First Impressions

After finally getting to sleep about 2:30 am local time Wednesday morning, I woke up about 9am Wednesday. I finished unpacking and tried to make the few things I do own seem at home in my new place.

Michele wasn’t supposed to come pick me up until 3pm, but at 2:30 I had a knock on the door and opened it. (No peep-hole.) There was a lady outside who was trying to tell me something in Korean, and then a guy showed up with some kind of wall paper in his hand. They were trying to tell me something about the wall, but I had absolutely no idea what it was. They called someone and then left. About 5 minutes later Michele showed up. They were trying to tell me that she was the landlady and he was the maintenance guy, and because it’s a new building and they’ve had some noise complaints (not from me), they came to put up some sound proofing stuff. Ok, cool.

Michele and I left them to it and we walked over to the school, which is about a five minute slow walk away. It’s pretty cool – I walk out of my building and go left down the street. I walk past some individual homes with cool gates, a market on the left, a few food places I think on the right, and I get to the next street (with a 7/11 on the corner!) and go left. I walk past some other shops – a nail place, a clothing/accessory store, a food place, and some little parking alleys and come to the next street and go right. (There’s a Kenya Coffee place on that corner, next to a bimbap shop – kind of like sushi but not – SOOO much better) On that part of the street I walk by a café with “free wi-fi” written on the window in English letters (something I’ve totally come to appreciate in the past 3 days) and a few more food places before coming to the next street where I go left, and the school is right across next to another 7/11.

When we got there, I saw Stella who I guess is a secretary at my school. I also met my American co-teacher, Brandi, who is one of the most awesome people on the planet. That’s not an overstatement, either. After I met her, I walked across the street to the other part of our school and met the owner, Mr. Kim, and another teacher, Too-ah. I learned that the building I teach in is where students learn conversational English from the foreigners (me and Brandi), and the building across the street is where the students learn the grammar and other parts of English from the Korean teachers. I think that’s more like the verb conjugation stuff like we learn in the states. (More on the school and teaching process later.)

When I walked back over to my building (not really a separate building, kind of like one big long building with lots of ‘shop’ type things in it with apartments on top of some shops), Michele walked me over to the bank a few minutes away. I got there but was unable to use my Bank of America debit card to withdraw money. It turns out I can only use it at a Global ATM.

**I’d like to take a minute and tell the kind people at Bank of America that they didn’t know what the hell they’re talking about when they told me I could use my card at any ATM in Korea with no problem. Thank you much. Maybe you’d actually like to go to the country before telling people that so you can understand the confusion one goes through when they can’t access their money to buy little things like FOOD and TOILET PAPER.**

After a lot of confusion and frustration that I tried to hide and present a polite front, I found out that I can only use my card in this country at a KEB – Korean Exchange Bank. Luckily, I live in a big city and there was one downtown. If I’d have taken a job in a rural area, I’d have been completely screwed.

Stella drove me to the bank downtown and it took some navigating to work the ATM, even when it was in English. The hard part was that I had to choose an amount to withdraw – in won, not dollars. And it already had the zeros in there.

I already knew that 1,000 won is about $1. But I knew it as one, comma, zero, zero, zero. The ATM already has the 0’s in there, plus one. I was trying to withdraw 200,000 won (roughly $200), but because I was slightly confused, I was actually entering 2,000,000 won (about $2,000) and it wouldn’t accept it because I didn’t have sufficient funds to cover that. Definitely a learning experience.

After the bank fiasco, I got back to the school and talked with Brandi for a little while and then she walked me home to see where I live. I actually remembered how to get there!!! I was so impressed with myself. :-D

Around 9:30pm, Brandi met me outside with her [Korean] husband, Yong Suk, and we went to a Korean BBQ place a few streets over. Korean BBQ is pretty cool. First, you only pay for the meat and your ‘choice’ of sides. All of the sides come with unlimited refills. Second, you have a little grill right at your table so YOU get to cook the meat yourself to your own liking. Thankfully, they both love pork exactly the way I like it – cooked to the point of being almost burnt, but not quite. It was the most delicious pork I think I’ve ever tasted – even above the Spanish pork at Christmas. Yes, it was that good. Oh, and that ‘Korean’ food at the Asian restaurant Sky in Ocala? That stuff is the worst excuse for Korean food I’ve ever seen. Korean food is NOT at all greasy. And most of it is VERY spicy. There are different levels of the spiciness that Korean food offers, and most of it is bearable, but I’m not used to it so it’s been messing with my stomach a little. (Read: A lot.)

At dinner, I realized how alike Brandi and I are. We have similar ‘recent pasts’ and we both came here for similar reasons. She and Yong Suk are totally awesome. They are helping me so much with everything – from letting me borrow a power converter to charge my laptops until I get my own this weekend, to getting me acclimated and feeding me some excellent food. (I went to their apartment last night and Yong Suk cooked some awesome rice with mushrooms and egg I think. It was really, really good.) I’ll post some pictures soon. I didn’t have my camera with me either night.


Other Impressions:

Remember earlier I said I’m starting to realize the reasoning behind taking the shoes off? It’s because, in part, of the ‘Smells of Korea’. The smells being the byproduct of what is causing the smells.

Korea is similar to the states in so many ways: there are cities, rural areas, restaurants, western toilets, cars, little corner markets and 7/11’s but also stores like Target (my hate for their competition is allowing me to leave their name out of this)… things like that. But in Korea, there are also major differences. For instance, I asked Brandi what I do with my trash. She said that Koreans have special trash bags that I must put my trash in. But where to I dispose of it? On the street on the way to work is fine, in one of the piles I walk by. Yep, that’s right. Just out on the street with some other trash that’s already there. It gets picked up, but I haven’t seen it work so I’m not quite sure how that works. Also, you can drink liquor on the street. You can be publically drunk (just not driving drunk – that’s still a no-no). It is not good for a woman to be seen smoking on the street, and it makes a bad impression of her if work knows about it. All of the bread products are rice-based instead of wheat-based. Back to the public drunkenness, though. You know how when you get drunk and all of a sudden you have to pee? Well, here if there’s a guy out on the street and he’s drunk and has to pee, he just pees on the side of the road/alley. Yep, that’s right. And then combine that with the smell of trash. So walking to work I pass some pretty alarming smells. They pass pretty quickly and it’s not everywhere, but they’re there and can’t be missed. So all of you people in LA and other cities in the states who complain about pollution – I don’t want to hear it anymore. It’s not a dealbreaker, but I’ve been here 3 days and its really weird to me.