Well, here I am! South Korea! I haven't had the chance to write anything here so far so I'll do a quick update on what's been going on so far.
The flight out here was LONG! 13.5 hours. We left at 11:30pm Ontario time and basically followed the moon here because it was dark the entire way. The longest night of my life! We (oops, I'm here with Kristen Blyleven... so the we means me and her!) took Korean Air on a Boeing 777 here...nicest plane I've ever been on! We had computer screens to watch movies, play games...it was a nice way to pass the time. The airline skrewed with our bodies though...we got served "dinner" at 2am, slept a little, then got breakfast. I never knew what time it was so I never knew if I should be hungry or what. Needless to say, I didn't feel so great after eating two meals at times I normally wouldn't be eating anything! They were a great airline though...constantly served us snacks, juice, water...it was amazing!
So we arrived in Seoul at 1:30am in the morning here which would be 12:30 pm in Canada. We immediately took a bus supplied to us by our company Canadian Connection (there were about 20 of us on the same plane from Toronto) and drove 5 hours to Gurye (I think the spelling might be off here). Here we get to have our "quarantine" since they are paranoid about us all getting swine flu. So orientation starts a week late and we basically get to do whatever we want all week! Best quarantine I'll ever have!They do check our temperature every day and if we're 37 or higher they act like it's the worst thing in the world and we have to come back an hour later to see if it's gone down! It's funny really. They lady who does it is hilarious! It doesn't help that our meals are always so hot so we're practially sweating after them when they take our temperature!
Speaking of the meals... They're good...to an extent. I'm kinda getting sick of having the same thing over and over again with only slight variation. We basically have burner things in front of us cooking our stir fry (which is why it's so hot at meal times), we have a bowl of rice, and the rest of the food is in the middle of the table that we have to share. It varies, but we've had whole fish completely intact (none of us ate it...), octopus which Kristen tried, but as much as I like to say I've tried weird things, I couldn't bring myself to eat that one!
*side note* apparently it used to be a tradition for a person to eat a live octopus at a celebration, but on average 4-5 people died a year so they stopped the tradition. I couldn't even eat it dead! maybe if it was breaded...
anyway, we've had squid, plus other things I just ate without knowing what it was. The fish here is really good though (when it's not whole of course!). Breakfasts are good, egg, toast with jam, bananas, and cereal. I have to say though...I'm rather glad I went to Chicoutimi, Quebec in May/June, because being forced to eat white bread prepared me for eating it here! I'm actually not wanting to throw up each time I eat it....I just pretend it's whole wheat and healthy for me... right.... oh! and their jam containers are genius! there's two small packets attached that you squeeze onto your toast! Don't have to use a knife to get it out of the packets! (not like they've ever given us a knife to use...even for meat!)
The first day here most of us crashed way before dinner time and missed dinner...the cook was NOT impressed! they apparently had crab, which I LOVE, so I'm sad I missed it! Kristen and I slept until 4am that morning and then were wide awake so we watched a movie. The next night we managed to stay up until 8pm so we slept until about 5:30am...then watched another movie! this morning we managed to sleep until 7am then went for a run. Hopefully jet lag is over now!
This morning I talked to my parents and brothers on webcam. We finally figured out how it works! Took us forever to figure out! Our calls were dropped several times, but then it stuck so hopefully it works good from now on. Speaking of the internet, our hotel doesn't have it. boo. So we went to the internet cafe until we figured out that you can pick up the wireless signal outside so we all sit here with our lab tops which creates quite a scene since no one else here seems to have one. Plus, there's always someone here since there's about 50 or more people with our company so someone's always here. We are getting internet though...but they're being slow about it! That's ok. This'll do for now! So if you want to talk to me, add me to skype. I think my name on there is just Tara. Or maybe it's Tara Heeg. I don't remember. Anyway, my battery is running out and I think I got most of the information so far. I'll write more later!
No comments:
Post a Comment