Incoming in Seoul

Not much to write home about, but inquiring minds want to know…

Made it to Seoul. A little sore from the plane ride (12 hours in a middle seat wasn’t exactly what I was looking forward to on the way there) and very much exhausted from the huge internal clock shake-up, but I’m here.

I was looking forward to at least talking with one of the people in our group on the long plane ride over, but ‘twas not to be. We were all over the plane, most of us in middle seats—by the time I checked into the flight, those were all that were left. Somehow my iPod (which didn’t have enough juice to last the flight), my copy of Les Misérables in print, and several of the in-flight games were company enough for the whole 12 hours. I don’t care how long the flight is, but sleeping is completely secondary—I sleep until the first beverage service starts (or shortly thereafter), and then can’t sleep for the rest of the flight.

Hey, I have issues. So what?

Apparently the flight attendants can recognize Korean people, Americanized or not, in an instant (Korean Air, doncha know). So of course, they start speaking to me in Korean right away. While I had some trouble at the check-in counter, I think I fudged my way through it…granted, the only things I had to say were my drink and lunch orders, so…that’s not really saying much. At least I didn’t have to ask them to switch to English, if that’s any consolation.

And they may have been smiling when I refused wine with my lunch, but underneath that polite façade I could easily see them thinking, “Is this guy crazy?” Or whatever the Korean equivalent of that is. “이상은 사람 이지…?” For all I know, I just botched that horribly. More where that came from over the next month, believe me.

We’re staying at Ehwa Womans’ University in Seoul. (For those of you reading, no, that’s not a typo—I’m too tired to explain why.) And from what I can tell in my plane-induced delirious state, it’s as gorgeous as the women who go there. (You can slap me for the lame comparison later.) Apparently it’s coed during the summer, so even the girls in our group (who outnumber the guys roughly 2:1) can go hang out with those guys once they get sick of The Fantastic Four.

Let’s talk about our group for a minute. There’s 10 of us on this trip, including me, but not counting our professor and TA. From what little I remember from our group’s demographics, there are only four guys (whom, as you’ve probably figured out by now, I’ll call The Fantastic Four from here on out). Eight of us are Asian (two of whom, including me, are Korean). One of us hasn’t ever been abroad before this trip. Another did this program last summer, but went to Japan. A couple of people were supposed to go to Japan this summer, but got switched over after a certain earthquake probably left them shouting “Fuk…ushima” for at least a few days. And—if you’ll pardon the way I phrase this—there’s a white guy who knows Korea better than I do. Apparently he even speaks it better than I do.

There’s goal #1 for this trip right there: learn to speak Korean better than the white guy.

From my rather limited interaction with a few of them at the gate, I think we’ve got a pretty good group. Now I just hope I can adjust my internal clock so I’ll be raring to go by tomorrow.