Traveling to South Korea: My Summer Abroad

Finally Feeling Like Myself

As many of you know, I had an extremely hard pregnancy and post-birth. Finally, I started to feel more like my old self again earlier this year and decided to apply for some summer professional development.

I applied for three summer institutes within the United States and, on a whim, decided to apply to go on a teacher study tour of South Korea as well through the East Asian Studies Center at Indiana University Bloomington. You have to complete a minimum of thirty hours of NCTA (National Consortium for Teaching about Asia) programing in order to apply. Thinking I would not be chosen for Korea, I really hoped to get one of the U.S. institutes. I received word first that I was granted none of the U.S. institutes, and then heard back about Korea. I was accepted. Imagine my complete shock and overwhelming excitement! Traveling to South Korea became a reality!

Leaving My Family

There is a lot of planning involved when you have a baby and you will be gone for eighteen days. Yes, eighteen whole days away from my sweet angel. And my husband! We have never been apart that long either. I was anxious, but I knew traveling to South Korea was a once in a lifetime experience that I could not pass up. 

Thus ensued shopping for new clothes, umbrella, gear, travel insurance, getting a health check-up, and making sure everything was set-up for my sweet baby. Not that I didn’t trust my husband to take care of her! 

Remember, I was hospitalized when the baby was only four days old. My husband had to be a single parent while I was going through my pre-eclampsia that never went away, so he quickly learned how to parent our baby. He was definitely better at it than me for a while there due to my health issues (I would say we are pretty equal now). But still…a mother tends to worry.

Teary Farewell

Finally, June 12th arrives. It was an emotional airport trip. They came in with me all the way to TSA and waved until I could not see them anymore. Baby girl was just the sweetest little thing…even though she wanted to run around and explore! There were more than a few tears shed. And thanks to the anxiety that developed post-birth, my stomach was so upset that I wound up getting sick in the airport bathroom. 

What a great start, eh?

The plane ride itself was a short trip to Atlanta then a fourteen-hour flight to Seoul (Incheon). In Atlanta, I met up with three other people from the program, which was nice. 

The long flight to Seoul, however, was not fun. I had this really painful tingling and sharp pain in my left hand. I had to take my shawl and wrap it tightly around my hand to apply pressure to help with the pain. There was a baby that talked/screamed/cried/etc. during the entire time, it was “nighttime” on the plane (we never saw the night since we were flying to the west and crossed the international date line). 

I got maybe one hour of sleep.  I watched Mary Poppins Returns (okay) and Aquaman (cheesy but likable). My one saving grace is that my seatmate was great. She was a college student going to Thailand to get certified to teach English abroad. Funnily enough, I never even got her name, even though we talked for hours. 

In Seoul, Exhausted

By the time we landed in Seoul, I had been awake for over twenty-four hours, I felt sick to my stomach (I could not even eat breakfast on the plane), I felt seasick due to being on a plane for so long, and I just wanted to go to sleep. Luckily, it was around 4:30 pm, so all I needed to do was make the hour-long drive to Seoul from the airport and go to sleep (we had a chartered bus to take us there). 

I could not even enjoy Korea that first night. I thought I did not have a roommate that night, so I threw my stuff everywhere, got sick again in the hotel bathroom, took some Tylenol PM, and went to bed. About an hour and a half later, there is a knock on the hotel door and it opens. 

Surprise, a roommate! 

I was so out of it, I really don’t remember much except trying to quickly move my stuff off of her bed and apologizing for not wearing pants (I had only a long sleep shirt on but skipped putting on the leggings). Within five minutes I was back asleep. I apologized profusely to her the next morning, but luckily, she was cool. Actually, every single person on the trip was cool! But I will get into all of that.

Thus began my trip to Korea. I promise, it only gets better from here!