Birthday Postmortem

Just so no one thinks everything is so peachy wonderful here all the time, I'll admit that certain times are ridiculously rough. My birthday was a prime example of this. I started off the day in a phenomenal mood because my fraternity brothers Skyped me and I got a video call from my parents as well, so getting to talk to them put an immediate spring in my step.

Bored and sad at work        

I got to school and started off by teasing my students about the date. Normally   I ask them how the weather is, what today's date is, etc. But today I stopped and asked "why is September 12th special?" and they would get all flustered and inevitably baffled until I told them that it was birthday and I received a round of "happy birthdays" from all the students. Then I would ask "what do people do to celebrate their birthdays in Korea?" and without fail every class said "have a party with friends and family" and the reality of that impossibility for me slow sank deeper into my mind as the day progressed. I started getting a little choked up toward the end of the day until one of my co-teachers asked "what's wrong?" I couldn't even get out the entire phrase and ended up saying "It's my birth-" before having to stop cuz I legitimately thought I was going to cry. 

I was just thinking of all the craziness that would be going on back home for my birthday. A nice dinner with my parents and maybe a day out fishing followed by a party at the fraternity house with all my brothers and a trip to a bar with some of the ones I'm closer to. Instead I'm sitting at a desk grading papers. I think my co-teachers felt bad, because they didn't call me into my later classes and let me just chill in the office, but that was even worse because it was like 6am in America so no one was on Facebook and I was just left alone with my depressing thoughts. 

Solidly Western meal

Luckily, I do have good friends here in Korea and they helped cheer me up a lot. After work we went to Masan (my first trip to Masan!) to get some Pizza da Gennero, which is the legit Italian pizza joint here. We got some phenomenal pizza (some kinds I've never even tried before) and beer before heading over to Baskin Robbins and grabbing an ice cream cake from a wall of masterfully sculpted cakes. They put it in cool insulated styrofoam box with dry ice and then we headed to Palyong to try and find some alleged pirate ship playground. After walking all over the damn place, we found it and it was a pretty awesome pirate ship, I won't lie. We sat in the pirate ship, lit some candles and had our own little party up there in our birthday-pirate-ship-fort. I couldn't help but feel like I was in that movie "16 Candles"...which I've never seen except for that birthday cake scene but it reminded me a lot of that. I'm really lucky to have met such thoughtful and cool people.

I don't think my birthday had anything to do with it, but ever since then (it's only been like 5 days, mind you) I've just been agreeing to the most ridiculous things that I would have never done in the states. So Friday, Casey, Caitlin, Naz and I meet up with a few people in Sangnam who were trying to start up a "bike party" in SoKo (Erin has coined this term and I love it, so I will now always refer to Korea as SoKo). Apparently this is a big think they do in California? And it gets up to 4000 people in attendance. Obviously we probably won't get 4000 bikers in SoKo, but Changwon has a bike rental system calle Nubija, so it actually makes it pretty easy to obtain a bike. So this group wanted to bike 15 miles through Korea....which normally I would NEVER do...but..what the hell, right?

Those are some
pretty cool cakes.

So we meet in Sangnam, unfortunately I don't have a Nubija because I don't yet have a Korean phone (I'm learning this is more akin to having a SSID in America than your actual SSID in SoKo. They use it to verify your ID for practically everything). The leader of the event, Coby, thankfully had a bike of his own that he lent me. It was one of those collapsable bicycles that look absolutely ridiculous but ride really well. And I'm about to ride it all the way to Jinhae.

                       Peak of my birthday                       

We set off, alcohol in hand, ringing bells and screaming "Bike Party!" like complete assholes, but it was a lot of fun. Not too far into our trip, we pass a Korean man and do the usual: ring bells, chug, scream "bikeparty!". But then, right after we pass him, we stop at a Nubija rental to renew our bike passes. While I'm waiting for everyone to rescan their bikes, he catches up to us and walks up to me saying "so beautiful!" I think it's safe to assume he was drunk. He begins to reach into his pocket and Casey thinks that he is taking out a camera/phone because Koreans are always asking to take pictures with me. Instead, he takes out his wallet and pulls out a 5,000 Won bill and tries to hand it to me. I think he is trying to tell me to rent a Nubija since I'm the only one without one so I say "Ken-cha-na-yo. No, thank you. I'm fine." because I already have a bike! 

He then pulls out a peach bill and holds it up to my face. I'm thinking "What? Is my skin the same color as the bill? Does my face look like the guy on the bill?" Casey is equally as puzzled and everyone else has rode ahead. Next thing I know, the Korean man sloppily kisses his bill and smacks it onto my forehead. I bow slightly and say "kam-sa-ham-ni-da! (thank you!)" and he starts to walk away, so we start peddling away as well. Caey turns to me and says "Did that guy just stick 50 bucks on your forehead?" I pull it off and, sure enough, it's a 50,000 Won note. Only 10 minutes into the night and I already made 50 bucks. Put me in a pretty good mood.

We're about to descend into the tunnel...

