My First Few Days on Jeju Island

Hello all!

Sorry it took me so long to write a proper post. As you can imagine, the process of settling in has taken a few days. However, I've finally got my room all unpacked and organized, and orientation is in full swing. I'm going to try to recount all the way from leaving Saint Louis, moreso for myself because I haven't had time to journal, so feel free to skip a few paragraphs if you want info about where I'm at right now!

Friday night of last week, my family came over for dinner, and reality began to set in. I ended the night with my closest friends coming over, and then I began preparing myself to wake up early and leave. I was up at 4:30AM scrambling to get myself together, and before I knew it, I was on a plane to Chicago. When I arrived in Chicago, I was told my flight from Seoul to Jeju had been cancelled due to a typhoon on the island, so initially, some panic set in. I was in Chicago for three hours, and then hopped on the plane towards Seoul.

I slept for the first 5 hours of the 14 hour flight, then watched a few movies and stayed awake to try to beat the jet lag. When I arrived in Seoul, my first order of business was to get my bags and then find an Asiana Airlines desk to try to get on standby. As I wandered aimlessly through the airport, I thought I had all the time in the world. I went to an information desk after an hour or so, and the woman pointed me in the right direction. As I was walking away, I overheard the man behind me ask where to go for a desk for Asiana, as he was trying to get to Jeju. He was a middle-aged American man named Tim, and I got to talking with him. At first, we couldn't find the desk that the woman pointed us to, but almost out of nowhere, Asiana came up on one of the screens, and immediately a large hoard of people flocked to the desk. After some time in line, we finally got to the front, and were informed that our flight was in fact still going to Jeju that night, and it left in 30 minutes. I checked my bags and sprinted to the gate with some time to spare. I was rewarded with a first class seat on the plane, and I sat next to a nice Korean high school student named Jeff who told me some horror stories about his own experience in an American boarding school. An interesting start.

When I landed in Jeju, I found my bags (They made it. A miracle) and proceeded out of the terminal where the KIS staff was waiting for me. Several other people from my staff had been on my flight, so we met and all piled onto the school's bus to go back. By the time I got to the school, it was 11PM local time, and I was beat. I went back, set my stuff on the ground, and crawled straight into bed.

The next morning was the first leg of orientation, which basically involved a brief meeting then going to the supermarket, E-Mart. Talk about a great introduction to Korean culture. It was basically a gigantic supermarket crossed with a Best Buy, a Lowe's, and an IKEA. There was K-pop blasting the entire time inside. It was wonderful. I bought some of my necessities and then we went back to the school, where I got set on organizing my room and unpacking my bags. We went to dinner that night at a small Italian place up the road where I had a delicious pizza.

Today, we did some team building activities and then had a tour of the school. The campus is massive and has separate buildings for the elementary school, middle school, and high school. It has several pools, gyms, and auditoriums. It has a putting green on the roof of the high school with an indoor driving range and virtual golf room. There's several weight rooms and teacher's lounges in each building. Needless to say, the place is pretty swanky! We went to dinner at an organic burger restaurant, and then we had the rest of the night off. One of my best friends from home, Luke, randomly had a friend who is living on the island for the month, so I just got back from hanging out with her for a bit! It was crazy to see a semi-familiar face.

Tomorrow, we have orientation all day, and then, a ton of the staff and teachers are going to the local professional soccer team's game, so I am really looking forward to that. My current observations so far amount to this: it is the most humid place on Earth. St. Louis is a humidity infant compared to this place. Also, the free cafeteria food is sub-par, but it's free. I can deal with it. I'm going to love it here. The staff are all really cool, and the island seems awesome. The one thing that's interesting is that there's a ton of bugs. I am going to need to adapt to massive spiders, beatles, and various other forms of insect vermin. It will take time.

Anyway, thanks for reading. Sorry for the novel. From here on out, will probably post at milestones, such as the students arriving, etc. Below are some pictures for your enjoyment. Hit me up via email or Facebook for Skype dates! Au revoir, people, and have a good week.

-Ryan