First of all, I'd like to thank Doc for noticing one of my many mistakes in my previous blog.  Let's just chalk it up to my weakened state of mind and body. 

A quick reminder;  if you are at all interested in sending me anything from outside of America, please send it to:
Wee English Zone    
Attn: Muggs Alexander    
475-3 Dong Hong-Dong                          
Jeju, South Korea697-070

I would greatly appreciate anything anybody could send me from home.  My greatest desires are:
-Orbitz Sweet Mint Gum
-Purrell
-Old Bay (Multiples so I can give some as gifts to my Korean friends)
-Clear Care Contact Solution

As of last night, I was ready to quit this whole thing.  Seriously.  It's not that Korea isn't a great country, or that I don't enjoy the city and how beautiful everything is on the island.  It's the fact that I've been sick more often in the past 2 weeks than I have been in the past 10 years.  I get the occasional minor cold which I usually fight off pretty well with vitamin-c and zinc, but that's about it.  In the 20 days I've been here, I've had Sinusitis, Upper Respiratory Infection, and food poisoning.  They've all been pretty nasty; with the constant runny nose or congestion and the rough couch.  The food poisoning was the worst though.  Constant trips to the bathroom, running out of TP and switching to aloe Kleenex (thank God) I had them, nasty stomach cramps, vomiting, severe body aches, you name it.  And guess where I got it from...  Not school.  Not the delicious street-meat corndogs that I indulge in quite frequently.  It was the chicken nuggets at 'Hite Beer Plus'.  A seemingly westernized bar/restuarant that is super clean and pretty nice.  Yes it was those chicken nuggets that came with polynesian dipping sauce and honey mustard that are the apparent culprit for my immense pain that lasted from about 4am Tuesday till about 6am Wednesday.  I went to bed early last night to hopefully recover and put an end to all this nastiness.  I slept pretty well (slightly medicated), but unfortunately missed an extended Skype call that would have been a great surprise.  It was nice to get the call one way or another, and at least I got a few minutes to talk. 

My classes today went pretty well.  No problems, and I had my favorite class consisting of Ellen, Sarah, Emily and Gloria.  They are the cutest little Korean girls.  They are fairly well behaved, but they do like to joke with me.  And they're so funny giggling all the time, Ellen with her little dimples.  I ask them questions in English like 'do you like seaweed', and if they don't know what the word is, I always hear 'Mugga Teacher, what is that' or 'Mugga teacher, what is seaweeda'?  (They aren't very good at ending words with consonants here.  And they often get letters mixed up.  L's and R's are big ones, G's and C's, too.  Today one girl said 'I like cum', instead of 'I like gum'...  It's always an adventure, and a challenge keeping a straight face.  I'm sure my Korean would be even worse than their English though.  So anyway, after today, I don't want to leave Korea.  I'm happy, I feel fine.  We're finally back to the normal temperature for this time of year (40's and 50's).  It was nice and sunny today and Halla-san looked gorgeous.  I can't wait till spring!

PS  Please leave comments!  It makes me feel like I'm not writing this in vain! 

