I'm Landed

I landed on the ground for the first time in Seoul this evening. Such a surreal feeling to be here. It's been a very long day flying here from San Francisco, a 12-hour flight across the Pacific spent chasing the sun. But the flight passed rather quickly as I read through an edition of The Economist, devoured the Moon guide "Living Abroad in South Korea", watched several episodes of the Kimchi Chronicles downloaded to my new iPad, as well as several episodes of "How I Met Your Mother" (needed a little fix of American culture).  I had an unexpectedly difficult time getting through passport control – the Korean immigration official gave me the staredown once I handed her my visa and said a bunch of (to me) unintelligible Korean, but after being sent to the immigration office I was able to enter without incident.  Totally unclear what happened there...

Korean thermostat control

Without knowing the Korean language my first few hours here have been bewildering. My hotel room has an air conditioner with controls entirely in Korean, but thankfully I was able to figure this out as the summertime heat and humidity is everpresent this time of year. The toilet has one of these fancy Japanese style bidets with electronic controls but thankfully an English translation of what the buttons do – will need to play with that at some point. I took a walk around the hotel this evening, set right in the Gangnam Station area of south Seoul next to Samsung's offices. I did about a 5 city block square loop and was the only Caucasian person on the street, a strange but awesome feeling. I'm definitely in Korea now!

Alright, I'm done fighting jetlag for one evening as the beginning of the Seoul real estate tour is tomorrow morning. I'll leave you with my favorite Korean music video of the moment, a really catchy tune and dance moves that I need to master!  (it looks sort of like a big Korean dude riding a horse...)