Fade in.
We see Cayce sitting in bed, a bed with lavender frills and embroidered lavender flower blossoms upon a lavender quilt and lavender frill pillows.
Gwangju, South Korea. The time: 9:33 PM. The date: February 19, 2010.

It took 23 hours to get here. We flew Asiana Airlines from Chicago to Seoul, which was a 13 hour flight. I slept most of the time, minus dinner (delish), and a snack (tomato, carrot, lettuce sandwich), Surrogates (very underwhelming), and breakfast (omelet fest 5000). I surely don’t feel like I slept all that time, but I don’t remember doing anything else. I won’t bore you with all the travel details because nothing of any real interest occurred, but I will say that every Korean we have met so far has been extremely helpful and kind.

We got picked up by the airport by a fellow whose name so much resembled the man we interviewed with and had been in contact with up until this point, that we didn’t understand why this man could speak very little English when it had been flawless up until that point. Turns out it was someone different. He took us to our apartment, which is barely larger than our previous bedroom. The bed’s pieces were laying on the floor and the mattress was up against the wall and we didn’t have even a moment to look at the other 3 feet of the apartment before we were whisked away to the Avalon Kumho campus. We met two Korean teachers whose English was pretty limited. One of them (whose name we still can’t figure out) and the man who picked us up from the airport took us to lunch at some unnamed restaurant near our place. We sat in a little room with its own door on the floor on little pillows. The floors were heated and it felt great.

There was a lot of awkward silence and a lot of the two Koreans amusingly watch me and Andrew try to use chopsticks with grace. We had some kind of soup thing made of a ton of veggies and a meat which I originally thought was dog. I’d heard it from so many people as a sort of joke that maybe when I heard “duck” pronounced with an accent the idea of eating a puppy leaked into my subconscious. So the entire time I’m eating I’m try to mentally force the idea out of my head that I was eating Shiloh. After lunch, Andrew and I were left alone in the van and after I turned to him and said “I can’t believe the first thing they fed us was dog” he informed me I had misheard. Glad that’s off my conscience.

We then went to Bongsundong campus, which is the larger one where we thought we would be at and met the teachers at Reading Star and Avalon. They were all really nice and welcoming and all seemed to be having a good time. We met Sue, the director of Reading Town with whom we had previously interviewed, and Joey, who we had been corresponding with. Joey took us around and sat with us for about an hour and answered all our questions.

We were then taken back to our apartment where someone came over and installed the bed and the “closet,” which is really some poles with curtains over them. But I like the way it looks. He then took us to LotteMart where we bought some essentials and some food. Unfortunately, since we don’t live with any other teachers in our building, there’s nothing to be passed down to us. Oh well. A $2 gold pot with a plastic handle can do wonders, I’m sure.

(Interlude)

I'm currently getting a wireless signal from our small, cold bathroom. So I'm taking advantage of the Internet while we have it!

It's now Sunday evening. Andrew and I spent the weekend exploring this part of the neighborhood. Since no one knows where we live, we were on our own but passed one of the teachers we'd met the night before walking down the street. So they're around here somewhere. I think I've watched more TV in the last two days than I have the whole year previous. There is such a random mixture of English movies and shows on Korean cable . I went from watching the re-make of The Parent Trap with Lindsey Lohan to watching a marathon of Without a Trace.

It's not as foreign here as I would have thought. I feel safe here, I feel comfortable. I'm only nervous when it comes to trying to order food without knowing what I'm getting or how to order. But isn't that the fun of living in a new culture?

We met a lot of the teachers at both campuses in Gwangju. Tomorrow one of the staff is taking us to the hospital to get tests in order to get our alien registration cards. After those come, we should be able to get cell phones and Internet and finally be able to communicate. I'll post pictures as soon as I can.

Our love to everyone back home!

Kimchi!

To see just what we've gotten ourselves into, we took a trip to Asia Mart yesterday on a mission for kimchi, one of the foods Korea is most known for. Basically, kimchi is pickled vegetables. I stumbled upon a fun fact while Googling 'kimchi': It's so popular that the Korea Aerospace Research Institute developed space kimchi for all those homesick astronauts out there. The most popular vegetable to use is cabbage, and that's the kind we got.



We had to search everywhere in Asia Mart because we had no idea where to find it. Finally, I saw an older man and woman getting into the refrigerators by the fish counter and pulling out a large jar of what I thought looked like kimchi. As I stood behind them and waited, the old man turns and looks at me and says, "Kimchi! You want kimchi!?" in an excited/ surprised voice. Jackpot!

When we opened it, we tentatively smelled it to decide whether or not to proceed. It's a subtle peppery smell which is not completely foreign. I'm still not sure what to think of it. The spices are good, but the veggie taste is what gets me. I guess if cabbage is not slathered in mayo or coated in butter, I don't much care for it. However, I think it's a taste I can get used to. There are many other veggies used in kimchi, too. Perhaps I would prefer cucumber kimchi!

We also got a little juice box from Korea which was banana flavored soy milk. It was good!

Anyway, only 10 days left before we board the plane!