I can haz soul?

So I got off the subway today and I was wandering aimlessly around the station trying to find the recharge machine for my card so I could make sure I had enough money on it still…And then this woman shows up.

So the station is pretty empty, it was kinda early I think there’s like 10 people total that I can see. Remember, I’m looking around for a machine…then this woman starts walking up to me.

Now some of the older folk here really like to try and talk to me, even after I make sure they know I don’t speak Korean…they just insist that I’ll understand if they keep going. So I figure it’s going to be one of those situations, and I got good advice for those situations: keep walking and ignore them even if it makes you look like a jerk because they do NOT give up. But no, oh no.

This woman is older, she looks around mid-60s and she had something wrong with her skin so she had these big rosetia-like blotches all over…especially around her eyes….get the idea? (for anyone that worked with me, she kinda looked like an older, Korean version of Dorothy) Yeah she looks like a possessed old woman and she’s coming straight for me.

Now I didn’t really know what to do, and I start to freak out a little. Oh, but it gets better. She walks up and puts out her hand…to wave? No she’s too close for that…to point at my shirt or something…OMG NO she’s grabbing my arm and looking me straight in the eyes and trying to suck my soul out!!

So I panicked and what do I do? I start talking in English. Yup. That’s totally going to help the situation. So I said “um hi… hi…” and eventually (basically as soon as I thought “DUH KOREAN!”) She says “hi” and just walks away like nothing happened…and I’m standing in the middle of this subway station stammering and poor imitation of “hello” in Korean…although it’s kinda similar to “good bye” so maybe they think I was saying bye…

Regardless, creepy as shit and the first thing I did was to check my purse to make sure nothing was stolen. Everything was there and I just walked on…very very bizarre.

You are my Sunshine

I’m pretty sure I have unknowingly become part of an experiment. It’s either an experiment on torture devices or a psychological experiment…I haven’t decided which.

OK, I’m pretty sure I’m in the psychological phase and it’s going to switch to torture in the next few days.

So when I first opened my windows (for short periods, usually only at night when it was cooler, and not while I was asleep because it was bright and noisy) I noticed music. One of the stores downstairs plays music, and like there’s US songs in there. So occasionally I would catch pieces of a song here or there…then I realized that’s all it was. Pieces of songs, a repeating advertisement. Now I don’t hear it every time through because there is a kind of busy street (My room is right by the intersection with the side street) and so I usually only hear it when there’s a red light…and I’m pretty sure it plays 24/7…

Now this wouldn’t be so bad BUT they have a version of “you are my sunshine” and it’s high pitched whiny girl and it only sings like the first bit of the first verse and it’s been stuck in my head for DAYS and I only know the first two verses…and it’s so DAMNED WHINY. Now I tried to record it because, “It can’t be that bad” or “I’m sure you can’t really hear it” well let me tell you…you can’t really hear it on a microphone and waiting for it to come around was driving me even more insane. But it’s there…waiting. It knows when I’m done expecting it and then BAM!! YOU ARE MY MO’ FO’ SUNSHINE!

It was nice knowing you all. If you don’t hear from me for a few weeks try and get in touch with the embassy or something, see if they can get permission to move a crazy tortured girl across international borders…I’m sure any pilot would love to have me on their plane.

Update: I timed it. Yeah, it’s every 9 minutes. Every day. Every night. All day. All night…

Internet!

I finally have internet!!! After weeks of waiting for my ARC card it finally came in last week, I pushed off getting it installed until today because I was busy but now I'm up and running and ssooo happy to be back in the 21st century!

Welcome to the Hotel California

So finally, after much confusion and many problems, moving day came. I ended up moving onto the same subway line as my school so I don’t have to take the bus in the morning anymore which I think is super sweet.

The co-teacher that helped me move didn’t drive his car because when we ordered the movers we only asked for one…well two showed up so there now wasn’t enough room for us in the truck…which would have been pretty akward so I’m not crying about it.

So we catch this cab (which, by the way are MAD cheap here) and we drive over to the new apartment. On the way “Hotel California” comes on the radio and the driver turns up the radio and I was like “sweet, I haven’t heard this song in ages, this is so random and hilariously awesome” and I’m like rocking out silently in the back seat…then my coteacher was like “yeah he turned it up for you. Good moving song huh?” And RIGHT then it gets to the “you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave” part and I was like…uuhhh, yeah. Awesome moving song.

