The Best Kimchi Ever!

I'm very excited to report that not all hope is lost on Korean food.

On Thursday night, I went with my co-teacher and Vice Principal to their friend's house for a traditional homemade Korean meal, and it didn't disappoint. Because Busan truly is a metropolitan city, there aren't really any homes here, only apartments/condos. This lady's apartment was on the top floor of her complex, which provided for some really great views of the city. Of course, she was already warned about my issues with seafood, so that was one thing I didn't have to worry about through the whole meal. Now, if you're thinking that when Korean people eat at home they sit in chairs, because they should be comfortable in their own home, you're wrong. We sat on the floor of her living room, but because the food was so good, it was much easier to deal with. Included in this meal of beef and assorted Korean veggies was the absolute best kimchi I've had to this point. It tasted a lot different than all the other kimchi I've had. It was milder and didn't attack every taste bud in my mouth like typical kimchi. They told me it was called "white kimchi." So for those of you that have tried and disregarded kimchi, don't turn your back on white kimchi. This will leave you pleasantly surprised. The worst part of the dinner was what I like to call the "Korean Dehydration Factor." This is where you're provided with a meal, but nothing to drink. I'm finding that the Korean Dehydration Factor is an important part of being Korean. The only beverage I was provided was soju. I've mentioned this before, but soju tastes like vodka. Now imagine trying to drink vodka as your main beverage with your dinner. Not cool. About halfway through the meal the host's daughter showed up with some Budweiser and we offered some. I couldn't have been happier. Though this wasn't ideal at that point, it was about two billion times better than the soju.

After the meal, my company decided it was time to watch a Korean soap opera and completely disregard the fact that I don't understand the language. So I sat there for about an hour trying not to doze off after that huge meal and all the soju, as they watched this television show. It's not like they don't know I can't understand Korean. My Vice Principal even made a comment during the show, where he pointed to the screen and jokingly said, "You know?" Ha-ha Mr. VP. The funniest part of this was at the end of the show, when an obvious cliffhanger left my company with gasps and Korean chatter, probably over what was going to happen on the next show. It was funny to me anyway.

One thing that is really starting to bother me about the people in this country is the lack of proper hygiene practices. They will walk around with those stupid medical masks on their face when they're sick, but God forbid they cover their mouths when they sneeze or cough. And why wash your hands after you go to the bathroom? It's really the coughing and sneezing thing though that's getting to me. The amazing thing is that they just all don't seem to care. They will sneeze and cough all over each other and it's like it's nothing. My body's immune system has fought off various strands of American cold viruses for 26 years, but it's not ready for this Korean mess. I don't think they understand that if they just do little things, like covering their mouths when they cough or sneeze, they wouldn't have to wear those dumb masks in public. The whole communal eating thing isn't helping any either. Try not all sharing food out of the same dishes and see how that works out for you. Or how about providing toilet seat covers in restrooms? God bless the USA.

On Friday at school, I was in the English classroom looking out the window towards the playground area of the school and started teasing one of my students playing baseball. Every time he would swing and miss, I'd yell, "Strike!" It was all in fun and he kept telling me to watch the next pitch. Anyway, as I was doing this, another one of my students yelled up to me and asked if I could see him. I told him I could and then he did the unthinkable. He waved his hand back-and-forth in front of his face and said, "You can't see me." I couldn't believe it. I immediately yelled, "I don't like that!" He said, "John Cena!" I said, "I know! I don't like John Cena!" He then asked me who I liked, and when I told him JBL, he immediately started singing the tune of JBL's entrance music. So awesome. After my last class was over, I went down and actually started playing some soccer with them, and talked about wrestling and pro soccer. It was so cool. They were so excited when I told them I have been to live events and that I would show them the pictures. It's so cool that I'll be able to talk a little wrestling and soccer with these guys. A couple of them actually chose their English names because of soccer players.

Over the weekend, Brent and I went to the Jagalchi Fish Market, which I've included some video of below. It was so disgusting. It had every kind of fish you can think of, and even a bunch that you've probably never even heard of. The smell was atrocious and the gross factor was a 10, but Koreans love it, especially here in Busan. This city is the Korean mecca for seafood and for some reason I signed a contract stating that I would live and work here for a year. Go figure.

After the fish market, we decided to go hit some golf balls at one of the hundreds of driving ranges that Busan has to offer. It's really a popular thing to do here, along with playing ping-pong, shooting pool and noribong. The driving ranges are mostly all located above a mart of some sort. The one that we went to was kind of cool, because it was facing the ocean and it was like we were hitting golf balls into the sea, only we weren't. Our obvious lack of experience and skill no doubt made the others around us either laugh or nervous. You'll see some video of that below as well.

Continuing in our exploration of the city, we walked around the Nampodong area for a few hours before we were to meet up with one of Brent's co-teachers and her friends later that night. There were all kinds of shops and little food stands everywhere, which was really cool. Brent even found a place that sells Vans slip-ons. If you know Brent, you know how important this is to him. I'm not sure he's worn a different kind of shoe in his life. Anyway, during our travels we came across the Busan Tower at the top of a hill and of course decided we needed to go up the tower. It was relatively cheap and definitely a touristy thing to do, but it offered some pretty spectacular views of the city. While we were up there, we had one of the staff take a picture of us. She used this opportunity to practice what English she knows and tried to start up a conversation with us. After asking us the standard questions, like "Where are you from?" and "Why are you here?" she mentioned something about wanting American friends. We think. The language barrier became real thick, real fast. We honestly couldn't understand what she was trying to say, but what we got from it was that she wanted to be friends. So of course, we said, "Yeah, let's be friends." Silence. Getting past an awkward moment with someone who speaks your language is one thing, but trying to do it with someone who only knows so much is a whole different kind of kimchi. We didn't know what to. We just accepted your invitation for friendship, so now what? Luckily another tourist walked by and she assisted him with something, leaving Brent and I to ponder what just happened and what we should do next. Does she want to hang out? Do we ask her for her phone number? Do we give her our phone numbers? Do we just sneak out of there like nothing ever happened? Well, we didn't want to do that, because she genuinely seemed nice, and we were pretty sure she said she wanted American friends. So as we were leaving, I handed her my phone and said, "Number." She understood that and put her number in my phone. We later had Brent's co-teacher, Lucy, call the girl to make sure that we all understood each other and that if she wants to hang out then we'd love to. Making friends with the locals is definitely one of our top objectives, because we assume they can show us cool things about the city and take us to fun places that the average foreigner may not be aware of.

Like I mentioned before, we met up with Lucy and some of her friends later that night and we had another "cook it yourself" dinner in this very popular area called Seomyeon. The food was average and her friends seemed pretty cool. Only one of them spoke really good English, so we spent most of the time talking to him. He is a Buddhist and is actually going to set us up with a Buddhist Temple stay for a day while we're here. We've both talked about how cool it would be to do something like that, so hopefully he'll be able to set us up at a cool temple. What I mean by that, is there a bunch of temples here that offer temple stays, so my assumption is that it's not as authentic an experience as maybe this guy can hook us up with.

