Arrival.

And here I am! South Korea!

I have been here almost a week by this point and just settling in. This is an account of my first few hours in the country.

As the plane touched down, any nerves or sadness about leaving friends and family behind were temporarily suspended by a wave of excitement that threatened to have me cartwheeling out of the plane. I controlled myself enough to exit with a typically British air of reservation, nodding a brief “thank-you” to the flight attendants.

Due to concerns around MERS (or Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, thank-you pamphlet), entry into Incheon Airport required passengers to fill out a short survey and check boxes next to any symptoms they may be presenting. Upon handing my survey to to the quarantine agent, I was given an introduction to the friendliness and good-natured attitude that many people have shown me in this first week. “Awww”, she pouted, as she pointed to the “stuffed nose” box I had checked. She sniffed theatrically and the pout broke into a grin. I grinned back at first, then sensing the severity of the high security environment, tried to indicate that it was only a minor sniff but she shrugged, popped a thermometer in my ear until it beeped to her satisfaction, and sent me on my way with the aforementioned pamphlet in hand.

After clearing immigration and claiming my baggage – all remarkably easy with the correct documents – I met my driver. Or at least, I met a driver, standing next to a sign with my name on. When I waved at him he just looked at me, visibly confused, until another person emerged frantically from behind him and greeted me. We made some very cursory introductions during which he pointed at the sign to make sure I was the right person. We made to leave the airport together. During our exit, he looked at my backpack and frowned with a “pfft”. I was ready to turn down his offer to carry them but instead he showed me a picture of… myself. Was he confirming that he was my driver? Was he reassuring himself he’d picked up the right person? Perhaps he thought I looked different in the picture (I didn’t). Whatever his purpose was with this gesture, I will never know. The journey into Yongin was a long one and during the trip we didn’t speak. Not. One. Word. Maybe it was my place to start a conversation, maybe he felt he ought to speak English but he didn’t know any. No matter, speaking wasn’t a priority. The scenery crossing the water from Incheon Airport towards Seoul was beautiful and the man’s driving was absolutely terrifying.

Beautiful sunset over Incheon as we drive, at great speed and personal risk, towards Yongin.

I don’t think it’s the place of any particular stereotype to accurately summarise this man’s driving but having observed the very organised traffic system here and being driven a few times by the school director, I think its safe to say his driving was not indicative of the nation or its people. I’ll let you know next time I take a taxi if there is any relationship there. Speaking of the school director, she was there to meet me from the taxi. She explained that actually, they were expecting me a little later (probably thwarted by the speed of said driver) and school was still in session so she was unable to leave.

At school, I met P, the other teacher there. Together, we got some food from a Japanese noodle shop downstairs. After some hasty induction information which my travel addled brain discarded immediately, school finished and we were able to head to the apartment, via a bedding shop to pick up a duvet. P lives across the hall from me and was able to show me how to get things running. By this point, I hadn’t slept more than a couple of hours since departing from the UK over 24 hours previously, which is why for the first few hours of trying to sleep in my new apartment, I shivered uncontrollably under my duvet. P had shown me how to turn on the heating, but it was around 3am before I remembered how to do it myself.

Almost a week later, things are much improved, but details of that will have to be for another post. It’s the weekend, time to explore!