We then eventually reach this tunnel...which turns out to be the most magically awesome tunnel ever. It's like a mile long and on a slight downhill slope, so the we just speed down this tunnel-hill and it feels like a rollar coaster. It probably sounds stupid in a blog, but there really is no way to adequately explain how it felt. Probably one of the most fun things I've ever done. The rest of the trip down to the Dream Bay was downhill as well, so it was smooth sailing the whole way. We get to the bay and I spend the 50 on booze and fireworks and we shot Roman candles out into the bay. We then proceeded to drink heavily into the night and were either assholes who scared away all the Koreans, or we were just there until very late. Eventually, we started biking back and it started raining ever so slightly. I obviously couldn't go the night uninjured so, at a downhill portion, I squeezed the brakes on the collapsable bike really hard because I forgot how quickly it stopped. I flew over the handlebars and into the street. Bled quite a bit. The people at GS25 were super nice and helped clean me up, but I was not up for the bars at 330am when we got back like everyone else was. I was out for the night.

Yes, I realize I'm wearing the same thing Saturday
as I did Wednesday...I don't have a lot of fall clothes =P

The next day Casey and I went to Lotte Mart to buy taco fixings for a potluck that night. The potluck ended up being really cool and I met a lot of awesome people. One guy, Sunil, got me to agree to audition for a play he was directing and another group got me to agree to go to a cultural festival the next day. See? Literally just up for anything. It's not like I have a lot to do otherwise, so in that sense SoKo is really liberating. The food was outrageously delicious too. I probably overate.

The next day I met up with Brittany, Suzie, and bunch of other new acquaintances to check out the cultural Airang (I think I spelled that correctly?) It was raining all day, which sucked, but ponchos were free and there was a ton of food to try. SoKo has taught me I am a complete sucker for good curry. I don't think I'd ever had Indian food before coming here, but damn....I don't think I've tried a curry I didn't like. That may have to be a main staple of my diet in Korea. There were also a bunch of musical performances by international pop artists from many different countries. It was cool to see people go wild with such cultural enthusiasm. I feel like my American enthusiasm is so much more lackluster than other people's, but my enthusiasm for things in general is significantly less I think.

A Philippino artist performing at the Airang

Not sure what will come next, but maybe it's better that way! I'll keep you posted!

Birthday Prelude

I won't lie...that days leading up to my birthday have been kind of foreboding. It's just me being too much inside my head, but it sucks knowing I'll be celebrating my birthday without my fraternity brothers, or my girlfriend, or my family. But, that's really being a bit too negative. After the days/hours leading up to my birthday, and those that followed shortly thereafter, I felt the necessity to blog about this moment in time.

First, I should mention that I feel particularly lucky that I've gotten accustomed to Korea so quickly. I've probably said this before, but without people like Caitlin pulling me out into the world, or people like Casey willingly building me a social network (when it really doesn't benefit either of them at all), I would still probably be sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, or just calling it quits and hopping the next flight home and really never self-actualizing the way I am now. I honestly don't even know what self-actualizing means right now...it just feels right. I'm 알딸딸 (tipsy) on makgeoli right now, but whatever. Blog when the good mood strikes, right?

I'm really lucky as shit. I work at a great school. It can be frustrating at times but other times the kids are really awesome and we just connect and it feels really cool breaking down language barriers and sharing our cultures. My directors are nice and my co-teachers are even better. I can't praise them enough for how genuinely awesome they are. They're always so nice and helpful and welcoming.

Boram's going-away dinner =[

My director loved having me take shots of soju with him.

I got to have Korean BBQ TWO days in a row!! Once for Boram's going away party and once at school...for dinner at work! It was the best week ever =]. But I really will miss Boram...she always helped me so much with my Korean and was pretty much the coolest person. Plus her mom makes the best eel I have ever had. I hope we can hang out when her mom gets better. I wen to visit her mom in the hospital and it was super awkward because none of them really spoke English. When I feel pressured to speak Korean, I just freeze up and can't remember anything. I'm sure I'll get better with practice.

My Dogye coteachers always cook the most delicious food,
but Samgyeopsal? At work? The most amazing day ever.

I've been introduced to a cool group of people that's constantly expanding the more I put myself out there.  Naz, David, and Catherine are super cool and chilling with them feels kind of natural. I hate when people have expectations for an evening and then you have to spend all night trying to fulfill those expectations. It's exhausting. These are people who go with the flow and you kind of have to in Korea.

We went to a crazy Japanese photobooth...
my students later thought I was really in prison.

Friday night, we went out and met up with Andrew, Myeongwon, and Andrew's girlfriend (who I apologize for her name escaping me at the moment)....we also ran into a bunch of really cool people who I ALSO don't remember the names of, but I'm sure I'll see them again. One guy made tacos. He had a red beard. I definitely won't forget him.

The reason I'm blanking on everyone, is because Casey and I are sufficiently awesome at beer pong and couldn't stop winning. Which you think is good, except we didn't like DOMINATE win....we just kind of...won. So we drank a LOT. This was already after a ton of beer and makgeoli. I'm pretty sure at some point I took my shirt off, stole an American girls umbrella (to be fair...she did accost me in the elevator and then claim I was trying to kiss her = crazy), Casey made me give it back, we walked home half naked in the POURING rain, I got home, passed out, woke up in a pool of my own vomit like a college freshman. At some point David and I won at pool. And then we lost at pool to Naz...or no...we lost at beerpong to Naz and lost at pool to some Korean guy who looked like a member of the Japanese Yakuza.

This kid is like 10...and much better at saxaphone
than I will ever be at anything.

