Plane was long but uneventful. Korean airways is super nice and posh. I watched Wall-E and Chicago on the plane flight over. I was middle seat between two korean people. I expected the Incheon International airport in Seoul to be a foreign world, but it looked exactly like any international airport with American stores too. The only major difference was that announcements were made in Korean first. Most people flew over on the same flight and we started to find each other and aggragate in Seoul, though none of us had assigned seats together.
The flight from Seoul to Chiang Mai was fine, but exhausting. I was in a window seat next to a guy from Kansas City. He had a farmer-type accent and i was wondering what he was doing there. He broke every stereotype I had about small town Kansas boys. He was traveling to meet his future father in law for the first time. He was engaged to a Thai woman. He had traveled all over Europe and South America and had been to Thailand before. He was giving me cultural tips about Thailand! Nice guy. Towards the end of the flight when I was feeling really down and exhausted, I asked him how anyone would ever travel to Thailand again after such a terribly long flight. He joked that he thought it was like women with pregancy, that there must be something in the food that makes you forget about the pain. :)
We stayed in a super nice hostel last night that had this beautiful garden area. I'll try to get pictures up at some point, but I'm not sure how easy it is to do that.
I did walk around Chiang Mai a bit after breakfast this morning with a group. Chiang Mai has an old city that is surrounded by a wall (Just like Israel!) and then a moat around the wall. The city was strange in that it lacked strangeness. There were 7/11 convenience stores everywhere and even a KUMON reading/math center. It was only weird that the signs were in Thai. Also, crossing the street is terrifying. Last thing, we walked into a grocery stores and everything is SO cheap. You can buy 4 packs of drinks and food for less than $2USD. Oh, and they had OREOS! OREOS! :)
Today we are doing some orientation at ISDSI then going with our host families. We had to learn how to eat using our hands and with sticky rice. Then, Pi Pui (Pi means elder, Pui is her name) came around with a northern Thailand snack, fried bamboo worms. They looked like meal worms. I went for it. I ate one. It was salty. Mentally it was kinda gross, but it tasted fine. I just knew that it was my first "outside my comfort zone" thing and I had to do it. Everyone at my table did. When she came back around for seconds though, I politely declined. We also ate this super cool lychee like fruit, called rambatan or something. (The english name is rambatan). Sticky rice is also delicious!
We did some team building exercises and everyone here is super nice. Most of my interactions thus far have been with Americans, so we'll see how I feel on Monday.
Gotta go for now.
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