The automated female voice announces the name of the next station, which thankfully sounds a lot like what I’ve written phonetically on my paper—Gimpo. The train lurches to a stop, and I grab the handles of my bags, forcing my way through a mass of humanity thicker than Momma’s grits.
I stagger onto the platform just as the doors close, and, mustering as much gumption as I have, pancake any stray Koreans as I force my way through the crowd fighting to board the train. Once I climb the escalator and maneuver through the automated gate, I emerge into the surprisingly thick humidity of a Korean summer.
My grip on my suitcases tightens as I make my way to the line of taxis on the street. I ford through the throng of tourists with their own luggage.
The metro can’t take me all the way to the Korean School of Foreign Studies from Incheon International Airport. Normally, I could take the subway to this stop, then get on a public bus—as the representative from the school suggested to me via video chat last week—but when I planned this trip, I knew I wouldn’t want to venture that with my luggage and zero knowledge of the area.
I stand by the curb and scan the line of taxis until I spot one of the drivers holding a sign that reads GRACE WILDE. I throw him a frantic wave, and he meets me halfway to the van. He helps me lift my bags into the back, and I collapse into a seat in the middle row.
He peers at me in the rearview mirror, obviously waiting for some kind of direction. I guess his superiors didn’t inform him of our destination. Biting my lip, I flip through my Korean phrase book searching for the right words.
“Ahn nyeong ha se yo!” Hello. “Umm…” I stare at the Romanized translations, the multitude of consonants and letter combinations I’ve never seen—let alone pronounced—mixing inside my travel-weary brain like a blender on HIGH.
“Where you go?” the man asks.
“High school!” I sigh, thanking God this man speaks at least a little English. “Korean School of Foreign Studies. On Ganghwa Island.”
“Oh, I know, I know.” He shifts out of PARK, and we merge into traffic.
I sink lower and let my head rest on the seatback. The long hours of traveling are beginning to catch up with me. I was so hyped on adrenaline when we landed in Seattle and again in Incheon that I didn’t think about the fact that I hadn’t slept even a minute on either of my flights. But now a dull ache pounds just behind my eyebrows, and sleep seductively whispers to lull me out of consciousness.
Sunlight glares off the cars in front of us. We drive farther away from the city, away from Incheon—and away from Seoul, South Korea’s capital, which sits only about an hour by train from the airport. Fast food restaurants and digital billboards are quickly replaced by a long bridge that shoots us across the narrow channel of water separating the island from the mainland.
As the van bumps down off the bridge and onto island soil, I watch buildings pop up around us. Not a city, really, but a town. It reminds me of a beach town I visited with my family back in middle school, one of those with hole-in-the-wall restaurants on every corner serving local fishermen’s latest catches, where the population doubles during tourist season and all the shops close at six in the evening. But instead of a diversity of people—white, black, Latino, Indian—I see only Asian. Dark hair. Dark eyes.
I finger my own blond curls, which flattened along the journey but still hang down to my elbows. Momma likes to call my hair my “crowning glory,” a gift from her side of the family. I’ve always loved it; it matches perfectly with what my sister, Jane, calls my “hipster look,” but I now realize it makes me stick out here like a goth at a country concert.
And trust me when I tell you, that’s pretty obvious. I’ve been to my fair share of concerts, both country and otherwise. When your dad is one of the biggest record producers in the country music business and your brother has topped the country charts five years in a row, you start to learn your way around the Mecca of the music lover.
I’m tempted to reach into my purse and pull out my iPod. I can think of at least ten songs that would fit this moment perfectly, my own background music to this new life I’ve started. But I resist the urge, wanting to make sure the cab driver has my full attention in case we need to communicate in broken English again.
It only takes us a few minutes to pass through the entirety of the town, and then the cab’s climbing up a hill into the mountains, which tower over the coastline. We drive up and up, until a thin layer of fog hovers over the road, and we emerge at the crest of the hill. To the right is an overlook of the town we just drove through, then the channel, and in the distance, Incheon, though I can’t see it. On the left side of the street, though, is a giant arch that stretches across the entrance to a plaza-like area, gold Korean characters glittering in the fading sunlight.
My new home.
We stop just in front of the arch, and I step out of the cab. But once I’ve pulled in a breath of campus air, my stomach clenches. The cabbie lifts my suitcases out of the van, and I fumble with my wallet, examining each bill carefully before handing him the money.
The taxi pulls away, and I turn my back on the gorgeous coastal view to stare up at the white stone building directly across the plaza, its gigantic staircase leading up to what I assume are classrooms and offices.
I can’t help but wonder how different life would be if I’d done what my parents wanted—stayed at the same elite prep school for senior year. I would have kept all the same friends, gone to all the same parties, been hit on by every aspiring musician trying to get to my dad, and watched my ex-boyfriend date every other girl in school like the douche he is.
But instead of a stuffy prep school in Nashville, I’m here. Completely alone in a foreign country, searching the grounds for the administration offices and the school rep who said he would help me get settled in.
Magnesium. Aluminum. Silicon.
Moving here was my idea.
Phosphorous. Sulfur.
I can do this.
Chlorine.
I can do this.
Argon.
I can.
Do.
This.