We finished the meal around 11:15 or so and for a couple of old geezers like ourselves, we were ready to head home. More pressing was that the subways close early here. Unless we wanted to pay for a taxi to take us home, we needed to start heading back. Of course, they would have nothing of that, because it was noribong time! Yeah right! After both of us pleaded our cases, we were suckered into "10 minutes" of more hanging out. There was no way I was getting up there to sing again though and thankfully they didn't pressure me as much as my school did. Don't get me wrong, they were yearning for some foreign singing, but neither Brent nor I obliged. We were finally able to slip out of there at 11:40, at which point it was POURING outside. So Brent, Lucy and I are running through the streets of Seomyeon getting soaked trying to get to the subway before the last train leaves. Luckily we make it and start heading back home. When we got to Brent's stop I had to transfer to a different line, which means again I had to take off running to catch the last train. As I followed the mass crowds of people quickly trying to get to the train, I wasn't paying as close attention as I should have been. I followed them right on to the wrong train! I realized this as soon as I got in and saw the signs. Crap! I quickly ran out of the train and hurried to the other side of the track to catch the train going in the opposite direction, which I needed to go. I ran back up the stairs and across the platform, and as I made my descent down the other side, I watched as the last train slowly took off. Ahh!

I was so frustrated at that point, mostly at myself for not paying attention, because if I had, I would have gotten on the right train, but I was also pissed because if we had left at 11:15 like we wanted to, this wouldn't have even been an issue. So, I walked outside of the station where, like I mentioned before, it was POURING, and spent about another two minutes in the rain before I found a cab to take me back to my place. I know I've mentioned this before too, but seriously, the drivers here are so bad. It makes sense now why Asians are stereotyped as bad drivers. They don't really seem to have traffic laws here. I mean, they've got the fancy stop lights and the different colored signs and lines on the ground, but I'm convinced these are seen as mere rough guidelines for the drivers here. They really pretty much do what they want. Honking basically means nothing here, because they all do it so often. It's like it was part of their driver's course to learn how to honk. They get to America and don't understand why it's such a big deal when they cut you off. It's because you can't change lanes here without cutting someone off. Maybe that's an actual law that they all follow.

That's all for now. I miss you all and hope you're doing well. Take care!

One Month and Counting

Believe it or not, I've actually just about made it a month here in Korea. To be honest, it feels like it's been so much longer. That's probably because of everything I've experienced and have had to learn over the last month. It really has been like re-learning how to live. Adapting your old habits and way of life to a completely different society and culture is definitely not easy. When we went through orientation, they described going through these changes and differences as "negotiating." Technically, I'm just ending the "honeymoon" phase, which they told us would last about a month. This is where everything is new and exciting and still kind of feels like a vacation. I don't know, I definitely feel like I've done some "negotiating" already. That's a good thing though, because I'm feeling like I'm starting to find a groove here. I've been in Busan for about two and a half weeks and I feel like I've got a pretty good handle on the public transportation, which is important. I'm still feeling my way around food shopping and entertainment, but I think those things will develop with time. I guess in a nut shell, living in Korea has been "so far, so good." I've got 11 more months to figure it out completely, so I'm not worried.

The TV situation is definitely unique. Because I only have a few dedicated English channels, I find myself watching shows I probably would have never even given a second thought. Shows like How I Met Your Mother, Two and a Half Men and House have been nice additions to my television database, but things like Are You Hot? really shouldn't be on TV period, let alone being shown in Korea. Though I do enjoy seeing how dejected some of these contestants get when they are deemed "not hot." Some of those people need to be taken down a few notches. One thing I enjoy is the randomness of the movies that are shown on TV here. You never know what movie you'll find on any given station, so it leaves me watching movies that I have totally forgotten about, but enjoyed when I first saw it. Other times I'm left watching movies that I would have just never otherwise invested the time in.

Last Friday at school, we didn't have any English classes, because of school elections. Now, I still don't know exactly what all the elections were for, even after asking numerous times, but I do know that at least two presidents and vice presidents were chosen. Whether one was for sixth grade and fifth grade, or for the whole school, I have no idea. It was a pretty cool process. All the students were brought to the auditorium where one of the teachers discussed the importance of the electoral process and how to choose candidates. They even showed a cartoon video of two candidates and discussed with the children who might be the better person to vote for. After this, all the students vying for the open positions went up on stage and gave little speeches. The students then cast their vote via electronic voting machines brought in by an outside vendor. The results were tallied on the spot and the winners were announced. I was totally impressed by the obvious investment the school put into this little event. I mean seriously, electronic voting machines? We didn't even have elections like this when I was in elementary school, let alone electronic voting machines. Though, now that I think about it, those type of voting machines probably weren't around when I was in elementary school anyway. Nevertheless, it was still cool. You'll also notice a funny incident in the video below, where two kids were playing, and a big kid fell on top of a little kid who immediately started crying. It took me longer than it probably should have to stop filming and see if he was okay. You'll hear my realization in the video right at the end. It's pretty funny. And, you'll be happy to know the kid was fine and actually stopped crying when I walked over and asked him if he was okay.

On Saturday, Brent and I ventured to Haeundae, arguably the most famous section of Busan because of the beaches. The most famous beach on the Korean peninsula is Haeundae Beach, which we were both a little underwhelmed with. I think we were both ready to be blown away after everything we'd heard and when we got there, it was just kind of "eh." Maybe it's because it was built up so much, or because we come from an area with some pretty nice beaches, or both. The views were definitely nice, but the beach itself was so small. We walked from one end to the other in probably about 20 minutes. We're thinking that maybe during the summer, it will be a bit more attractive. This beach does hold the record, however, for most parasols on a beach at one time. Guinness really does reach sometimes I think, though the aerial pictures of this do look pretty cool. Anyway, it was obvious from the moment we got off the subway that Haeundae was a foreigner hotspot. We saw so many different people who "looked like us" as we walked around. While there, we decided to take in the Haeundae Aquarium, which was pretty cool. It wasn't very big, I think taking us only about an hour and a half to get through. We all the standard aquarium sea creatures I would say.

After we did the aquarium, we decided to go to this specific cinema area of Haeundae, which appeared to be walking distance on the map we had. We set out from the beach on what became quite the trek and ended with us in a taxi back to the main area of Haeundae. We walked so far only to find that we passed where were trying to go. We hopped into a cab and pointed on the map to where we wanted to go, and knew there was a problem when the cab driver had no idea where it was. I've never been in a situation where a cab driver doesn't know where you want to go. I mean that's their freaking job! It's not like there was a communication problem either, because we showed him on the map! He even pulled up alongside another taxi and asked the driver if he knew how to get there, and he didn't either! At that point, Brent and I were fairly positive we probably didn't want to go somewhere that nobody knew how to get to. By pure coincidence, after we had already asked our taxi driver to take us back to the main area, he saw a sign for the place we wanted to go. We all had a laugh and Brent and I jumped out to arrive at the destination we had been seeking for probably a good hour or two at that point. All I know is we set out walking in the daylight and arrived at nighttime. So of course, we walk into this cinema place and it's nothing like what we expected. We were out of there after 10 minutes and into another taxi headed back to the main area. We had some Burger King, saw Friday the 13th and called it a day in Haeundae.

