Day One: Only in Korea do lamp posts play music

We are officially in Seoul now, meaning that we have survived the hellish day of epic traveling. Actually, today's trip was pretty low key (for the most part). Set up a webshots account. If things go according to plan, each of us should have a separate album. We're probably going to have to do multiple accounts or something. We'll figure it out. Anyway, the pictures can be found here, and I'll set a permanent link up on the blog when I'm not completely jetlagged.

So apparently somehow we didn't get seat reservations for this flight. Thus, we left for SFO very early so that we could try to get seats together. It worked more or less. The guy at the Asiana counter did a lot of work to try to seat us together. Mia and I sat together. James and Halmony sat together. Only Umma sat alone. It's all good. I slept for a fourth of the trip anyway.

I'm going to try to not blog for too long so I can get some OCI stuff done (I actually got some of it done on the plane, yay.) I cannot post without doing the random highlights of the trip thus far:

1. So you know how most travelers know to take the laptops out of the bag before running it through the X-Ray machine? Today Umma insisted that we should not do that. So, Mia and I, being the kind and obedient daughters that we are, went along with it. Of course, this meant that we held up the SFO security line as they had to rerun all of our stuff a second and even third time. I think James had a number of problems of his own because of all of the wires and small electrical devices that he absolutely had to bring for his DS. We're a fun family to travel with.

2. As we're sitting in the airport waiting for our plane to board, Umma and Mia decided to have a game of "let's make fun of what other people are wearing in the airport." It's a fun game and I'm sure anyone who's ever played it before can attest to it. However, while they were playing the game, they turned over to ME and held off for a while:



The picture does not have the full effect of my travel gear because Mia didn't get my bright blue pants in the picture. I think you get the point though.

Also, yeah I found that pirate Hello Kitty doll at the airport and had to get it. I think this reaches a new low of random souvenir purchases, but whatever.

Other than the panic my lovely brother caused over his DS stylus, that was about it before we left.

The plane ride was long. Watched Wolverine and To Sir With Love (So excited, Star Trek on the way back). Worked on cover letter talking points for a while. Read some of my book. Made fun of people with Mia. I managed to airplane sleep for four hours, which is impressive because I usually don't sleep for that long on the plane. That's about it.

The flight attendants on Asiana are very hardcore. They were always going up and down the aisles giving us drinks, food, hot towels, etc. A lot of food. Good food. Korean food. We were in airplane food heaven.

We made it to Seoul and things actually went relatively smoothly. No lost luggage. James thought he lost his passport, but didn't. Good times. Auntie Maureen came to the airport to help us get oriented and get to the place we're staying. We rented cell phones and then tried to get seat assignments for our trip back so we didn't run into the same problem again. That part didn't go too well, actually.

We had to wait for a while for the bus that took us to the area our apartment is in. During this time, I realized that our family did a surprisingly good job at packing light (well, light for our family at least).



The bus ride wasn't that long. I think it took around 30 minutes. We got to the place we're staying. I guess it's like an apartment for foreigners or something? I don't know. It's actually cheaper to do this than it would have been for us to stay at the dorms. It's also a good thing Umma planned this apartment thing out because they ran out of dorm space at Yonsei.

We're in a three bedroom apt for now. I think we move to a two-bedroom in ten days or something. Not sure how it works out. This place is pretty intense, though. There is a big lap pool in the basement, a gym, a driving range. I think there might even be a 7 11 in this complex somewhere too. Will have to take full advantage of these amenities. Here are some pictures of the room though. It's very nice:





Yeah, definitely not going to complain about the whole not being in the dorms thing.

Anyway, we got settled a little and then headed out for food. On the way out, we found out that the streetlamp outside of this complex plays music. Only in Korea do streetlamps play music.

We got back from eating about an hour ago and everyone's either passed out or unpacking. I'll save that unpacking business for tomorrow. Maybe.

Tomorrow I need to go to campus to take a placement exam. Even though I did get an award for being a top student in my class two years ago at Korea University, I'll probably end up in Mia's uber beginner class. We'll see how that goes.

Oh, also I made it onto a couple of the law journals, so I'm super excited. Just need to make a quick decision. hate making decisions.