My first weeks...

So here it is, my first official blog entry for Korea. I am sorry it has taken so long to start one here, but as you will soon hear, I have been kept quite busy.

Let me first start by saying how amazing it has been thus far. I could never have imagined it would be like this. I have met so many great people that are so passionate and giving in all that they do.

This first picture here is a picture of the girls in my housing complex. I can not say enough about them! Each one of them fabulous. We like to call ourselves our own little sorority. (and so do the guys) This picture was from our St. Patty's Day party. But I am getting ahead of myself... let's start at the beginning...

The plane ride... I guess you never realize how long a day is until you spend a entire day on a plane. Yes my friends, I spent almost 24 hours traveling, 20 of them on a plane. Two separate flights. Philadelphia to San Francisco was the first one. Saying bye to mom was a bit hard. If you can believe it, she did cry. (I love and miss you tons mom!!!) Got through ticket stuff ok and headed to my gate. Joseph had come to visit me before I left and it turned out that we were on the same flight from Philly to San Fran!!! So that was nice. I arrived at San Fran and had to say bye to Joseph, that was easy. It is nice to FINALLY be away from him. Don't tell him, but I really don't like him that much. I just use the "best friend" title to make him feel better. hehehe So now I am on my way to the international terminal. When I got there I exchanged some money and went to my gate. Within the hour I was on my final flight. Next stop... KOREA!!!! The actual flight itself, all 14 hours of it, was pretty nice. I started to get antsy about half way through. But I have to say, if anyone ever comes and visits me, and please do, travel Singapore. They were SO wonderful. I had about 25 movies to choose from. I saw Walk the Line, Pride and Prejudice, CRASH (amazing movie!), North Country, and In Her Shoes. All were amazing movies!!!! CRASH definitely was my favorite. The food was amazing and the service was nothing short of wonderful!!!! We had a great landing and there I was... In KOREA!!! When I got through customs and all that that entailed, I walked out to the terminal area where we were told we were going to be picked up. Of course, no one is there and I am not really sure what to do. So I go over and try to figure out how to use their pay phones, not as easy as you think. After probably about 5 minutes of trying, a very nice Korean man came over and not only helped me, but paid for my call!!! This is, as I have come to find out, the general aura of Koreans... kind. So I got a hold of Monica at the office here in Korea and she assured me that I was just the first of my group and that someone would be there shortly. So I figure, since I am Amazon, I would just stand in an open area and that the other westerners would see me. This is due to the fact that I am the tallest person in this country... almost. And I was right... within a couple of minutes I was surrounded by other Americans/Canadians. And when I asked them how they knew I was here for Paju, they replied the amount of luggage and your height. I do love being tall!!! So we all waited and eventually got on the bus shuttle that they provided for us.

So this brings me to the camp... When we all arrived it was around 11pm. So obviously it was dark. This was slightly disappointing as I did want to see the camp, but I could wait until morning. They put our luggage on this tiny truck and brought us all around to our apartments and unloaded it. Surprisingly, that part was very organized.

So I walk into my apartment and almost fell over. Now let me start by saying, it is small. Totally livable, but VERY small. However, it has EVERYTHING you need to live. Queen size bed, desk, table and chairs, flat screen TV, dvd/vcr, closet, bathroom, sink, microwave, washing machine and much more! The one thing that I am still not used to is the fact that dryers don't really exist here in Korea. I mean they exist, but no one uses one. Everything gets hung to dry!!! I miss soft warm towels coming out of the dryer. The towels just don't feel the same!!! Not to mention some things that you just NEED to put in the dryer. (aka jeans, socks, ect.) But hey, when in Rome do as the Romans right!?!?!? So back to the room, when I walked in to my room, everything was in boxes. It was like walking into an unfinished room. Having very little sleep and being extremely jet lagged I just said to myself... just get your bed made and go to bed! Now any of you who know me at all, that didn't happen. I, of course, took everything out of the boxes, set up my room, rearranged in about 5 times, completely unpacked, and then made my bed. Then I vacuumed the room and then I went to bed. What a day it had been!!!!!!

My first official full day in Paju, Korea... My first wake-up in Korea was nice. Got up to a finished room, (I knew I did it the night before for a reason) showered and prepared for what I knew was going to be a busy day. The first thing a group of us did was plan a trip to EMart. Now for those of you who don't know, EMart is like a super Wal-Mart. It has food, clothes, electronic stuff, and much more! This is where a lot of my grocery shopping is done right now. WHAT A CULTURE SHOCK!!! I NEVER could have guessed how I felt that first day food shopping. To look down an isle and see these foreign characters and no English... it's quite an experience!!! So that first trip I was in EMart for around 2 hours. It normally would have taken me about 30 minutes in the states. I have it down to about that right now, but that first trip I felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me.

