FINALLY HERE!!

I know this post is a little bit late but things the past two days have been extremely hectic. I don't even know where to begin! Let's just say I'm the best person to fly with!! (NOT!!!!) At the Las Vegas airport on Wednesday, I was randomly selected for additional screening. Then at the San Francisco airport, the security guy sent my bag through the X-ray machine all because of my tiny bottle of nausea medicine. After we grabbed a quick bite to eat, I knew I needed to take the medicine in order to be okay for our long 12 hour flight. Little did I know that the medicine would do me no good. I got sick several times on the plane and didn't even eat my second meal because I just wanted to get off the plane. When we finally got to Incheon Airport, we saw that there was a page for me at the gate. Come to find out, they lost my smaller bag that had all of my shoes and bathroom stuff in it. Luckily, my bag with my clothes got here so I didn't have to worry about sleeping in the same clothes. They told me that my bag never got on the plane in San Francisco and would be here the next day. He gave me a number to call to make sure it got here and told me they would definitely speak English when I called. By the way, the one bag that did make it to Seoul on time, they completely broke both the pull out handle and the handle on the top so watching me try and figure out how to pull my bag through the airport was probably quite a sight to see.

It was soo funny to see how excited to the Dobong staff was to see us when we walked outside. They had smiles from ear to ear. They were especially excited to finally meet Travis because they thought he was super cute and all of the women have a crush on him. We took a bus ride that was about one hour long until we finally reached out hotel for the next two nights. By the time we got there, we were all so tired that I actually fell asleep in my clothes in my bed before Stacy and Judit even got ready for bed. It was a long day.

Yesterday, before we went to the district office, we got out and walked around the area of the city we were in. It was so funny seeing how many American companies they had such as Dunkin Doughnuts and Baskin Robbins. We had lots of meetings with the Dobong Staff in order to make sure we understood everything. They also gave us each our own cell phones to use while we are here in order to keep in contact with our host families and the staff. After we went over a few things, they took us to a traditional Korean lunch. I have never seen so much food in my life. The table was covered and all of us felt so weird not trying to eat it all. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to sitting on the floor with my legs crossed while eating. We got to try a lot of everything and I can honestly say I will not be eating any more Kimchi while I am here. It was just too spicy for my liking. After lunch, they took us to the bank that is located in the district office so we could open up our bank accounts for while we are here. I wish this part of our trip was a little bit more organized. They had no idea what type of paperwork we needed to fill out so it took us about four hours to set up 6 accounts. Needless to say, most of us were spent for the day after that ordeal. But of course, our day was far from over. We had a Welcoming Ceremony at the district office where we got to meet our host families for the first time and also the new mayor. The Mayor is a high position here because I was seated at his table with my families and both of my host moms were very nervous to meet him. I wish people got that excited about our mayor. We got to know each other a little bit more and heard several presentations about the city.

I am in love with both of my host families. They are all very modest because they said their English is not very good when we were emailing back and forth but after meeting them, I think their English is almost as good as mine. There are a few words that they mix up here and there but they try so hard and you can definitely see that in the kids. Both of my families just kept talking about my eye color because here, everyone has either brown or black eyes so to see colored eyes is a big deal! I am so excited to finally move in with them. After we all said our goodbyes, the staff took us back to the hotel and we took a slight rest until dinner. They met us back downstairs and took us to a Korean BBQ place. It was absolutely amazing. We had a meal called "Sam" which is like bacon only four times as thick and you grill it on this grill that is in your table. We were so full afterwards but we knew we wanted to dessert so we walked all the way up to Baskin Robbins. The place was packed! It was a much different scene then what we had seen that morning. We got our ice cream and headed back to the hotel.

Because the hotel staff didn't understand much English, I decided to call the number for the aiport myself and figure out if my bag had gotten here yet. When I called, of course, they didn't speak any English and hung up on me. When I tried calling back, they ignored my phone calls. So I recruited Travis (who speaks Chinese and has the accents down like nothing so he has an easier time using the translator than me), and we went down the front desk. We got the front desk to call the airport and after a few connections, we figured out my bag was here and it would be delivered between 11 and 12. Instead of waiting up, we decided to go to bed and we would just wait for them to call our room. At about 11, our door unlocked and the bell man came in not realizing we were asleep in our room. It scared Stacy and I so badly because we had no idea who was coming into our room. He went running out and then slammed the door shut. He then knocked and I answered and he apologized sooo much. I was just thankful to have my bag so I didn't care. We crashed for the night after that.

We are in GyeongJu right now, which is a very famous city in South Korea. My battery on my laptop is about the die right now and I packed the charger away in my big bag. I will write all about it tomorrow when I get to my first host family's house! Bye for now!

P.S: pictures will be up tomorrow too!!