But yeah, the cab cost like 6,600…so just over $6 dollars and I think it was something like a 15 minute car ride…I didn’t really watch the time but it was a ways. I was impressed. I had like 20,000 ready to go and I was ready to dig out more…surprise! I knew they were cheap but damn.

Oh, and the moving truck was super sweet. Every truck I’ve ever seen for moving back home opens in the back. Period. No, no, no. Not here. this opened in the back but also opened on the sides like a utility truck, so the entire side swung up (great for keeping my stuff dry in the rain today) and it made loading it SOOO damned easy I can’t even tell you. Ok, I guess I can. It was SOO damned easy. AND I was quoted 80,000 for one person and the truck. Randomly a second person shows up so I don’t know if they didn’t charge and I just tipped or if they asked for only 20,000 more but whatever. It cost me 100,000 for two movers and the truck, and we were done in like an hour and a half including the ride over. And then for 4,400 the gas man showed up and turned on the gas in my apartment…and he came 2 1/2 hours earlier after we called because we finished so fast.

I don’t really like how my desk is set up…but I have limited options (I’ll post a picture eventually…) So that’s a mission for another day. For now I have a basic idea on how to use my AC, I know how to use my hot water heater and I’m pretty sure my water will stay hot tonight…

and I have a bidet.

A creepy ass bidet.

Ok, so they did a SUPER awesome job of cleaning my apartment, then I go in my bathroom and SURPRISE. Ok, first I feel like they’re at a weird angle…second…it squirst WATER and you **** and ****** and well you get the picture…

I dunno, I know most people love them once they try them…but I’m still skeeved out. I haven’t gotten up the guts to try a squatter yet either.

I also have a strange peek-a-boo kitchen. Like, it’s in a closet…with closet doors. I don’t get it. Maybe so if guests come over and you forgot to do dishes you can be like, “Sorry, kitchen’s closed. Come back tomorrow.”

Due to the closet nature of my kitchen there is also VERY little counter space…I haven’t decided what to do about that yet.

This place is small but cozy, it’s cute, has AWESOME windows (I’m like way too excited about these windows in an unhealthy and unneccssary way) but they tip in to keep rain out AND swing open for those days that you just need a good breeze. Freaking awesome. I couldn’t really tell today because it was rainy and crappy but appearently I also face the south, meaning good light coming in…and they’re like big windows. Now if only I could find the trash room…

So this place is smaller than the other one, but it feels home-y-ier (I couldn’t find a way to make it look right and I INSIST that it is homier…)

So I looked it up like a tool, just to make sure there wasn’t a correct spelling I wasn’t using…and I used the New Oxford American Dictionary because I have no inernet and can’t use something trustworthy like Wikipedia or Urban Dictionary… Yeah so there’s no home-y anything but there is homie…

hom-ie /’home/ (random letters included that I can’t type on here…) (also hom-ey)

        -n. (pl. hom-ies) [informal] a homeboy or homegirl.

Yup and on that note, peace out homies. Homeslice.

H&M

 So we went shopping this weekend. We went to Shinsaegae (spelling???). It is the largest department store in the world...we're still trying to figure out exactly what makes it a department store and not a mall...we think it might have to do with the signs on each floor that say what each store type is. Like instead of one store with departments it's many stores split by type....

Anyway so there's an H&M there, it was just like being back home at....AARGH what's that store called?? W and...P and....

Whatever. So I went shopping there and I could BUY THINGS and they FIT and they weren't outrageous. They even had SHOES like SHOES my monster feet could fit in!!! I didn't like any of the shoes but that's beside the point, they had them and they FIT.

It was good to get to shop around and grab some stuff that I really needed to even pretend to pull off an outfit. I still need a lot more but I'm getting there...Damn my conservative school and their stupid half there rules that only kind of get followed...

OHOHOOOOHHHHHH! I remember! That store back home? It's H&M!!

(Yup, this is what starts happening when I've been sitting around with no TV or internet for a whole weekend...I just start to get even weirder than normal...)

