Greetings from Korea!

A picture of the beautiful cherry blossom trees all over the country.

We made it!   After months of paperwork, applications, visas and planning, we are finally in Korea for the year to teach.  We have been in South Korea for a little over a week now and are just starting to get our legs under us and adjusted.  I won't lie the jet lag was pretty epic.  Our flight was 12 hours from San Francisco to Incheon on Singapore Airlines.  The plane ride was a little rough as we were on an older plane without individual air conditioning and it was hot the entire flight.  However, they made up for it by being very generous with the inflight beverage service :)  There is nothing like a G&T to make anything a little better.

We got to Incheon Airport safe and sound at 7 at night and decided to stay close to the airport so we didn't have to carry our luggage too far.  We stayed at a hotel called the Gogo House that was close, had a free airport shuttle, and nice apartment style rooms.  The hotel staff was very helpful and overall it was a big help to not have to worry about navigating through the city with our luggage.  We would definitely recommend staying there.    The next morning we went downstairs and had a bowl of famous Korean "hangover stew" or Haejangguk that worked wonders on the jet lag.    We went back to the Incheon Airport to buy a bus ticket to Gunsan and while we were there we checked another bucket list travel must do off our list and added the Korean McDonalds to our ever growing list of countries where we have enjoyed the double arches (true to form it was better than in the states).

Our bus ride to Gunsan was amazing.   There buses are very roomy and nice, and with rest stops on the way to stretch your legs and eat grilled squid, it beats out air travel any day.    We met a very nice man who was a retired air force officer on the bus, who had lived in Gunsan at the Kunsan Airforce Base for 8 years and was going back with his wife to visit her family.   He gave us lots of suggestions on places to visit and wished us well on our adventure.    When we arrived in Gunsan, and a colleague of Michael's, Moon teacher, picked us up and drove us to our temporary housing and then on to the school. We arrived in Gunsan on a Friday, so after a quick shadow of a few classes we had the weekend to explore (and sleep off the jet lag).

View from our new apartment balcony.

View of Lake Eunpa just a few blocks away from us.

View from the port (I walked to the industrial one not the pretty tourist one on accident).

Me eating a meat stick (pretty sure its chicken?) from a stand below our apartment.  I meant to take the picture of it full but I forgot and devoured it.

While Michael works during the week I have off to explore and I intend to do a lot of that.  Over the last week I have averaged walking 8 miles a day trekking all over our new home.   I plan on coming here to share our experiences and a taste of life in Korea, whether it be to show you the grocery stores (completely overwhelming but filled with weird goodies) or the Kimbop fried food stands or the beautiful mountainous surroundings.  I will try to take as many pictures as possible but I am notorious for forgetting so bare with me.  

A picture of Jejudo Coast on Jeju Island where we hope to visit soon

안녕히 가세요 An nyeong hi ga seyo (goodbye)

The Hartmans