Alrighty, so our loving parents (and Katy) drove us both to Heathrow on Saturday 13th, meaning that they got to meet for the first time. Considering it was Heathrow, check-in was pretty quick and speedy. Had some food with the families, said final goodbyes, then went through security to wait for our plane. Which is where it all got difficult. We sat next to the screen waiting for our gate to be announced. We waited. Then we waited some more. Then all the flights departing at the same time as ours got announced so got a bit more excited. So we waited some more. But still nothing! So from then on we waited and worried. Then all the flights departing at the same time as ours started doing the last call things, which made us worry a bit more. Anyway, eventually they called our flight, we boarded and ended up departing an hour late for sunny Frankfurt. The flight was only about an hour and a half, but this meant that by the time we arrived, we were too late for check in for our connecting flight to Incheon. Oh no! But! No need for panics, Lufthansa helpfully rebooked us on to a Korean Air flight instead, leaving 2 hours later. So we spent about an hour trying to figure out where we were supposed to go to re-check in (Frankfurt airport is quite nice really, much better than Heathrow, but they still seem to be building it, which was a bit weird when we had to walk through the bit they were building). But we made it to our flight anyway and it was all smiles and happy things.
So! We got on our flight to Incheon, which was hugely undersold so we had 3 seats to ourselves, and could also steal the free bottles of water off all the seats around us. As it was Korean Air, we also got the little touch screen TV things in the back of all the seats, so I watched Be Kind Rewind, In Bruges, The Bank Job and Iron Man (plus a bit of the Forbidden Kingdom which was so bad I had to turn it off), while completely failing to sleep. Fun! Becky unfortunately seemed to get horribly ill and was feeling all wretched so was trying to sleep most of the way there. Anyway, really the best thing for me was the fact that we got our first korean meals. Not that I really know what we were eating, but it was pretty good anyway! There are photos, so when we post the album have a look. It's exciting. While we were flying I kept opening my little window blind thingy to look out and see if I could see anything below, so got to see Russia and China, which was kind of fun. But not as fun as realising we were getting to Korea. Or landing and realising we were actually on Korean soil at last! Customs and luggage were quick and easy, once we'd figured out where we to go (through the section marked 'Foreigners' obviously), so we soon stepped out into a blazing hot Korean morning. Becky bought our bus tickets to Gwangju, which was made very easy by the fact that the girl in the ticket booth spoke perfect English, and very soon after we were on the bus to our new home. The bus seats were huge! Kind of like business class seats. But without the massive expense. As we'd arrived on Chuseok (Korean thanksgiving - described as the worst time of the year to travel in Korea by Lonely Planet), traffic was pretty bad, so it took nearly 6 hours to get to Gwangju - it's normally about 4 hours. We both tried to stay awake and see a bit of Korea, but fell asleep after about an hour or so. There was a toilet break about half way there, which was our first real 'oh my god everyone's Korean here' experience. Also, we didn't know exactly what the bus driver had said about how long we had to stop so, not wanting to end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, didn't really explore the shops etc. Eventually we made it to Gwangju anyway. Our boss, Jason, came to pick us up and take us to our new apartment, showing us the school on the way. Within a few minutes we were carrying our bags to our new home. But I'll let Becky tell you all about that in her next post.
We're here though, and it's amazing.
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