Recap of this first week’s adventures:
I now have the internet up and running in my apartment, which makes me quite glad.
Left Friday afternoon from Chicago. I’d like to give a big shout-out to Allison here for not only driving me to the Airport and having to get up at the asscrack of dawn to drive up from Indy to do so, but also for paying to park and coming inside to wait with me before my flight. Am I really cool enough to deserve such devotion from my friends? I’ll assume not and that she’s just that terrific, what a gal.
Anyhow, I flew out around 1pm Friday and zoomed into the future, landing around 5pm or something Saturday in Incheon Airport. The flight was actually only 12 ½ hours (direct flight) so the 5pm estimate includes getting luggage and all that other fun post-flight hassle. I walked out of the gate to the lobby, getting increasingly nervous, wondering if I’ll be able to find the person picking me up, wondering who they’ll be, etc, but the second I step out I see the man I’ll come to know as my director holding a little sign saying Steven Scott. He recognizes me, too and waves. He’s immediately super nice and speaks excellent English and buys me a bottle of water. The taxi he’d called arrives and we head off towards Ilsan, which is around a 50 minute drive.
In the cab he calls a co-worker of mine, Rick, and has me talk to him. He’s from Texas and lives in the apartment right next door to mine. When I arrive Rick and Kyungro (my director) have conspired to have all of the foreign language teachers gather at my apartment to meet me! Very cool. There’s 7 of them. They all make it clear that they’re here to help in any way possible and were just incredibly gracious. After talking for a bit we all find out that our director is being transferred, however. This is very sad as he’s super cool and relaxed and gets things done.
Kyungro then takes me grocery shopping and buys me a whole cart of stuff I’d need, stuff for my bed, pots/pans, and food. I didn’t see the total cost at the register, but it was a lot of stuff. Then when we got back Rick took me out to dinner to this outdoor mall area called La Festa. He paid for everything the whole night and we went out for drinks after dinner. First to this place that’s decorated like a punk bar, with graffiti, etc, but actually ended up being really cheesy and lame. Cuss words and anarchy signs were next to stuff like the Van Halen symbol. There was a band playing Korean pop in the middle of the outdoor mall.
After that we went and got drinks at this nicer restaurant that he wanted to check out. There was a American cover band playing that sucked horribly, but were funny and hence entertaining nonetheless. They finished and they turned on a TV projection where the stage was just in time to watch Korea compete in the Olympics. Oh was that fun! It was Men’s Archery no less, one of their best events and they won the gold. Everyone was going nuts. Then another band came out that looked all garage and tough, but were another American cover band. It was like live band karaoke. They sucked, too, but they closed with Welcome to the Jungle which was awesome. I was also buzzed by this time, which helped. After that we headed home and Rick let me borrow his phone card to call home to let my parents know I was still alive and well.
Sunday I just stayed home and cleaned and unpacked. My apartment was kind of dirty and had a lot of trash in it, but I pretty much had it cleaned and was completely unpacked by the end of the day. I slept a lot, too, because I’d not had much sleep for several days and didn’t sleep well on the plane, so it went in a cycle of sleep, clean, sleep, unpack, sleep, clean, sleep all day long.
Monday I got up and walked around Ilsan a lot and went to work with my coworker Jeff, whose classes I’m taking off when he leaves in another week or so. That night we went out around Ilsan and it was pretty cool. I got to try Soju which is the trademark Korean drink. It’s basically a watered down vodka, though everything I read about it online previously said it was basically gin. Not too tasty, but not as horrible as gin.
On Tuesday night we (Rick, Jeff, Alex, Tim, and I) went into Seoul to the international part, which ended up being lame, but on account of it being Tuesday night. I typed a little about hooker hill in another update, but basically prostitution is everywhere here. Quite the culture shock for an innocent little Indiana boy like myself.
