First day(s) in Korea

This is my flight experience and first night in Seoul:

Plane ride from Portland to Japan: Plane ride was some 10 hours long (wasn't very fun, but could have been worse). Northwest Airlines had this really cool entertainment system where you could choose from several options on what sort of entertainment you wanted. They had like 20 movies, 20 CD's and a couple games. I watched three movies, listened to an hour of music and played an hour of games -- made the ride go quickly. The guy sitting next to me really had some trouble staying awake. He was asleep by the time the plane moved away from the terminal, woke up during takeoff to play his PSP and then back to sleep 20 minutes later. I felt bad going to the bathroom because I had to wake him up every time. Because of the time difference, I was scheduled to arrive at 9:15PM local time and didn't want to be up all night. To combat my fatigue, I drank some 10 cups of black coffee. I discovered that the airplane also had TV shows when I looked over at someone else's screen to see Jim and Pam from the Office talking. I promptly searched for where these were and found out they also showed old Nickelodeon shows. I saw that one option was Kenan and Kel and I hadn't seen it since I was in middle school, so I felt that I had to watch one episode with my last hour on the plane. The entertainment system didn't have a scene skip option that I was spoiled with from years of DVD use, which made it so I had to fast forward past the other Nick shows. Amazingly, that took me twenty minutes to get through like 8 random episodes of other shows and then the plane started the descent which meant that entertainment would turn off shortly. In conclusion, I hate fast forwarding. I never made it to Kenan and Kel, stopping instead to watch a couple minutes of Angry Beavers...

Narita, Japan: I spent about an hour and a half in Japan. I was really really tired (I think it was about midnight back home) and I had been up since around 7:45AM home time. While I was waiting, I met with this Korean guy named Sang that studied at the University of Oregon. I talked to him for a bit, which was helpful and kept my awake. The funniest part about the airport was the recycling system: they had bottles, cans, pet bottles (I have no idea what these are) and then "other." The other section contained paper and some plastic (the kind on CD's), but not really trash. I had this apple from the flight and was very confused as to where it should go since I figured "other" was mostly just recyclables. I had to ask the desk if it was okay to throw my apple away.

Seoul: The plane ride from Narita was perfectly fine. The scheduled time from Narita to Incheon was about three hours. I just couldn't stay awake so I maybe grabbed about a half-hour of sleep but was fully conscious as we started a 45 minute descent because I could see city lights. Riding into Korea was really interesting because there was a huge collection of lights from some city and then MILES of absolute blackness. I couldn't see any shred of light. I thought there would just be less lights and not a complete absence.

This might be a good time to mention the ambivalence of my luck for the day. The night before I left, I realized that I had the address for the person I was staying with (Ada, I met her through a networking site online for travelers), but I had no other information. I wrote an email to her requesting her phone number so I could get in touch with her if I got lost, or if there was a problem, etc, the morning I left. In addition to this, her directions had me catching a bus at 9:20PM with the bus service stopping at 10:00PM, according to the website. I was a little freaked out because if I missed the bus (my plane was scheduled to arrive at 9:15), a taxi cab to the address would cost around $45 because it was about an hour outside of the airport. Narita didn't have free internet (because of this, I like Japan MUCH less...PDX had free internet) so I wouldn't even get to check my email until I actually arrived in Seoul (assuming Incheon Airport had free internet). Lastly, my directions were written in English so I had to find the bus going to Silim station without knowing how to respond to any questions other than to repeat "Silim station." Unless they happened to ask me if I understand Korean (which I can politely inform them 'no.'

I mentioned this all to Sang while we were waiting at Narita. He said he would love to help me get wherever I need to, so I figured that was some amazing news and an excellent stroke of luck. Him and I rushed through customs at Incheon (I wanted to look at the stores, signs and so forth) trying to get to baggage claim. At this point I was pretty much awake 20 some hours. Just remember that before I share the next details. Anyway, Sang had his parents meeting him outside the airport. He told me that if I needed anything, he would be willing to help me out and wrote his phone number of a random piece of paper. As we waited for our baggage, I didn't see mine come up and I could tell he was anxious to leave since he just wanted to get home. I told him that I would be fine, that I had his phone number, and I didn't mind waiting for my bag alone. He said bye and I waited for another five minutes before I concluded my bag was lost. It turns out that in my haze, I forgot what my bag looked like and it had been there the whole time (I even saw it go by a couple times).

