My First Week

This post is going to be a long one. I arrived in Incheon over a week ago. I had a pickup from the airport and I was brought to a hotel which is where i met my new boss. He set me up in a room and told me that I will be moving into my apartment tomorrow and then he left. Coming off of a 15 hour plane ride I wasn't expecting on being left to myself for another day. So I decided to walk around the city. The city of Incheon can be described as time square x10. Everywhere I walked the lights and neon signs were so bright that it seemed as if the sun was still out. As I continued to walk around the city I noticed something about the people I was passing on the streets, they were all noticing me. Almost every person I passed was staring at me and smiling. Some even came up to me and asked me where I was from and also my age. Even though I was alone I wanted to go to a bar and have a drink but I had been awake for over 30 hours and I needed my sleep so I went back to my hotel.

Day 2
I had to wait until 5:30 but I finally was being moved into my apartment. My boss, and principal of the school, picked me up and drove me to the building. In the car I learned that there was another teacher that arrived the same day that I dad and she was moving in as well. I asked my boss if he could introduce me to her after he helped move her in and he said that he would. My apartment is... amazing! It is a large studio apartment that actually has a second floor that is open to the rest of the apartment, kind of like a long and wide balcony. It comes with a bed, tv, kitchen, washing machine, video screen doorbell, heated floors and an enourmous window that takes up an entire wall. Shocked in how nice the apartment was I began to move in, knowing that I would be meeting the other teacher in just a few minutes. My boss then brought me up to the 12th floor to meet my new coworker. When I entered the apartment I was surprised to see that there were actually two girls. I was introduced to Helen, my coworker, and Gerldean, her twin sister who had been living in korea for the past 2 months. I talked to them both and learned that they were from Canada and that they were planning on going out to the bars tonight. At that moment there was a knock from the door, it was another girl about my age, Ferrin. It turned out that she was one of my Coworkers as well and she asked if I had a costume to wear to go out in tonight. I did not so she said she would bring me to E-Mart which is a huge shopping mall here in Incheon. Ferrin showed me around the city and store and explained the differences in the culture compared to the U.S. I also learned that she was from Rochester, NY which is only an hour away from where I live back home. So I bought a costume and we headed out to Seoul for the night, I had only arrived to my apartment 40 minutes earlier. In Seoul we met some of Helen's sister's friends at someones apartment. There were about 10 other westerners that were there and they were all very eager to introduce themselves me. Eventually we headed out to the bar and started drinking at a pace that I can only describe as not healthy. There is too much to tell about that night in Seoul so I will skip ahead a few hours. At one point I got waved over to a table by a group of Korean girls that we excited to talk to an American guy. I had trouble communicating but their English was strong enough that we were able to joke around and laugh. 20 minutes passed and I realized that I didn't know where my coworkers had gone to. I frantically looked around the bar but I couldn't find them. I went outside and could only find 3 people that I met at the party earlier, only friends of friends of my coworkers. I explain my situation to them and they offered to help me find my coworkers. Not having their phone numbers we made a chain of calls to try to track them down. It turned out that our large group hand split off into 4 groups and no one could get a hold of anyone. I also realized that I had no idea how to get home. The subway to Seoul took 45 minutes and I had no idea what subway stop I lived at and even my address or how to get to my building. I was completely lost and terrified. One of the people at the party offered to let me stay at his place until we could figure this out in the morning which is what we had to do.

Days Following
The next day Cam, the persons apartment I had slept at, and I got a hold of Helen and Ferrin and I found out how I was going to get home. Later I found out that Ferrin got mixed up from Helen, my other new coworker, and they both thought that I was with the other. My first whole night in Korea was an interesting one. From then on Ferrin has taken me under her wing. I am very lucky that she is so willing to show me around. She has taught me common words, explained Korean culture, showed me interesting things to do, taken me to get food and offers good conversation. She does not know it yet but we are going to be sidekicks whether she wants to or not, to bad for her.
The next day was my first day of work. I wake up at 7am, 5pm for those of you in New York, and half to meet with my coworkers at 8:10 in our buildings main lobby. We have to take a bus to work and that is an experience in itself. Lets just say that the bus drivers are crazy aggressive and that Americans would pay money for the experience if it were in a theme park. I arrive at the school and I found out that I will receive no training. They give me a list of what to go over for the day and shove me in the class. I improvised a lot, I have 7 kindergartners and 2 Elementary students. They are amazing and entertaining and make the day go by fast.
I just realized that I have been writing for a while and that I am skipping over alot of things, It will be better if I tell the rest later on. I'll talk to everyone soon.