Last night after work a bunch of us (basically the “cool” foreign language teachers) went and played ping pong for a while, but then I bailed because I’m broke until Tuesday despite not really paying for anything other than transportation whenever I’ve gone out so far. But I had to buy a power converter and I got the best model since I’m running my computer through it and had accidentally fried my CD player/alarm clock before realizing what was sold to me as a power converter in the states was actually just an adaptor plug… what the use of that is I couldn’t tell you. Actually for the record, the clock and radio parts still work, just not the CD player part and now that my computer’s up I’m not too annoyed about it.
Oh, I got a monitor from the school and a TV and a VCR (which I doubt I’ll use). Apparently the school provides computers and internet for their foreign teachers. Unfortunately the girl I had for my contact is… oi. She’s just no good. I can’t stand her in person and she didn’t answer any of my questions well and didn’t tell me any of that sort of stuff. I’m glad I brought my computer, though, because they don’t seem to be very good computers that they provide, still I should have known that and been able to make the choice. I’m going to tell my recruiter not to use her as a contact for new teachers in the future as she was wholly unhelpful and is basically a whiney little runt. What? I said Runt.
Most of my other co-workers are rad, though. The classes are super easy, too. I have mostly middle school aged kids (11-14) and some of the classes are a pain, but most of them aren’t bad. They get smacked on the hand with a ruler if they don’t score well on their vocab tests, but not for misbehaving which is odd to me. Kids are sort of allowed to do whatever they want until they get to around high school age. Which reminds me to point out that Ilsan is SUPER safe and that kids will just be out and about at like 11pm without any worry despite it being way more urban than Lafayette. There’s just a family oriented feel to the town, despite stuff like the legal prostitution (which is all “classy” in Ilsan, unlike Seoul).
Eek, I’m trying to think of more random rambling stuff to write, but nothing’s coming to mind. Oh, I came across my first sunken toilet thing yesterday. No seat just a little bowl in the ground that you crouch over I guess, and I learned a lot of public restrooms aren’t stocked with toilet paper. Good thing I wasn’t in there for anything I’d need it for.
My apartment has a washer (which is finally getting fixed tomorrow (Friday) as is my Internet apparently. I’m writing this as a word document for now. No dryers, though. Everyone uses hanging rack things, but me and Rick are going in on a dryer as soon as I can afford it, which might be Tuesday when I get paid. I’m down to like $16 until then, though, so no more going out or even riding the bus for that matter. It’s only a twenty minute walk, though, which I’ve been doing most of the time anyway just to help familiarize myself with the area. The bathrooms don’t have separate showers here, i.e. no curtain or anything. You just shower and get everything in the bathroom wet. Plus the bathroom is really small and has a washing machine in it. It’s not as bad as it seemed at first, though, once I got it moved in the right position where I can shower on one side and stand by the sink on the other (though that doesn’t allow much room on either side). Rick just stopped in and gave me a really awesome Korean phrase book, which is good because I hadn’t had been able to afford one yet and have been struggling with even the basic phrases.
I had a potato dog today, hehe. Which is a corn dog with French fries pressed onto it. There’s several little stands of fried goods all over and one right in front of my school so I stopped and got one. Very cheap, just 1,000 won (which is basically a dollar, but is actually less than a dollar). Apparently there aren’t anything higher than 10,000 won bills, though, which is really odd since it’s only basically $10. Hm… I’m done for tonight. I’ll write more another day as more stuff happens and I think of more things. Again please feel free to ask questions on here (just comment anonymously and then sign your name since most people reading this don’t have their own live journal, though for anyone other than Andy you might want to sign you whole name and not just the first letter) and then I’ll respond on here so everyone gets to see the answers. Oh, I’ll take pictures of my apartment, but not for a week or two, until I get things moved into the positions I plan on leaving them in. I’m going to have to screw my posters into the walls apparently because they’re covered with no stick wall paper and the walls bend nails. There’s holes all over, though, so I know it is allowed. Ok, time to eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes and watch some Sealab 2021. G’night all.
