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)
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10 January 2009 |
MuggsJust a little journal about my life. Click 'Comments' or the Titles if you'd like to add anything. The words printed here are concepts. You must go through the experiences.
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