July 10th Arrival in Korea

Warning: I have never done this before, so we will see how it goes. I hope to put things up every day or every other day, so please enjoy. -- Jeff


After deciding that I would be going to Korea on July 6th I had a few things to prepare before leaving just three short days later. The purpose of my trip will be to assist Korean's of all ages to better their English speaking, writing, and listening skills at the English Village near the city of Yangpyeong, an hour east of Seoul.
http://www.yea.or.kr/english/

Before leaving I had to apply and receive a C-4 Visa at the Korean Consulate in the Pacific Heights neighborhood of San Francisco, which surprisingly took me only a few hours to get approved. After getting my last minute travel items and exchanging my dollars for Korean Won I was ready to depart.
On Thursday afternoon I departed on Asiana Airlines, Korea's 2nd largest airline, which had also recently been awarded one of the best airlines in the world for 2009 by SKYTRAX and after spending 12 hours with them I could see why. Notice that none of the US Airlines made it. http://www.worldairlineawards.com/main/aoy-2009-release.htm


Before the captain left the gate in San Francisco all crew-members bowed to us, which really impressed me and after arriving in Korean I found it to be common practice all over. They continued their extreme kindness and assistance for the entire flight. Upon check-in at SFO I requested an aisle seat and I got even luckier when no one was seated in the seat next to me. This really made the flight nice and even enabled me to get a few hours of sleep Flying over the Aleutian Islands of Alaska we continued across the International Date Line and began back south towards our destination and I began to think, with Seoul being so close to the North Korean border if we continue flying on this path we would most definitely enter their airspace and with current tensions so high I began to wonder if we would continue on that path. Some of you might find that boring but as a politics and geography buff it really interested me. Anyways we started to turn even more South and eventually crossed Japan before making another turn for our descent into Incheon International Airport, located on an island on the edge of the Yellow Sea 40 minutes to the west from Seoul. I found out later that until recently airlines regularly still flew over North Korea (DPRK) but for the safety of all adjustments have been made, even though it has added an hour to the flight time.


Getting through customs and passport control was a breeze with only one catch. As we got off the plane a few men asked us about our health and proceeded to put something against our neck that took a reading. Even after I passed I was still confused about what they had done but I later heard it had something to do with swine flu.



After grabbing a much-needed double espresso from the Coffee Bean (for you Drew) I met John, another Bay Area resident who was joining me for the 7 weeks and our driver Hyun-joong, aka Sandy who works at the English Village. The two-hour drive to the English Village (located one hour east of Seoul) was great as Sandy and I discussed Korean politics, the various towns we passed along the way, and Korean and American professional sports. It didn't take long for him to invite me to watch a baseball game in Seoul during the coming week. There are three teams in Seoul and I hope I get a chance to see them all before my return home.

Arriving at the village at around 9:30 PM the rest of the night was spent unpacking, settling in, and checking email before getting a few hours of sleep to be ready for our first actual day in Korea. Below are a few pics of the sudio I will live in for the next 7 weeks.