So I suppose this post has been in progress for about a week.  I didn't want to write about my first day at school, because I figured I needed to give it time to sink in.  I figured the same thing for my birthday, but my feelings haven't changed.  This was my first birthday away from the states in my life, and I was honestly pretty nervous about it.   I think dealing with holidays here will be one of the harder tasks I endure, and birthdays are right up there.  I'm used to my close guy friends typically forgetting my birthday (no guilt trip, but it's the truth) and I wasn't sure what to expect here in a foreign country with no friends knowing me longer than 2 weeks.  To be totally honest, I was presently surprised.  Unfortunately I was pretty sick for my birthday (sinus infection which has now apparently developed into a respiratory infection) and so were my coteachers/friends.  We had all gone out for dinner and private Karaoke the night before and had a great time, so my birthday was supposed to be pretty low-key.  The private Karaoke was definitely a new experience, and I am definitely not somebody to sing in front of people.   I'm a horrible singer, and I'm shy, so it's a bad combination.  But somehow, even with my weakened voice, and feeling like crap, I was convinced into singing two songs.  I sang 'Smells like Teen Spirit' and 'California Dreaming' with back-ups by Paul.  I definitely couldn't have done it without him; partially because I was so embarrassed, but mostly because I barely had a voice.  The Korean girls/ladies got so into the songs they sang, it was worth the entire night just to watch them get crazy.  Singing their hearts out, dancing, playing the tamborine; it was awesome. 
As for my birthday, my coteachers Christina and Candy wouldn't let me bail.  I felt absolutely horrible, but Christina had spent time overseas in Seattle and knew what it was like to be away from family and friends for a birthday, so she made sure that we had a small gathering, food and cake.  And it all meant even more to me considering that Christina was freeling horrible as well and still went through all the trouble to get me pizza, chicken and cake.  We all just ate over at Paul and Meaghan's, mostly because we didn't want to be in smokey environments while being sick and it all worked out for the best.  It defintely wasn't a crazy drunk birthday like I've had in past years, but booze was the last thing I needed in my state.  All in all, I was happy with this year passing.  I hate getting older, but it didn't feel as bad with people around that I'd only known a short time, and were still so adamant about me doing something to celebrate.  And being in Korea, and getting to experience a part of the world I've always wanted to see definitely made me a little more at ease with the whole age progession thing. 
The song I attached to my blog is 'the song' of the moment here in Korea, and has been sung to me at school and was also definitely belted out by the Koreans at Karaoke in our private little room.  Hopefully I'll have a couple more picures up soon.  Right now, I'm in the process of celebrating the lunar new year, so I get 2 new years in 1 month.  Not too shabby.

17 January 2009

It’s now about 5pm here on Jeju, and I’ve only left bed once or twice.  And to be honest, it’s kind of nice.  About 2 days ago I started getting a sore throat (which I thought came from talking/yelling during class) and it has progressively gotten worse.  I woke up yesterday (Friday) every two hours with a fever, chills, body-aches, congestion, the whole gamut.  I contemplated not going to work, but realized how much I need the money.  I thought about being nice and not infecting the kids, but it was those brats that gave me this sickness anyway, so let them deal.  Joking…  Bud judging by how dirty they are, they have almost definitely have built up an immunity to this cold anyway.  Plus, all new people get sick here within the first month or so.  I ended up just taking a steam shower in my little apartment and some Excedrin and left a little early for work, hitting up a pharmacy (where I didn’t purchase anything because it’s ALL behind the counter) and then Paris Baggette for some tea and a Skype session.  

I felt like death most of the day.  I pounded tea to soothe my throat like it was going out of style, and even went to the local grocery store to get some fruit juices to help ease up the symptoms.  Jeju has some delicious local OJ, but the honey-ginger beverage was somewhat strange.  The day went OK, all considered, and my horrible little pre-schoolers were somewhat tolerable.  I was told I would be working with 3 and 4 year olds in addition to my other kids (up to ages 10/11) and was not that worried about it because of my 3 year old neighbor Sean back in the states who is apparently the coolest 3 year old in the world.  Sean can tell time, make up incredible stories with a small vocabulary and apparently is quite the dragon slayer.  My 3 year olds can climb on tables, pick their noses, not notice the snot caked to their upper lip, scream at high volumes in the couple English phrases they know, lick the floor, lick the table, lick the wall; but apparently not the electrical socket...  The kids were so wild, I had to have one of our Korean co-teachers yell at them before class, and then our director came up during class to tell them to behave.  It’s fairly tough for me to discipline them when the only English they know consists of “I am here; I am fine/good/so-so/; Freezy Song; and Hello/Goodbye Muggs Teacher!”  Life would definitely be a lot easier without them, but I least I only see them for 50 minutes 2-3 times per week.  My other classes are getting better.  They are realizing that I will discipline them, but I am fair.  I don’t sing and dance, but will put on the ‘Freezy Song’ (the basically run around while the music is on, and stop when it says ‘Freeze!’) if all goes well.  As time goes on, I’ve grown to like a few of the kids, picking up on the similarities that are apparent in kids all over the world, and appreciate the differences between them and American kids.  The little girls crack me up when they giggle (always covering their mouths if the joke has something to do with me) and the boys have a strange touchy-feely kind of affection for each other that you wouldn’t necessarily find in the states.  I do my best to teach these kids some level of English competency, but I’ve decided to teach the brats that the letters ‘L’ and ‘R’ are pronounced the same.  