I grabbed my bag and rushed to figure out if I could make the bus for Silim Station. First thing that happened to me when I arrived was to see taxi drivers ask me where I am trying to get to. I told them that I am trying to take the bus, but they obviously want to gain customers, so they tell me over and over "No, taxi is better. Pay cash? Cab over there," and then they would try to help me take my stuff to their cab. Just outside the doors there were these booths with a big "Bus Tickets" sign...each one had a "CLOSED" sign outside the window. There were probably six of these stations.

So I figure I am screwed. A taxi driver sees my confusion and comes over to ask me if I want to take a cab. I tell him that I need the internet to figure out where I am going (since I wasn't comfortable showing up at Ada's place without her foreknowledge). So he walks me over to a bench and tells me to check the internet so he can help me out. I am sure his intentions were good, but I felt that no matter what the answer was, he would tell me that his taxi cab was the best way to get there. Nonetheless, I sit down and turn my computer on. Sang had kindly written Ada's address in Korean, which also happened to be the paper with his phone number, so the taxi driver stood holding it while I powered up my computer. I got no wireless signal...

I also noticed that my battery life was roughly 1/4 (maybe 30 minutes of power or so) so I quickly turned it off and thanked him. I walked around the arrival area a little longer to see if I could maybe catch Sang before he left so I wouldn't need to call him. No such luck. So I walked back inside to get to a phone and call him. As I casually walked up to the phone, I couldn't find the paper that had his phone number on it, so I kicked myself for walking away from the taxi driver without grabbing it back (I found it later, I was just tired and put it in a weird pocket. Also, I was walking a lot, so each use of walk is justified). I thought I was in some major trouble because that paper also had Ada's address. So here I was at the airport without her address, without her phone number, without Sang and without his phone number.

I had to sit down for a couple minutes and try to collect myself. I saw some people with their computers out, so I decided I would need to bite the bullet and pay for an hour of the internet to try to get things back on track. My luck immediately turned because I found free internet, which was maybe the third most important thing for me at that time. I checked my email and found that Ada had emailed me her phone number, so I hastily wrote it down and then grabbed some phone numbers that my friend JiBin supplied for me. I walked over to the pay phone and called Ada to let her know I was still at the airport and that the bus wasn't running, but I vowed to make it to her place that night!

I really didn't want to see the same taxi drivers again. Although I felt I would have to take a taxi, I still held some hope that maybe I could sweet-talk the bus driver to let me ride without a ticket (buses were still running, but the ticket stations were closed) or to pay with cash. As I was walking by, I amazingly saw the bus I needed to take. I jumped in line and asked "Silim station? Won?" He told me "Yes, 8 thousand" (about $8). How lucky is that?

I sit down, too weary to fully appreciate the whole experience of going from lost in Seoul to finding direction.

I got on the bus and just rested my head against the window. This woman came to sit down next to me, so I smiled at her and asked if she speaks English. She laughed at me and then said that she was one of the flight attendants on my plane from Narita to Seoul and speaks English. Her name is Jiyeong (spelling that phonenically) and she let me use her phone to call Ada to update her on progress. She was getting off at the station right before Silim, so we had about an hour to talk. I don't remember much of what we discussed, but she didn't recognize the word "favorite" so when I asked her what her favorite movie was, or her favorite thing to do, she looked at me confused. The only other option I had was to ask "what is the best movie...for you?" The answers were pretty funny as she told me how it depended on her mood, genre, weekday or weekend and so forth.

The bus arrived at around 12:30AM local time. I can't remember a time that I was so tired and yet ready to go out and explore the city. Ada met me at the bus stop and we grabbed a taxi over to her place. I took some pictures of her apartment, but haven't found where I put the cable to connect my camera to my computer. I am pretty sure I packed it, but haven't really torn apart my stuff to look throughly. The best thing thus far is her bathroom: it is a single room with a toilet, shower and a washing machine. Yeah -- a washing machine. Caught me off guard. And when I say shower, I don't mean a bath tub with shower, I mean that whole room has a drain. I fell asleep pretty quickly in a comfortable bed (she found it in the trash outside) and stayed warm all night. I woke up around 8:30AM, fully rested and ready to start my first day in Korea...