Sunday, we went to see the local pro soccer team play. They play at Asiad Main Stadium, which is only three subway stops from my place, so that was nice. It's actually located in a huge sports complex, which also includes a baseball stadium, a small arena for the local basketball team and various other little sporting venues. The stadium itself is quite large, but as we found out, probably too big for the local soccer team. Attendance for the game was surprisingly low. I had always heard that soccer was the second biggest sport here, but it appears to be a pretty distant second to baseball. It's strange, because you see a lot of Koreans walking around with Manchester United gear. When I told my co-teacher about the game, she said that Koreans love soccer, but really only the national team. They apparently are not that into the professional league. I can definitely understand after watching the game, because the level of soccer here in my opinion isn't very good. Yes, I would even say the lowly MLS has a higher caliber of play than the K-League. Anyway, they actually have bleachers assembled closer to the field for all the spectators, which made for a nice viewing of the game. We all had a good time. Brent and I had met up with Ashley and a couple other EPIK teachers to watch it, and then we all went to eat after at a Korean restaurant near the stadium. There I had some sort of cheese-stuffed pork dish, called donkuss. Now that's a Korean dish I can get on board with.

Yesterday as I was getting ready for school, Brent called me and said that his co-teacher had called him and warned him that there was going to be "Yellow Dust" in the air that day. Basically, Yellow Dust is some sort of air pollution from China that gets blown down here, so you'll see Koreans walking around with those medical masks over their mouths and nose to prevent from breathing it in. Now, neither Brent nor I had ever experienced Yellow Dust before so neither of us knew exactly how we were going to handle it. Turns out, Yellow Dust seems like nothing more than smog, it just sounds more menacing. Again, because I didn't know what to expect and I couldn't really tell from looking out my window, I grabbed a towel and took it with me to put over my face outside so I wouldn't breathe it in. When I got outside, I noticed that no one was really wearing masks, meaning they must not be too worried about it. I quickly felt like an idiot with this towel over my face and put it away in my bag. I honestly couldn't tell a difference as far as breathing or smell was concerned, and I wasn't outside that much, so I didn't worry too much about it. I just don't like how they call it Yellow Dust. It sounds like this evil mist that China sends down to wreak havoc in Korea every once in a while or something. Maybe this is why Roy hates the Chinese so much? Too much Yellow Dust.

Yesterday at school, I presented the students with a list of English names and told them to let me know their choice by next week. The funny thing is that before one of the classes was even finished, one of the boys chose the name Roy. You can imagine how hilarious that was for me, being as that was the first name chosen. It must be a Korean thing. Congratulations Roy Choi. Anyway, some of the students already have English names and some are pretty funny. One kid told me his name is Mo. A girl said her name is Zia. Another kid said his name is Western. When I asked one of the classes, this boy stood up and said his name was "Wun." I said, "Juan? That's not English." He said, "No, Wun." So I walked over to him and he wrote his name on a paper, and sure enough, he wrote "One." Okay, One it is then. Tom, Daniel, Mary and Sally appear to be the popular names amongst the children who already have them. It will be interesting to see what names they pick. Like I said before, I'll be sure to update you if your name is chosen by any of the students.

After school, Brent and I took our co-teachers to dinner as a thank you for everything they've done for us. We went to this place called VIPS, which easily is the best restaurant I've been to since coming here. It's famous for steaks, and the one that I had was awesome. They also had a Souplantation-like salad bar that had everything from pasta to salad to tacos to dessert. Granted the tacos didn't exactly taste like the tacos I'm used to, but they were still good. VIPS is definitely going to be happening more often.

Below are some photos of my experiences over the last few days and a short video with highlights of the election at school, the Haeundae Aquarium, the soccer game and a funny little lesson in class that featured a claymation version of The Little Mermaid. Enjoy!

War and Noribong

For those of you that guessed that I would have forgotten to turn the nozzle in my bathroom back to the sink faucet before my next post, you win. This morning made it a nice even four times that I've been doused with water when trying to turn on the faucet. I love Korea.

During one of my classes yesterday, I actually came to believe that war had officially broken out with North Korea. Here's the situation. I've been reading the headlines and keeping up with the news lately, and I'm aware of the escalating tensions between the U.S., Japan, South Korea and North Korea over the launch of a supposed communications satellite by the North Koreans. With that in my head, the following event happened.

As one of my classes was just beginning, the Vice Principal came over the public address system and made some sort of announcement. Now, I have heard him make announcements before, but never actually during classes. It's always either before, after or in-between classes, so this in and of itself was strange. Immediately after the announcement, my co-teacher took a very serious tone with the class and spoke to the students for about five minutes. During that period, she must have asked them a question, and the response I heard from the students was "Obama." It was right at that time when I started putting it all together in my head, "Holy crap! They just said Obama and she's being super serious right now. The U.S. must have done something about the North Korea situation. Holy crap!" I'm not kidding, until I asked her what she was talking to them about as soon as she finished, I totally thought a war either had broken out or was about to break out in the country just north of me, and had the potential to spill over here. As it turns out, she was scolding the students for one of them saying a bad word in Korean and the Vice Principal's announcement was because they found a digital camera and were trying to see if it belonged to one of the students. Wow was I off. Obviously it was a welcome relief, but I still would like to know what the students said when it sounded like "Obama" to me. I didn't ask my co-teacher for fear of total embarrassment.

The lunch situation at school has significantly improved over the last few days. A couple days ago, I was delighted to walk into the cafeteria and see all the children having spaghetti. Finally, a food I don't have to inquire about. As I get to the serving area, one of the cafeteria ladies runs over and starts talking to my co-teacher. Turns out they used some sort of seafood in the sauce for the spaghetti, but the head cafeteria lady knew of my aversion to seafood and made me my own sauce. So awesome! I was so grateful and totally caught off guard by the gesture. So she goes back to get me my spaghetti and returns with a huge heap of spaghetti in a bowl. Oh my gosh, it was so much spaghetti. I knew immediately there was no way I could finish it all, but I said thank you like twenty times. I took my huge bowl of spaghetti over to the table with all the teachers and as soon as they saw me, they all gawked at the amount of spaghetti I had. They had no idea that this was given to me, so they were under the assumption that I just helped myself to this mound of spaghetti. I did my best to explain, but I'm pretty sure they just thought I got all excited about having spaghetti and took a pile of it to eat. What makes this even funnier, is that obviously some of the students saw the huge bowl that I had, because the next day when I went to lunch, three different students at separate times came up to me and asked me if I liked spaghetti. Great, now they just think I'm the spaghetti man or something. Anyway, yesterday for lunch we had pork and today we had chicken. Things are definitely looking up!

After school yesterday we had our weekly volleyball practice and then had our official welcome dinner for all the new teachers. What I thought was the welcome dinner last week was actually a dinner thanking the teachers for their help with the Principal's son's wedding a few months ago. Regardless, we went back to the same duck restaurant that we went to last week. I wasn't too thrilled with that, but it was still better than a blow fish restaurant. During dinner I had the chance to talk a little with some of the other teachers, and through their broken English we were actually able to have some decent conversations. Topics included American customs, politics and North Korea. Actually, one really funny comment one of the teachers made to me was about Koreans feelings toward the Japanese. He told me that most Koreans don't like the Japanese because they are too friendly. Now, I must disagree with my Korean comrade on this, because I rather enjoyed the hospitality, kindness and friendliness of the Japanese when I went there a couple years ago. Nevertheless, I thought it was a pretty funny reason to dislike the Japanese.