That was a decent Friday night. Saturday, we took it a bit easier and went to Sangnam for the laser light show at the lake. I don't know what I was expecting, but it was actually pretty freakin cool. There was even one part where the projected scenes from the Lion King? Idk how this is free every weekend when I have to pay 80 bucks to see it at Epcot. And some little 12 year old was solo rocking a saxaphone not giving a fuck...so good for you little saxaphonist...but maybe head across the street to the record store and pick up some American jazz. Oh...and I discovered for 3 bucks a street vender will give me a giant bag of THREE different kinds of hodugwaja (walnut-shaped cakes)...literal heaven right now. We also grabbed the most delicious Indian food and hit up a plethora of other little joints for food and makgeoli and all sorts of hedonistic pleasures (wait...that sounded wrong...).

Sunday was meh, because it was pouring rain all day so I just stayed inside and played video games like a dork. Should have studied Korean, but really had no motivation. I finally got my motivation about fifteen minutes after my birthday in the Eastern Hemisphere. Casey took me out to a coffee shop to meet some cool people who invited me to their potluck this weekend, and afterwards we headed back to his place so he could check me out a bike to ride home. What ACTUALLY happened, was that we went into Family Mart and got some alcohol and proceeded to sit outside and talk about future-type boring shit that you as a general audience don't care about, but there were two Korean guys sitting next to us (presumably doing the same thing) and all I kept thinking was...at some point we're going to start talking. I don't even remember what triggered it, but soon enough we had all scooted our chairs together and were introducing ourselves to one another. Can you believe for all the Korean I've bothered to learn, I still don't know how to introduce myself or ask someone their name? It's kind of stupid.

Some board game I don't even know...
But I'm pretty sure we did more talking than playing

So there we were...1:00 am...sitting around on some plastic patio furniture. Casey and I doing our best to fumble through some broken Korean that we knew and these two men doing their best to fumble through some basic English...and we happened to reach a middle ground that was enough for us both to understand one another. They asked us about our homes and jobs, we asked them about their families, we talked about booze. We boisterously shouted for people to take pictures of us together, and they did, then they told us to shut up because we were being very loud, so we said our good nights and scurried
off.

These guys made my night

Because..you know...Gangnam Style...

But that ride home was just like... "I want to do this forever. This is the coolest thing that has ever happened to me." I love communicating with people and sharing cultures and languages. There is no feeling like this anywhere. I'm really finding a hard time coming up with a reason to go back to America for grad school to have my head buried in a book forever. Experiential learning is just... irreplaceable. It's definitely making me want to study harder.

I think Caitlin has birthday plans for me tomorrow and they some cool stuff planned this weekend. We'll see what happens, stay tuned!!!

Fitting In

Beginning my 3rd month in Korea, it's actually interesting to see how far I've come. It's honestly probably farther than I ever thought I could come on my own. I started off as a "baby back bitch" who couldn't figure out how to turn on the washing machine and was afraid to leave my house because I thought I would get lost and end up wandering the streets of Korea forever.

Tonight I went out for Korean BBQ with my director and co-teachers as a sort of "going away party" for Boram, and got to bust out a little of the Korean I had learned. Earlier today I pseudo-ordered gimbap on my own as well. If I keep going at this pace, I hope to be able to hold a minor conversation within the 4 month mark. We'll see how that goes.

At some point my director just started feeding my soju,
then after I got a little tipsy reminded me
 to keep my Korean language in "polite" form.

It honestly feels like Final Fantasy X/X-2, when you had to learn the Al Bhed language. Like...at first it's all absolute gibberish..but it's more like a phrasal cipher. I keep unlocking little bits and learning more and more. It's really cool. Certainly more fun than the 3 years of Spanish I took and didn't retain a word of.

It's really a wonderful language and culture. It's really redefined the concept of gratitude for me. Gratitude isn't something you owe to someone after they do something for you, but rather something that you pay forward. You aren't thankful for what people have done for you, you're just grateful for those people. I really miss Boram at work already, after only working with her for two months, so I can't imagine how it'll feel when I have to say goodbye to everyone in ten months, potentially. 

We had the manager help us set it up
thanks to Catherine's skilled Korean.

Same with Casey and Caitlin. They'll be gone at the end of the month, and I'm not sure what that'll mean for me. Luckily, Casey has graciously been connecting me to the rest of his social network in Korea, and there are really some solidly cool people here. This weekend we went screen golfing with a Canadian couple, David and Catherine, who really made me see Korea as a long term prospect. Just listening to Catherine talk to the proprietor in fluent Korean after only a year here was an awe-inspiring insight. There's really no way to explain how cool it is to speak a foreign language on foreign soil. It's humbling and inspiring simultaneously. Their enthusiasm for the language and culture here also drove me to study harder.

Screen golf was a lot of fun, but nothing like real golf at all. I was terrible at it. The feel is totally different, and I didn't really get the hang of it until the end of the game. They were also pretty serious about it there. I would like to open a noraebang/screen golf course, because that seems like it would be a complete blast.

Casey ended up being pretty damn good.

We were mostly dicking around...

Meeting people in Korea is also pretty strange. It's very ephemeral. It feels like we're all chilling at this eternal rest stop. Some people get off the train and join the circle as other say their farewells and board the train for God knows where. Some people have grown tired of even greeting their new company since they'll most likely be gone soon enough anyway. Everything feels very spectral...very transitory...like we're all just sort of floating between dimensions. But that's not a bad thing. It's just not...America. haha. It's more about enjoying the journey than fortifying the castle, so to speak.