Korean Apartment Tour

:(

In my mission to film a walk-thru video tour my camera decided to destroy my memory card losing all the footage as well as all the photos that were on the card (600+).  I was able to recover most of the photos but the videos are a lost cause.

Afterward, I did record a quick walk-thru on my other card that I will probably record later.  Not only did it not come out very well but I also rearranged some of my furniture about an hour after I recorded, and I still have things I need to get for the apartment....so maybe some other time

So lets start with the most boring picture:  My entryway.

So I wasn't going to put this in but I figured why not, it's part of the apartment.  So the door is another electronic lock door.  This one has the option of a key or ten digit code...I used the key once and then just remembered the code.

This is a typical entryway, it is lower than the main floor and you keep your shoes there.  I also have my trash so grossly lined up for you to admire.  That's because I wanted to give you an idea about the trash system.  On the left is my food trash, that goes into one bin and the bag gets recycled.  Next is my actual trash bag, that is a 10 liter bag and costs 2150 for 5.  I also have a pair of shoes there, those go into another bin.  Cardboard is a huge corner of the basement.  Then all the cans, plastic, glass, Styrofoam, plastic wrappers, plastic bags, and anything I'm forgetting get separated into other bins.

This is my shoe closet...?

This is the closet that you see on the right of the entryway picture.  This is just half, I can't get a full picture in that tiny hallway.  Anyway, yeah I'm just using it mainly for a cleaning/bulk supply closet...I think there's one set of shoes in there...

Onto my regular closet....

Again not very exciting, it's pretty big but I ran out of hangers...after I bought like 4 extra packs...

Getting a bit better, this is my bathroom:

My bathroom is actually quite a bit larger than it looks in this picture, I just wanted to get the important things in the shot.  My shower is big and enclosed which is nice, although the glass is placed up off the floor so you can spray down the main floor and it will drain into the shower...that also means water leaks out during my shower.

You can also see my lovely creepy bidet.

This bathroom is larger and much nicer than the one in my old apartment.  The water is awesome too.  It actually stays hot so I don't have to hate my life every time I take a shower.  The water pressure is also great so I don't have to stand there for five minutes trying to rinse my hair.  The shower faucet is the same set up as the sink faucets, basically very easy to completely control temperature and pressure to exactly what you want.

Onto the good stuff: my main apartment: 

So on the left is my desk and bookshelf, they are inseparable.  They were just made for each other.  Literally.  It's not a free standing desk, it needs to sit on one of the shelves.  Behind my desk is my drying rack (because I don't have a dryer), my stubby-legged ironing board and that strange AC up on the wall.  The main AC unit is in the closet behind the bookshelf along with the hot water heater. 

Also, take a close look at my desk chair...notice anything odd?  Like the fact that it's pointing towards the ground?  Yeah, suicide chair.  Need to get a replacement bad.

Then my TV that is hooked up to nothing.  I have it covered in a blanket to protect it in case it rains and I'm up the road or something. Also because I'm using it to prop the window open so I don't want it getting beat up if it gets windy.

Then my lovely huge bed with the pseudo lovely memory foam mattress.  I think it'll be better in the winter when I want the heat of being snuggled by my bed, but in the summer its pretty gross.  It also has a very good memory...and it remembers like the last ten years of people sleeping on it...it's just permanently dented.  I tried flipping and rotating it, we'll see if that helps.  Luckily I got a larger apartment, if I had gotten one of the smaller ones the bed would pretty easily take up half the room.

Notice how the window over my tv and the one over my bed are opened differently?  One of my favorite things here, oddly enough.  So if the handle on the window points down it's locked, out to the side and the window swings open, up and the window vents open.  GREAT on a windy day or cooler days. 

Now onto the other side...

Now this is my closet kitchen.  Still don't fully understand the doors but whatever, better for holding in the smoke when you burn dinner I suppose.  Anyway, I obviously don't have much counter space so off to the left along that wall I plan on putting some kind of stand to hold the microwave and oven...

The stove is only a two burner but it's gas so I'm not complaining.  Just not too good if I try to cook for more than just myself.  Under the stove is the washer.  Not as easy to use as the last one (the last one was almost identical to my parents' so I knew what everything did without needing to read...I should have taken a picture so I could compare...oopsie)  The cabinet on the top left is like the exhaust for the fan and...I dunno stuff that makes it not storage.  The two cabinets on the right are storage but I don't have a stool to use the top one.  Normally I would just stand on my desk chair but since it's a death trap I've decided to keep looking for a “normal” stool.  They have tall sitting stools and little kid “bath” stools, I haven't found a normal sized one yet.