Left Friday afternoon from Chicago. I’d like to give a big shout-out to Allison here for not only driving me to the Airport and having to get up at the asscrack of dawn to drive up from Indy to do so, but also for paying to park and coming inside to wait with me before my flight. Am I really cool enough to deserve such devotion from my friends? I’ll assume not and that she’s just that terrific, what a gal.
Anyhow, I flew out around 1pm Friday and zoomed into the future, landing around 5pm or something Saturday in Incheon Airport. The flight was actually only 12 ½ hours (direct flight) so the 5pm estimate includes getting luggage and all that other fun post-flight hassle. I walked out of the gate to the lobby, getting increasingly nervous, wondering if I’ll be able to find the person picking me up, wondering who they’ll be, etc, but the second I step out I see the man I’ll come to know as my director holding a little sign saying Steven Scott. He recognizes me, too and waves. He’s immediately super nice and speaks excellent English and buys me a bottle of water. The taxi he’d called arrives and we head off towards Ilsan, which is around a 50 minute drive.
In the cab he calls a co-worker of mine, Rick, and has me talk to him. He’s from Texas and lives in the apartment right next door to mine. When I arrive Rick and Kyungro (my director) have conspired to have all of the foreign language teachers gather at my apartment to meet me! Very cool. There’s 7 of them. They all make it clear that they’re here to help in any way possible and were just incredibly gracious. After talking for a bit we all find out that our director is being transferred, however. This is very sad as he’s super cool and relaxed and gets things done.
Kyungro then takes me grocery shopping and buys me a whole cart of stuff I’d need, stuff for my bed, pots/pans, and food. I didn’t see the total cost at the register, but it was a lot of stuff. Then when we got back Rick took me out to dinner to this outdoor mall area called La Festa. He paid for everything the whole night and we went out for drinks after dinner. First to this place that’s decorated like a punk bar, with graffiti, etc, but actually ended up being really cheesy and lame. Cuss words and anarchy signs were next to stuff like the Van Halen symbol. There was a band playing Korean pop in the middle of the outdoor mall.
After that we went and got drinks at this nicer restaurant that he wanted to check out. There was a American cover band playing that sucked horribly, but were funny and hence entertaining nonetheless. They finished and they turned on a TV projection where the stage was just in time to watch Korea compete in the Olympics. Oh was that fun! It was Men’s Archery no less, one of their best events and they won the gold. Everyone was going nuts. Then another band came out that looked all garage and tough, but were another American cover band. It was like live band karaoke. They sucked, too, but they closed with Welcome to the Jungle which was awesome. I was also buzzed by this time, which helped. After that we headed home and Rick let me borrow his phone card to call home to let my parents know I was still alive and well.
Sunday I just stayed home and cleaned and unpacked. My apartment was kind of dirty and had a lot of trash in it, but I pretty much had it cleaned and was completely unpacked by the end of the day. I slept a lot, too, because I’d not had much sleep for several days and didn’t sleep well on the plane, so it went in a cycle of sleep, clean, sleep, unpack, sleep, clean, sleep all day long.
Monday I got up and walked around Ilsan a lot and went to work with my coworker Jeff, whose classes I’m taking off when he leaves in another week or so. That night we went out around Ilsan and it was pretty cool. I got to try Soju which is the trademark Korean drink. It’s basically a watered down vodka, though everything I read about it online previously said it was basically gin. Not too tasty, but not as horrible as gin.
On Tuesday night we (Rick, Jeff, Alex, Tim, and I) went into Seoul to the international part, which ended up being lame, but on account of it being Tuesday night. I typed a little about hooker hill in another update, but basically prostitution is everywhere here. Quite the culture shock for an innocent little Indiana boy like myself.
