OK, everybody is just going to have to suck it up and forgive me for not updating. My computer died the day before I left for Korea. The "genius" at the Apple store told me I could have it back in seven to ten days. A lot can happen in that space of time. I could totally uproot my entire life and fly off to Korea to teach English for a year. Oh wait, what's this ticket in my hand?

I woke up Wednesday and checked my email one last time. Alex and Holly woke up with me to say goodbye. Alex lugged my suitcase to the door while I gave my cousin a hug. The last thing I ate in the States was an onion bagel covered in butter.

Another beautiful day in San Francisco flew by my seat on the BART train to SFO. I was on my own in a fashion I was completely unaccustomed to. Up until now I had never been anywhere my immediate family or friends could get to me without too much trouble. Even while I hiked the Appalachian Trail in 2003 I wasn't more than a $150 Airtran flight away from help. Korea is twelve hours away from Atlanta, exactly half the distance around the earth. No one was going to be able to come to my aid without a lot of hassle. My isolation sat in the seat next to me and put it's cold arm affectionatly around my shoulder.

I never thought I'd feel as much affection for a place I'd just visited as I felt for San Francisco at that moment. It is a beautiful, vibrant city with a full and rich character. However, my feelings for the city went beyond simple affection as I boarded the Boeing 777 bound for Seoul. It felt something like love, and that was strange.

For so long my regard for America has been rooted in hate and contempt. We're a preachy, ultra conservative, wasteful and flatly hipocritical people ignorant of the outside world. I took my seat and found my mouth dry as I realized my feelings for my country might have been a little one-sided. I still didn't know what to call this feeling as the 777 took to the sky and put the lush hills of San Francisco far away. I stayed glued to the window, watching the coast of California slip into the horizon.

The flight was long. Luckily the drinks were free and I sat next to a friendly Airforce serviceman named Hutch who kept me entertained. I finished my book, 1776, and worked on my Korean. The Korean speak Hangul, which is easy to learn relative to either Japanese or Chinese because it uses a phonetic system of writing. I picked up the entire alphabet and I could count to ten by the time the plane landed at Incheon.

I spent the next few hours in the pinball machine of the Korean transportation system, funneled, bounced and guided to my destination in Pusan. I called my folks at the Incheon airport and a friendly Canadian man helped me find the bus to the Korail station in Seoul, 40 miles away. Another couple helped me change my money to Korean Won. At around 1000 won to the dollar, the exchange rate wasn't bad.

I took the KTX high-speed train, number 99, to Pusan. A ticker on the television screen let me know how fast the train was going. At one point it displayed 300kph. I drifted in and out of sleep, periodically trying to get a glimpse of the Korean countryside. But the lights in the train made puncturing the darkness speeding by impossible.

At the train station in Pusan my roommate, Julie, picked me up with the other two teachers currently working at ESS Best Junior Academy, Dennis and Michael. We jumped into a cab. Julie turned to the driver. "Hangeegree, ma-pop," she said and the driver put the car in gear.

The city of Pusan pressed in on me, a towering cornicopia of billboard-infested skyscrapers shining brightly. Dennis and Julie gave my an earful about teaching at ESS, living in Pusan, and what to expect my first few weeks. Jet lag, crazy kids, spiteful Korean teachers danced in my head as we pulled up to my 20-story apartment. I had a drink with Julie and Dennis and then crashed in my bed, asleep before I hit the matress.

PART ONE OVER.