New beginnings

Hello everyone! I'll try to make this update quick, because I have an early morning and another big day tomorrow.

I've been in Korea for about 29 hours as I start writing this. I had a very long and sleepless day of travel yesterday. The night before my flight was occupied less with sleeping and more with "lying in the dark with my eyes closed," and I had to wake up at 2:45am for a 6:40 departure. (This is altogether too early in the morning for emotional goodbyes. I cried saying goodbye to Junior, again saying goodbye to Mom at the airport, and teared up at least twice while stress-eating donuts on the car ride in between.) I managed to sleep through the flight from Sacramento to Seattle, but by the time I'd waited through my layover and met my first fellow EPIK teacher in person, I was wide awake and stayed that way for all twelve hours of the overseas flight. I won't say I was alert, since it took me four or five hours to finish watching No Other Choice because I kept pausing it out of distraction, but I was nominally conscious!

(Of course, the upshot of all this is that I seem to have dodged the issue of jet lag entirely. I passed out just after 9pm, woke up around 7am, and have felt great all day. Let's hope I don't immediately screw that up tonight.)

We landed at Incheon International Airport at about 4pm. It is massive; the walk from our gate to immigration felt eternal. The line at immigration was long but moved at a good clip, especially considering it was Seollal. (I tried to remember to wish as many people "새해 복 많이 받으세요" as possible.) Baggage claim and customs both went smoothly, currency exchange was quick and easy, and I was just starting to congratulate myself on how well everything was going when I realized the coat I'd wrapped around my waist as I was overheating while struggling with my bags had gone missing.

My new EPIK buddy Jenna offered to wait with my bags while I retraced my steps. Nothing back to the doorway into the public areas of the terminal, and the kind airport worker who went back to customs to check for me also couldn't find it. He told me where to find the lost and found center, and after a quick detour to pick up my WOWPASS/eSim package, I went upstairs to track it down. No sign of the jacket there either.

By this point I was tired of both dragging my luggage around and being upright, so as concerned as I was about being down my warmest piece of clothing, I figured it would be best to regroup the next day. I caught the shuttle to my hotel, meeting a few more of my cohort on board, and soothed myself with fun drinks from the convenience store next to the lobby, a long hot shower, and a special music show for the holiday on TV.

I went back to the airport to check with lost and found again this morning. They still didn't have my jacket, so they directed me to the CCTV room, where I stammered a broken "죄송합니다... 저는 영어 해요" at the buzzer and a very helpful man who spoke English came a few minutes later to scroll through a bunch of footage and retrace my steps. I was just apologizing and telling him not to bother anymore when he made a couple more calls, spoke to whoever was on the other end in a way that sounded positive, and told me they'd found it! I followed him downstairs and waited until another airport worker brought the coat out. I am getting plenty of practice with my Korean "thank you"s, needless to say.

Most of the rest of the day was spent unwinding in my hotel room, but around 4pm, I took the shuttle back to the airport to catch the train to Unseo Station, where a group of us EPIK arrivals had agreed to meet for dinner. The first option that had been scouted out was still closed for the holiday, so we went back in the other direction to the other restaurant on our list.

The place where we ate was focused on samgyeopsal (grilled pork belly), which I'd been looking forward to trying. I ended up manning the grill on our end of the table and trying to keep up with the conversation, both full-time jobs. It was really great to start getting to know people before orientation begins, and to toast to our new start with a bit of soju.

Now I'm back at the hotel drinking banana milk and trying to wind down. We get picked up at the airport tomorrow morning to be bussed out to our orientation in Daejeon, and while those buses are departing throughout the day, I'd rather get on the earliest one if possible and have the rest of the day to get my bearings.

It's going to be a hectic time at orientation, so my next update here probably won't be until late next week when I reach Gwangju. I'll come bearing stories!