I'm a....

Seoul (wo)Man!
Here I am! I made it! I am so excited and proud that I was able to navigate three international flights by myself (and God, of course) and not have any big problems! There was a screaming baby on two flights (the same one) and the Shanghai Airport apparently doesn't believe in air conditioning, but all in all it wasn't so bad.
My principal, Steve Massiah, picked me up at the airport and drove me to my apartment. My apartment is quite big for what I was expecting! I have an extra room with a desk in it, but it doesn't have A/C, so I won't be spending that much time in there right now. It is HUMID! The only time I am not sweating is in my apartment and when my classroom cools down enough.

I took a video literally 10 minutes after I got into my apartment, but I'm having trouble uploading it. So, due to the time constraint of my laptop dying, I am going to have to get back to you on that.

This morning, I woke up at 6am and immediately made a list of things I need to get at the store (which is across the street, through the park, over the rainbow bridge, and through the other park.) It's about a 7 minute walk. I put a lot of my clothes away and decided to head on downstairs because I was being picked up to go take a quick tour of my school and be able to work in my classroom. I left my apartment early to walk a few blocks around my apartment to see what is around me. There is a Dunkin Doughnuts, Baskin Robbins, Paris Baguette, 4ish coffee places, 10ish Korean Restaurants, a bank, 2 hair salons, a cell phone store and 2 Seven-eleven type places. That is just in the bottom of MY building. Next door has a movie theater, stores, the bank I'll use, and other useful things! I couldn't work up the courage to go into Dunkin Doughnuts and order a coffee myself, so I went without this morning.
I met up with three other brand new -to-Korea teachers. Sarah Wood will be teaching 4th grade this year, lives in my building, teaches next door to me, and is awesome. She is from Asheville, NC so I told her about our Christmas there. She is really sweet.
We decided that the two of us would stick together and man am I glad!
Matt and Charlie are two other new teachers that live in the apartments by the store (that is the 7 min walk away). Another Matt picked us and my co-teacher, Jeff, up at 10 and we headed up to school. Matt showed us where the bus stop is so we will know for when school starts. We took a tour of our school (it's awesome!) and then went to our rooms to begin working, where I promptly skyped mom and dad. :) We were treated to a delicious Korean lunch with dumplings, kimbap, fried pork with korean sauce, and other delicious treats. It was great!
We then went back to school and I actually worked then! Sarah and I decided that we wanted to leave early so we braved the bus (where the driver didn't give us the appropriate change back (he acutally gave us NO change). But we made it. We then changed out of our sweaty clothes and into clothes we didn't mind being sweaty in and made our way to the subway station.
Yes, that's right! My first adventure in Korea! Sarah and I mastered (for the most part) the subway system and went to Insedong. There are many small neighborhoods that are made up of mostly traditional housing. We walked around for a while, got completely exhausted when our jet lag finally kicked in, and had to stand the majority of the way home on the subway because people were coming home from work and the subway was packed. We then walked to the store because we both HAD to get an alarm clock so we aren't late tomorrow morning. Sarah has a great app on her iPad that is a korean translator. So she typed in "alarm clock," in comes up in Korean, and will say it as well. When I get my phone, that is the first app I get! It was so helpful!
I won't be getting my own internet (I'm borrowing from someone or some place right now) my cell phone, or my transportation pass, until next week sometime.  Pictures are to come later!
So for now, I am signing off because my computer is about out of juice and my eyes won't stay open.
God is good all the time! All the time, God is good!
-Sara