Greetings from Seoul!

Hello All,

Just a quick update to let you all know that I have arrived safely. I was ahead of schedule for the entire trip. It has been a very long day as my parents and I left Salem at 2 AM Thursday morning so I could catch a 6 AM flight from St. Louis. Quick flight and connection in Denver and then to San Francisco where I had a three hour layover before getting on the 12 hour flight to Seoul. I thought they would fly straight across the Pacific, but instead the route took us up along the US/Canada coast, past Alaska, and down over NE Asia.

The last leg wasn't as unbearable as I was fearing. I caught a few ~1-2 hour naps along the way, which were needed since I have been up since about 8 AM Wednesday morning and am planning on staying out for a little while tonight. They had about 7 or 8 movies that played continuously and luckily ones that I had not seen. Two small meals and a few snacks also passed the time.

It took three hours to land at ICN and get to my Coatel. I do have a roommate, Zacharia, who is from Oregon but has a fancy accent that amuses me. He knew how to hook up computers on these foreign outlets, which is a good thing because I was clueless otherwise. My recruiter said there are over 50 trainees staying in this Coatel over the weekend so I am looking forward to meeting a few of them. I am already beginning to feel what it's like to be a minority and some English-speaking voices would be welcomed.

That is all for now. This city is massive and pretty at night. I'm going to try and catch a few sights tonight before passing out and then tomorrow hopefully find a place to watch the Illinois/OSU game on Sunday morning (for me). In case you're wondering about the exact time difference, it's 11:13 PM on Friday night right now.

Take care,