Coping with a 10-hour Time Change: The Results

Before I left, I wrote about my plan for dealing with the big time change between Ontario and Seoul.

This is what happened. As per my plan, I was able to stay awake the night before I left. I watched some movies and ate some food. I wasn't really even that tired as the sun came up while I was waiting at the Toronto Airport (after my wonderful experience with Air Canada).

The problems with my plan began when my flight to Vancouver started. Though I was very tired, I was unable to sleep due to the uncomfortableness of the plane (my knees were literally pinned against the seat in front of me). I rested for the whole flight, but never really fell asleep. The same went for the longer flight to Seoul.

Needless to say, I was pretty tired when I arrived. We landed early evening (it was about 5:30pm) and after a dinner out (more on that in a later post) and a brief stop to show us where the school is, we got in around 9pm. We slept right away but woke up pretty early (3:30 or so).

Within a few days, I was fully adjusted to the time difference and I feel that my plan was successful in that regard. The problems arose the first full day we were in Seoul. We went into work for some orientation stuff and to meet some children and the staff. Having not gotten a lot of sleep in the two days prior (or however long it was - but it was much longer than 24 hours), I was more sleep deprived than I have ever been. I had dizzy spells throughout the day and often had to sit down.

Luckily, everyone understood how I was feeling and I wasn't asked to do much that day.

After getting a good night's sleep that night I felt much better.

In conclusion, my plan would have worked near perfectly had I been able to sleep on the plane. However, I should have anticipated that problem and tried to find some other way to get some sleep. If you are planning to do a time change such as this, make sure you can sleep on a plane.

I don't think the big time change is as difficult as it seems to be, though I went through much more trouble before I left than when I got here.

Arrived in Seoul

It took two flights and more than 15 hours in the air, but I have finally arrived in Seoul. I have been here for less than 24 hours and I'm still trying to find my bearings and deal with what seems to be a huge sleep deficit from my "plan."

Currently I have no internet in my apartment, but I am able to do some things quickly at school here (yes, I am working less than 24 hours after I crossed halfway around the world) on the internet.

Hopefully I will get an internet connection at home and then I can post stuff from my laptop (and some pictures).

Lots of stories about my journey will also be coming as it was definitely an event-filled trip.

Coping with a 10-Hour Time Change: The Plan

Since I decided to teach in Korea, I've known I would have to face a 10-hour time change (well, it would have been 7 had I left from Victoria, but I'm not there right now). With this change looming in a few days I thought I would share my strategy.

Since Korea is behind us (well to be completely accurate, they are ahead, but it's less of a change to make the change this way), all I have to do is gradually stay up later until I have adjusted. This seems easy enough except for a few reasons, the biggest being that if I were to get up at 8am Seoul time, that would be 6pm for me here. Since I have a lot to do during the days here, this was not an option. My flight also poses some challenges for me in that I leave early in the morning for Vancouver (see my flight plan in a previous post).

I have been staying up as late as I can the last few days and trying to sleep in as late as I can. I've been able to stay up until 3:30am so far and am going to try for 4:00 or 4:30 tonight. The plan for tomorrow night is not to go to sleep at all, until I get on my plane in Toronto at 8:30. Hopefully I will be konked out for the entire 5+ hours of that flight. That will leave me waking up around 3am Seoul time. If I nap on the second flight, I should be able to get into a normal pattern. So far the plan has gone well (except me waking up earlier than I would like and being pretty bored late at night).

We'll see if this works well. I probably have to do a lot in Seoul this weekend (like figure out how to get to work, where to buy food, etc.).

Stay tuned to see if my plan works or if I fall asleep at the gate in Toronto and miss my flight to Vancouver.