A Stranger in a Strange Land

* Note to all readers. The spell check is not working. Do not judge. I am paying for this internet and must be quick.

I'm not going to lie, I thought my Mother was going to break down at the airport and then cause us all to cry, but I'll have you know that she didn't shed a tear. However, when I waved to my family after going through security, I turned around and started bawling. Seriously people stared. I boarded the plane with no tears on my face though. Then my plane almost crashed. There was a time when every passenger was lifted off their seats and surely would have hit the overhead if not for the seatbelts. I expected those yellow oxygen bags to come crashing down and I selfishly thought, "oh my god, I'm not going to make it to Korea." I did.

The flight over was awesome. No really. Asiana Air, you're the shiz. No one was sitting beside me and I got to sleep spread out. Then came the food. Korean food equals yum. However, my mother's strong advice to not eat anything I didn't recognize went unheeded. Sorry Mom, I have no idea what I ate, but damn.

When I landed in Korea, it was like every Korean was smiling and I thought everything was beautiful. That cloud, that road, that trashcan. Everything was like a dream come true. My recruiter picked me up and drove me to the Gimpo airport where I flew to Gwangju. With my heart still singing, I was picked up by my employer at the Gwangju airport and then we started driving. Now, I was already a little scared that this had all been some scheme to get me in the sex slave world and I was nervous about driving in the dark with an unknown man in a strange place. You know that scene in "Finding Nemo" where Marlin and Dory are following that light that turns out to be the uglist scariest fish ever? Marlin says "good feeling gone" and at that moment riding in that car I couldn't agree with him more. We drove through the "military" district. Fantastic. I didn't die. I wasn't sold into the sex slave trade. But I was still terrified. The lines on the road are just for decorative purposes and those flashy light things? Red means the same as green. Apparently.

I arrived at my apartment at around 10pm. I had been travelling for 24 hours and just wanted to sleep. You will soon see pictures of Naju and my apartment when I get internet in my apartment. For now it's just me in the PC Bang (internet place. why it's called bang I don't know).

There have been times in the last two days where I've questioned what I've done. I can't speak the language, I've already lost three pounds due to the fact that I have no idea what I'm eating and don't have a refrigerator in my apartment, and I haven't had a conversation in two days. Everyday is a challenge. Situations I never would have expected have come my way. How the hell do I ride the bus when I can't read the sign as to where I'm going.  Is that cereal? Awesome, I have no frig, therefore no milk. Forget it, I'll eat it with my hands. But whenever I walk out my door and into this Hangul (Korean alphabet) decorated world I get this rush, this sense of endless adventure that is unexplainable. It puts me at ease and I know without a single doubt that I have made a great decision. The person that got off the plane is evolving into someone who is learning the true meaning of travel. Overcoming my fear of embaressment and the fact that no, I don't know all there is to know. I am a traveller. A lifelong learner of all things strange. A person who is a stranger in a strange land and is ok with that.