Our view of the city, Dongtan: South Korea
Our City, Dongtan South Korea
This is our apartment building, 'B'. Tia, Bri and I all live on the 3rd level thank goodness :)! The apartment is new so everything is really nice.
This would happen to me..Tia, Bri and I got our rooms and mine was the only one without a bed! Our school director gave me mats (that are paper thin..) and a blanket, the first night I didn't have heat either so I was 'roughing it'. I get a new bed in a week (I can't wait, and I will post pix of my apartment once I get things organized)..I do have heat now though :)
“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”—Mark Twain
The night before leaving for Dongtan South Korea was a restless one. Sleeping was just out of the question. We had to be at the airport Friday February 5th by 5:30am, I set my alarm clock for 2:45am and woke up so excited and filled with anxiety. We left Sammamish around 4:45am and headed to the airport. My parents kept asking me if I was nervous but it really hadn’t hit me yet, I was in such a daze not realizing that it would be our last car ride together for 13months! We arrived to SeaTac airport right on time where I met Brianna and Tia. We all checked in our bags and to my surprise and relief my bags were right less than 50 pounds so I didn’t have to shuffle things around or pay the extra pound charge. After checking things in it was time to say our goodbyes to our parents. I gave my dad a hug and when I went to hug my mom and when I saw her tear up it made me sad. I gave her a kiss and then headed to towards security, I looked back and waved bye then we were off to start our adventure. Security was stressful but we made it through. Our flight was at 7:30 am so we had a bit of time to kill. We grabbed some starbucks and bagels plopped down on some chairs and chit chatted about what we were getting ourselves into. The flight from Seattle to San Francisco was a breeze. Once we got to California we had about 4 hours to kill before our next flight to South Korea. We walked to find our gate then decided we wanted some food. We sat down at a Mexican restaurant and ordered a drink w/ some chips and salsa. We were all so excited to arrive to Korea and we were looking through all of our Korean info books to try and learn simple words. Once we boarded our flight to South Korea my stomach kind of dropped it was all kind of hitting me that we were doing this and there was no backing out now. A few hours into our flight I was listening to my Ipod and thinking about everything and I was making myself feel so nervous. I started tearing up; I went from being so excited and sure to asking myself, is this really worth it? Then Brianna saw me getting scared and we talked about how amazing this trip is going to be and what a great growing experience this will be. She told me, “This is going to be Katie Harper’s year” and I was like you know…that’s so true, this is my time to go out of my comfort zone and really learn about my capabilities and myself. I took a deep breath and was again excited for experiencing everything new. The flight seemed like forever. It was weird to be on a plane for a whole day! The plane food wasn’t bad but it wasn’t my favorite by any means. Once we landed we were all so ansy to get up, walk around and more importantly WE WERE FINALLY IN SOUTH KOREA!!! Customs went fast and we then grabbed free carts to load our luggage on. When we walked out we saw Mr. Gan holding a sign that said, ‘Welcome to Korea Tia Low, Brianna Duval and Katie Harper!” it was pretty exciting!!! Mr. Gan called one of his friends and once he arrived both of them lifted all of our belongings into a van and we got in. It was us and the Korean taxi driver…who spoke no English. I noticed that there were no seat belts and was just hoping that it was going to be a smooth ride. The trip from Seoul to Dongtan was about an hour. The buildings and lights were really pretty and neat to look at but we were all so tired and after about 15 minutes of having my face glued to the sights I fell asleep. We arrived to our apartments and met our school director Jade there along with her husband. They were both really welcoming and excited that we made it. The building that we are in is building ‘B’ and it brand new. We all went up the stairs and were very pleased to be all on the same floor. Jade showed us our rooms and I realized I was the only one without a bed. I was really bummed but was trying to make the best out of it. She gave my two very thin pads to sleep on the ground and because my room was also freezing I was getting frustrated. She gave us all heating lamps and dropped off some snacks then left us be. We all were in complete shock of our living situation. All of the appliances are new, but everything was so empty and we were cold hungry and tired. We all piled into Brianna’s room where we went through the emotions of crying and frustration. I guess we didn’t know what to expect but this wasn’t exactly it. My Internet wasn’t working in my room, but it was in everyone else’s room, which was also getting me angry. Jade had told me she was going to have a cable guy come in an hour to fix my internet but it was already around 10pm and I really didn’t want to wait up. We all decided that it would be a good idea just to go to bed and wake up with a fresh positive start. We gave each other hugs and preceded into our own rooms…it was a scary feeling to be alone in our rooms. It was easier when we were all together. I unpacked some of my blankets and tried to make do with the mats and being on the floor. Jade had said I would be getting a bed at the end of the week once some of the other teachers leave so I knew it wasn’t going to be permanent and I just had to deal with it. I brushed my teeth and laid down. I was almost asleep, it was about 11pm and I heard pounding on my door…a ‘thud, thud, thud’…I was startled and figured it was probably the cable guy, which was weird because it was 11pm. I debated whether I should answer it because I was alone and it was so late but Jade had told me he was coming so I decided I would go for it. I slowly opened my door to find a tall Korean man who spoke absolutely NO English. He pointed inside and I asked him if he could fix my Internet. He looked at me confused and said, ‘I speak no English’. I let him in and went to my computer and was fixing the problem. He kept asking me things in Korean and we were both frustrated that we couldn’t understand each other. It took about 5 minutes and I had Internet, and he left. I crawled back onto my mat and prayed that the next day would be better. I was thankful we made it safely and I’m really trying to keep an open mind about everything. We’re here, and when things don’t go our way we need to be patient and know that its all apart of the adventure and more importantly it will get easier. The next morning I realized not I don’t have heat or hot water so I used Tia’s hot water to wash my face. I’m hoping Jade can fix all of my hot water and room issues tonight or else I’m going to have to switch rooms. Once we all got ready for the day we went down the hall to talk to another teacher in our group named, Amy. Amy invited us in and showed us her set up. It instantly made us feel so much better about how we will have our rooms set up nicely, it will just take a few weeks. She has been here for about 3 months and seems to really enjoy it. She was helpful on some insight as far as our school goes. I guess for the next few weeks we are just helping set up the new school, moving desks, observing other teachers etc. We were hungry and she told us to go talk to Kevin or Daniel, two boys we know from WSU and see if they recommend any food places. We walked to Kevin’s room and he walked us outside and gave us some direction on how to get into town. It was about a 20min walk. It was cold but really sunny, I really enjoyed walking around and looking at all of the street signs and buildings. Once we got into town there were little food markets, venders and lots of random misc. shops. We found a food place that had pictures on the outside, the pictures looked delicious so we went inside. The ladies that owned the restaurant were really sweet and tried to communicate with us. I pulled out my English to Korean help book and pointed to different words, which really helped. I saw a woman making sushi rolls and pointed to them, and the lady brought me a bunch of rolls, they were soooooo good!!!!!!! Then Tia and Bri got Kimchee soup, so spicy!! And everything came with a lot of side dishes like rice and sweet and spicy kimchee. We were in heaven the food tasted amazing. We got our bill and each of us only paid about $4, food is so cheap here. Then we walked around some more and took a bunch of pictures of the surrounding buildings. Which brings me to now. I’m sitting on Bri’s bed and all of us our blogging and listening to music, waiting for Jade to come and take us shopping for FOOD!! (And hopefully she can fix my heat and water!!) I’m so thankful that I’m here with Tia and Bri; we all were saying how we were so lucky to be here together. Being in Asia is so different then home. But that’s what makes it exciting.
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