I finally feel like I'm fitting in. I have Korean friends, Western friends, and sort of can fumble my way through basic Korean. A few things are still on the agenda:

1) I found a comic book (manga) store, and thought it would be a great way to learn the language because of all the pictures. However, it turns out it's a manga LIBRARY, which I really have no idea how to negotiate my way around yet, so that'll have to wait a bit.

2) I opened a bank account yesterday and will hopefully a bike pass and Korean cell phone will follow.

Doesn't look like anything special, just a bank.
The ATM is what looks super awesome. Need a picture...

Seriously, Korea is the future. They use their phones for everything from bank transactions to bike rentals to online shopping to vending machines. Unfortunately, that future sucks for foreigners. lol.

They also have ATMs that let you deposit money AND checks so...yeah...we're a bit behind the times.

It's strange. Before coming here, I honestly thought my life was extremely limited in terms of what I could do professionally...but today it suddenly dawned on me...I can practically spin a globe, stop it with my finger, and any landmass I'm touching, I could go teach there. I basically have a free ticket to explore the world. I'm not sure what's next. I love Korea, but maybe I'll go spend a year in Brazil to be close to my brother, or go to Japan to be closer to Alexis, or Peru...just because! The world is full ov possibilities!

There's like a million flavors of this stuff.

I've gotten really lazy about blogging and I should spart posting useful stuff I'm learning for newbies. I'll probably post my "MTVKorea Cribs" blog/ "Survival Kit" blog soon...and I've set a goal for myself to document every single kind of triangular gimbap they sell and rate it (there is a LOT). I'll post that some day too.

This weekend should be a pretty awesome adventure. More fitting in and expanding of the social circle. I'll let you know how it goes! Good morning America! I'm off to bed!

Fake It 'til You Make It

Finishing up my third week in Korea feels like a solid dent in my time here. It's kind of scary that I've already almost been here a month. It doesn't feel that way. I'm still just constantly bumbling around, but every now and then there is that day where I feel on top of the world and it propels me just a little bit further.

A present from Jack

There were a few days I went to work and was like "I have no idea what the fuck I am doing." I have no idea how to teach kids who know so little of our language that I have to use all kinds of circumlocution to explain rudimentary American concepts we take for granted. Example: I had to give a lesson on The Mayflower and the First Thanksgiving to a class one day. Now mind you, I work at four different campuses, which means I don't even get the luxury of creating a lesson plan. Sometimes thats a blessing (no work to do to prepare for classes) and sometimes thats a curse (walking into every class I teach with only about an hour of prep time for 6-7 classes a day...not an hour each...an hour for all classes). This was one of those accursed times.

Some of the vocabulary for the lesson were phrases like "religious freedom" and the topical content was obviously about Pilgrims and Indians and leaving England and such. Now, to put this in context, these kids come from a rather homogenous society. There is religious diversity to be sure, but it certainly isn't the huge issue it is in America. So to teach a unit on religious oppression and colonization to bunch of 10 year olds with a beginner grasp on the English language was an almost impossible task. I basically had to call in one of the Korean teachers to interpret for me. The closest the kids got to Thansgiving was "a big dinner" and I was over the moon in ecstasy that they at least got that.

Students actually learning! Yay!

So yeah. There are those "I have no right to be teaching these kids anything" days. But then there are also those "fuck yeah, I am so awesome at this!" days. I definitely had one of those days at my Shinchon campus this week when Jack, my favorite student ever ran into the teacher's office and gave me an ice cream cone and ran off and I was like "Awwhhhhh!" He is absolutely the most adorable kid ever. His class is a 1-on-1 class and so we do lots of random fun stuff to kill time because his English is already phenomenal even though he's only like 9 (7 in America) and we fly through the text book. He taught me the Korean version of rock, paper, scissors and I taught him how to make snowflakes and masks.

Then I was grading papers for random students and I stumbled upon a batch of papers about me and they were adorable to read. They were from an all girl class I teach at Shinchon and they didn't have a lesson plan so I decided just to get them interested by teaching them about what all teenage girls are interested - music. So I taught them about American music genres and they taught me about Korean genres (significantly fewer Korean genres), and then I read their papers and it was like "oh my god! They remember what I taught them!" It was a really good day.

Korea has mochi. I think I'll be okay.

But you never know with this job. It's so heavily based off how your students are feeling that day. Some days they come in eager to learn and laugh and want to have fun. Other days they don't want to do anything and it's like pulling teeth. This is good and bad because it means I never know what to expect and can't just expect "Oh no! I have to go to my least favorite campus to day!" Some days my least favorite campus becomes my favoirte and vice-versa. Some days I know what I'm doing, other days I panic and have no idea. This is definitely a job where you have to be extremely adaptable and can't take anything too personally.

This sort of "I have no idea, I want to go home"/"This life is amazing and I am king!" dichotomy ends up playing out the same when I'm off the clock as well. Last weekend I felt so lost and confused and alone, but this weekend I actually felt like I was living in Korea. Like this was my home now. I got up Saturday morning, cleaned my apartment, did my laundry, went and refilled my MyB tron-looking thing so I can ride the bus, went to KS mart and picked up some bread, eggs, jelly, and crab snacks, went to Daego and bought some bowls, plates, silverware and a bathmat, and even had time to stroll through Dogye market and properly ask for some mochi in Korean ("Dduk, ju se yo?).

This is what you get for sixty cents an hour.

