Well, here I go...

My plane leaves in less than 11 hours. It's hard to believe that in less than two days, I will be on my own in a odd mystery land called "Daehan minguk." It's kind of surreal at this point, and scary. I don't even know if it's sunk in yet; it feels like it has but I think there's still a bit more sinking to go.

It won't be a "jump in right away" kind of deal. During my plane ticket preparations, I was preparing to arrive for the EPIK orientation but apparently there's a difference between the EPIK orientation and the EPIK-Seoul orientation (which I'm part of). The latter starts a day later, so I will have a day to kill; during that time, I'll be rooming in a hotel in Incheon, which is the city west of Seoul and home to Seoul's airport.

And even then, I still don't "jump in right away" because I have a layover in Shanghai before arriving in Incheon. I heard that Blogger is blocked over there and that my purchase of a domain name (and use of Photobucket instead of Picasa for my blog pics) successfully circumvented the Great Firewall of China. However, posting is still under Blogger.com so I'll have to find another way around it. Fortunately, my VPL account at my alma mater still seems to be functional. I'll see if I can get around the Firewall that way.

Well. Here goes nothing. And quite frankly, if nothing out of the ordinary happens for the next while (Kim Jong Il not invading would be a huge help), I'd be completely happy. Better than something going horribly wrong...