13 Hours on a Plane

Hello everyone!
So before I talk about my trip and what I am up to, I should probably let you know exactly where I am. I am on an Island on the West Coast of Korea. It is the home of the biggest airport in Korea, Incheon airport. The Island is called Yong Jong Do. We are very close to the airport and we can hear planes cirlcing above us constantly. The bridge we take to get off the island is the 5th largest bridge in the world. The island is an artificial make-up of four islands, created by water dams. There are mountains everywhere, similar the the appalacians, only with foreign foliage. The mountains are being filed down to compensate the lowlands created by the water that used to be there. If you have been to Korea, you would find it quite surprising that we are staying in a house! There is 'developments' of apartment buildings everywhere, similar to housing developments here.

I hope everyone is enjoying their summer vacations! I started mine with a 1:00 am flight to Korea. I sat in the window seat with Sunghee to my left and Giwon to the left of Sunghee. Sunghee told me I wasn't allowed to sleep untill 6:00 am, so I decided to waste all my time on movies. After watching a few movies and a few hours into Avatar, I could not keep my eyes open. I fell asleep for two hours and woke up wide awake. Sunghee kept me entertained while she slept almost the entire ride, with her sleep-talking in Korean. I kept sneaking peaks out of the window even though we were supposed to keep them closed. The skys were amazing, especially when we flew over the Arctic and Russia.

We landed at 3:00 am Korean time, but for us it was 2:00 in the afternoon. I was so tired but I wasn't allowed to go to sleep because I had to get used to the time difference. We ate breakfast which felt like it should be dinner and I proceeded to sit around for a few hours with my eyes rolling around in their sockets. Finally Sunghee let me have a nap for two hours and then we got ready to go out. We ate cold noodles at a restaurant with kalbi and it was so delicious! Iwas a bit hesitant to try the cold noodles, but was surprsed at how good they tasted. We visited many of Sunghees relatives, including her cousin Bona at her work, called 'Lotte Mart". It is a multiple story supermarket that has flat escalators to compensate the shoping carts. It was really funny because everytime you pass a new aisle, there is a new Koren lady wearing a Sailor Moon-like outfit with legwarmers trying to sell you pads and giving you tons of samples. They even had sample books of pads like you'd see for fabric or paint chips.

We went home and just hung around for the rest of the day. I tried triangular kim-pop (Korean sushi) which was delicious. I went to sleep at 8:00 am because I was so tired and slept soundly unill 4:30 am when one of the loudest thunderstorms I ever heard woke me up. Apparently, I slept through the first half-hour of it. I fell back asleep shortly after and woke up at 6 to hear the thunderstorm still going. My first day in Korea was amazing and interesting. I will try to update this every day or as often as I can so you will all know what I am up to!

xx Maggie :)

P.S. I will put pictures up once I get a power converter for my laptop !