The following weeks... To be perfectly honest, the past 3 weeks have kind of blended together, so I will just list "Tamye Moments" that I have had and things that I am currently or have worked on.

Myself and another girl are the lead singers in the parade that we perform here. We alternate days between us. The parade consists of 5 songs, each song being a different style. The kids seem to really enjoy the parade!!! The smiles that they share with us are so amazing and encouraging. They make what we are doing here possible and worth while!!!

A "Tamye Moment" for you all to have a good laugh... Basically, I completely wiped out on the street of the park in front of somewhere around 20 Korean business men all in black suits. When they saw me fall they all stopped and looked at me like I just killed myself. So in true Tam fashion I got up, brushed myself off, and said "Watch out for the ground." Side note, I didn't trip on anything except my own two feet and some uneven ground. I am SO graceful!!! Now when I said to the Korean men to watch out for the ground, they all smiled. I am still not sure though if they were laughing at what I said and my wit, or if they really had no idea what I said and were just laughing because they were uncomfortable. Probably the later.

Training here is very intense. We work, right now 6 days a week. 9-5 are the scheduled hours, but it is ALWAYS more than that. Between extra rehearsals, meetings and all that comes along with making the final opening of this park successful, we are all hauling around extra hours and doing the job of many!!!!

Currently I am writing a song for the opening festivities. It is right around 5 minutes long and I am very excited to have us all perform it. The great thing about this park is that it is brand new. So we, as the employees, can literally make it what we want! Thus, they gave us a song to perform, and myself and a few others didn't really like it, and I decided to re-write it. I have two partners in crime with my song writing... Simon and Stew. Both of these guys are fabulously talented! And, we work entirely too well together!!!! Basically it goes something like this... I hear something in my head... I go to Simon and sing it for him, tell him the feel, tempo, and rhythm and he then plays it on the piano. We jam for a little. I go home and write a melody line with harmonies and some lyrics. Come back the next day and try it out. Fix what doesn't work. And then Stew adds some improve on the piano/guitar.... And WALAH!!!! We have a kick ass song!!!! I am so excited to perform this will everyone. By the way, all of this took around 3-4 days!!!! I love working with talented and passionate people!!!!!! So yeah, that is being performed April 3rd.

I have had a couple of trips into Seoul thus far. Seoul is a great place. It's kind of a mixture between NYC, Vegas, and Amsterdam. We went to a few clubs out in Seoul and had dinner and such. It's just nice to get out of the camp for a night or two. It keeps the park fun for us!!!
Speaking of food, I have been pretty lucky thus far with food. There are some really good and healthy things here. I think I am officially Korean, I have bought a rice cooker. hehehehe I do have a funny story about food though. For all of you weak stomach people, don't read the rest. A huge group of us went into Islan one night to go to a club and when we got there, we all broke off into different groups for dinner and we were going to meet back up in about an hour to go to the bar. So Tabs, Dave and myself went off on our own. We passed a couple of places and finally decided on one. We went in and of course they spoke no English, however, they do know, pig/cow/chicken. So we got out of the man at the restaurant "pig". Now this usually means pork... not this time. We got our appetizers, which you always are given in Korea, and they were very good. Then out comes the food. We are still not sure what it was. What our fellow park people seem to think it was was raw pig skin. We were told we were lucky that it came out without hair on it. Huuuuuuuuuahhhhhhhh!!!! When we saw the plate we all almost vomited!!!! I being brave tried a piece of it, not knowing what it was yet. I took one bite at it and spit it out. It was like chewing on tupperware. Dave tried a bite too and actually chewed and attempted to swallow it, and couldn't. He had one of those upchuck moments. Needless to say, it was quite the dinner. Dave went to KFC after we left the restaurant. Tabs and I didn't, which was stupid of us because we were starving the rest of the night. We just didn't want all that grease KFC has. Instead we drank beer!!!!! The night is a fun memory!!!!

Well, that is most of it. I will try to keep this blog up to date... Scratch that, I WILL keep this blog up to date. I miss and love you all!!!! I hope all is going famously in all of your lives. Please stay in touch and keep me informed of all that is going on in your life. MUAH!!!!! SMILES!!!!!