After dinner is where the night gets interesting. I knew there was a possibility this may happen, but I was really hoping it wouldn't. We went to noribong. What is noribong you ask? Well, the too-friendly Japanese call it karaoke. I have zero interest in getting up in front of people and singing. It takes a lot of alcohol to make that happen. Plus, without Karlynn there to sing Endless Love with me, it's totally not worth it. So anyway, we get there and we're in this room that held about 15 of us. It was pretty big. They bring us Hite beer, fruit and other snacks and I sit there as a couple teachers adjust the lighting in the room to their liking and others start flipping through the book to see what they're going to sing. As I'm sitting there, I find myself distracted by the random highlights of Shaquille O'Neal from his LSU days playing on the TV screens. What the hell was that about? Anyway, all the teachers start taking turns singing, and while one of them sings, a bunch of others are up there dancing with them. They totally love it. There is no shame for these guys. Of course, being as though I am the foreigner, they were pleading with me to sing. I really did the best I could to avoid it. I sat there with the book for what had to be 15 minutes or so, hoping that it would take me long enough to the point where they're ready to leave. Well, it became apparent they weren't going to let that happen. So I'm fishing through this book, trying to figure out what the hell I'm going to get up there and sing in front of all these people. There are so many choices, yet I'm going through these songs, like "Do I even know enough words to get through any of these songs without looking like a total idiot?" Before I knew it, I was up there singing what has to be the absolute worst rendition ever of Rick James' Superfreak. I nailed the chorus, but as for the rest of the song, I couldn't have been more off. Now, the plus side is that it was so loud in there, and so many of the teachers were up there dancing, that it's very likely no one knows how bad I actually did. Especially after the obviously broken machine gave me a score of 99. I've included a video below of my co-teacher singing with another teacher, so you can kind of see the set up.

After the disaster that was noribong, my co-teacher drove me and another teacher home. As we were leaving the parking structure my co-teacher noticed a white guy walking on the sidewalk and asked me if I knew him. So this is the life of a minority, huh? He looks like you, you must know him. I actually thought it was really funny.

Today at school I found myself participating in more noribong. This time in class with the students. There are repetitive songs that are part of the lessons for the students to help them learn English, and when they sing, I sing. I just kind of laughed in my head today as I found myself up there singing again, just 12 hours removed from my first noribong experience. The funnier thing that happened in class today was when we were going over a map of the world and pointing out different countries. The map we were using was from a CD that has all the lesson plans on them. This is the standard CD that all elementary schools use, which makes this funnier I think. So anyway, there are maybe five countries that are highlighted on this map with the country's flag and a cartoon person "from" the country standing next to it. The countries I remember are America, Mexico, Uganda (I think), India and Korea.  What's funny about this is that it had Mexico placed in northern South America, about where Ecuador or Colombia is. I had to interrupt my co-teacher and explain to her and the class that the placement of Mexico was wrong and they all thought it was pretty funny. I've given Brent the heads up for when his classes get to that lesson.

I've decided that all my students who don't have English names are going to get one. Not only because it will be easier for me to remember, but because at some point they're probably going to get one anyway and I would like to make some sort of lasting impact on these kids. What better way to do that, than being a part of naming them in English, right? So, you'll be happy to know that I'm going to give them a list of names to choose from, and that list will include everyone I can think of back home. Unfortunately, I won't be able to use names that are not true American/English names. Sorry Mariana. I will be sure to update you if any of the students choose your names.

Now, I know some of you (Troy) are just waiting for some juicy story about me getting into some sort of Korean hijinks or almost causing an international incident or something, so this next one is for you (Troy). I like to call this incident "Shoegate." The other day, I totally forgot to take my shoes off when I entered the men's lounge area at school and was quickly scolded by one of the other teachers. And when I say scolded, I mean he pointed to my feet and said, "Oh! Shoes!" I quickly walked over to an area by the door and removed them. I can't believe I didn't get fired. That was a close one!

Brent, Ashley and I are going to try and attend a soccer game this weekend, so hopefully I'll have some good photos/stories from that for my next blog.

Meanwhile, here are some photos of the classroom I teach in, my cubby for my sandals at school, a cool view of Busan and me and my co-teacher. Also below is the aforementioned noribong video of my co-teacher and another teacher. Take care everyone!

Still in Korea

The past few days have been somewhat uneventful, but nonetheless I suppose I do have some tidbits I can share. First, let me tell you about a funny little thing that has happened to me three times now.

As I've explained/complained about already, the shower head in my bathroom is located directly above my sink. What I don't think I've mentioned is that the water pipe is connected between the sink faucet and the shower head. There's a little nozzle that I have to turn to switch the water flow between the sink faucet and the shower head, similar to American shower/bath combos when you want to switch the water from the bath faucet to the shower. It's very important that when I'm done taking a shower, I turn this nozzle back so that the next time I'm in the bathroom using the sink, the water comes out of the faucet and not the shower head. I'm sure at this point, you can probably tell where this is going. Well, wouldn't you know on three separate occasions I have forgotten to turn this nozzle back, and as I stand there ready to wash my hands or my face, the water comes raining down on top of me and my clothes. It's always cold water too, because as you know that first burst of water from any faucet is always cold before it gets warm. The sad thing is after it happened the second time, I was like "Man, I can't believe I forgot again. I'm going to have to write about this in my blog." It doesn't get any funnier the third time, let me tell you. Anyone want to start a pool on when it's going to happen again?

To follow up on my last blog about my co-teacher hurting her back, she actually ended up in the hospital for a few days. When she called me late Wednesday night to tell me the news, obviously I was concerned for her and felt bad that she injured herself, but immediately I was in a panic over what was expected of me at school on Thursday. To that point I hadn't really taught yet, only observing her and helping the children with some of their class work. She started explaining to me how to get to school, because she usually picks me up. When she finished telling me, I asked her if I needed to run her classes and she said, "No, you will have free time." Free time? For eight hours? Okay. So on to school I went Thursday morning, where I arrived, went to the teacher's lounge, plopped in front of a computer and sat there for eight hours. It was so boring. Luckily I was able to chat with a few people back home during some of that time, but seriously, you know that commercial with the guy who reaches the end of the Internet? After eight hours you get pretty darn close. It was so extremely boring. The sad thing is that I notice the times I get kind of homesick are the times when I've got nothing to do. You know at home when you get bored, you can just pop in a movie, call a friend to go hang out, speak to other people in English, etc. I had none of those "luxuries." Here's the best part though, she wasn't going to be in on Friday either, which meant another eight hours of nothing. Awesome.

As I'm sure you can tell at this point, I couldn't wait for Friday night. Brent and I decided it was time to have our first movie theater experience in Korea, and it was perfect because Watchmen came out that day. I did some researching of theaters and found that Busan has a "theater district." This is like the movie hub for the city and most likely the country, as this area is where the Pusan International Film Festival is held every year. Brent found out from his new crush, Lucy, that we needed to purchase tickets in advance, so she helped us get that done. We of course took the subway to our destination and when we emerged from the tunnel, it was obvious this area was "bumpin'." There were a lot more foreigners walking around and it seemed to be a younger crowd in general. There were all kinds of street vendors and just a bunch of stuff going on. It was very cool. We went to the theater to exchange our Internet confirmation for our tickets and had time to get some food before the movie started.