Outside of school, things have been going well.  I still go out to dinner with Paul and Meaghan most nights since it is just as cheap and probably easier than cooking at home.  A group of us went out Thursday night to nice dinner (I can’t remember the Korean term) where we all sat down around these kettles of boiling broth and cooked our own 3 course meal.  It was delicious and extremely filling, but sitting on the ground for a couple hours is not the most comfortable thing in the world for me.  It was nice finally meeting some of the people I’d been in contact with online and good to hear more advice from people that’d been here in Seogwipo for awhile.  I’ve decided I’m definitely going to be getting a motorbike as soon as I have the money so I can explore the island.  I just need to find a way to strap my boards onto it and get to the beach.  On other food notes, I discovered Korea’s version of the corn dog, and have been eating at least one a day for the past week.  The vendors are pretty much on every street corner, and the dog is only $1.  Delicious.  One can only eat so much seaweed soup, rice and kim-chi for lunch.  

I should have the internet in a week or so, and that will be great.  It’s really been a pain having to go to shops or Paul and Meaghan’s place in order to talk to people or check email.  I barely know what’s going on in the world, besides the fact that Bush will FINALLY be out of office in a couple days.  So many people from around the world have told me how excited they are for a new president in America.  They think it’s a chance for America to work its way back into world favor and take some steps in the right direction.  I don’t really want to get too political, but I am very excited about what Obama can do in the next 4-8 years.  

Well, I just wasted another 45 minutes of my day, and I better go do something.  I at least need to run to the corner store and look for some detergent so hopefully I can get a little wash done, now that I have a washing machine.  The washing machine was thoughtfully placed directly under they shower-head in my bathroom by the delivery men, leaving me no room to shower.  I had to push it a couple feet to the other wall, stretching out the cords/pipes and making it so the floor will probably flood.  Awesome.  But I can’t complain, at least I have the option to do laundry now.  As for drying, I’ll probably hang up my wet clothes in front of the heater fan and let it go to town on oscillation mode.  Oh, I almost forgot.  The director of the school got wind that I wasn’t crazy about my apartment and said that she’ll get a new one for me by June, which is a plus.  Maybe I won’t have to hear the TB patient down the hall or smell drying squid every morning, but that’s just a pipe dream.  This is Korea, and they love their seafood…

11 January 2009

It’s 4:30, and I’m now half way through my third day here in Seogwipo.  The weather is pretty crappy again, cold and windy, but it’s not supposed to last long.  Thanks to the help of Meaghan and Paul (once again) I’ve begun to find my way around the city a little better.  At least now I can figure out how to get back to my own apartment that we generally refer to as ‘The Closet’.  I’ve learned my first 2 Korean phrases.  Hello/goodbye (anasayo) and thank you (komsaymehda).  Most of my meals have been consumed with Paul and Meaghan, largely in part for the company and because cooking is expensive and I don’t have many options in my closet.  We can go out, get a beer and a meal for $10.  Not a bad deal, and it definitely fills you up.  Since I’ll be getting free lunch at school, I can probably just have a small breakfast and then go out and grab street meat or hit up a small restaurant for dinner.  

Last night we went to ‘Home Plus’, a multi-level Walmart type store.  It had a pretty impressive selection, and good prices on a lot of things.  One problem though I’ve noticed is the Korean workers stalk you like Gap/American Eagle employees.  They basically shadow you until you purchase something, walk away or mess something up so they can come and fix it.  (Last night after the bar, we stopped at a corner store, and the worker came and cleaned the glass after I pointed to something on one of the shelves.  Keep in mind I didn’t even touch the glass.)  Back to Home Plus; I spent well over $100 but picked up some useful stuff.  Jelly and bread that I can combine with my peanut butter, some chicken, sauces for the chicken, a tiny green floor table that I can eat upon, some shampoo, a couple baskets to hold my small dresser items, a bunch of hangers, some Soju (a Korean rice alcohol which has virtually no taste and costs about $1 for 10oz.) and even some Johnnie Walker Black with 2 signature glasses ($35).  Oh, and I got a bunch of dried seaweed for snacks.  It’s pretty good, and I assume healthy for you since there really aren’t any ingredients.  Everybody was right about the deodorant situation, and it’s good I brought some or I’d be buying aerosol, which I don’t even know how well that works.  I forgot to get tacks or tape or anything, so I ingeniously used board wax to hang the pictures of Lauran and me up around my apartment.  

