Life in the Cheap Lane

I get my first official pay check on Oct. 10th. Until then, I have the money I came with, the $200 I got for moving expenses (pretty weak) and my flight reimbursement. So after a month I am dwindling in the funds department. There are so many unforeseen costs when you move somewhere. Korea especially because they believe in down payments for everything. To rent an apartment you have to put down a "key fee" which is around 6 months rent....ouch! When you finally are able to rent a phone(this is after you apply and wait for 3 weeks for your Alien registration card) its around a $300- $500 down payment. Then you have to buy the phone itself. But even before happens you have to rent a phone if you want to have an means of communication with other people. Mine rental phone bill for 3 weeks was a gawking $200 and I mainly waited for people to call me because incoming calls were free. 

All in all, my friend Paul and I are in the same financial crisis till payday so we decided Oct. 10th we are going to hit up the swankiest bar in our neighborhood called the "Sky Bar" on the 30 something floor of a building on the river. We are wearing suits, dresses, perhaps corsages and boutonnieres will be purchased- it's on the table at least. 

Aside from me eating mystery dumplings that I bought at the grocery store things are going well. Dumplings and yogurt are about all I have in my fridge because I still have minor panic attacks when I go to the grocery stores. This is because NOTHING is in english and every turn you make recently killed or dried fish are staring at you. In addition, Korean supermarkets are not understaffed establishments which can not really be said for American grocery stores. They actually have a staff member assigned to each aisle who is there to assist you on the spot if you look even the slightest bit confused. This does not bode well for me however, and I have now taken to practically running in the opposite direction when one of them approaches me. I can't take the rapid fire Korean. I crack under the pressure and just make some stupid hand gestures(why they don't understand what olive oil is when I perform a very convincing olive picking and squeezing act, will never make sense to me) and give an awkward smile and they stare at me in befuddlement until I retreat. 

Starting next week I start my ascent toward the light, in the manner of learning Korean. My head instructor, Clare, has her masters in education and is itching to use her teaching skills on students above the age of 12. So she has offered the other English teachers in my school and myself free Korean lessons. First I have to teach myself the alphabet which should take a day or two, then I'll be in business. The language is different from most other Asian languages because it follows a very similar alphabet as English, around 20 characters, making it easy to read and write. The challenging part is speaking it because they speak from an entirely different area of their body. We speak from our stomachs making much deeper sounds and they speak from their throat and mouth. It's hard to explain but once you hear the sounds they make and then you hear an American try and replicate the sounds, it sounds almost comical. Its tuff and I have my work cut out for myself. But I would really like to give it a solid try. 

In other news I took my first hiking trip of the season. AWESOME! So many things contributed to my utilization of that word. 1. Only a 2 dollar trip on the subway. Took an hour but really not that bad. 2. Sweet little make shift villages make up the base of the mountain made up of mountaineering stores, restaurants, and little vendors. This is where I had my first glimpse at fried chicken feet. Yes the feet of chicken. They boil them then fry them up in chili sauce. I almost maned up and tried some but I chose to put it off till then end of the hike incase of any after sickness and unfortunately by the end of the hike most of the vendors had packed up because of the rain. 3. The people watching on this hike was one of kind. Almost no one under the age of 50 hit the trails. It was shocking/ impressive/ hilarious. Women in their sixties packed up, threw on their awesome visors, and hit the trails on their own. These women were passing us on the trails. If that doesn't make you feel out of shape, I really don't know what could. I only hope I can be as fit as them at their age. 

Only bummer of the hike was the weather. I didn't complain because the lite rainfall was a nice cool brake from the 85 degree weather but it did prohibit us from taking some good pics at the summit because of the fog. Another day, another hike. I just can't wait to go back in a few weeks when the trees start changing- should be gorgeous!

Random funny things that have happened:

- I have now been yelled at by 3 Korean women on separate occasions to keep my voice down. Now they don't actually say this to me directly, they pull aside Blake or anyone else around me who looks Korean and tell them in Korean that the American they are with is too loud. Awesome. 

-I got caught taking my garbage out to the dump in Lotte department store bags instead of the Seoul approved trash bags(17 dollars for 10 of them!!)  by a little old Korean man who started rushing toward me yelling in Korean. Because I'm mature I literally threw them on the top of the dump and ran for my building, taking every precaution not to be seen by taking the stairs to the 11th floor instead chancing it and waiting for the elevator. 

-Blake and I bought huge Korean lady visors and now wear them whenever we meet each other at the subway. They're quite a hit. 

