Quarantined

I made it to Incheon, South Korea. But, since, I landed I have been under suspicion of H1N1. They have you fill out a H1N1 sheet with your passport info and test your temperature the moment you get off the plane. After we checked into our rooms, they had us get H1N1 checked again. Now, they are monitoring our symptoms and temperature twice daily (before and after the daily seminar) while we are prohibited from leaving the Paradise Hotel during the day or night.

It's understandable considering our future contact with children and equally important it's a liability issue for them. By importing teachers from across the globe they stand to lose their ability to do us if anyone of us is Patient ZERO. And, I don't want to be patient zero who kills off South Korea.

Sadly, this is the first year they have done this! They used to take you out on field trips. Essentially they would get you drunk and let you go out at night. Alas, that is no more. Now, 90 of us sit in a conference room staring out the windows overlooking the city like caged animals. Everyone is craving a beer and soju! And they put a limit on beers at the bar to 1!!!! INSANE!! (but hangovers could be mistaken for legitmate sickness) Luckily, I made a duty free purchase 1L of Jameson. Life saver.

I will say that I am very jet lagged. Last night when we got back I went straight to bed after dinner. I slept for about 10 hours (I didn't sleep on the flight)


Oh, so, I almost forgot my first experience in Korea. (When we were at the airport unaware of the upcoming quarantine) We were waiting with our greeter for the shuttle to arrive. When all the sudden what I thought was a little Korean girl jumped over our bags and squirmed in between us. I quickly reached for my bag with my money in it. She was followed calmly by a security guard who moved past me and grabbed her by the arm. Two other security guards came over and tried to subdue this 30 year old woman who looked 15 from first glance. She squirmed her way away. And they calmly chased her down a couple more times. The one security guard was texting during the apprehension. Apparently, she had 'found' a wad of missing money on the ground. Or that's her side of the story. We didn't wait around for the resolution. I really wish I had my camera on me for that moment.