Yesterday I realized that Dongtan feels like home now. Which isn't bad considering I've actually only been here a month. I spent the weekend in Itaewon (the part of Seoul near the US base) and then came home Sunday afternoon and as the bus arrived here I finally had that I'm home feeling. I always find it interesting to see how long it takes after a move. Anyways, I decided this weekend that although Itaewon is a fun place to visit I definitely wouldn't want to live there. There's just too much going on and it really doesn't even feel like Korea at all.
This isn't related to Korea at all but I have a new favourite cd, which you should all rush out to get. It's the soundtrack to the movie Once, which I'm about to watch. And it it just amazing. It's the singer from The Frames, so it's no big surprise that I like it but still - it kills me. I've pretty much just been listening to it over and over on repeat.
I tried again this weekend to activate my cellphone since I finally got my ARC (alien registration card). Turns out my plan to buy a cheap used phone was not so great. The phone is apparently a stolen phone so no one will activate it. I'm going to try to bring it back this weekend, but I don't really see that working out since I have no receipt.
I don't really have anything else too exciting to say. I've been trying to focus more on school the last week or so. I'm really enjoying my class. And my middle school class is going much better now. They've started to talk more and occasionally even smile when I make a joke. Ahh, teenagers.
Monday, May 26, 2008
Sunday, May 11, 2008
Yellow Dust and Plastic Wrap
Before I came to Korea I read about this yellow dust, but I didn't really understand what it was or how much of it there is. Apparently it is really fine sand that comes over from the Gobi Desert in China. I don't really understand how it can travel all the way here but whatever it is there sure is a lot of it. Every morning I wake up coughing and congested, so today I was like well maybe I'm not sick, maybe my apartment is dusty so I set about dusting. Well it turns out absolutely everything in my apartment was coated in a thin (or in some areas thick) layer of this yellow dust. It's really strange. Also, one night last week we were going out to dinner and it was raining really hard and all of the puddles were full of the stuff. It looked like someone had spilled yellow paint all over the place.
The other thing that I've noticed this week is everywhere is plastic wrap. As I've said before Dongtan is a really new city, which is pretty cool but lately I've been noticing that there is plastic wrap everywhere and for some reason this little thing really bugs me. So I'm constantly going around pulling it off. You know when you buy a new appliance it has the plastic stuck to it. Well everything has that here. I see it everywhere, it was all over my apartment, I found some more this morning on one of my windows. It's even on elevator buttons and the hinges on bathroom stalls in restaurants and whatnot.
As for what I did this week, it was a pretty quiet week. I went back to Gangnam and Itaewon this weekend. Next weekend I'll find somewhere new to go. Oh, I had my medical test for my working visa, that was pretty crazy. We went to this hospital and they did every kind of test you can think of in about 45 minutes. They checked our eyes, ears, did blood tests, x-rays, drug tests, blood pressure - they even checked our teeth. I totally felt like a horse or something being checked out before purchase - Ok, now let's just take a look at it's teeth. Anyways, I passed so I should get my Alien Registration Card this week. Oh, I put new photos in my slideshow.
The other thing that I've noticed this week is everywhere is plastic wrap. As I've said before Dongtan is a really new city, which is pretty cool but lately I've been noticing that there is plastic wrap everywhere and for some reason this little thing really bugs me. So I'm constantly going around pulling it off. You know when you buy a new appliance it has the plastic stuck to it. Well everything has that here. I see it everywhere, it was all over my apartment, I found some more this morning on one of my windows. It's even on elevator buttons and the hinges on bathroom stalls in restaurants and whatnot.
As for what I did this week, it was a pretty quiet week. I went back to Gangnam and Itaewon this weekend. Next weekend I'll find somewhere new to go. Oh, I had my medical test for my working visa, that was pretty crazy. We went to this hospital and they did every kind of test you can think of in about 45 minutes. They checked our eyes, ears, did blood tests, x-rays, drug tests, blood pressure - they even checked our teeth. I totally felt like a horse or something being checked out before purchase - Ok, now let's just take a look at it's teeth. Anyways, I passed so I should get my Alien Registration Card this week. Oh, I put new photos in my slideshow.
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Exploring Seoul
This weekend we had a long weekend. I didn't really need the break yet, but it was a good way to ease into working again. I originally considered going down to Busan in the south of Korea but in the end I decided to stay around here and explore Seoul a bit. So I went into different areas on Saturday, Sunday and Monday.
On Saturday I went into Itaewon with some teachers from another school who I met at a party last weekend. Itaewon was interesting; it's the foreigner district in Seoul and it's near a big US military base. At first when we got off the subway I was like look other foreigners, but then I realized that there were foreigners all over the place. I didn't particularly like Itaewon, it was pretty dirty, but I can see that it would be a good place to go in a couple of months if I'm feeling like I need a bit of home. There are a fair number of Western restaurants there - and there's a starbucks, mmm. Plus there's this foreigners market where you can buy stuff from home. There were 2 cool things though. First was this bookstore called What the Book which had a good selection of used and new English books. The other thing was we went to this bar called Bungalow, which is like this tropical themed bar, and there are all these little rooms with sand for you to put your feet in. That was fun.
After Itaewon we went to Bundang, where some of the other teachers live. Bundang was pretty cool. It's similar to Dongtan in that it's all new but it''s a few years older, so it's a lot more lively.
