Day 1: Arrival to Seoul, South Korea!

Hello, everyone! Jonathan Palmer here. It's about 5:00 AM here in Seoul, South Korea! We had a very exciting journey coming to this country!

Going to SFO, two of our JSW instructors were very kind to take a couple hours of their day to transport us to the airport. Thank you to Sabum-nim Karen Heart and Bu-Saubum-nim Alvin Sojourner!

After dropping us off and making our way to the terminal, we made it onto the plane without any problems or delays. Our designated seats were pretty close to each other too! The plane ride was scheduled to be a 12 hour flight, but it turned out to be 10 hours. Not sure what happened because most of us were alseep. :)

We finally arrived to Seoul, and the weather wasn't bad at all! It's like the weather in Fremont!

We were greeted not only by our team members (Chief Master Sarah and Veronica), but other people as well that were Great Grandmaster's fans and helping to coordinate the whole mission tour (Danny, Ailie, So Jung, Professor Oh, and many others).

To our surprise, we were given gifts of flowers and sweets for our arrival! You definitely wouldn't get this kind of greeting if we arrived on our own and were not part of Great Grandmaster's team.

A couple of hours later, Great Grandmaster and the rest of the team arrived, and wow there were a lot of people to greet her! Many people from different organizations, Korean press, and fans came for the chance to just see Great Grandmaster! Great Grandmaster was like a rock star, being mobbed and greeted left and right!

After the welcoming reception, we made our way to the vehicles that would be transporting us. The Demo Team and our other team were treated with a bus all to ourselves, while Great Grandmaster had a personal escort and car for herself! We departed from the airport and made our way to the heart of Seoul.

We came to our next stop at a restaurant in Itiwan for a authentic and modern style Korean dinner! Oh man, was the food good! :) We had a chicken dish, kimchi, sol-long tong (beef soup), etc. The food was amazing! Afterwards we concluded for the night and made our way to the hotel.

Overall, we had an amazing welcoming! For myself personally, I've heard the stories of Great Grandmaster's grand welcoming in Korea, but experiencing it first hand was even more amazing! I'm honored for the opportunity to be on this trip, and most of all, the treatment I received as Great Grandmaster's team member. I know this is just the beginning of our journey, but seeing the impact that Great Grandmaster has on the people here of this country blew my socks off!!

I have to conclude for now and begin getting ready for our day. I'll keep everyone posted of our adventure here in Korea! The next plan for our day is Great Grandmaster giving a lecture (and our first performance in this country) in front of 1,500 or more people! Until then, we will see you soon! :)

Jung Su!

- Jonathan Palmer

A view of Seoul, South Korea in the early morning from our hotel room!