As luck or fate would have it, there just happened to be an Outback Steakhouse right near the theater. When the question of, "Do we do Outback again, even though we just did it a week ago?" came up, the answer was an easy, "YES!" Like I told Brent, I'm not here trying to prove anything to anyone. I enjoy eating food that I don't have to ask questions about. When we were seated at our table, we both noticed something kind of strange about the area we were sat in. Every table around us had foreigners who spoke English, while the rest of the restaurant was clearly Korean. At first it seemed strange. Not segregation in the 50s strange, but just kind of odd. We quickly realized though that they probably sat us all together because the waiter we had may have been the only English speaker that worked there. Either that or they hate white people.

After dinner we went back to theater and up to the fourth floor of the building, which is where our particular theater was. We sat in a lounge area for a little bit, then followed the crowd when the ushers came out and obviously said we were ready to be seated. We had assigned seating in the theater, and the seats Brent picked out for us were not as cool as they looked on paper. We were right in the middle, but pretty far away from the screen. At that point I didn't care though, because I was about to see the new Star Trek trailer. Right? No. Now, I'm not sure if this is going to be a thing at every theater we go to, but they only played one trailer, and it was for some dumb romantic comedy with Uma Thurman. Seriously! That's the trailer they choose to show an audience there to see Watchmen. I was obviously upset at this, but took solace in that I could go home and see the trailer on my working Internet connection.

The next day, Brent and I headed over to the local E-Mart. This is akin to a Walmart. While there, we both decided to take advantage of the nice-looking salon inside the complex and get our first haircuts in Korea. Of course no one in there spoke English, so there was some anxiety about how this was going to go. I already told myself though, if I have haircut problems here, I'm just going to shave it, so I was ready for that if necessary. As we sat there waiting, Brent mentioned the best thing to do might be to find a men's haircut in one of the magazines and just show it to them. So that's what I did. The lady actually ended up doing a pretty nice job. For under $10, you get hair washed, cut, washed again after the cut and styled. Plus, you don't have to tip here. It ended up being a pretty good deal, so we both got the cards of the ladies who did our hair so we can just go back to them next time.

That night Brent was feeling kind of sick, so we both retreated to our separate quarters. I decided it might be time to try my first Pizza Hut delivery. I went on the Korean Pizza Hut website hoping I could find some information in English, but there was none. Then as I was on my computer, I heard the familiar local Pizza Hut commercial song and turned around quickly to see if I could catch a number, but I just missed it. I kept it on that channel and waited to see if the commercial would come on again. About 15 minutes later it did, so I called the number and of course was greeted with a bunch of Korean when someone answered. I said, "Does anyone there speak English?" The response was totally in Korean and then the phone hung up. So, I called the number back and again said, "Does anyone there speak English?" What I got in return was more Korean that I didn't understand, but this time I caught a bit of "No English. Sorry." I said, "No English?" The response was, "No English. Sorry." Okay, no problem. Now I knew I wasn't going to be able to order from Pizza Hut. Or was I? About 10-15 minutes later my phone started ringing. I noticed the number showing was the Pizza Hut number I had just called. When I answered it was an English-speaking Pizza Hut employee asking me for my order! Awesome! I gave her my address, ordered a pepperoni, stuffed-crust pizza and was told it would be about 30 minutes. I must say they were quite prompt. Exactly 30 minutes later my intercom started ringing and it was the delivery man downstairs. That night I enjoyed myself some might fine pizza, but the best was knowing that I can order it when I feel like it.

On Sunday, I went full-on grocery shopping for the first time, but when I say full-on that means as much as I can carry back to my apartment. Not having a car makes grocery shopping difficult. Also, the fact that you have to pay for plastic bags to put your groceries in after you've purchased them kind of sucks too. Though, I'm pretty sure I heard that there's some congressman trying to implement the same sort of legislation back home. Anyway, here what you have to do is get all your groceries and take them over to this area where there's a bunch of used cardboard boxes. You put as many boxes together as you need and put your groceries in there. Well, this isn't the most ideal situation for me, because I have to walk with this back to my apartment, which is about a 5-10 minute walk. As I was shopping, I actually found a nice remedy for this problem. I bought a small dolly-type device with a bag on it that I can put all my groceries in and just wheel back to my place. So there I was, this goofy-looking white guy wheeling his groceries through the subway (which I have to cross to get home) and up the hill to my apartment. It's much better than the alternative though.

Today it was back to school and my co-teacher was back from her injury, though she told me today that her back still hurts a lot. She picked me up again in front of the McDonald's and as I was getting in her car, another car pulled alongside her and starting talking to her. I just figured this was some person she knew, but then he pulled in front of us and put on his hazards and she got out of the car and told me to wait. It became clear pretty quickly that there must have been some sort of accident. It seemed like he was saying she hit the side of his car from what I was picking up through their hand gestures. It wasn't long until the police actually showed up. Now, this whole time, I'm just sitting in the car and I notice that between the guy's car, my co-teacher's car and the police car behind us, we were blocking the McDonald's drive through and parking area. I started thinking about some poor person who left home without breakfast thinking, "I'll just stop by McDonald's and get a McGriddle on the way to work, no problem." Not so much. So anyway, my co-teacher finally got back in the car and confirmed that he was accusing her of hitting him. She of course saw the whole situation differently. I honestly have no idea how they could ever settle anything like that in Korea. They all drive like maniacs here. They were probably both at fault.

So, today was my first day of actual teaching. Not before another couple of Q&A sessions though. I was asked mostly the same questions as the first couple days, with a few new ones. The most interesting one was a student who asked me my blood type. What kind of a question is that? The sad thing is I don't even know. He got me thinking that I should probably find that out. The funny thing was that when my co-teacher was translating, I thought she was saying, "What's your blue tie?" I had to ask her a few times to repeat the question until she finally pointed to her wrist vein and I got it. She now knows that blood is pronounced blud. Another funny question I was asked is if I owned a pet bear. Ha! I responded with, "No, but I have a friend who looks like one." That got a pretty good laugh out of my co-teacher and some of the students who understood. Sorry Braun Dip, but I had to.

Today's lunch consisted of some sort of octupus-noodle thing, kimchi, beef soup, rice and a shrimp-egg thing. The beef soup and rice were delicious. All people here actually brush their teeth after lunch. Like, it's a thing. My co-teacher was nice enough to buy me a toothbrush to use at school, so I guess I'm brushing my teeth after lunch now too. Not that it's a bad thing or anything, but usually a piece of gum after lunch does the trick nicely. Anyway, she let me borrow her toothpaste, which I had used once last week, and against my better judgment used again today. I'm not joking, this stuff tastes the way those pine tree air fresheners smell. It doesn't exactly leave your mouth feeling fresh. Gross.

Finally! Here is a short little tour of my apartment!

Volleyball and Dinner

I know I just posted a really long blog yesterday, but with everything I did today, I felt it was worth sharing.

