.). I attempted to communicate with the taxi driver in my terrible/limited Korean with the help of my somewhat trusty smart-phone (anyoung haseyo, point to address on phone “‘Hotel name‘ ga juseyo”, kamsahamnida!) … and finally made it to the hotel. It was a little heart-in-throat in the taxi as the cab-driver initially didn’t seem to know where he was going.., but seemed to have a light-bulb moment after he started driving saying something to me in Korean that was probably “oh, I know where that is”.

After using my room key card to take the elevator up to the correct floor, and taking an extra minute to figure out I had to put the card into a slot on the wall to turn on the lights – I fell into bed like a ton of bricks and fell asleep almost instantly, I was so tired after all the traveling/sitting/waiting. Woke up before the sun this morning, and here I am. I should probably get back to my pre-training I should be doing…and then exploration time.

Addendum: Not going to lie, heated toilet seats might be one of my favorite inventions.