I haven't assimilated

I really haven't assimilated at all, yet. It's hard to order in restaurants and I don't really know yet how to meet natives yet. We'll see. I've been listening to a ton of podcasts lately - namely the Steve Dahl show. I've been listening to Adam Carolla's podcast a little too which is decent, and I've been catching up with Fresh Air via their podcast. If you want a good rollicking time download the Fresh Air podcast with Russell Brand, the English comedian.

I really want a kindle - they don't ship to Korea yet, though. I'm hungry for books (oh my address is Baksan Bestuil #810, Hangsin-Dong 763-2 Dukyang-Gu Koyang, South Korea, incidentally).

Here's a shot of a street right by me, 4 days after the blizzard. As you can see, they don't do much street clearing.

Making plans

My fellow teachers and I talked this weekend about making plans for the future. Evidently it's one of the most popular streams of thought out here. Let me explain: where will I live in the States? What will I do? When will I be back there? Things of that nature. I'm slowly formulating a plan myself.

I'd like to be here for a couple years, save up some good scratch, and head back stateside to do grad school for secondary education. Specifically, I'd like to go to SIU just to live that awesome southern life for awhile. I'm going to try to make it happen.

Here's a building from one of my walks. Humansia: a dwelling for human Asians.

More friends

I went out with my friend Carrie who lives close to me in Ilsan, and her friends last night. It was a good time - we had Indian food and then went out to a bar. It was one of her friend's birthday so we all had to don silly conical birthday hats at dinner and take copious amounts of photos. Carrie does not like to be photographed, and demurred when someone tried to take a pic of her. Then they passed the camera to the other side of the table to take a photo of me and the Korean boyfriend of the birthday girl I was sitting next to (can you tell I can't remember any names?) and I. I told them 'I love being photographed, but I'm very self-involved.' That went over well and they laughed. Little do they know that it's completely true.

I also did a little shopping yesterday. I bought some skinny jeans and a skeleton hoodie, which is basically the unofficial uniform of Korean teenagers. What can I say? It's a good look.

Finally, I took a walk today in a direction I'd never been before. Goyang is so different than Chicago, i.e. you can walk in any direction, at any time of day or night and not worry about being mugged. In fact I might start doing some mugging myself. Seems like a real money making opportunity. I found a river though, which was kinda neat.



They've been scooping all the snow up and loading it into trucks. I bet they're dumping it at the DMZ.

The stereotypes are true

I had a class yesterday where the topic was 'what do you eat'. It was a lot of me going around and asking the kids what their favorite foods are and stuff. Bulgogi pizza tends to come up a lot, as well as rice and kimchi and a billion dishes I can't understand when they tell me what they are. Then there was a little chart where you ask someone if they've tried lobster, or steak, or pizza or whatever and they answer whether they have or not, and whether they liked it or not.

And dog was on that chart. Literally, have you tried dog? And 3 girls in the class HAD tried dog, and one admitted to liking it. They all seemed to agree it tasted like beef, and I like beef. So maybe I should start eating dog.

Here's a view out my balcony during the blizzard, which gives you some idea of the accumulation:

Blizzard/ Payday

It's been a decent week so far, I'll say. We had a blizzard on Monday - biggest in Seoul in 103 years, but only 10 inches of accumulation. Really not bad by Chicago standards. The problem is that they don't plow so the streets are all hard packed snow with cars slipping all around. I've actually seen snow chains - something I've never actually seen before. Either way, and really to no surprise, it didn't stop kids from coming to school. Drat.

Our curriculum is basically monthly, so I've got a whole new set of books to teach now and the classes have changed a little. Fortunately for me my classes got smaller. Now I hope that's not a sign the school isn't doing well. I think it might be some seasonal thing I don't understand. Oh and I finally got paid today. Let me tell you - it's crazy how little tax they take out.

Alright, my friend Jin finally sent me some pics from us hanging out on Christmas. Here's one of them:

Some friends in Seoul

I hung out with this dude Josh in Seoul this weekend. It was a good time - he was jamming out with his friends on their geetars. They seemed a bit disappointed that I have no musical acuity at all, especially the lead singer of their band. He wanted me to play drums on their song but alack, I have no rhythm.

Josh is American like me, but all his friends were Canucks. They're an interesting lot, and I'm not sure I totally get them. I thought they were just like us Americans but they seem a bit more reserved. I ended up ditching Josh and musical co. for awhile to head to a bar with a Canuck named Julian. I had some bourbon there which was nice, and hung out with more Canucks.

The brutal part of the whole night was the insanely long metro ride home. I was more than half in the biz bag and I had to navigate multiple transfers in crazy foreign land. Being half in the bag I took a lot of pics though.

Here's Josh and his mate jamming:



Julian playing some pool:



Instant coffee on the Seoul Metro:



Waiting for the bus in Ilsan - it never came. I took a taxi.

COSTCO!

I was going to do an entry today about hanging out in Seoul with my new friend Josh last night, but I'm just too excited about going to Costco to do that. I took the bus to Ilsan this afternoon and went to Costco to satisfy my ravenous cheese lust. I was worried it'd be hard to get the card, but despite not knowing my address by heart, or my work address, I was able to get the card for a mere $30. The place is a madhouse. Crowded like you wouldn't believe and just full of pushy Koreans. You know they'll push you? Like push right the fuck into you, like you aren't there. I found that the best way to counter the pushing is to 1) push back and 2) stare at them, with much eye contact. That spooks them good.

Anyway - the point of the story. They had cheese there, like real cheese from America. Not processed cheese - the real thing. I bought a brick of cheddar and a brick of mozzerella, a giant box of Carr's Table Water crackers, and a massive sack of Kirkland brand salt and pepper pistachios. I'm in heaven.

The second picture is the bus ride back from Ilsan.