First, I wanted to share a couple things about my apartment that I realized I hadn't mentioned yet for some reason. The main wall in my place is lined with pink flower wall paper. Every apartment in this building is too, so I can live with that. What I don't understand is why my co-teacher felt the need to purchase me pink bed linen and a pink flower pillow. She gave me this stuff on the day I moved in and I was really kind of confused. Granted, she had never seen me before, but she at least knew my name. You'd think that when she saw Robert, she would have opted for a more masculine set. Nope. Here I am in my pink flower-themed apartment in Korea. Awesome.

The other thing I forgot to mention was my shower. Now, I know I talked about how my shower is really just the bathroom in disguise, but what I didn't mention is that I only have so much hot water. I found this out the hard way when I took my first shower and had to do the final rinse in cold water. What I have to do is turn the shower on, get myself wet and turn it off. Then I shampoo my hair, turn the shower on to rinse it and turn it off again. Then I put the conditioner in, turn the shower on to rinse and turn it off again. I'm sure you get it from here. Now, I'm thinking this won't be so horrible in the summer when it's warm, but it's not summer right now. It's winter. When I turn that water off, it's freezing and it sucks. You have no idea how much I look forward to that final rinse where I can be in the hot water for longer than 20 seconds.

Okay, so now on to my day today. It started out normal with my co-teacher picking me up and taking me to school and hanging out in the teacher's lounge when I got there. Then when her and I went to the computer classroom, where all the English classes are held on Wednesdays, she was called to a meeting with the principal. She asked me to have the students log on this one website and begin working on the English lesson that's on there. Okay, no problem. Except for when all the children show up and their logins for the website aren't working. Problem. I felt so helpless. Here I was with a classroom full of 5th graders who could barely say a word in English trying to figure out how to get this freaking website to work, which by the way was in Korean. Of course, they're all kind of rowdy and wanted none of a fun little Q&A session with me like the students yesterday. I had nothing prepared to kill the time until my co-teacher got back. I'm standing there racking my brain for something, anything to do with these kids and I was totally drawing a blank. You could imagine my relief when my co-teacher finally showed up to help fix the problem with the website. Wow was I totally unprepared.

We had lunch again in the cafeteria today and again there was no beverage made available to us. Even the students didn't have anything to drink. I'm beginning to think that it's some sort of Korean thing where they believe the soup you get with your meal is your beverage, because Brent and I had the same sort of problem when we were going through training. The drinks we were given were in these tiny little cups, hardly capable of hydrating two full grown Americans. I just don't understand it. Maybe Roy can shed a little light on this for us.

Speaking of lunch, there was this very nice little 5th grader who came up to me today and said, "I'm sorry we didn't have a chance to talk more during class today." This kid speaks really good English. I actually remembered him from class, because he said to me, "Sir, what do I have to do after I've finished," and I wasn't sure, so I told him to check with the teacher and he responded with, "Okay, thanks for the advice." So adorable.

At some point during the day my co-teacher informed me that we would be going out for dinner with the staff after volleyball. She didn't know where yet, but she knew we were going out. This is just another example of Koreans not planning ahead. If I had made plans to do something after school today, I would have had to cancel them, because you can't just say no things like this. When the principal says he's taking you out, he's taking you out. Now, I didn't have anything planned, but still, it would have been nice to know going into the day, you know.

At 2:30 p.m. we hit the gym for our volleyball practice. I walked in and no joke, they were doing drills already. I honestly thought, holy crap what am I getting myself into. I joined in on the drills and after about five minutes of hitting that stupid volleyball with the lower part of my arms, they were sore. We played for about two and a half hours and I'm not kidding, the side part of my wrist, where I would normally wear my watch, is totally swollen. Freaking volleyball. The team I was on won the majority of the games, which was cool, but I definitely need more practice, as I haven't played volleyball since junior high. I did get a couple spikes in today though, believe it. Also, during our little breaks between games, they would give ua Hite beer. Beer is the last thing I want when I'm doing something active! Do Koreans know anything about proper hydration!

After volleyball, we all went to a restaurant that specializes in duck. Actually, quick funny story. When my co-teacher was duck, I thought she was saying dog. I asked her about three or four times, duck or dog, and I swear every time it sounded like she could have been answering with dog. Finally I said, "Dog?! Woof woof?" and she said no, so I was in the clear. Wow, I really thought I was being taken to a restaurant where they serve dog there for a minute. Anyway, I wasn't too thrilled about going to a duck restaurant either, but I decided that I was going to have to try something exotic while I'm here, and duck isn't that exotic so I thought I'd go for it.

When we got there, it was one of those sit Indian-style on the floor places of course, which sucks. The food itself wasn't bad, though I wasn't really fond of the duck. It just tasted weird, I don't know. I finally drank soju and confirmed that it really does taste like watered down vodka. People say it's stronger than vodka though, but I'm not so sure, because I had about four shots and a couple beers and I honestly felt fine. Maybe the food I was eating softened the alcoholic blow. I participated in the Korean "give and take" thing, where you give your glass to someone else at the table and pour soju in it for them to drink and then they give you the glass back and pour soju in it for you to drink. I did this a couple times to make sure everyone knew I was participating. These little traditions and customs that they have are very important to them and they really do like it when you partake. Anyway, I ate all kinds of different duck meat while I was there, including duck soup and duck rice soup. For dessert, we had some sort of bean-ice thing that tasted similar to tapioca. When I mentioned this, someone at the table said this dish eventually evolved into tapioca. Who knows, but it's kind of cool to think that I guess.

During the dinner I was informed that we would be going to play ping-pong afterward. I honestly just wanted to go home, but at that point I did feel like I was bonding with these guys. The principal gave a sort of toast to thank me for coming to the dinner and I was actually having casual conversation with everyone for really the first time. All through my co-teacher's translations of course. So after dinner we all up and went to play ping-pong at a place right down the street. I actually had fun and must say, my ping-pong skills were undoubtedly more advanced when I left than when I walked in. We actually had to leave pretty abruptly, because my co-teacher went to sit in a chair she thought was behind her, but wasn't, and fell to the ground and really hurt her back. She was able to walk to the car and drive me home still, but said she was going to the hospital after she dropped me off. She told me that if she can't go to school tomorrow, she would call me and kind of gave me directions on how to get there by public transportation. I'm doing some serious praying that she can go to school tomorrow, because she hasn't shown me any of her lesson plans and I have no idea what I'm going to do with all those students tomorrow with no lesson plans.

Anyway, sorry for the back-to-back posts, but I thought I'd share my day, since so much happened. Hopefully by the end of the week, I'll have some more fun stories to share with you.

My First Day of School

Before I get to my actual first day of school, I'd like to make note of the fact that I'm coming to you from the comfortable confines of my apartment, which finally has a working network for the Internet. Believe it.

For my first day of school, I got dressed up all pretty in my suit and met my co-teacher out in front of the McDonald's by my place, where she picked me up and drove me to the school. It actually is a really nice drive from my apartment to the school. This really is a beautiful city and I haven't even been to the beach areas yet. Anyway, in Korea both teachers and students are not allowed to wear their regular shoes on the school grounds, which would have been nice to know before I bought two brand new pairs of work shoes back home to take with me. So we get to school and I have to change into slippers that the school provided, but the only problem was that there weren't a pair that were anywhere near the size of my feet! No joke, I had to squeeze my size 13 feet into like size nine slippers. Half of my heel was hanging off the back and the top part of my feet were so squished! My feet really hurt after a while in those things.