That's all for now. Be well everyone and write me some fancy emails. 

p.s. I have skype all juiced up and ready to go on my computer so jump on the bandwagon and do the same. Skype to skype calls are 100% FREE!!!! If you need pointers email me but mainly just go to www.skype.com and follow the promps. You don't need to buy a plan you can just upload the program on to your computer and it will be just peachy. 

Love love love you all,

Dan

The boys

My two favorite boys. On the left is my buddy Paul. He works with me at my school. He's from Toronto, says Eh much too often, knows nothing about teaching(like me) but is lovely in every way. We literally have lunch and dinner together everyday. We both just bought tennis rackets and are going to hit the courts on sunday to embarrass each other.

Blake is my cute Korean/American. I think I'm going to keep him around for a while. ;)  

Vendor shopping

This is Blake about to munch on silk worms....thank the lord he chose not to eat them... aka saved me from voming on the street. 

Teacher Danielle's adventures in Seoul

Addicted to Kimche

Annyeoung haseyo!

Ok so that is still one of three words that I have learned in almost three weeks of me being here. I can't believe it's been that long, yet I feel like I've been here much longer. That is a good thing I suppose- just fell right into place. 

So I'll give an update:

Last night I had my first all staff dinner afterwork. I have yet to work for corporate America so I don't know how to compare the two work dinners... but if they're anything like here then sign me up. I'm putting a picture up at the end of this to show our table of people, but for the sake of the story there were about 20 of us all sitting at a traditional Korean table. You would think after all the yoga I've done and the ballet that I would be ok to sit under one of these tables for a long period of time... I was sorely mistaken, emphasis on the sore. I think my feet/legs/but all fell asleep before the first shot of rice wine. By the seventh shot, supplementing with beer of course, I think my face was asleep in addition to my feet/legs/but. That stuff is strong....whewww. 

Aside from my minor inebriation the dinner was great. I'm becoming a pro at chopsticks. I eat soup with chopsticks, any kind of noodle and rice dish, and Korean salad. I decided to help myself get better by buying chopsticks instead of silverware for my apartment too. Forks and butter knives are really rare here and when you find them they are all 4 dollars each. To buy a set of 4(fork, knife, spoon) is almost 50 dollars, where you can buy a few spoons and chopsticks for 10. Clearly I haven't gotten my first pay check yet!

The food is growing on me too. I secretly love kimche now- kind of crave it actually. It's been really easy for me to sample lots of different dishes because at Korean dinners you order for the table not just one person, . So I've tried stuff I probably would not dream of ordering. Such as... I tried something that mildly resembled coleslaw last night- hmm it was kind of chewing- tasted pretty good- turns out I was eating shredded dried squid with vinegar on it. So ok, I lived. Would never have ordered it, but hey, not to shabby. I also eat lots of tofu here. There is a really good soup they bring out before your main dish in ready that has a good scallion taste with cubes of tofu soaking in broth, yum. 

So this my came as a shock to all of you- but the only thing I'm having severe withdrawal from is Potbelly's. They don't believe in turkey in this country! It's really quite sad. This weekend is Chusok which is the Korean Thanksgiving, and I asked my students what special food they eat for the holiday. They all chanted something I couldn't understand that they explained was rice cake. One little girl promised she would bring some in so I could try it..... should be interesting. Anyway, I was trying to tell them about an American Thanksgiving and the food that we eat and it was like pulling teeth because they have never heard of pumpkins, turkey, or cranberries. You can buy potatoes here, but they don't have any recipes with them in them. I think it's more for westerners. 

This is short I know. I have a date with my friend Diana(only American girl I have met in Mok-Dong so far) to go get some ramen for lunch. Yum yum!

My apartment!

One of my classes!

This is one of my eight classes on Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Each classes is 40 mins. The kid in front in the bright yellow, John, is a trip! How cute are they!!!

Mok-Dong!

Sorry for the few day dry spell. I have lots of news though. 

First and most recent I had my first day teaching today! It was awesome! Honestly I was pretty nervous, considering I have never taught a class before let alone teach a class in a language that isn't native to the students. It went so well! 

My school assignment is with a sect of the company called CDI April. The company is called CDI Holdings and is the largest English teaching company in South Korea. CDI April teaches children between kindergarten and 5th grade. It is an afterschool program so my hours are from 2:30 - 8:30 at night. AKA the perfect schedule.... go out after work and have time to sleep it off before work the next day... repeat. 

The kids are really well behaved, nothing like we were at the same age. They think I'm wonderful in every way because I my hair and my accent. The kept shouting "USA, USA" today when I was introducing myself. They also love that I'm from Detroit because the Tigers have a Korean baseball player(or did.... I really never pay attention) and they are obsessed. Every corner you turn people have Detroit Tiger hats, Chicago white Sox, NYC anything, and Boston Red Sox hats. It's bizarre. 

