Day 1: The journey begins

Hello there!

I got up at 3:30 this morning to go to Mexico City's Airport and catch my 6:50 flight to San Francisco. My very un-emotional brother and my mother came to see me off on this trip. Safe to say, my brother manages to basically cruise through every moment of life, and the farewell was yet another occasion that he cruised.

The flight to San Francisco was quite alright, I slept for most of the time, seemingly oblivious of the fact that in a few hours I would be flying to an unknown country.

San Francisco's airport is quite nice, if somewhat confusing, and I was dangerously close to being late for the flight. Such an incident would've meant that my dear mother would've ripped my head off, so my relief at getting to the gate minutes before they called my boarding group was evident. At this moment, surrounded by Koreans was that the reality of my situation started sinking in, I had no idea of what I was getting into. The boarding happened almost uneventually, except for the fact that I got called over the PA and got reminded that United Airlines were not the ones in charge of the flight and that as such I had to change the boarding pass.

Asiana Airlines definitely serve some of the nicest food and they definitely deserve that 5-star rating of theirs, the service was brilliant and the bibimbap they served me was a great taster of Korean food. The onboard entertainment was brilliant and I was surprised when the Korean movie "Couples" caught my eye. Definitely a well-intentioned and funny movie, wouldn't be surprised if some Hollywood bloke just translated it into English and produced a blockbuster with it. The only 2 problems I had were due to the little box below the seat in front reducing my leg room (I know there's nothing they can do about it) and the annoying kid behind me that kept on kicking my seat, so overall, the flight went quite alright.

Seoul/Incheon International Airport is extremely nice and modern, although the immigration queues are a bit annoying. At the exit from the airport I picked up a cab towards my hotel near Korea University in Seoul. I was foolish not to realize just how far the airport was from Seoul, but thankfully, the cab driver was an easygoing guy and kept on pointing out things on the countryside for me to take in and soothe the uncomfortable silence that arose. I must say that his humor was great and the mixture of his broken English with my basic understanding of Korean made for a rather intriguing ride, especially since everytime we passed in front of one of the Imperial gates, the driver just said "King's house. No King" and proceeded to slash his throat as if he was beheading the King himself. Funnily enough, the driver suddenly pulled over in the middle of one avenue, went out of the car, into a shop and then returned with an ice cream pop for himself and me; pretty nice gesture I must say! A few minutes later, and after a bit of traffic we finally arrived at my hotel and that's the story of today.

Seoul seems very nice and pintoresque, and Korean people are incredibly kind and polite. I'm pretty jet-lagged so I'll hit the sack. Tomorrow I'll get over the awkward stage of how I'm supposed to greet people, always a funny situation in itself.

PS: Comment below and tell me how to improve please!

Introduction

I am Lucas Zocco, a quirky international student at Nottingham University. For quite a few years I've tried to go to South Korea to study and my trip to this far land will be the starting point of this blog. I will describe my experiences here for all to read and hopefully provide an entertaining resource for anyone wishing to do a similar trip as I am doing. I realize that South Korea isn't the most common destination, especially for those of us who do not speak Korean, but it is a challenge I am willing to take on.

I really like travelling, and I often find it hard to remain in just 1 country without getting bored. I will explain why I chose South Korea as my destination as I have done many times in the past and which my friends have asked out of me more times than I care to remember; I am well aware that many of the reasons for this will be rather arbitrary and often ridiculous, bear with me as that's how I am.

I rather liked South Korea's flag, this drove me to research the country a bit more and as such I found a wealth of reasons hereby described:

- They have become a developed nation in 50 years

- They are sandwiched between China and Japan (great for a weekend getaway)

- Their language seems nice and funky

- Daegu FC is my favourite football team

- They are basically a technology Mecca

- They have that far-eastern architecture that I like so much

- They are nothing like anywhere I've ever been before

So, if you don't mind I'll just get this started and post on my first day of the South Korean Challenge (like how that sounds :P)!!!

Lucas