In the middle is my little foldaway floor table, I use it mainly because then I don't have to stand to eat...again it's not like I have the option of sitting at my desk.

My fridge smells like ass.  That's about the only interesting thing there...OH! Lies.  The mirror.  There are mirrors EVERYWHERE here, the elevators are all mirrors, there are mirrors hung outside the elevators and just everywhere.  People are super obsessed in how they look.  Big mirrors like this are also super expensive.  And that's for like a cheapy one that's a little better than the back to school special ones at target.  I can't even imagine how much this mirror cost but I'm SO happy to have it. 

And that big bag of blankets....that you can't really see...(under the big purple thing) is one of two bags (the other is smaller and behind it).  They smell pretty rancid (the last two teachers were guys...I washed all my blankets twice before I used them).  They don't fit well in the washer though and I'm kinda afraid of breaking it.  But I've heard from a bunch of people that bedding is super expensive here so I'm going to keep attempting to wash them and then I'll see what's too gross to use afterward...the purple one seemed least likely to be used by guys so I washed that one up and it came out ok...

Yeah I think that's pretty much it.  Now do you see why I wanted to make this a video...this is like more than two pages without the pictures... 

I'd say sorry but (some of) you asked for it...

Back to school

So my school is very conveniently on a subway line…and then a ten minute hike up a mountain. In high heels. Like a pretty serious hike too. When I first met my co-teachers one of them said it was like a 45 degree angle, I thought he was kidding or exaggerating…he wasn’t. At all. Ok, it’s not that bad the WHOLE way but honestly it is most of the way.

Oh and then my classroom is up four flights of stairs…water and bathroom are both convienently located on the first floor. Sweet.

The English room itself is pretty freaking sweet. I’ve got the only classroom with AC which makes me feel like a bit of a tool but whatever. There were numbers and days of the week and such posted on the blackboards that had been up for years and I found two spelling errors and pulled them all down.

Theres a huge chalkboard with sliding extra pieces and a giant tv built into it.

There are also two side rooms, the first has bookshelves and four computers for student use. The second is walled off but has a window that opens to the main room. It has another computer, tv, more books, and extra tables and chairs in it for like small group work.

The girls seem to like me. They think it’s super fun to all scream “HI TEACHER” because I’ll answer every one of them back usually. I figure I’d rather play along on the hopes it makes them more willing to talk to me. Already it seems to have worked, one of the students on her way home said hi and I said hi back but I don’t like to force them into a conversation they don’t want to have…but she started talking to me and I talked back until she decided to move one…then another student started to talk to me. So I keep playing their game and they seem to enjoy it.

So I have around 24 different classes, about half of them meet bi-weekly. Some of the grade 3 classes (Seniors) only have 12 students, but most of them have 30-16 just like the first grade classes (Freshman/Sophomore). When I’m not teaching I can hang out in the teachers room and have everyone talk about me while I hang out on the computer or I can go upstairs to the English Zone and be anti-social…I find a healthy combination of the two is really helpful. It’s nice to have a chance to destress to some crappy tv upstairs then go downstairs and plan…as long as I don’t waste too much time upstairs.

Luckily/Unluckily my two grades, first and third, are about the same level. There really isn’t much improvement…actually some of my first grade classes are the best. I don’t have to make more than one lesson plan a week because of this but I do need to have a LOT of wiggle room worked in so that I can raise and lower the level per class, even per piece of a lesson.

It’s sad, my lesson this week was fashion. My first class found it fun but easy, my second class…I had one student that had “a sky blue blouse with a burgundy cardigan” and others who didn’t know what jeans, skirts, and t-shirts were. Nor simple colors like black or white. Very sad and hard to work with.

Fun story: One of the girls was drawing a character from something… I really have no idea what but it was like a freaking mermaid or something. Whatever. Anyway she asked one of the girls to help her label the picture. I walked over and saw “Bitch Queen” and almost pissed myself. If you think about it though, beach> beech> bich> bitch…yeah it kinda made sense, we love our random silent letters in English…and that aspiration almost gives it a “t” sound, especially the way they pronounce it. You get the picture.