The first place she took me was the teacher's lounge, where I was able to meet almost every teacher at the school. They actually all seem really cool. Koreans are so embarrassed to speak the English that they know, especially around a native speaker, so usually you end up with giggles and big smiles when you say hello to them. This was pretty much what my meeting was like with every teacher. Oh, and almost all of them wanted to know if I played volleyball. To give you the quick story on this, every year the staff of the elementary schools of Busan have a big volleyball tournament. I think it's in the summer. Anyway, my school apparently has always been really good and take it very seriously, but they lost the championship last year, so they are hell-bent on redemption. Obviously because of my height they are excited that I said I would play, even though I haven't played volleyball since like junior high. But, as Josh Ko knows, the secret to winning at volleyball is the spike, and I'm going to do my best to spike the ball every chance I get.

So after meeting all the teachers, we went to the school's auditorium for the opening ceremony. Schools in Korea don't actually do anything on the first day, except for the opening ceremony and 1st grade ceremony, which I'll tell you about in a bit. They actually have a name for this day, which I'm forgetting at the moment, but to give you an idea, it's kind of like how we have a graduation day. We don't call it the last day of school, we call it graduation. Same thing here for them. While we simply call it the first day of school, they have an actual name for it. So, as we walked into the auditorium for the ceremony all the students from the school were already inside and there were gasps and "oooohs" and "ahhhs" when they saw me. Children here get very excited to see foreigners.

As part of the ceremony, all the new teachers at the school are introduced to the students. I of course am one of those teachers so I was up on stage and introduced alongside all the others. Here's the thing though. The principal would basically talk about each teacher and then when he was done, the teacher would step forward and bow and the children would clap. Well I don't understand Korean. So I had to listen really hard for my name. I was able to tell when he was talking about me, however, because as soon as he started the kids got all excited. I'm telling you, children love foreigners.

After the introductions of the new teachers, the principal introduced all the returning teachers and then went on for maybe five or ten minutes with some speech. I was sitting there looking at the students, obviously bored out of their minds, not paying attention to one word the principal was saying, wondering why they even do this. You can't put elementary kids in seats and expect them to listen as their principal makes some serious speech. That whole part really seemed pointless to me, but I suppose it's an important part of what they do here. My guess is that it simply reinforces that the principal is "the man" of the school. Rank is very important in this country.

After that ceremony was over we had about an hour and a half until the first grade ceremony. This is basically where the children who are coming from Kindergarten are welcomed to elementary school. All of the little kids were seated in the auditorium with their proud parents seated a few rows behind them, as we watched some serious entertainment from some children who already go to the school. One of the performances was a dance/taekwondo routine that would have had most all of you laughing. It was one of the funniest things I've seen since I've been here. Crazy Korean pop music, taekwondo move, 9-year-olds and dancing. Perfect.

Once we finished with this ceremony my co-teacher showed me the English classroom, which is totally high tech. It's got a flat screen all set up with a webcam that the class uses to Skype with other classes on Wednesdays. It also has an automatic eraser for the chalk board. It's this huge contraption that works like the eraser on one of the magnetic writing pads you'd have as a kid, where you pull it across the pad to erase what you wrote. Anyway, it was great. There was a projector of course and a few computers for the kids to work on.

We went to lunch at around 12:30 and wouldn't you know it on the first day the principal takes us to a fish restaurant by the school. Not only was it fish, it was blowfish. I'm not sure how many of you know this, but if you eat blowfish that isn't cooked right, you will die. I'm not kidding, it's poisonous. Now, if that's not just another argument for why seafood just shouldn't be eaten, I don't know what else to tell you. It's either the ridiculously high mercury levels or it's the blowfish. You choose. So anyway, my lunch consisted of rice, spinach and salad. Yum.

My co-teacher allowed me to leave early that day to go to the immigration office here, where I still need to apply for an alien registration card. She drove me to an area by the bus stop I needed to catch, which is probably about a ten minute walk. Here's the thing though ...  she didn't know where exactly the bus stop was either. She which bus I needed to take, but just not where the stop was. So, she finds some kids that are hanging around this area we are in, which again didn't look too great. She then tells me the kids are going to take me to my bus stop, because they know where it is. Okay great. I'll just follow these kids in my nice suit in this crappy area to the bus stop. Thanks teach, see ya tomorrow!

So I start following these kids and they lead me down this sidewalk by a small creek and into an even more precarious area. Then out of nowhere, one of the kids pulls out a little pellet gun! Holy crap, that thing looked so real! These kids were maybe 10-years-old and I got so nervous, until I was able to tell it was a fake. Man was I scared. They never pointed it at me or anything, or did anything with it for that matter, but still! They actually got me to my bus stop okay and ended up being very friendly, but they were my worst nightmare there for a second.

I hopped on the bus and took it to the nearest subway station so I could head over to the immigration office, which is clear on the other side of town. After I took the subway almost all the way there, I received a call from my co-teacher's son right before the second to last stop where I needed to go. Apparently, there were some documents my co-teacher failed to give me, so I couldn't go to the immigration office that day. So, basically I had traveled for about an hour and paid the subway fees for nothing. Oh well. I needed to buy some new slippers for school anyway, because there was no way I could stuff my feet into what they school had again. I hopped back on the subway heading back towards my place and made a couple stops to find slippers and went home. Every where I went I could not find size 13. I eventually ended up with some size 12 slippers from the Nike store. Hey, 12 is better than nine.

Today at school was a lot more fun. I had slippers that fit and I actually got to meet some children. I didn't do any teaching though. I'll start that next week. This week I'm just an observer. The kids are great. They are just so intrigued by foreigners. I would get up in front of every class and introduce myself and then have a little question and answer session after. Some of the sixth graders were actually very proficient in English, I was surprised. Without fail though, in every class the first question I was asked was, "Do you have a girlfriend?" One kid even asked when I was going to get married! Man, I did not come all the way to Korea to get the third degree about marriage from a sixth grader! Oh, and listen to this! One of the kids told me I have a big nose! No one really laughed, because I don't think they all understood, but I was like thanks! Some other notable comments were, "Why are you so handsome?" to which I responded "because God loves me," and a third grader told the co-teacher in Korean as I was standing up there, "Americans are usually fat, but he's not fat." I thought that was hilarious. They all gasped when I told them I had four sisters. One kid even asked me if I give Kalie, my little sister money. I said, "What for?" and he said because "you are the older brother." I told him "No, my dad gives her money." I asked him if his older siblings give him money and he said no. The whole exchange was very funny.

Lunch today was much better than yesterday. We actually ate in the school cafeteria and they served bulgolgi, which is like flavored meat and vegetables. It was delicious. The seaweed soup, which I was open-minded enough to try, not so much. There were some bomb strawberries though. The strawberries here are shaped a little different than at home. They are much longer here. I'm sure it has something to do with the soil and the climate in which they're grown here or something.