I  met some other English speakers the other night at a foreigner bar called Gecko’s which is just a short cab ride away.  It was pretty nice, decent drink selection, pool table and darts.  As some of you may know, I enjoy throwing darts a great deal, and am better than the average American.  (Mostly because nobody every throws darts in the states)  Unfortunately the best I did all night was getting 2nd place in one of the final games when everybody was all sauced up.  In all fairness, these people have been doing the same thing nightly/weekly for months/years here in Seogwipo.  Gecko’s even had wifi and I made attempts at sending out some emails (which I’m not sure if they went through or not) and got on AIM so I could text Lauran’s phone.  (The first contact we’ve had since I got settled)  Tonight I plan on going over to M&P’s place with my computer to Skype my parents and whomever else since I won’t have the internet here for a couple weeks.  I haven’t noticed any international calling cards, so I don’t even have that option at the moment.  

School starts tomorrow, and I’m pretty excited about it.  It’ll give me something to do for most of the day, and I think it’ll be entertaining.  Hopefully some of my co-teachers can help me learn some more Korean.  Plus, I’m in dire need of that paycheck, which won’t even come till February.  

I stopped by a gym today which was pretty nice, and not crowded at all, and had a beautiful view of the harbor.  Unfortunately it was $60/month to join, or if I went with a year contract it would be $450 for the year.  Not terrible, but seems a little too pricey for Korea.  I’m going to keep looking around  and see if there are any better deals, but that might be my best bet.  Plus there is a bouldering wall attached to it, but owned by somebody else.  Guess that means I’ll be paying more for that too.  

Lunch this afternoon was interesting.  It’s tougher than I expected getting food, but I guess I didn’t think that much about it.  At the street vendors, we can pretty much just point to something and pay.  At restaurants, we need picture menus (which occasionally contain English words) and then typically we roll the dice and hope it’s good.  The “western restaurant’ we ate at today, also had a great view of the harbor and the islands, but the food wasn’t my favorite.  I ordered a seafood curry, and wasn’t disappointed, but there was just too much octopus in there for me.  I like most seafood, but octopus is just too chewy.  

Now that I’m back at my place, I’ll probably just be reading, watching random movies on TV or napping.  We do have 2 English channels with show action movies from the past 10 years.  It’s basically just background noise most of the time.  I am looking forward to calling home though, and getting the chance to finally talk to Lauran as well.  

To finish up, here’s a list of things I’m glad I brought from the states:

-Sheets (so much more comfortable than the Korean stuff)
-Heavy coat (weather has been unseasonably cold)
-My Crazy Creek chair (It folds flat and makes it easy to eat at my tiny table)

Things I’ll need from the states:  (Hint Hint)

-Granola bars
-ORBITZ SWEET MINT GUM!!!!!!!!!!
-Foreman Grill (although I haven’t really looked for one here yet)
-Orbitz sweet mint gum
-Clear Care contact solution
-Visitors (JLR)

10 January 2009
The Travelog

This is basically my second morning in Seogwipo and it’s starting slowly.  It’s actually 11am.  Let’s go ahead and blame the laziness on the jet lag and 14 hour time difference.  I believe this morning I was supposed to do the ‘Penguin Plunge’ on Jungmun beach, but my new friends Meaghan and Paul may have overslept and forgot to come get me.  Maybe I should start from the beginning of my trip, this being the first time I have written anything about the journey. 

My Jeju Journey began around 4:30am Wednesday, January 7th after about 2 hours of sleep.  I was supposed to be up at 4, but apparently overslept a little bit.  Thanks in part to 2 days worth of packing and some help from the parents, I was out of the house by 5:05am, only 5 minutes late.  Dad and I arrived at the airport around 6:00am and he dropped me off with my bags and went to park and see me off in case there were any problems.  The check-in line at the airport wasn’t terribly long, but the ticketing counters were only being staffed by 2 personnel.  1 person for domestic, 1 for international.  Needless to say, it took a fairly long time to get everything done.  Luckily though, I only had to pay $85 for my gigantic surfboard bag containing 2 boards, 1 wetsuit, 2 coats, 2 towels, 1 chair and about 5 books.  It was heavy.  Carting all this around with a hurt foot wasn’t the easiest thing in the world, but I opted for a wheel chair to get me to my gate.  Now I know I’ll be made fun plenty for the wheelchair on my (probably) stress-fractured foot, but I ended up getting through security in about 2 minutes.  Awesome.  I can walk on my foot with a limp, but anything over a few hundred yards creates some excruciating pain.  (As could be evidenced by Lauran at Magnolia Plantation.  And yes, she still made fun of my disability.) 

