The Trip

For anyone not in the know, I left this past weekend to teach English in Korea for a year. Now you're caught up.

Before I took off, my parents and I spent the weekend in Vancouver at our favourite bed and breakfast place & visiting delightful places like sunny Stanley Park, the office of the Korean consulate general, and um...Office Depot & London Drugs.

Just before I got on the plane, the first wave of “what are you thinking?” hit me like a soccer boot to the face…I guess it was starting to sink in...

The flight itself was uneventful, aside from the doofus beside me who decided to put a weird table thing under both of our feet, condemning me to uncomfortable shifting the entire 11hours… not much else to report from the flight, looking around the plane at a sea of black heads….I was glad I wasn’t blond...I’d stand out even more. More on that later.

Kyle and Amy met me at Incheon Intl in Seoul. I got through customs with no problems, no lost luggage, so that was all good. The first breath was hard, the air was almost chewable it was so thick. Like getting off the plane in Hawaii or Israel kinda…it was 25c with about 85% humidity. Apparently last week it was 35c with 98%. I can’t wait. August is supposed to be the worst.

We caught a bus north to Wonju and the bus ride was about two hours long. Oh, and I decided to be adventurous in the first five minutes and try a random drink I’d never had. It was gross. Don’t ever buy a pale green drink called “17”. It tasted like really really burnt cheap watery cold coffee mixed with heavily cremated green tea leaves. Mind-numbing fatigue notwithstanding, the thing that made the biggest impression was the green rolling hills. Apparently like 85% of our Province is tree covered. Definitely some photographic potential.