Anyway I’ve got some awesome classes and some HORRIBLE ones and it all seems to depend on the co-teacher and what they let them get away with…so naturally I now HATE some coteachers for being lazy (like the one who doesn’t even show up for class…yeah slight language barrier) and absoluetly worship others because they work so well with the girls AND keep them in line AND the girls still like them AND they’re ACTUALLY HELPING THE GIRLS…That’s a story for another day though.

RIP - Silverware

Yup, I think this one speaks for itself..."I have a very good time"

Overly Popular

Overly Popular...

But some fantastic person made this:

Great SpaceJam Remix

Onto the EPIK quest

Now at the end of orientation we met with the education department for our different areas. We all knew what cities we would be placed in but most of us didn’t know our placements. Now I was one of the lucky few who heard from the school in advance…

But I was not lucky.

See my school didn’t have an apartment. Yeah, there’s a lovely clause in our contract that says they’re required to give me one but whatever. It was like a weeks-long fiasco but I’m finally in my apartment.

So the Thursday of orientation (just over half way through) I get a facebook message (appearently they tried to email me but that didn’t work…). The old teacher is writing to me to let me know that the school doesn’t have an apartment. Or storage space for the furniture. So I was going to have NOTHING when I walked into the city.

Well he was super super awesome and left his key money (an insane amount of money required here for a deposit, it works out to be THOUSANDS of US dollars).

So he moved on to Seoul, I stayed in his old apartment and well I had nowhere to go after this and I didn’t have close to five grand to put down on a new apartment. Lots of issues ensued, eventually I got my own place. It was a long and messy story and I think my teachers (well one at least) slightly hates my guts right now, but whatever. I needed a place, I have a place, and I hardly see him at work normally, so not overly problematic.

I hope.

N-E-WHO

So I met the two youngest teachers in my school, they’re the ones who came to pick me up after our gut-wrenching drive through the typhoon. Everyone else is quite a bit older than us but they are 24 and 26, I’m squashed right in the middle…it all works out pretty well I suppose.

Turns out I’m at like a super conservative school. As in like 3 years ago or so women couldn’t wear pants…the students are only allowed to wear skirts. No bright colors or patterns on your clothes…yeah it’s strange. So far I don’t think I’ve offended anyone yet but they might be avoiding saying anything…

I’m in an all girls’ high school, it’s a commercial high school so it’s kind of like our vocational schools, but without the focus on a single vocation ( or even vocation type). It’s just there to prepare the majority of the girls to go straight into the workplace.

My co-teacher said the smart ones will become like bank tellers and the others will work in factories for like Samsung and LG and shit…a few might go on to college (as in a 2 year college, like community college. Universities are 4 years). Basically I’m trying to teach English to rooms full of girls and maybe 10 per grade will actually have some use for it down the road…maybe a bit of an exaggeration but probably not by much.

So back to the apartment, I had no idea how to use the washing machine, the guy teacher kinda shrugged and the girl kinda shyly laughed and said her mom still did her laundry. Sweet. Very helpful. They gave me the basics on how to use the hot water but I think they missed an important step…long story but it shut off all the time in the shower because it was a terrible on-demand system…probably not being used right.

YUPs

The AC took some button pushing but it wasn’t too difficult…basically I thing I figured out pretty much everything on my own. Oh, they did show me how to use the microwave which was awesome because there are no numbers on it..the one thing I SHOULD be able to figure out and I can’t. C-RAP

My co-teachers did super awesome things for me though. I can’t get a bank account (well…probably can but no debit card or anything, so it’s useless because I can’t get there during banking hours), I can’t get internet or a cell phone though for sure…ok well there are ways around the cell phone but that’s a discussion for another day.

Basically I was kinda up Shits Creek if something happened so one of my co-teachers went home and found an old cellphone noone needed and set it up under his name as a pre-paid/pay as you go type system…not really sure which. The other one got me an old transportation card that was kicking around and filled it up for me, at least enough for a few trips. Again, super awesome.

