“Yah! Yura-yah~ Wake up!!” I vaguely heard someone call me through the music beaming in my ears and could feel someone shaking me by the shoulder. I opened my eyes completely unaware of what time it was, where I was and who I was to be honest.

“What now?” I asked still not fully with the reality and my friend was just pointing out the window with her eyes sparking with excitement. As I took a look outside the window I could see the land closing in on us and bright lights everywhere. Immediately I came to and my eyes shot wide open. I was here. I was in Korea!

“We’ll be landing shortly, ladies and gentleman, make sure your seatbelts are on and fixed properly. The current time here in Incheon, South Korea is 11:05 and it looks like a beautiful Saturday morning.” I heard the captain’s voice booming over the murmurs of the passengers. We had travelled for 12 hours and I couldn’t believe I had slept through all of it! Thankfully it was only morning here so I had plenty of time to waste the energy I had stored up.

As soon as we landed and got through customs and outside of Incheon’s airport I immediately felt such a splurge of emotions - excitement, curiosity, happiness and also confusion. Now my speaking Korean is not that bad, but I have to admit I had never really learnt writing or reading that well. I could understand such writing that said ‘exit’ and ‘no entry’ and which toilet was for which gender, but some of the billboards and advertisements I saw were a bit too complicated for me and I found myself just staring around me with my mouth slightly open and a very humorous facial expression I imagine. However the interesting bit was that I received quite similar looks back at me. Quite a few people were looking at me with a bit of interest and ever pointing at me while whispering. I was not too sure why though. When I asked about it to one of my friends who was Korean and was one of the students returning back with me after his exchange year, he just chuckled at me.

“Well… It could either be the fact that your hair is blonde with pink highlights and you have contact lenses in making your eyes look blue or it can be the clothes you’re wearing.” He shortly explained pointing out the things he mentioned. I immediately found a mirror and took a closer look at myself. Yes, I have to admit it’s hard to find Asians with blonde hair with pink highlights but I’ve only changed it recently for my birthday. And all I had on was short, trainers, a vest that showed my stomach a little bit and the headphones around my neck. Nothing unusual at all so I just turned to my friend with confusion in my eyes. He laughed that little laugh that sounded like he was pitying me for being a bit slow and continued to explain how this type of fashion here in Korea is not that common amongst my aged students as it’s quite unlikely that students here in Korea would have their hair died in such colours (as most schools don’t allow this) and that girls normally dress like that only if they are very confident with their body or if they are a celebrity. Well, I might not be an idol or anything, but I was pretty confident with my body and I can’t say I don’t look good. Also, it’s not like I was a student in this country, however I guess not everyone knows that. I just shrugged it off and chuckled at the thought that some of the people around might confuse me with a celebrity. Me? A celebrity? Funny indeed.

We made our way to the nearest bus stop. The friend had organized with his parents that I can stay at their place in Seoul. The rest of my friends bid their farewell as well. They all came from different parts of Korea or wanted to do different things while here. It’s not like I was that close with them, they were either former employees at my father’s shop or students I’ve met at church and helped them to feel comfortable while their stay in England. Me and my friend got on the first bus to Seoul and y heart couldn’t help but to skip a few beats – I was so close to finding what I had been longing for for so long that it all seemed a bit surreal to me. My friend was soon already sleeping again and I couldn’t help but to laugh at myself quietly for that. I could swear, Korean boys sleep way too much. I just let myself indulge into the pleasures of music as the bus left the airport and took the main road towards the capital city.