Last night after work a bunch of us (basically the “cool” foreign language teachers) went and played ping pong for a while, but then I bailed because I’m broke until Tuesday despite not really paying for anything other than transportation whenever I’ve gone out so far. But I had to buy a power converter and I got the best model since I’m running my computer through it and had accidentally fried my CD player/alarm clock before realizing what was sold to me as a power converter in the states was actually just an adaptor plug… what the use of that is I couldn’t tell you. Actually for the record, the clock and radio parts still work, just not the CD player part and now that my computer’s up I’m not too annoyed about it.
Oh, I got a monitor from the school and a TV and a VCR (which I doubt I’ll use). Apparently the school provides computers and internet for their foreign teachers. Unfortunately the girl I had for my contact is… oi. She’s just no good. I can’t stand her in person and she didn’t answer any of my questions well and didn’t tell me any of that sort of stuff. I’m glad I brought my computer, though, because they don’t seem to be very good computers that they provide, still I should have known that and been able to make the choice. I’m going to tell my recruiter not to use her as a contact for new teachers in the future as she was wholly unhelpful and is basically a whiney little runt. What? I said Runt.
Most of my other co-workers are rad, though. The classes are super easy, too. I have mostly middle school aged kids (11-14) and some of the classes are a pain, but most of them aren’t bad. They get smacked on the hand with a ruler if they don’t score well on their vocab tests, but not for misbehaving which is odd to me. Kids are sort of allowed to do whatever they want until they get to around high school age. Which reminds me to point out that Ilsan is SUPER safe and that kids will just be out and about at like 11pm without any worry despite it being way more urban than Lafayette. There’s just a family oriented feel to the town, despite stuff like the legal prostitution (which is all “classy” in Ilsan, unlike Seoul).
Eek, I’m trying to think of more random rambling stuff to write, but nothing’s coming to mind. Oh, I came across my first sunken toilet thing yesterday. No seat just a little bowl in the ground that you crouch over I guess, and I learned a lot of public restrooms aren’t stocked with toilet paper. Good thing I wasn’t in there for anything I’d need it for.
My apartment has a washer (which is finally getting fixed tomorrow (Friday) as is my Internet apparently. I’m writing this as a word document for now. No dryers, though. Everyone uses hanging rack things, but me and Rick are going in on a dryer as soon as I can afford it, which might be Tuesday when I get paid. I’m down to like $16 until then, though, so no more going out or even riding the bus for that matter. It’s only a twenty minute walk, though, which I’ve been doing most of the time anyway just to help familiarize myself with the area. The bathrooms don’t have separate showers here, i.e. no curtain or anything. You just shower and get everything in the bathroom wet. Plus the bathroom is really small and has a washing machine in it. It’s not as bad as it seemed at first, though, once I got it moved in the right position where I can shower on one side and stand by the sink on the other (though that doesn’t allow much room on either side). Rick just stopped in and gave me a really awesome Korean phrase book, which is good because I hadn’t had been able to afford one yet and have been struggling with even the basic phrases.
I had a potato dog today, hehe. Which is a corn dog with French fries pressed onto it. There’s several little stands of fried goods all over and one right in front of my school so I stopped and got one. Very cheap, just 1,000 won (which is basically a dollar, but is actually less than a dollar). Apparently there aren’t anything higher than 10,000 won bills, though, which is really odd since it’s only basically $10. Hm… I’m done for tonight. I’ll write more another day as more stuff happens and I think of more things. Again please feel free to ask questions on here (just comment anonymously and then sign your name since most people reading this don’t have their own live journal, though for anyone other than Andy you might want to sign you whole name and not just the first letter) and then I’ll respond on here so everyone gets to see the answers. Oh, I’ll take pictures of my apartment, but not for a week or two, until I get things moved into the positions I plan on leaving them in. I’m going to have to screw my posters into the walls apparently because they’re covered with no stick wall paper and the walls bend nails. There’s holes all over, though, so I know it is allowed. Ok, time to eat a bowl of Frosted Flakes and watch some Sealab 2021. G’night all.