Sunday I went to Yongsan, which is where the big electronic markets are. And up until a couple weeks ago it was apparently the place to get cheap dvds, but apparently recently they cracked down big time on that, so there really weren't that many. I did get a cheap cellphone though, yay! It's really a bit pathetic how lost I've been with no cellphone for a week and a half. Every time I leave the house I feel as though I'm forgetting something, especially since my house has a code lock so I don't have keys either.
Finally Monday I went to Gangnam to another great bookstore, this one is called Kyobo books and they have English and Korean books (and other languages too - I definitely saw French books). The good thing though about Kyobo is that they have all sorts of books for learning Korean. My co-worker recommended a book to me so I'm starting to learn Korean. It's just so incredibly frustrating to not be able to talk to anyone. After Gangnam we went to check out this canal which is near City Hall, but I can't remember the name of it. It was pretty cool because it was Children's Day they had all of these animals and whatnot in the water. You can see the pictures in my slideshow.
On Saturday I went into Itaewon with some teachers from another school who I met at a party last weekend. Itaewon was interesting; it's the foreigner district in Seoul and it's near a big US military base. At first when we got off the subway I was like look other foreigners, but then I realized that there were foreigners all over the place. I didn't particularly like Itaewon, it was pretty dirty, but I can see that it would be a good place to go in a couple of months if I'm feeling like I need a bit of home. There are a fair number of Western restaurants there - and there's a starbucks, mmm. Plus there's this foreigners market where you can buy stuff from home. There were 2 cool things though. First was this bookstore called What the Book which had a good selection of used and new English books. The other thing was we went to this bar called Bungalow, which is like this tropical themed bar, and there are all these little rooms with sand for you to put your feet in. That was fun.
After Itaewon we went to Bundang, where some of the other teachers live. Bundang was pretty cool. It's similar to Dongtan in that it's all new but it''s a few years older, so it's a lot more lively.
Sunday I went to Yongsan, which is where the big electronic markets are. And up until a couple weeks ago it was apparently the place to get cheap dvds, but apparently recently they cracked down big time on that, so there really weren't that many. I did get a cheap cellphone though, yay! It's really a bit pathetic how lost I've been with no cellphone for a week and a half. Every time I leave the house I feel as though I'm forgetting something, especially since my house has a code lock so I don't have keys either.
Finally Monday I went to Gangnam to another great bookstore, this one is called Kyobo books and they have English and Korean books (and other languages too - I definitely saw French books). The good thing though about Kyobo is that they have all sorts of books for learning Korean. My co-worker recommended a book to me so I'm starting to learn Korean. It's just so incredibly frustrating to not be able to talk to anyone. After Gangnam we went to check out this canal which is near City Hall, but I can't remember the name of it. It was pretty cool because it was Children's Day they had all of these animals and whatnot in the water. You can see the pictures in my slideshow.
Thursday, May 1, 2008
One Week In
This is my first post since arriving. I wrote a couple others but since I didn't have internet I didn't post them and now it seems kind of weird to do so. I've been here a week today. So far I love it! The school is great, my kids are all really sweet and my co-workers are super-friendly and helpful.
Dongtan, the city I'm in is really nice. It's all brand new and it's funny because when you look around you realize that about half the buildings are actually empty. It has kind of a funny feel to it, because it looks like a city, but there aren't actually that many people here yet. So there are big streets and whatnot, and hardly any cars on them. And there is constantly new stuff opening up, apparently next month they're opening up another big block of apartment buildings so there will be an influx of new people.
Right by my house is central park. it's this great park with trails for jogging, basketball and soccer fields, tennis, a climbing wall and all kinds of other things in it. I actually got up on Monday and went jogging at 6:30 in the morning! I didn't intentionally get up that early just with the jet lag my body is still having trouble figuring out when to sleep.
I've been trying as much Korean food as possible, drinking as much Korean beer as possible and on Saturday night we went out to Norae Bang, which for those of you who don't know is karaoke. It was so much fun! You get your own room here for it, with couches and whatnot so it's kind of just like dancing around singing in someone's apartment except with giant tv screens. I want to start learning Korean as soon as possible because it's really frustrating walking around not understanding anything at all. Fortunately a lot of the restaurants here have picture menus. And one time the other new teacher and I went to a place that didn't so we resorted to pointing at the poster of food on the wall. It worked out though cuz it was delicious!
Dongtan, the city I'm in is really nice. It's all brand new and it's funny because when you look around you realize that about half the buildings are actually empty. It has kind of a funny feel to it, because it looks like a city, but there aren't actually that many people here yet. So there are big streets and whatnot, and hardly any cars on them. And there is constantly new stuff opening up, apparently next month they're opening up another big block of apartment buildings so there will be an influx of new people.
Right by my house is central park. it's this great park with trails for jogging, basketball and soccer fields, tennis, a climbing wall and all kinds of other things in it. I actually got up on Monday and went jogging at 6:30 in the morning! I didn't intentionally get up that early just with the jet lag my body is still having trouble figuring out when to sleep.
I've been trying as much Korean food as possible, drinking as much Korean beer as possible and on Saturday night we went out to Norae Bang, which for those of you who don't know is karaoke. It was so much fun! You get your own room here for it, with couches and whatnot so it's kind of just like dancing around singing in someone's apartment except with giant tv screens. I want to start learning Korean as soon as possible because it's really frustrating walking around not understanding anything at all. Fortunately a lot of the restaurants here have picture menus. And one time the other new teacher and I went to a place that didn't so we resorted to pointing at the poster of food on the wall. It worked out though cuz it was delicious!
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