Plus they found my apartment which they totally aren’t supposed to be responsible for, the school is. But they’ve just done a lot that they weren’t technically required to. That and all the other teachers have been super nice too…well I just feel pretty damned lucky.

Really considering some of the crappy apartments some of the teachers got, and some of the other horror stories I’ve heard (few and far between, and mine is likely to go down in horror story history now too… but they do exist) overall I got super lucky.

I just have to share this random little bit before I go…I have written overall an obscene amount of times and the only reason I know is because for some strange reason today, and only today, I have spelled it overally EVERY time. Maybe the girls are starting to rub off on me….watch-e, beach-e, overall-y?? I see a pattern….

Over Paid and Under Skilled

I'll give you a clue...there are TWO errors in this picture...and I'm not talking about the lighting.

They pay us how much and these teachers can't even spell!?  Quality.

These have been up in the room for years.  Like at least two or three...I don't have older year books to check.

Update: I just found February spelled wrong too, I've ripped all of these down now.

It began in Daejeon...

So this is kind of a back-track post…actually the next few will be. I had considered doing a blog before but never really got around to starting blah blah procrastination blah…How many blogs does the world really need from people without much to say…Except I love to talk.

Well I remember that when I first looked into doing the EPIK program I couldn’t find enough. I read every blog I stumbled into and yet missed awesome ones like Eat Your Kimchi…although they’re not technically EPIK…but I digress. So sit back, grab a bowl of ice cream (or some chocolate) and read my pages of word vomit as I regale you with a not so intriguing tale of my time so far in Busan.

Ok, so that’s misleading, let me start in Daejeon…

Alright, it didn’t really start here obviously so I’ll put in a prequel later.

So, in Daejeon, story, beginning.

I caught one of the last buses that arrived before midnight, VERY grateful for that. There were two orientations being held for the Fall 2012 EPIK program, I was attending the one at KT HRD Center in Daejeon.

Weird things:

1. the faucets needed to be pushed down to turn on and pulled up to shut off…in the dorms and half the public restrooms, the rest were up on and down off…mildly confusing.

2. So water bubblers/ fountains/ dispensers/ big jug things with a spout (we had lots of meaningless arguments about the name…) well they didn’t have paper cups, or those weird paper cones..no they had these folded pieces of paper that you popped open and put like a half ounce of water into…highly entertaining, low waste, so practicle in one sense but really just a huge pain in the ass.

3. The weird ass sandles left out for everyone to use…gross.

4. Bidets. I’m not a huge fan of bidets, they kinda freak me out…something about spraying water up your hoo-ha…yeah. Well they had some in the public restrooms in the lecture building and I was just really weirded out. It’s like one thing to use your own bidet, but to use one in public? eugh.

The good things:

1. Most of the lectures were WAY better than we expected, especially the first few…there were some flops but most of them were entertaining.

2. Awesome people! The staff and the other teachers were fantastic, and I dunno, I at least had a (reasonably) good time…I think most people would agree.

The terrible things:

1. The food. Turns out that so far I haven’t eaten much Korean food that I don’t like, and I really have never eaten spicy food or like any seafood. The food at the convention center however, that was TERRIBLE. I put up with it for a few days but the worst was the soup. It was “creamed” everything (asparagus, corn, couldn’t really tell…) and eventually the smell of the soup alone made me want to vomit when I walked into the cafeteria (since then, even the soup that burned a hole in my throat wasn’t bad…every soup has been good, they really screwed up.)

2. The heat. O.M.G. THE HEAT. It was so unbearable hot and humid and you know it’s bad when even the locals are complaining. To make it worse the AC was crap and many times shut off in the middle of the night so I just couldn't even sleep…oh and they shut it off during the day while we were supposed to be in lectures so if you wanted to rest for a while before/after lunch you were sweating balls.

3. Two of the lecturers…one was like a history one before we went on the rainiest, crappiest, fieldtrip of my life. He really was just boring as hell. Then there was this woman who talked about Classroom Management… yeah I think like 10 people liked her in the whole group. She was just super condescending so if you like taking peoples shit and smiling back at them, then you would have liked her too.