I was planning on just relaxing at home and reading all night or something, but then Caitlin texts me and asks me if I want to go to a PC bang, which is...kind of the Korean equivalent of a LAN party place? Idk..never did LAN parties, but I'm assuming it's similar. We went and she showed me how to play Starcraft for the first time. Dude, I know Eric Elzy is going to be disappointed, but I suck at Starcraft. I may try and go on my own and play through the campaign when no one is busy so Caitlin doesn't have to be so ashamed of me anymore. lol. It's super cheap...like 700 Won an hour, which is like sixty cents. And they've got nice reclining chairs, good sound systems with headphones (if you want to use headphones...I didn't. you can still use the speakers without them.), fast gaming PCs, large monitors, and snacks! Caitlin got me a soda drink called Milkis which is like a milkshake soda and it is absolutely delicious.

Beer by the gallon  =3

After playing for two hours, we paid our buck-fifty and went to meet up with Casey (someone Caitlin works with) and grab dinner. We ended up going downtown to Sangnam and I immediately got this feeling like "okay...this is what Korea is supposed to feel like." Cute Korean girls walking everywhere, drunk guys stumbling through the streets attempting to speak English to us, lights and sounds and music everywhere. It was awesome. Someone was handing out flyers for DJ Shannel at Club Eden and I recognized her from being an act at Ultra or something this year? So I made a mental note to check her out. We went to this restaurant on the top floor where we bought a gallon of beer and a seafood stew of some sorts. Made me miss gumbo, but was pretty delicious in it's own right. Everything in Korea is just so damn spicy.

I do enjoy how centralized eating is in Korea.

After killing that, we went to the only American bar I had yet to go to: O'Briens. It was pretty cool. Bunch of guy playing pool and it felt authentically Irish-American, minus the asian bartenders. Casey ended up being really cool and we did a carbomb together (forcing Caitlin to try one as well) and I was feeling more at home by the minute. We talked about everything from lives back home to God and the Universe (or maybe the "universe"...I'll let Casey explain that one). I definitely finally had that feeling of fitting in. I know it'll probably be fleeting and next week is just as likely to be rough as it is to be easy, but these moments definitely make being here worth it.

We finally left the bar and rode a taxi back to Caitlin's apartment where Casey swiped me into a bike (Changwon has a thing where you can pay 20 bucks a year and borrow a bike from any location in the city to ride to any other location. It's pretty awesome) and I said my farewells and took off. Riding through Changwon at 3am on a bike definitely felt good and it was a pretty solid end to a feel-good weekend. We'll see what next weekend holds...

First Trip to LotteMart for Groceries

The most difficult thing about working in a private academy (and there aren't many difficult things...) is that I get out of work after 8, wait potentially 40 minutes for the bus (the 751 intentionally avoids me), and don't get home and put all my stuff away until around 9-9:30pm. Either I just want to relax or everything is closing, but regardless of the situation I often find myself living off of 7-11's ramen stash every night. Probably not the best solution.

So since today was Saturday, I decided to try grocery shopping for the first time. I already knew there was a LotteMart underneath City 7, about a 20 minute walk from my apartment. Easy. I head to LotteMart with my umbrella in hand since it's raining pretty steadily, but the trip wasn't too bad. This LotteMart iss not as big as the one between Dogye and Shinchon, but it's still pretty big. It's Korea's WalMart, essentially.

I head to the toy section first because one of the things I definitely needed was some easy adaptable game for my kids to play so I could get them to lighten up about speaking English in the classroom. I tried it with Uno the other day on some of my older kids and it works really well. Unfortunately Uno was like 15 bucks? And every other game was very specific or had rules in Korean that I couldn't possibly comprehend. Board games didn't see to be the answer. There was Jenga, which gave me pause when I thought about all the potential in terms of sentence construction games and such (can only remove the type of word needed to finish a sentence), but I really need to develop that game more first in my head before I drop the money of something I really may not use. I settled on a deck of cards in plastic case (always gotta think about the rain during monsoon season in Korea) that were only about $2. Kind of simple, but that's good. It means a malleable product for a multitude of games like blackjack, go fish, indian poker...whatever. I grabbed that and moved on.


I meditated briefly on a rice cooker, which would probably be good in the long run, but I decided it was probably a little early for that. Now, I'm glad I decided against it (more on that later). I head over to the groceries and almost want to burst into tears once I see the price of fruit. Fruit in Korea is astronomically expensive. A bunch of grapes cost anywhere from $7-$10. Vegetables were a little confusing too, because I didn't know if that was the price per pound or what, but fruit was what really killed me because that was like 90% of my diet back in America. Needless to say, I freaked out when I saw the canned fruit aisle and canned fruit only cost about $1.50 (a can of peaches) to $3 (a can of mangos). I bought like 6 big cans of fruit.

Korea has Nutella, I think we'll be okay.

I also found peanut butter and jelly, which are a little more expensive than in America, but not by much. Bread was a killer because it only comes in tiny little half-loafs at about $3 a pop, but it was a necessity. I have to stick to what I know for now, until I can learn to cook something or get more acquainted with Korean products. It seemed dumb to buy a bunch of stuff I had no idea what it was or if I would like it. Sticking to the basics for now.

