Settling In

It's been a busy first couple of days here on Jeju-do.

The majority of the new faculty arrived late Sunday night at Jeju International Airport.  There were well over 30 (or 40... it was chaos and I didn't count. ha.) of us gathering in the arrivals area, each of us with a luggage laden cart.  It made for a very chaotic, but also energy-boosting, experience.  As we made our way from the airport to our new locations of residence, we were told that we couldn't eat anything after 22h00 because we were going to the hospital for a medical examination the next day.

We left early Monday morning to head back into Jeju City for the hospital.  (Branksome Hall Asia is about a  40-50 minute drive from the two main cities on the island).  I have never been in such a nice hospital.  The interior could have passed for a hotel, it was so nice.  It took roughly 3.5 hours to get us all through the medical check, and then we were whisked away to a wonderful bulgogi lunch.  It was so good--even more so because we were so hungry.  We finished the day with a trip to E Mart and then some free time to settle in and unpack.  I managed to meet one of the faculty from last year and she took me down to this lovely spot:

View toward the Sea.  

 I would tell you "where" this is, except I am not really sure what it is called.  There aren't many "cities" on Jeju from what I can tell and I am still getting used to how addresses are labelled and written.

View over the bay back toward Mount Hallasan (peak eclipsed by the clouds)

And that was only the first day.  Yesterday (Tuesday), we did a lot more stuff around the school.  We met in our divisions for a general information overview, had a tour of the school and received a macbook.  This PC user still prefers her PC, but I like that I don't have to worry about mixing up my work and personal stuff on my laptop.  Plus, there are IT people at the school to help if anything goes wrong (although hopefully nothing will!).

The campus is beautiful in design and architecture.  I'll show more pictures later, but for now here's an image that I took of the academic side of the campus yesterday as I was heading to dinner:

View from the bridge of the academic side of the campus.  Junior School pods are the two buildings on the right with the middle school on the far left.  In the back is the central building with the main office and HR.

Today it's Wednesday and we'll be going into Jeju City again, this time to visit immigration.  It's sure to be another full day and I can't wait.

t.t.f.n.