Brian's Journal. February 18, 2011

The first day can only be summed up in a couple of words long, interesting, and a little confusing. Roughly around 9am we the YAMS and our parents arrived in JFK. Everyone came with smiles on their faces, determination in their hearts, and bags in hand. We greeted each other, weighed our bags and added additional supplies we would hope to use on our trip into our luggage. A quick photo opts and check-in was all that was needed until we were on our way. Personally, I wasn’t too sure about this 16 hour flight to Incheon, I thought I would become restless, bored and would find it difficult to survive but before boarding the plane, the YAMS and our director’s took time out to get to know each other a little better by sharing a few facts about our life’s  which helped us bond. While on this 16 hour journey the airline we was on, they had various activities you can do whether it be watching a movie, or playing a video game.

They also served us two- meals, a snack, and a hot towel to ensure that we were comfortable, but with the sleep, company of others, food, and the grace we made it to Incheon. Even though we made it through the longest leg of our trip we still had to rush to catch our next and final flight to Phom Penh, Cambodia which would be another 6 hours. Another challenge on this flight was that there are no personal entertainments. The majority of us have I-pods so we used those, and those who didn’t either slept or watched the movie the airline chose to play. We also faced the challenge of the different time zones which we will have to adjust to because we have to live here for the next ten days.