In the land of Hyundais

After nearly 30 hours of travel we arrived safely in Busan, South Korea. From start to finish the travelling part really wasn't TOO horrible. Everything went as smoothly as travelling for 30 hours can go. The plane wasn't as big as the last time we came over, it was a 3-3-3 configuration and Al and I were the only two in one of the middle sections. As the plane was loading up, the seat next to me was staying empty and I prayed to God no one would sit there so I could lie down and sleep most of the way. I got lucky. The plane was mostly full with only a few empty seats back in the pauper area (economy) and the one beside me was one of them, heaven! I popped a Xanax, Al popped his Advil PM and my last view of America went out of sight.

13 hours and 50 minutes, two meals, Crazy Stupid Love, and a few plastic cups of wine later we landed in Seoul, SK. Because of Al's visa situation I was panicking before going through customs. But they didn't say a word, took my fingerprints and picture, stamped our passports (yay! new one!) and sent us on our way. We hopped a shuttle to the smaller airport, Gimpo, to catch our last flight to Busan. Once finally touching down for the last time, a woman from our recruiting agency picked us up and brought us to our new dorm room apartment. It's incredibly nice but extremely small. We have nothing but a bed and a tv stand (no tv) as furniture and one fork, one spoon, one knife and a plate. Awesome.

We ventured out today to a Target-esque store called Home Plus. It's ama-za-zing. Anything and everything we need is in there, and we need a lot. Got some towels, trash can, a sheet for the bed...the basics. All of our house things are still in Japan and we won't be able to go get them for another week and a half so we had to get emergency things. While walking around town I realized that I didn't feel the need to take pictures of anything. To be honest, it looks just like Japan but with Korean on everything instead of Japanese. Obviously, I'm now in a city whereas before we weren't, but architecturally everything looks the same so maybe the novelty of this part of the world has worn off for me. I'm sure there are some fun new things to be seen and experienced but as of right now nothing looks new and exciting so I'm kinda just like meh. I'm actually more frustrated because now it's another language I don't know and signs I can't read and I keep thinking "ugh, I just wish we were in Japan, this would be so much easier." So if there is a lack of pictures, sorry, I'm having a hard time trying to find something awesome to take pictures of!

The jetlag flying west is really and truly not bad. It only took a week or so to get over it last time (and that's just starting to get tired about 8 and waking up at 7 or 8) and this time I feel like it's even better. Flying east is a completely different story, it took a solid two weeks, if not more, of waking up at 4am every morning to even start getting over it. It's 8:46pm Saturday right now and I am getting pretty drowsy...Al is conked out already. I'm trying to decide if I want to perk up and wake him up to go karaoke...haven't decided.

As you can see, I changed the title of the blog since before it was centered around Japan. But I figure it should be more of a travelling blog. Though, I can't change the name of the actual blog greatwaveoffshikoku...which refers to "Great Wave off Kanagawa"...probably one of the most famous Japanese works of art. So the name of the blog will stay Japanese-centered.

After finishing typing I've decided I'm going to let Al sleep and I'm going to join him...no karaoke for me tonight, too exhausted! All those Taylor Swift songs will have to wait, unfortunately.