The inconvenient things:

1. The LONG days of lectures…like you started lectures at 9 and then your last one ended at 8:30…very tiring.

2. The crappy internet. Really, this country is supposed to have like the BEST internet in the world, you’ll hear it over and over. The internet in this place? HORRENDOUS. And they gave you and your roommate a one meter cord to use out of the same spot in the room…my desk became storage space because I had to plug my internet in across the room. Bad setup.

The field trip. Well it started on a horrible note with a boring lecture but whatever. We were on a norebang bus and made total asses of ourselves dancing Gangnam style with the lights flashing and shit and it was recorded…I wish I could show you but I haven’t seen it posted online :(

We got absolutely soaked to the bone, I already felt and looked like crap. SURPRISE I got volunteered to share my umbrella with the Jolly Green Giant and I got soaked because he was too dumb to run back to his room after breakfast. So I was miserable and we went to like tombs and shit which is SO not my cup of tea…ok, replicas because there was too much damage at the real once, which made it lamer but less creepy.

The museum wasn’t bad, we had bibimbap for lunch and that was good as always…and we saw some musicians and they were alright, again they would have been better if we weren’t getting rained on…like literally I was in the middle of the front of the room and I could feel the freaking rain coming in. Pissed me off royally. OH and it was like a traditional style building so we had to take our shoes off and leave them outside to get soaked. It wouldn’t have been an issue if it was normal rain, but if you didn’t guess by the fact that we got rained on inside…this was not normal rain.

I’m sure I could make these lists go on for a while with little nitpicky things but really this is the bulk of the important stuff.

Overall I liked the orientation, it was good to get to know people that were going to be in my city and I dunno, it was alright.

I suppose my doctors trip should be added in here…

Well earlier I said that I stomached the food for a few days, then…I didn’t. I felt really neauseated and just gross so finally I talked to the nurse and she made me go to the doctor and he was like “take it easy, take some pills, don’t eat anything with flour or oil…”

yeah easy advice.

I mention this because this was an urgent doctors visit (walk-in after 7pm) and it cost me 14,000 won…roughly $13.50 USD

Then three days of medication, three times a day, three pills. Like 6,000 won.

Overall this visit and the medicine cost me less than my COPAY back home…and then the staff member who went with me was like “oh it’ll be cheaper once you have insurance.” CHEAPER!?!?

Yeah, super cheap. BUT very mysterious. I have no idea what pills I took and they came in little pre-dosed packets that weren’t labeled or anything…From what I’ve heard about Korean doctors from books and the internet he was very forthcoming with me compared to what would normally be expected, but whatever overall not a bad experience at all.

I think that’s it for the important things in Daejeon…Let me tell you if I had written this then I would have rambled on for SO much longer, be glad I was too tired and just wanted to sleep constantly.

Sweet bread

So I walked into the bakery next door ("patesserie de the depuis 1999" ).

I looked around at all the bread and thought "Sweet!  Garlic bread!"

No, it's sweet garlic bread.

I think all the bread here is sweet, which sometimes is good but sweet garlic bread is just kinda weird.

If you look at it real close you can even see a bit of the shine from the sugary coating on this one...

Oh, and it's as hard as biscotti.

nom noms anyone?

Why? WHY?

I figure a good place to start is the why…

There are a few reasons I wanted to start this, but the main one is that I know before I came here I was very anxious and wanted to know everything I could.  Some people posted useful stuff, others posted crap…A lot of the time I had questions that I just didn’t really find answers to.  SO I’m hoping that I can help alleviate some worries by starting this.

Another reason is that as much as I love to talk, trying to talk to everyone on a 13 hour time difference is kinda difficult, it’s always late at night or super early in the morning so this way I don’t have to worry about forgetting to tell someone I finally learned to read (haha, yeah, right…still can’t read) or something funny and random (like my student’s notebook earlier that said “MUSIC A free and easy life is all well and good”…I love misused idiomatic expressions, but the Engrish gets so much worse and funnier!)  We should all have a chance to see…well I’m not going to spoil the fun quite yet.

And really I want a nice collection of all the crazy and even not so crazy things that happen here.  

Anywho, there will be boring but practical things (like the fact that Vayama is a real company and I really did save HUNDREDS by getting my plane ticket through them…) and hopefully some good and entertaining things too.  And I promise to always be too long winded even though I try not to…I’m a failure at being concise.

Happy Brain Melting!!