Anyone who knows me also knows Orange Juice is just about the only thing I drink besides beer. The OJ I bought at the big LotteMart last time was kind of gross, but better than nothing. This time, I found OJ 50% a half-gallon. I decided, what the hell, and bought two. Luckily for me, this turned out to be some DAMN good orange juice. Like Sunny D with out that nasty sugary taste. Also grabbed some milk and a giant box of Frosted Flakes. Some girl had a booth set up with little samples of Frosted Flakes to try and wanted me to try some but I was like "please girl, I know what Frosted Flakes taste like" (But I didn't actually say that). She was super excited when I bought a box of her Frosted Flakes. I did try a sample of the milk however, because I wasn't sure if it was milk or yogurt. Koreans are huge fans of the drinkable yogurt concept and a bunch of milk cartons were actually filled with yogurt. Yogurt is relatively cheap in Korea, or the same price as America. I grabbed some of that (to keep getting my fruit fix).

Those cartons are yogurt, not milk.

Now, to explain what makes this shopping trip obviously more complicated than it needed to be, you should know that, to get a shopping cart, you must deposit 100 Won in a little slot. I did not have 100 Won. I thought about taking an unattended cart, but I already stand out enough here without being labeled a cart bandit. Instead, I opted for one of those little green Publix-style "I only need milk, bread, and eggs" arm baskets. By this time in my shopping adventure, I have fully loaded down this little green basket to the point at which the whole thing is bowing in from the weight of all my canned fruit, jelly, peanut butter, yogurt, milk, and juices and I have to carry it with both hands. I decide that's as much as I'm getting today and head to the register.

After checking out and purchasing a few plastic bags (which are not free in Korea), I realize I am required to bag my own groceries -_-; I probably should have gotten a summer job at Publix, becaue it would have been really useful now. I had only purchased two bags (fairly deep though) and the next person had begun ringing up their items so I had to keep reshuffling my items to get them to fit properly. The damn giant box of frosted flakes had really screwed me over.

Heading out with an extremely heavy bag in each arm, I realized there was no way I could make that walk back home, and I definitely needed a bus. Problem was, I couldn't find a bus stop. I walked maybe 4 blocks in the pouring rain (arms full, so no umbrella) until I got to a bus stop. I only had two goals at this point: 1) Make it home safely and 2) Don't let my bread get squished. If my bread had gotten squished, that would have ruined my whole damn day. I was a little impatient waiting for the 213 bus (which was the one I was comfortable with writing) and jumped on the 501 (which I knew went in the same general direction). Lucky for me, the 501 is my boy! It stops maybe a 2 blocks from my apartment, which is way better than the 213.

I am soon learning that, in Korea, you don't build up a shopping list and wait for shit to run out before you go shopping. You make little micro-trips. At least, if you don't have a car. There is also the problem of plastic bags that I always run into: do I save them to reuse for shopping? Or do I use them for trash? It's always a choice I'm so torn between and Korea makes me hoard plastic bags like a packrat. I'll probably have to make another trip out today for basic household supplies like dish soap and something akin to Oxyclean, but for that I'll just go to the KSMart near my apt (more like Publix - slightly more expensive but built for convenience).

Now that daily life is starting to get under control, I'm think I'm finally ready to see the kinds of things Changwon has to offer me! I know there's a gun range near my house and a golf academy as well. I'll keep you posted on what I find out about those...

Hope you're enjoying sleeping, America!

First Day At The Hagwon

I started sleeping somewhat normally today. Jetlag seems to be wearing off. I woke up around 9am, worked out and then killed some time while I waited for school to start. I really wasn't sure what to expect. I accidentally left my contact cases in America, so this is my MacGyver invention to replace it for the time being.

12:30pm rolled around and I headed out to find some food before I had to report in for my first day of lessons. I strolled into a promising looking restaurant and I immediately realize that there is no picture menu. There are pictures in one place and words in another and I have no way to figure out what is what. Luckily they weren't too busy and the owner took the time to help me out. I just pointed at a picture in the row and said "Can I have that?" and he counts over "One, Two, Three?" (Third picture over?),  I tell him no, fourth picture and he says "Udon!" so I repeat "Udon. One." and take my seat.

He brings over my udon and it is a bowl of noodle soup with some pickled vegetables on the side. I grab my chopsticks and start grabbing for the udon out of the bowl only to nearly sear my tongue from the heat of the soup. The owner comes over and tells me I'm eating it wrong. He gestures for me to put the noodles in a side bowl and mix it with the pickled vegetables so I do, embarrassed. The udon isn't bad. It's really thick and starchy...kind of like spaghetti but more filling and kind of squishy. It is extremely difficult to eat udon with chopsticks! It was sliding all over the place and when I slurped it the noodles smacked me in the face. I tried finishing it all, but it was extremely filling. I asked to pay and it ended up being 3000 Won for the whole meal (A little under $3). I'm going to eat there more often.

I leave with a bow and a "Kamsamnida!" and resume my walk to the school. I'm still extremely early so I walk past the school and further down the street to see what's on the other side. They have a Dunkin Donuts, a Baskin Robbins and even a Korean Hooters!

I saw a bunch of children in school uniforms walking around, so I took that as my cue to start heading back.

Korean Hooters

I arrive at the school still early and meet with the other teachers as well as an American teach from California named Kimyn. She helped prep me for the lesson and lead the first few activities so I could get the hang of it. Around the third class, I was leading it by myself and it was quite a bit of fun. The difficult part is that I don't really get any knowledge of the course material in advance since I'm not the primary teacher and I have to make up games and exercises on the fly. For one class, we were learning about directions and hunting for treasure so we ended up running around the whole campus and causing a ruckus. They're very lax about that kind of stuff and it was fun for everyone. It's kind of nice that I get to be the "good cop" and my job is primarily just to make learning English fun.