Back up slightly to when I moved into my apartment... Friday. It was a marathon day because it being our last day of orientation we had to give our final mock teaching presentations and if we passed we moved out of the hotel to our new apt and school. My group of buddies and I woke up pretty early to practice our presentations with each other. Everyone passed(whew! thank god! We would have been sent home at our own expense if we hadn't!!!) so we all had to head back to the hotel, pack and get to our new home. My school is in  an area of Seoul called Mok-Dong. It's on the west side of the city in a really new, up and coming area south of the Han river that bisects the city. Although I was going from the East side of Seoul and the south side of the river to the west, it still took 2 hours because of the friday traffic and the sheer size of the city. 

Once I got there I was taken to my new school where every teacher was waiting for me to take me out for a welcome dinner. It was about 12 of us and we went to a traditional Korean restaurant... aka sit on the floor. That's where is gets hilarious because I was wearing this kindof of tight business style dress that gave no room for sitting cross legged like they all do. The whole table was girls except for one older man in management. Of course he was seated across from me... thus got a straight up view of my underwear for the majority of the meal until our head instructor(She is Amazing!!! and soooo sooo nice) noticed and gave me some apron style thing to put over my lap. Everyone was crazy nice to me at dinner but I was one of only two Americans and the only American who was not of Korean descent. I stuck out like a sore thumb. But even after I knocked over my beer and seared my elbow on a hot plate, they still wanted me to teach there. 

My apartment is gorgeous (compared to the crap other people got in different areas). My building is called the Hyundai Dream Tower and is maybe 3 years old. My whole area is really new but really clean and nice. I have two grocery stores within a block, a huge store called Homever, similar to Target, only a block away, a park across the street, bike paths everywhere and tons of good food and shopping within a stones throw. Because I am very cultural I tried out the place in my back alley called Joe's Sandwiches. Best club sammy I have ever tasted in my entire life and was the size of my face. I almost cried I was so happy. 

My apartment had nothing in it. I mean literally a bed, tv, kitchen, washer, and thats it. I had to spend a hefty chunk of change just to get myself started with the basics(plates, cups, sheets, soap, a table, etc. ) but it's shaping up. The funny thing is that 3 people needed to crash at my place after we went out on Saturday night although i told them I had nothing for them to sleep on. They were drunk and really tired so they didn't care that I put them to bed lying on my down north face jacket, three of my sweatshirts and my bath towel. 

Going out on saturday was a trip. I met up with all the kids I talked about before from my orientation group in an area called Hongik. It's a university area only about 4 subway stops from my apartment(lucky me:) ). I think if I had a heart condition I would have died just walking down the street there. It is about 6 square blocks of intense neon lights, people, music, cig smoke, and korean food smell. Every building has a minimum of three floors of at least 2 bars and restaurants. Picking a place for 8 kids to go when only 2 people could read Korean was in crazy. At one point Blake and I left the bar we were at to pick up April at got so lost I thought we would have to give up and take a taxi home. Every corner looks the same. It's awesome, don't get me wrong, but very difficult to navigate. I give myself a few weeks and I'll be a pro. Aka by the time any of you come visit......hint hint!!!!

OK time for random Korean fun facts.

- Blowing your nose on the street is completely taboo here, yet every Korean spits like they've been chomping on chew the whole day. Literally men in business suits to little old korean ladies hack up spit that could put my little brother to shame. 

- There is a whole age of women that have a name( I can't pronounce or spell it) that means rude. They are all pushing 60 and don't give a crap about anyone. They will push grown men and little kids alike on the subway. None of them come up above my shoulder but they have the strength of line backers. Maybe it was the time they grew up(Korean war) or something along those lines that gives them the idea that they can be bitches to everyone... no one is quite sure. 

-Korean men don't typically have any facial hair or hair on their arms/legs so the little kids think that some of the guy teachers I work with are freaks of nature and they reach out and pet their arms and legs... pretty funny to watch. 

- Korean's have the best style I have ever seen in my entire life. Especially in the area I live because the people are much wealthier, the sidewalk is like a fashion show. But with everyone. This country does it right. I'm just impressed every where I go. It doesn't look to good for my bank account though...... I'm trying really I am! I haven't bought anything yet. Promise!

- I have learned two words in Korean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thus I use them at every chance I get to make myself not look like such an American. They love it though. You would have thought I had a whole conversation with them, but nope it was just two very poorly pronounced Hello, How are you, and Thank yous.

Ok my brain hurts from teaching all night... give me dirt and feed back! I love and miss everyone. 

xoxo