Just felt like posting the e-mail I sent to some of my friends and family back home last night….
My flight was okay….interesting. From LAX my gate got switched one time and then my flight was delayed by 10 minutes. All I have to say is that I might look Korean, but don’t assume I speak the language. All the flight attendants kept speaking in Korean to me to ask what I wanted to drink, eat, etc. At least the korean guy next to me was nice and we started talking before the plane took off so he knew I didn’t speak the language since I told him. So when the flight attendants did the routine when you sit in the emergency exit I didn’t have a clue what she asked because it was in Korean. But the korean guy sitting next to me verified I knew that she was just wanting us to read over the emergency procedure plan thingy.
My first meeting of my birthmother was extremely interesting and it went a lot different than what I expected. LoL! Neither one of us cried when we saw each other, I think I got a little teary eyed at one point, but thats it. There is definitely a language barrier between me, her, and the brother. I had a difficult time telling them that I needed to look for the phone rental place. Its a lot like playing charades. LoL! After the airport I went straight to my birthmothers house to hangout and rest until it was time to go checkin at school. The first food she gave me other than one of those drinkable yogurts at the airport was another drinkable yogurt and cherry tomatoes (considered as fruit not a vegetable here). Plus I already was given yogurt for breakfast on the plane. So now i’m up to 3 yogurts. We later went on a long journey to find a restaurant to eat at around 9 am or so. Finally went to some korean restaurant in Itaewon which is the town close to where she lives. We all shared one dish that was beef with clear noodles and onions, and of course we were served rice and sides of kimchi’s. All i’m hoping is that it was beef that I ate and not some dog meat. LoL! Later on in the day when we got back from eating korean food she once again served me yogurt and cherry tomatoes. She also had me stand in the bathroom while she decided my legs and feet needed to be washed and proceeded to wash them herself. Interesting experience! Her bathroom is really something else, don’t know how to explain it. It has a modern day toilet, no sink, mirror, washing machine, complete shower type floor, some kind of shower faucet thingy you use wash hair and such. To wash her hands and stuff like she was doing to me you filled the plastic blow with water and wash like that and dump the water out on the floor to drain. What an experience! She kind of forced me to take a nap at her house that ended up being a 3 hour nap, so I didn’t get to the school to checkin until 6:30pm when checkin had started at 2pm. I didn’t actually meet my roommate until after I got back from dinner. My roommate is really nice her name is Chikae Yamaguchi she lives in Connecticut while her parents now live in Beijing. My roommate grew up here in the states.
As for dinner…I went out to eat with my birthmother, her brother, and her brothers friend (speaks good english because he studied over in France and lived in Australia for awhile) so the friend was really helpful tonight to help translate whatever that needed to be translated. We ate at an Italian restaurant here in Sinchon called Pasta 12. The pasta was really good! The salad was interesting, so was the side of pickles they gave us with the pasta. The salad consisted of shredded cabbage, a little lettuce, corn, some creamy light mint colored dressing and sweet pickled relish. For example they didn’t understand what a blanket or that I needed a bath towel not a towel that you use to wash her face with. I might go do some sightseeing with my birthmother’s brothers friend Jun.
I’m suppose to meet up with them either on Saturday (today) depending how I feel…if not I’m suppose to get together with them on Sunday.
All in all, I can’t really complain about anything so far other than this really hot and humid weather is not real fun when you basically have to walk everyone. Its suppose to rain today (Saturday), so that’s not going to be a lot of fun. In a lot of ways my birthmother is treating me like i’m 5 or something, she won’t even let me carry my own purse (says its too heavy). I understand why she is treating me the way she is because she doesn’t know how to act since she hasn’t been around for the past 23 yrs so she is trying to make up for lost time.
Anyway, I should head off to bed soon its already 1:29am (Saturday)…the bad thing is that because of all the sleep I did on the plane plus the 3 hr nap…I’m not tired at all right now. I can’t really do much in my dorm room because my roommate is already sleeping and I already made enough noise when I left the room to take a shower and then I left again to come downstairs to see if the computer room was open so I can send this e-mail to everyone.
Hope everyone has a good weekend and I’ll keep you all posted on my adventures here in Seoul!
Posted by radiantstar24 
Posted by radiantstar24 
Posted by radiantstar24 