We played this one game that was like team based tic-tac-toe but you had to spell the word correctly to get on the board. Girls v. Boys. The hardest part is that some of the children are shy and not confident int their ability so they don't speak up in class as much. Other kids take over. The middle classes (9-13) were the easiest to work with while the 8 year olds and 16 year olds were sometimes challenging because they were most self-conscious about their language skills.

Modified language tic-tac-toe

Every student has their own English name that they choose and some are really adorable. One kid's name is Adonis and I asked him "Do you know Adonis is...God of Beauty?" (tried to simplify it as much as possible) and he said "Yes! I know!" haha.

In-between classes, I stopped at a water cooler and two girls were whispering by it. As I get my water, one girl says "Teacher?" to which I reply "yes?" and she gets all flustered, saying "You are....no...no...nevermind." I'm curious now, so I say "No, tell me! I am what?" and she said "very tall!"  and then runs off embarrassed.

I go grab lunch witht he other teachers which turns out to be a home-cooked meal by my co-teacher Rachel and it is sooooooooooooo delicious! I also learn the word for delicious: Ma-Shi-Se-Yo! [but written like 맛았어요 (mas-iss-e-yo)]. Korean food is so filling! I feel bad getting full so fast when they make so much food. I want to eat it all to show how much I like it!

The teachers all talk at lunch about a girl Kelly who told one of the teachers she thought I was "Very handsome" and suddenly I am reminded of the little girl by the water cooler. I describe this girl to my co-teachers and they confirm it is her. So that's what she originally wanted to tell me. Haha.

Kelly is in my next class and when the students all ask me questions about myself she asks "do you have a girlfriend?" It was adorable. Girls named Kelly apparently have a thing for me because in my high school class, a girl named Kelly asked me the same question and then giggled and said "you are very handsome." I suppose it's good that I wore glasses today because everyone freaked out when they found out I had blue eyes. lol

I think tomorrow may be harder than today, because today was mostly just introductions. I need to start building a library of education games to whip out because I'm significantly lacking in the "fun AND educational" side of class for some of these lessons.

Kimyn shows me around town after classes and I now know where the grocery store is [I bought a bottle of soju (liquor) for 1000 Won...less than a dollar], the dry cleaners, and a big shopping area called City 7 right by my house. We'll see what tomorrow brings, but for now I'm really exhausted.

잘자!

The Sky Is Clearing Up...Metaphorically

It's only metaphorically clearing up. It's still really really gray and dismal here, and unbearably hot. But something about the weather and constantly walking everywhere makes it okay for me to be sweaty all the time. It's more like a glistening than sweating anyway.

Today started off terribly as I went to take a shower and realized I had absolutely no idea how to operate my hot water heater.

Does this make sense to you?

So what started off as a simple shower and shave turned into a two hour long process of trying to translate the knobs, and even then it only made partial sense. What does one do in such situations? Cry like a baby and call in an army of helpful Korean-speaking friends! I don't think I've tapped my resource of friends so heavily as I am now in Korea. It's kind of nice knowing I have all these people here to help and support me when I need it. I never really got that feeling in America the same way.

Friends are phenomenal things to have. Elaine sending me this picture was the best gift ever.

Once I got hot water going I KNEW it was going to be my day. A nice hot shower cleared my head right up and I decided to try and find my way to the campus I have to work at tomorrow. But I didn't really have a map or anything. Luckily Min had put the addresses into my phone and I took them and put them in Google Maps, found the route, screen shotted it and ported it back to my phone to use as a static map. Great idea, huh? I thought so. This should be a piece of cake. Off we go!

A little too easy? Yeah, probably, because (As i mentioned) it's like London overcast right now and I can't tell which was is North. I figure I have a 50/50 shot, so I strategize it all out in my head and start walking.

You could never get me to drive here...

Of course, with my luck, I end up walking SW instead of NE and end up totally on the wrong side of town, so far off my printed map that when I stop at a convenience store to ask for directions, the man has difficulty helping me since he can't show me our location. He finally communicates that I need to head back down the road, so I do that and stumble upon a bus stop with a map. I compare that map against mine to figure out where I am and where i need to go, and I realize it's laid out on a grid system. After that it was pretty easy. I thought I was close at one point and couldn't find it so I cheated and found a free WiFi spot to use google maps. I had gotten within a few blocks so...good for me.

A cool looking church I pass on the way.

I show up at the school and obviously no-one is there, but I'm proud I made it anyway. I walk back home, snagging more free WiFi and using Viber to call my parents while I have the chance.

I make it home and jump online to see if Pat was done with Church and had emailed me back.

This is where I live. It looks a lot nicer on the outside than it does on the inside. lol

Indeed he was, but while I was checking his email my voltage converter literally burst into flames and released a huge could of smoke in protest. Cheap little thing. Damn Wal-Mart. Luckily, Pat's email asked if I wanted to go shopping with him at E-Mart which I now COULDN'T turn down or I would be tech-less forever T_T. So he asked me to meet him at the GnB campus I just came from in 10 minutes, so I hustle back out of the the apartment and down to the campus.

Of course I took a moment to stop and enjoy the mosaic that was set into the side of a long wall on the way...

