Hello everyone! Last night I arrived in Seoul at around 5:30 p.m. after a very long plane ride (understatement). Wah! Never going to fly via a domestic company to Asia ever again though. Such terrible service when compared to Asia airliners (I flew United). The plane ride was interesting though. I sat next to this Korean businessman from Germany and an old woman who emigrated to the US from Korea about 50 years ago. She was hilarious and just talked nonstop about her grandchildren and how "the second one" was dumb because he didn't go to Harvard (Boston College instead) so she constantly threatens to send him to North Korea. It was great. She left her husband to go travel alone in Korea even though she doesn't have any relatives left here anymore. Anyway, it was cool. The three of us discussed basic life stuff and the Korean situation, the American dollar devaluation, etc. At the end of the flight the lady and the man wished me well and told me to go make lots of money.
haha.
It is pretty cool though knowing how much my school is respected as pretty much the best ESL private school in the country. Training= so far so good! Had the first day today and I suppose I can see why some people call it intense, but I guess they are comparing it to other ESL programs or something. I think it's good. I like being pushed and I don't think that it's anything out of the ordinary at all. In fact, I think RA training at UMass was harder, but then again today was only the first day and it was primarily consumed with the health test and what not. Woowoo! We had our grammar and reading tests in addition to the company culture/rules exam today and a lot of people did not pass. Luckily, they give you a chance to take these again tomorrow but I passed so yay.
So far the people I have met are all awesome. My roommate is cool and the guys next door are coool too, one of them is from Ireland and the other one is from Kansas. The Kansas guy Ryan, actually had a flight with me from San Francisco to Seoul. The way we met was hilarious. I sat down right next to him near the gate and proceeded to open my laptop to the e-mail between us (I was told that there was someone from my training on my flight and so I e-mailed him prior). He was like, "Christina??" haha and that was that. Eliminated the awkwardness of going up to random American boys and asking them if they were Ryan haha, so that was good.
Tonight I ate with co-workers and then proceeded to get lost a bit in the city looking for outlet converters. Good stuff. It's cool that my Hangul is actually better than I thought. (I had to help translate for people!)
Right now I'm drinking soju (which I mistook for beer at the convenience store) with a little mix of beer. One of the guys from my training, Kuan, just left and I'm going to get going and take a shower in a few because I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow! (It's 10:51 p.m. here currently). It should be cool though because Kuan and Ryan and some others are into soccer. I'm pumped for world cup and some random play time.
Wooo! Ahnyoung gae sayo!
