Goodbye Jeonju, Hello Incheon!

Saturday August 29th,

So after Ryan and Anne drop me off at my apartment after taking me to Lotte Mart and buying some initial things for the apartment, I was overcome with severe home-sickness and a horrible feeling of loneliness. It was not pretty at all. I didn’t know where I was in the city, I didn’t know where any of my friends were in the city, and I didn’t have internet or TV in my apartment. So I crawl into bed at like 8, turn on some music, and try to fall asleep as fast as I could. Of course, when you want to sleep the most, you can’t, and I ended up just laying in bed for a good couple of hours, just miserable.

I wake up the next morning to the early sun and even earlier construction workers. I have the shittiest view in all of Incheon I think. Literally, right outside my one lonely window, are construction workers working on another apartment building. When that building is done, I will have a wonderful view of whoever’s window it may be. Thanks Anne co-teacher for setting me up with such a nice apartment.

I get up, walk to a starbucks, try to use my starbucks gift card, but the employees tell me they only accept the Korean version of the gift card. Are you serious? And of course they have some weird wireless network there (not the same as the ones back home), and neither I nor the employees knew how to connect to it. Great.

I then just walk around a bit and try my luck at a PC Bang that looks somewhat decent. I had never been to one before, so I didn’t know what the proper protocol is. You’re supposed to just grab a card at the front desk that has a code on it, and type that code in at the computer you chose. However, I didn’t know that. So I try talking with the owner, asking if I can just use the internet. He doesn’t know the word “internet” so finally I said “email” and he recognized that. Phew. Thank god for internet, facebook and gmail. It was so nice to get back in touch with people back home because I really needed it big time.

The rest of the day is kind of a blur. All I really know is that I made about 4 different trips to the Lotte Mart to pick up random items that I realized I didn’t have but needed.

Then, by the grace of god (hah), someone sent me a text message saying that some EPIK people were getting together for dinner and drinks. I didn’t think twice about saying yes. We end up going to a Korean bbq restaurant really close to my apartment, and we ordered so much meat and soju and beer that we were all a little drunk by like 7 pm. I’ve learned to really enjoy the local alcoholic drinks here (mainly soju and hite/cass beer). Soju sells for literally 1000 won in grocery stores, which probably means my liver will hate me after this experience. But whatever.

After dinner, we wonder around the general area, and find so many different bars and clubs. We try a few out, keep ordering beer and soju and the like. Funny story though, we end up at Bennigan’s. Seriously?!? Bennigan’s. I couldn’t believe it, but I wasn’t going to say anything because that was the place the majority of the group could settle on. Whatever. I think we call it a night by 12:00