Sushi/Sashimi a la carte

I jump in the car with him and two Korean acquaintances of his that he introduces me to, and we head off to E-Mart. We actually end up going to LotteMart, which is right next door, but both are like 7 stories tall. RAther unnecessary, but awesome. They have ramp escalator/people mover type things so you can take your cart from level to level. This place had EVERYTHING including the new adapters I needed (sadly, no voltage converter, so no 3DS for awhile). We found out that beef is rather expensive...about 10-14 dollars for 100g (not a whole lot) and so is shampoo and deodorant (astronomical prices). Sushi/sashimi, however, you can get pre-packaged or a la carte for fifty cents a piece. We grabbed a bunch of crazy looking ones like something from the squid family, something that looked like a fish made out of sour candy, and a bunch of stuff we couldn't recognize (except shrimp, salmon, and tuna). My whole meal cost me about 3 dollars.

I have no idea what the bright green one is, but I liked it.

Oh, and did I mention they have a mascot too?

Only in Korea....and probably Japan

It was quite the trip. I need to get Kakao working so I can easily contact my Korean acquaintances. They dont use Viber. For whatever reason Kakao banned me as soon as I signed up? I emailed them and still haven't heard back. It's strange and super inconvenient. Oh well, on an ending note: Some food for thought.

Rather reasonably priced too, if you can stomach it.

On The Second Day

I suppose I'll start this tale with the night prior, starting with a 5 and a half hour bus ride from Seoul to Changwon.

Trying to make small talk with the few white men I saw who were bound to speak English, I met a guy from South Africa teaching English in Masan. He we pretty cool, so we exchanged info and agreed to keep in touch. We really only talked at the bus stop (which looked strangely like a boardwalk pier) because bus time was time for sleeping. I tried resting, but realized that I should have bought something at the bus station because I was starving. A Korean man must have noticed this because he shoved a paper bag under my nose and said "try. try. try." I attempted to refuse, but he wouldn't have it. I took the contents of his bag and fished a small fried ball out of it and handed the bag back to the man dutifully. Again he would not accept, so I took "try" to mean "go ahead and eat the rest of them," so I popped the little fried ball into my mouth. It turned out to be some sort of red bean paste coated in fried batter, and it was pretty delicious. I shot the guy a smile and thumbs up and said "good" which made him very pleased.

As insignificant a gesture as that probably seemed, it turned my whole mood around and I started feeling like good things were coming while i was munching on the fried goodies. The teacher I was replacing would later inform me what an important gesture that actually was. He told me that food is a very significant part of Korean culture. Instead of asking you "How are you?" they ask "Have you eaten?" which I kind of prefer because no one really cares how you're doing when they ask anyway, so they might as well check and make sure you're well fed.

I arrived in Changwon with my South African friend, Enrique a few minutes early and we stood at the bus station baffled abotu what to do next. His director showed up shortly after and she was able to call my director for me and help her locate me. My director drove me to the apartment to drop off my luggage but the guy I was taking over for was still sleeping there, so I was to spend the night in a hotel room.

For all of your porn watching needs...

This is the headboard...

Let me just tell you...this hotel room was something else. I climb the stairs to my room and notice cards with scantily clad girls at the foot of one flight, but don't think anything of it. I walk in to the room and notice very nice decor with a box of tissues next to the bed and mirrored surfaces everywhere. I even had a desktop computer to log onto for brief internet access. After a little time online, I switch on the big screen TV and it goes straight to Korean porn. Suddenly this all begins adding up and I realize I'm in an escort motel. This makes me a little unnerved to lie down in the bed, but when I do lie down I realize the mattress is hard as a rock.

This is the ceiling...

I also didn't have my phone, so I barely slept that night. I kept dozing off for what felt like hours then freaking out that I'd oversleep so I'd jolt awake and realize only 10 minutes had past. This happened quite a few times over the course of the night.

The next morning, my director picks me up and drives me to the school to meet another teacher named Patrick. We bonded pretty quickly realizing we had similar backgrounds, goals and interests. We took Des (the prior instructor) to the bus terminal but ended up getting lost walking back and when we hailed a cab, the cabby couldn't understand where we wanted to go. We asked some very nice Korean couple for directions to where we wanted to go, but they offered to drive us over there instead. I honestly can never get used to Korean driving. It's some sort of crazy, every man for himself, vehicular brawl where a lot of money seems to be wasted on traffic lights that no one obeys.

The couple take us to Pat's GnB campus and it turns out to be the original one I interviewed for. Min and Mrs.Park spoke terrific English and were a great help to me. Min helped me prepare for teaching a lesson on  Monday even though I didn't work for her campus. We talked about taking a trip to Busan and going surfing soon.

It made me really happy that I'd found a new friend, but immediately upon return to my apartment became a source of melancholy. Pat had gotten lucky to be a part of an involved campus that works with him to make sure everything is smooth. My director hasn't even told me what days I'll be working what classes or what curriculum I'm teaching Monday. This all mounted exponentially as I realized my bathroom has no sink, the bed here is also hard as a rock, I can't work the A/C, and apparently WiFi exists everywhere in Korea but in my apartment. The real killer though is how fucking lonely it is to come back to an empty apartment alone in a foreign country.

Homesickness hit me really hard and suddenly I can't imagine living in this place for an entire year. I start tearing up like a bitch and missing all the things I really took for granted. I can't even read the goddamn buttons on my TV remote. Everything just feels futile. After Skyping Alexis and ranting on here, I feel a bit better, but the loneliness still permeates my apartment. Hopefully things will get better.
I wish I could rent out the bedroom since I'm not even using it. Koreans must either have terrible back problems, or the most perfect posture ever with how stiff that bed is.

Oh well, tomorrow is another day! See you then!