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.