And it begins

Hi all!

Here are some pictures and random notes on life thus far in Korea.
The story begins in Seattle- Here I am waiting to check in for our flight with all our luggage ( it should be noted this is the second line we waited in- you would have thought the grouping of Koreans in front of the Korean Air counter would have tipped us off, but alas twas not so. . .)

Katy and I arrived in Korea on Friday evening. We and all our glorious luggage waited to be found by Sione. Though I believe Katy and I are relatively intelligent chicas we somtimes have lapses- such as arriving in a foreign country, an 11 hour flight from familiarity, without so much as a number for anyone in our new home. We waited. . .and waited. . .and waited. . . hoping our new boss would indeed find the two blondes marked by the mountain of luggage in the airport. Thankfully, he did arrive after battling the rush hour traffic, which I'm sure must blow seattle out of the water. Random fact- Seoul and its surrounding area contains 20 million people, which translates to: 1/3 of Koreas population is all within 45 minutes of Seoul.

Sione (the principle at our hagwon, aka after-school school- these kids are ALWAYS in school) took us out for our first Korean meal before dropping us at our motel where we spent our first coupe of nights before our apartment was ready. Motels/hotels here are not like those in the US- we were SO glad to be in a apartment when we were able to move in on sunday.

As to the food- thus far it has been tasty, so long as we were accompanied by Koreans to order for us. The picture below is of a meal as it is cooking at our table that Katy and I ordered when we went out on our own- looks like the other meals we had eaten yet wasn't quite as tasty- as Katy says- eating is always an adventure here. Anyways- the meal cooks at your the table right in front of you and once it has cooked, every one enjoys. Also, the meals here are done "family style".


This next photo is of the reflection of our car in the mirror inside the car elavator- yep thats right, car elavator. Because of the limited land resources Koreans build down- in fact our building has 7 floors underground. Thus the cars are lowered by an elevator to the parking levels below.


Here is a picture of the park outside of our building. It is the central park of Sanbon. The park boasts a small track, tennis courts, basketball courts, outdoor excercise equipment complete with ellipticals and bench presses among other things. Basically its the back yard for all the families in Sanbon- it is back in the evenings (by evening I mean after 10pm) and on Sundays afternoons.


Well that's it for now. More to come later for sure.