I've arrived!!...My first few hours

written Jan 5, 2008:

I’m here!

I literally arrived about 30 minutes ago in my room and before going straight to bed I just wanted to let everyone know I’m here, safe and sound. Left Seattle at 1 pm on Thur, Jan 3 and right now its about 1 pm on Friday, Seattle time (that = 24 hours of traveling!)….here its 4 am Saturday. (Thailand is 15 hours ahead of Seattle…so add 3 hours and flip day/night) As soon as I was dropped off in my room, my friend Monica who arrived 2 weeks ago (and has the same job as I do here) heard me because she is in the room next door and gave me a big welcoming hello. Wow, how lucky I feel to have 2 familiar faces here (another classmate of mine, Dave, also started 2 weeks ago). They are loving it…more about that later once I can give you first hand info.

My flights were great. I actually loved just sitting there doing nothing. It felt great to relax. It was 11 hours to Korea, 3 hr layover, 6 hours to Bangkok, then a 3 hour drive to the resort. Haven’t seen anything yet because its totally dark. I am on the 4th floor of the staff apartment building. Its very clean but stark…white walls with nothing on them. Good thing I brought plenty of pictures! We are next door to the resort…a few minute walk….and a 2 minute walk down the street to the beach. The food is served on the 2nd floor and there is a gym too. I have a nice little room with a big closet, my own bathroom, fridge, tv, desk…where I am sitting right now. There is a door to a little patio but all I see is the building next door (& some palm trees :-).

Feeling a range of emotions but now that all the planning and the 101 good-byes are behind me, I’m finally very excited for my adventure. I’ve had a lot of God moments telling me all is okay….my favorite # is 3 and I left today from gate #33; my room number is 3; I’ve been assigned to office #3; happened to look at the clock this afternoon and it was 3:33; I watched The Nanny Diaries on the plane and it ended with this quote: “when one immerses themselves into a foreign culture, it is a great teacher of one’s own culture and one’s own life and self”….very cool I thought.

Okay, well I’m going to get some sleep. My check-in time is 9am on Monday. How nice to have time to adjust to the time difference! So that gives me Sat & sun to explore. I just got lucky since I arrived on Saturday morning because when Dave and Monica arrived, they started orientation the very next morning.

So, that’s all I know so far!
Love to you all!