My Apartment

I moved into my own apartment last Thursday evening. It's very small, even smaller than my first apartment. It's a studio, so I just have one main room with a kitchenette, plus a bathroom and a laundry room. The laundry room is like an enclosed patio that runs the width of the apartment, and has a sliding glass door. The outer wall of that room is just one huge window, so I get plenty of light during the day, even with the blinds closed.

I started off with almost no furniture--just a bed, a set of shelves, and a vanity, but my boss had a tv brought in with a cupboard to hold it up, and a table and two chairs came for me on Sunday. I don't get a dresser, so I have to put all my clothes on the shelves.

I'll post some pics when I get the chance.

Tomorrow begins the three-day lunar new year celebration here, so I have a five-day weekend. That also means I have no internet access, since I'll be away from work, but I'm hoping to set up internet service at home next week. Until then.

My First Night in Ulsan

After I went through a very easy customs check at Busan airport in Korea, I only had to wait a few minutes for my luggage to come out, and then went straight out to the pickup area, where my boss Heather and her father were waiting. She said I looked very different from my photo, which I do. The photo I sent was terrible, and I've dyed my hair since then.

It's about an hour's drive from the airport to Ulsan.

That night there was a going-away party for the girl I am replacing, so Heather asked if I wanted to go. Although I was exhausted from travelling for thirty hours, I figured it would be a good idea to experience a Friday night in the city. I did get the opportunity to take a shower at Heather's place, where I stayed for two weeks.

Korean nightlife generally involves multiple places. First you go to a restaurant where you eat a bunch of food and maybe have a couple drinks. Only one person pays, though. Going Dutch is really frowned upon, so people just take turns paying for the whole group. The night we went out it was a Turkish restaurant, I guess because one of the teachers really missed Turkish food. After food, bars are in order. This time we only went to one bar, but I think it's usually a barhopping experience.

At the bar, we took our shoes off before entering the area where we sat down. At Korean restaurants, you usually leave you shoes in an area by the door, but this place was kind of a hybrid, where there were Western-style tables and chairs in one room, where you wore shoes, and Eastern-style tables in another area, outside of which you left your shoes. We actually were sitting on top of an aquarium, with tables on top, and people sitting on cushions on the glass floor. That was cool.

At bars, instead of beer nuts and pretzels, they have what is called "anjoo," which is a huge spread of food, such as fried fish, clams, tofu, soup, noodles, vegetables, boiled eggs, and so on. I think they set it out for every party, but you don't have pay if you don't eat it. That's what one of my guidebooks said, anyway. We ate ours, though. This was where I showed minor ineptitude with chopsticks. I do pretty well with the disposable wooden ones, but with the reusable metal ones, which are flat, I have some trouble. I'm much better at it.

They had me drink this lemony drink that I assume was alcoholic, but it must have been pretty weak. Everyone was drinking from shot glasses, but I got laughed at when I drank it like a shot. They just sipped like a normal drink from a small glass. I swear I've had that drink before, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe I'm just thinking of Mike's Hard Lemonade or something. Anyway, it's supposed to be a common Korean drink at bars.

Stuff That's Different

Traffic lights are horizontal.

Pedestrian lights are green and red, not white and red.

Red lights do not command the same respect here that they do in North America. I have seen a number of blatant running of red lights.

Almost everything makes noise. Buttons make weird noises, doors talk to you when you open them.

Many apartment and building doors are opened by entering a combination on a keypad.
I was just given the keys to my apartment today, so I guess my building isn't posh enough for a keypad.

Red pepper is almost the only spice they use here.

They say "kimchi" instead of "cheese" when smiling for a picture. Kimchi is pickled cabbage, seasoned with red pepper (surprise). It is the national food.

There is no distinction regarding what kind of food is served at what meal. Kimchi and rice are served with every meal, along with several side dishes that everyone shares.

Children go to school from about 9-2:30, but then they have a whole series of extra schooling in English, Tae Kwon Do, and other subjects I haven't found out about yet. They spend almost all their time on education. They stay up until midnight doing homework, and have very little time for play.

Consequently, children are spoiled before entering school and do very little work in college (so I hear).

Homes are heated through a system of pipes that run under the floors. Hot water runs through the pipes and makes the floor warm, then the heat rises. I recently found out that this water can't heat the house and come out of the shower at the same time. You have to switch it on the thermostat.

Getting Here

Sorry I haven't been updating. The only internet access I've had since I've been here has been on my boss' computers at work, and I didn't want to abuse that priviges by spending hours at a time online. I had assumed that the connection was not wireless, but today I figured I'd bring my laptop to work and see if I could connect. Apparently I can--there seem to be a number of wireless connections in this building that I can pirate, so this will help me out until I get internet at home.

So I made it to Korea. It was quite a trip--about 30 hours total. Dad and I left the house at 3am to get me there for my 6:00 flight. Of course, the car broke down, which he tells me only happens when he's on the way to the airport. We were already running a few minutes late, and waiting for Ryan, whom I had to wake up from a deep slumber, to come get us made it worse. I think we got to PWM around 4:30, a half hour later than I was supposed to, according to the travel agent. But I was lucky enough for my first leg to be both within the US and not full. So I made it from curbside to the gate in less than half an hour.

The PA system at my gate was out, as we all found out ten minutes before the flight left. Half the passengers were still sitting at the gate at 5:50 when someone shouted "Detroit!" and we all rushed to get in line and go through. In this rush, I left my brand new hat on the seat next to me, and left my reading glasses and my other two boarding passes on the floor near the gate entrance. I felt like I was running around with my head chopped off. Someone found the glasses and boarding passes and the stewardess gave them to me on the plane, but I've lose the hat forever. What a pissa.

The flights were okay. I have a quick two-hour flight to Detroit, and because it wasn't full, I got to move to an empty row. I had a middle seat on the 13-hour flight to Tokyo, which I was really unhappy about, but it was a four-seat row, and there was no one in the other middle seat, so it could have been worse. I slept a lot, watched a couple of the crappy movies they showed (Arctic Tale and Ratatouille--terrible), and ate a couple meals (luckily they were free).

I was only in the Tokyo airport for under an hour, so I didn't have time to look around or do anything. It was only another two hours to Busan, South Korea, where my boss Heather picked me up with her dad. She said that the girl I'm replacing wasn't going to be leaving Korea right away, so I would not be able to move into my apartment right away, and would have to stay with her for about ten days. I still haven't moved in, but I think I'm supposed to tomorrow. I'll be living right next to my boss' mom's apartment.

Living with Heather and her family has been okay. She had two kids, a girl who just entered fifth grade and who is one of my students, and a boy who is probably a couple years older. Heather's husband spends most of his time in Seoul doing business, but he came home this weekend. Heather's parents are also around a lot, and her mom cooks all the meals and does the cleaning. I'm finding it hard to be waited upon, but I'm discouraged from doing any clearing of the table or other cleaning myself.

I'll be doing some catch-up entries over the next few days.