SO! To recap, we’ve been in Seoul for about a day after traveling 30+ hours from Pittsburgh to Incheon. Quite crazy, but nothing I haven’t done before!

The day started like so: Saturday, at 5 AM, I wake up to the joyous sounds of marathon runners. I have finally moved out of my dorm, I’m super tired, I’m feeling anxious about not traveling with my parents, and all I want to do is go back to sleep (before rationalizing that perhaps it might be better to make myself super tired by staying up that way I get some shut eye on that plane!). I do a quick double check of all my luggage, bug my parents a bit when they finally wake up at 7, get breakfast with my mom, call my 할머니 (grandma) to say thanks for the travel gift she had gotten me, and off to Benedum I go!

It’s kind of amazing to think about how I had moved out of my dorm super fast on Friday, then immediately jumped on a plane on Saturday, and then time-traveled into Monday to explore a little bit of what Seoul has to offer. It’s very “go, go, go” at the moment, and while I’m super tired writing this, I couldn’t be more appreciative.

I don’t have a ton to say about the flight. It was long, and it was a pretty standard flight, but I managed to keep myself occupied enough when I wasn’t sleeping (Like snacking. Dried fruit is a top tier airplane snack!). Korea, on the other hand?

Gorgeous. It always is—no matter how many times I see it I won’t not be amazed. It’s kind of surreal being able to think, “Hey, I remember that!” And look back on what I’m going to be learning during this program and what I learnt when I visited with family 2 years (wow!) ago. We’re doing some more sightseeing tomorrow, which I’m looking forward to, but today we got to see Gyeongbukgung (Gyeongbuk Palace), the Hanok village, Insadong, and the Gwangjang market. I picked up some refills of makeup I’ve wanted for a bit (I can get them at home, but for twice the price), got to talk with our tour guide a bit about my goals for this trip and what I couldn’t wait to see coming up for this trip, and so much more—just such a great time.

Can’t wait to see what the rest of this week has to offer!

This post’s song is named after Airplane by Stray Kids.