The 6 hour flight to San Francisco was mediocre.  I flew United Airlines and was not even offered peanuts.  The turbulence was rough in some places, even causing on elderly man to be forced to sit down in the middle of the aisle because he could not make it back to his seat.  During the flight, I read a little of ‘The Plauge’ by Albert Camus which I feel like I’ve been working on for about 3 years, and watched ‘Burn After Reading’ (a decent dark comedy) and a few episodes of various NBC TV shows (including The Office!) on NBC On United. 

Upon arriving in San Fran I hobbled my way along moving sidewalks all the way to my international gate where I checked in for my Singapore Airlines flight to Seoul.  Here they decided to tell me that I needed to pay $125 for my third checked bag.  I respectfully declined, stating that I checked the bag at my previous aircraft due to ‘plane downsizing‘, and was told there would be no extra fees.  Singapore was nice enough to ‘Let me go’ this time, but warned me of the policy for next time.  I had enough time to make a quick phone call while grabbing a sandwich and then I was boarding my plane. 

I can not describe to you how much I loved Singapore Airlines.  The flight attendants were incredibly friendly (and looked pretty hot in their traditional uniforms) and seemed to move non-stop.  My seat had a built in flat screen TV with on-demand movies, TV shows and a bunch of other stuff.  I even played a little ‘learn Korean’ game and crushed it.  (Although I only remember a few of the words.)  Instead of no meals (like United) I was served 2 full-hot meals.  I think my first one was fish, and the second was a spicy beef dish.  There was ice cream, chocolate bars, wine and even free Scotch.  That’s right: Free booze in Economy Class.  Amazing.  The flight from BWI to Seoul cost me about as much as my flight to Belize, but blew it away.  Total flight time was approximately 12 hours, and actually wasn’t horrible.  The movies, games, food, booze and Ambien made it go rather quickly. 

Arriving in Seoul I got through customs without and problems, got my 1 metric ton worth of luggage and ended up grabbing a taxi (which was expensive as hell) to get me to Gimpo.  The taxi driver was nice enough and even carried my heavy ass boards.  Only when I went to pay him did I realize that he had only one hand, so I felt a little better about being hosed on the price.  I would have taken a bus but: #1 I was in a hurry, and #2 None of them wanted to accommodate my surfboard bag. 

Gimpo Airport is mainly the domestic flight airport and was rather small, subsequently getting me to my plane on time.  There was a tiny bit of WiFi, and I managed to send out a couple quick messages to let people know I arrived and or was thinking about them. 

The flight from Gimpo to Jeju took about 45 minutes, and was on a regular 737.  I read a little while going in and out of consciousness and played with my iTouch a little.  Upon arriving in jeju around 10pm, I met up with one of JE Consulting’s guys named ‘Jimmy’.  Jimmy informed me he couldn’t give me a ride because of the size of my luggage so instead he helped me onto the bus and sent me on my way.  Unfortunately we had to take the long way around the island, consisting of about an hour bus ride on which I tried watching a movie but was barely conscious so I dozed and looked at a couple choice pictures that I took during my most recent NYE trip to Charleston. 

I arrive at KAL Hotel in Seogwipo and was met by Chan who helped me load my luggage, and proceeded to call me ‘MacGuyver’ because I ingeniously had the idea to remove shoulder straps from my board bag and my laptop bag in order to get my boards strapped down.  We made it to my ‘apartment’, which is really a tiny little hotel room with minimal cooking facilities.  I threw my stuff down, put my sheets on the bed, turned on the ‘heater fan’, rearranged my bed and passed out.  Exhausted, obviously after over 20 hours of travel.  All in all, I guess I left my parents’ house at 5am Wednesday, and arrive in my new home around 11:30pm Thursday night.  (Korea is 14 hours ahead of EST, FYI)

So that was the first leg of my trip.  I’m a little sick of typing, so I might try and go wrangle up food.