Settling In

We just got to Korea.
We are in Jinju.
Our school is down the street from our small but perfect apartment.
We start tomorrow.
We have no idea what is going on around us.

The flight from NYC was over 14 hours and went pretty quick I think, though I couldn't sleep at all. Kevin slept abot half the time I think while I lolled and moved about, watching some movies and trying to read my new Obama book.
It was dark the whole time of course and I think we flew way over northern Canada, Russia, and China. It was raining when we landed and all we can see was lights and the bridge from the airport island. We caught the first bus out to the larger bus station. My friend came to meet us but I didn't know so we seriously missed him by a minute. oh well, we'll see him soon.
So we were off on the first bus to the real bus station where we waited about an hour and a half for our Jinju bus. We were the only white people around. A guy came up to me with the typical "Nice to meet you" then started handing me Christian magazines. I told him I was not a Christian and he left me alone.
But alas I was soooo exhausted from the flight that I tried sleeping the whole four hours to Jinju. The countryside was beautiful, familiar pine trees and rugged hills, nice four-lane highway, but I didn't see much.
When we got to the Junju bus station I saw some squat toilets (!) then Mrs. Kim was there to pick us up in her Lexus. I was almost too tired to talk. She drove us through the city to our school which is very small. We kind of met the other teachers and they showed us our desks. Next we ate with Mrs. Kim in the first floor restaurant, sitting on the floor and doing the porl barbeque right on our table. It was delicious and I did pretty well with mt stainless steel chopsticks. There were so many plates of food and we didn't know what anything was but we just ate it. Kimchi pancakes, spicy kimchi, garlic, onions, cabbage salad, then rice and some spicy soup with tofu and other goodies. We didn't even come close to finishing everything.
Mrs. Kim paid and she understood how exhausted I was, but our apartment wasn't clean yet and I think she was worried. But she took us there and we met Mr. Kim the ECC director who was nice but quiet. We took our suitcases up to the third floor and were in our home for the next year. There is a small kitchen, a bathroom with the shower head right over the toilet and sink, one large common room with bed and tv, and a sort-of porch with sliding doors and a washing machine. We have ethernet and cable. The girl who moved out before us left the place pretty messy but she also left all the things we were planning on buying: dishes, cleaning supplies, power converter, speakers, umbrella, random foodstuffs, etc. The Kims gave us news blankets and pillows. We didn't even unpack anything. They said we could go to the school today but I brushed my teeth and slept from 3:30 straight to 10:30 at night. Now it is almost 3am and we have to go back to bed so we can go to school in the morning. Thankfully it is right down the street as we have no clue where we are, what our address is, where anything is, but tomorrow will be a big day. We have a LOT to learn and figure out.