Day 1 - Traveling to Seoul

Waiting for my plane in Atlanta

I woke up roughly 24 hours ago in Atlanta and drove to the airport to begin my trip to Seoul. I had a smooth process traveling through the Atlanta airport and was in Dallas by 9 am (8 am local time). While in the Dallas airport, I noticed a girl waiting for the same flight who had the same backpack I do (they were given to us by the study abroad group). Sure enough, she was heading to Seoul for the exact same study abroad program!

The flight from Dallas to Seoul took 14 hours and was rather arduous. They had free movies on demand on the plane so I watched almost every one of those. I was hoping to have an exciting conversation with the woman sitting next to me but she slept the entire time!

Everyone waiting in neat lines for the train at Incheon International

When I arrived in Seoul, I was awestruck. Incheon Internation Airport (인천국제공항) is beautiful and gigantic. It's very nice and clean (practically sparkling!) I had no idea where to go but luckily there was a giant wave of people heading the same direction so I just hopped in line and followed the pack. Going through customs in Korea took about 4 minutes total, which was amazing compared to the hour and a half in the Atlanta airport.

After I retrieved my suitcase from baggage claim, I started making my way toward the designated meeting point where I was supposed to meet the other study abroad students, Caffé Pascucci. The girl I met in Dallas (named Diana) and I actually arrived before the people organizing the study abroad group did, so we just hung out for about 30 minutes until they showed up. We have roughly one and a half more hours to wait for more students until we leave the airport and head into Seoul.

Caffé Pascucci, the meeting place

Once we've rounded up all the students meeting us at the airport, we'll head into Seoul. Class doesn't actually start until July. For these first six days, we will spend three days touring Seoul and the next three days touring the rest of the country. After that, we'll move into our dorms at Yonsei University (연세대학교) and start class.

That's all for now!