7/22/2011 11:50pm Home at Busan Host Family

Well, first post from Korea! The rest of the plane ride was not so bad. I spent about three hours or so doing Rosetta Stone (brain was fried after that), and sort of slept on and off for the rest of the flight.

 (Sorry Steven, but this was the best I could do. :P Haha... She was the cutest, though.)

First pic in Korea.

We finally landed, and took a couple pics.

 Naturally, the first thing I noticed that were different were the cars. :P

Seoul International... Very, very nice airport. 

Looks like we survived alright... 

The airport had a lot of cultural pics around...

I thought the little anime pic of the service woman was funny, b/c they all looked just like that. They were all pretty tall, too (for Asian women).

Kim Jang Nonim [Elder Kim] met us after we got our luggage. He presented us with gifts: Korean-English Bibles.

For some reason, everyone else's were pink. For some reason, mine in specific was brown. Lucky me... Haha... I quickly wrote my name in mine, just in case someone got them 'mixed up'... Haha....

We killed some time waiting for Raia to fly in from Cali, and then we had some time for dinner and then we were off to Busan. So, we exchanged some of our money and walked around… The first place we hit (naturally) was 7-11.

Actually, I was pretty excited about going to 7-11. I was really looking forward to the drink selection! 

I guess Lotte back home took away some of the surprise... 

Yay! 

Never had a 'pine bud' drink, so I bought it. It ended up tasting like Gatorade. :P And I bought a little rice thingy... It was $.80!! How come they don't have snacks like this in the US? It's so cheap, and so... healthy? But, definitely tasty! I talked Nick S. into getting a Coke to see if it'd taste any different... It didn't. :P

We looked at some of the American fast food places, and were pretty disappointed to see the menus were pretty much the same. Then again, we haven’t left the airport, so maybe that was the reason.

Not too long after, I hear a voice calling ‘Snake’… I don’t suppose anybody in Incheon goes by ‘Snake,’ so I looked around, and my friend from NCFC was beaming and we chatted briefly. She came with the NCFC missions team, and they had just flown in. Not bad… First time in a foreign country, and I already know some people. I was awkward Snake for the moment, though, since I was still processing things and a bit drained. :P

Looking at the food display... I recognized all the food, though. 

All the service women had the same body type... (Well, almost... On my flight there was one that kind of 'stuck out'... Haha...) I think these three were from my flight. They work hard...

We walked around some more, and there was a live dance show… Even had some break-dancing. We’re definitely in Korea.

Seoul International is definitely a pretty awesome airport. We gave part of our luggage to Kim JN so he could take it to our host families in Seoul. In walking out, I took a whole mess of pictures of cars I’ve never seen before. I’ll put a whole album on Facebook just for that… But, there were lots and lots of Hyundais and Kias. Didn’t see a single Japanese car! Though I did see a Lotus and an Audi.

Cars in Korea Album

Some shots out and around Seoul International...

So much architectural eye-candy... 

Nobody knew what this thing was, but it looked like it did something cool. :P

Outside, breathing air in Seoul. It was actually really nice out. [We were warned earlier that weather in Korea would be extremely hot, and even more humid. Deathly humid. Terribly humid. Our trip was right after monsoon season, which is the most uncomfortable time of year to go.]

Korean pay phone. Not sure why, but I thought this was interesting. :P [I remember... The thing takes credit card!]

The service women are SO CUTE. Man. (Wish I took a pic of the lady security guard. :P )

Anyways, we ate dinner in the airport, and then flew over to Busan.

First meal in Korea... Yay! 

I was in the mood for naengmyun, but they didn't have it. So, I got jjajangmyun instead. It was tasty! The noodles were kinda sticky, but it was pretty good. Didn't taste toooo different than it does in the US. A tad sweeter, a little less salty.

By now, we were all pretty dead. The flight was two hours, but once again, I fell asleep while boarding, and when I woke up, we were 10 minutes away. We got off, got our luggage… And then we met our Busan host families!

In need of shower and teeth-brushing. 

Yay! They got the banner printed just for us (well, duh, we're on it...)! They applauded... We felt special.

We were quite exhausted, so it wasn’t the liveliest meeting, but all seemed very nice. I met the father of my host family (some communication issue happened, so Hyeonbee, the daughter, and the mom didn’t quite make it to the airport in time), and he drove us to pick up Hyeonbee and his wife. Finally out and seeing the world… Wasn’t too different. Asians in Asia drive like Asians in the US. Haha… But, the city had lots of neon lights and the excitement of being out gave me another boost of energy. Hyeonbee and her brother both studied in the US as exchange students during high school, so we chatted about school and things. Eventually we got home and I met the brother, Hyawnoo, sorted out my things and took a shower. They had a nice, little room all set up for me, and I got to try some Korean shampoo and body wash.

We’re getting up early tomorrow, then gonna go see some things! Excited… Well, maybe not about the ‘early’ part, but I’m really looking forward to seeing more of Korea!

Pic out of the window of the city... It was beautiful. But, my picture was not. :P