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.