After lunch, there was really nothing for me to do, because all the English classes were over. So I soaked up as much Internet time as I could, because I wasn't sure if mine was going to get fixed today or not. I'm sure next week I'll be able to make better value of that time.

Anyway, I guess I've rambled on for long enough now. I think I'm going to do some more straightening out of my place, so I can get some pictures to post on here for you guys soon.

Take care!

Busan Living

Hey everyone!

I made it safely to Busan on Friday and the long-awaited and much anticipated meeting with my co-teacher went well. Her English name is Lilly and she appears to be in her mid to late forties. She greeted me with her son who she brought to help with translating, because her English skills are not too great, which may become a problem later when her son isn't around. She's very nice though and seems like she genuinely wants to be there for me and help me. I didn't meet the principal and vice-principal as expected, but I'll be meeting them tomorrow.

She immediately drove me to my apartment, and as we pulled up to the area where my apartment is and stopped, I was pretty nervous. The area didn't seem too great, but I was trying to be open-minded. It eased me a little when I saw some unsupervised little kids running around the place, which obviously meant the area must be pretty safe. As we were standing outside I was noticing the buildings in the area and definitely could tell that my building looked a lot newer than the others. Also, a couple of other EPIK teachers showed up while I was standing outside, so that made me happy to see that some other foreigners would be in the building.

We entered the building and I could tell immediately that the place was kind of new. My apartment is on the fourth floor, though they number the rooms in 500s because four is an unlucky number in Korea. It's similar to 13 in the U.S. I'm in 507. Anyway, we walked up the stairs to my place, because there is no elevator, and when we got there I was happy to see that I have one of those cool keypad locks on my door like we had in the dorm. It turns out the whole place is brand spankin' new! The building, the apartments, the furniture, the appliances, everything! I was so happy! Of course, my apartment is small. I mean really small. If I was good at math and could measure square footage just by looking at it I would tell you, but I'm not, so I can't. But just know it's small. My bathroom is not as cool as the one in the dorm as I was hoping. The toilet is right next to the sink and the shower head is right above the sink, so there's no getting around wetting the entire bathroom when I shower. Oh well, I'm just going to have to get used to it. As I was in my apartment, a few other teachers from EPIK showed up. My whole floor is all foreigners and the floor below me even has some too. It's nice that we're all their together. I'll get pictures posted soon, once I have everything kind of straightened out and all my stuff put away.

So after my co-teacher and her son got me all set in my apartment, they immediately took me to eat and to go shopping for things for my apartment. They took me to an awesome Korean barbecue restaurant, which had pretty much the exact same set up as one at home. Man, they stuffed me full of meat. I don't know if they were told that Americans need a lot of food or what, but they kept ordering more and more meat. I felt bad not eating what they were ordering, because it really seemed like they were doing it for my benefit and I didn't want to be rude or get off on the wrong foot by saying stop getting meat. I was so full though. As I was finishing the last piece of meat, her son told me that it's customary to order either a big cold noodle or big spicy noodle after having meat. In my head, I was like, please no more, but I didn't want to offend them or anything, so I said okay. The last thing I wanted was some big freaking noodle. And what did that even mean!? What's a big cold noodle!? Anyway, it came out and it was more like a bunch of linguine noodles stuck together that formed the "big" noodle. It was definitely a lot of noodle, that's for sure. I had no idea how I was going to finish that thing, especially when I realized how hard it was to eat with chopsticks, because it was so slippery. As I was eating this thing out of bowl filled with water and ice, I think they were finally able to tell by the look on my face that I was full. They told me I didn't have to finish if I was full and I said, "Thank you," and immediately put down my chopsticks.

After the meal we went to a large shopping mart, where they helped me purchase dishes, pots, pans, etc. Inside the mart was a supermarket, so we went there and got some food for me as well. I was so tired at this point and just wanted to get back to my place, so I kind of rushed the food shopping along, so I could get home.

When we got back to my apartment, I immediately went for the Internet, which I'm supposed to have, but for some reason it wasn't working. They're supposed to come fix it tomorrow, so right now I'm at an Internet cafe. These places are pretty cool, except for the fact that they're so smoky. It's like Vegas, but a little worse because it's not as open of an area. Anyway, hopefully they're able to fix it tomorrow, because I definitely miss being to go on the Internet whenever I want. I also have cable TV, but am not getting all the channels I'm supposed to be getting. I'm going to see if they can fix that tomorrow too. Right now, I've got about three English channels. I watched some Simpsons last night, Friends this morning and almost all of The Devil Wears Prada while I was doing laundry today. Don't judge. In a foreign country with no Internet, waiting for your clothes to finish washing, you'd watch the only English program on too. Besides, the movie wasn't that bad.

I was able to figure out the Busan subway system pretty easily yesterday, and even bought myself a rechargable card that I can use for the subway and the bus system. Brent's place is only six subway stops away from mine, which is about 12 minutes, so we're pretty close to each other, which is cool. We did some touring of the city yesterday, which included pizza for lunch and Outback Steakhouse for dinner. Yes it was good and yes it was necessary. Not that the food we've had to this point has been bad, but as Brent put it, it's hard to quit cold turkey. I'd like to think of our food stops yesterday as kind of our Nicotene patch as we adjust to the food here.

Today, we ventured to a Lotte Department store, which we found out is basically like a mall. They even have all the big name brand stores there. As soon as we walked in and saw Louis Vitton, Prada, Giorgio Armani and Bvlgari, I immediately thought this is the first place I have to take Jami when she comes to visit. At the top floor of this place was a movie theater, where we tried to catch a movie, but they were all sold out until 10 p.m., so we nixed that idea. When we hit the 9th floor of the building, we came across a Pizza Hut and TGI Friday's. We're still in the area, so don't be surprised if you read in my next blog that we ate dinner at one of those two places. Hey, sometimes people need more than one Nicotene patch!

Tomorrow, I go to school for the first time and my co-teacher is going to pick me up in front of the McDonald's by my house. I'm definitely excited to start. The first week, she said that I'm just going to be watching her and then I'll get in to teaching next week. She mentioned that the school is brand new and that the principal is kind of a younger guy and is pretty laid back. I don't even have to dress up! After she told me this, I specifically asked if jeans are okay and she said yes. So awesome. She did say it's a good idea to dress nice the first day though, so I'll be sporting my suit for all the meet and greets tomorrow.

So far, everything here is going pretty good. We get stared at a little bit, especially by the little kids, but we were told to expect that. It's actually not that bad at all, but it's noticeable. Getting around so far has been a breeze, but we've really only used the subways and walked. I'm going to have to learn the bus system as well, and I assume using a taxi is pretty much like using a taxi anywhere.

I still have moments of homesickness, especially without the Internet and the ability to contact people easily, but I'm doing good. I'm finding that Korea is most definitely a place that doesn't plan ahead and doesn't stay well organized, but learning to live and work around those things is what this experience is all about. I wanted to experience a different culture and a different way of life and I can definitely say that I am. As I continue to learn more Korean and learn my way around, I'm sure this will start to feel like home.

I'll be sure to update you on my first day of school and more in my next post. Hopefully I'll be making that from my own computer with a working Internet connection.