Quarantined

Compared to the hell I went through getting to Japan (a missed international flight, homesickness, and extreme culture shock), the transition in Korea has been pretty smooth. Although this didn't exactly help keep the nostalgia train from pulling in:



An entire album of the themes from Hayao Miyazaki's movies set to techno beats. No matter how happy and uplifting, Miyazaki's films never fail to make me bawl; something about the quiet, subtle way he portrays characters and relationships really touches me. The version of the Castle in the Sky theme was especially good. Besides that, there were albums by Gackt, X-Japan, Utada Hikaru, and Rain, and I watched Dragonball: Evolution. It was lucky I had a lot of bad entertainment to occupy my time, because I couldn't sleep during the entire 12 hour flight.


Afterwards, we boarded the craziest bus in the world to go to our training camp in Wando. The bus driver was insane. "I am best bus driver in the world!" he shouted at us after we boarded, and the rainbow colored LED lights along the ceiling in the bus blinked in agreement. When it was time to leave, he played the chorus of some Korean song, leaving me to I assume that our bus driver has a theme song. Really, what other assumption can you make? It's the only thing that makes sense, that a crazy man with a crazy bus has some sort of kitchy song to announce his arrival.

Last night, our only experience with the outside culture was a truck stop shortly out of Incheon, complete with convenience store, ramen shop, and outside stalls selling ornaments for cars or old, shitty Korean tapes.


After eating spicy ramen and drinking the most disgusting tea in the world (tasted exactly like Corn Pops, for some reason), I slept the remaining five hours of travel on the bus before showering and falling quickly asleep in my dorm room.

Camp here is simple, servicable, and secluded. Fears of swine flu in Korea are even more intense than in the U.S., so us foreigners are quarantined and monitored for the next 7 days. Hopefully that means I'll be able to go to the city of Gwang-ju while I'm living in Damyang, but our free time here is kind of boring. We can't go into town or have any contact with the people of Wando, so we're sleeping, using the wireless internet, talk, walking around the camp, and playing kickball. Early in the morning, we took a long hike uphill to a temple. We weren't allowed inside, but we played with an adorable, excited puppy that teethed on our fingers and wanted to follow us home.

It's hard to describe the atmosphere right now. I'd say everyone is waiting. Waiting for a little freedom, a little work, a little time to explore or party or make friends or be alone. I'm content; things are interesting and the trip promises adventure. But I'm hoping for happiness and more exciting stories in the future.