Korea Randomness

* Koreans love octopus. They especially love LIVE octopus- the kind that suctions to your throat as you try to swallow.

I will not be partaking of live octopus.

* Drainage issues- such as clogging the shower with hair- are universal. Only in Korea for some reason it creates a stench so horrid your entire apartment will reek like raw sewage. Also it may be difficult to take a shower as everything from your kitchen sink (water AND food) as well as grime from your washing machine will drain directly into and flood the shower.

*Genuine maple syrup is $20 from the E-Mart international aisle. I recently discovered that boiling water, brown sugar, and fresh orange juice will make a SPECTACULAR orange syrup that goes just fine with just-add-water pancakes :)

* Korea is cold. And rainy. And wet. And polluted. And Changwon is a BIG city with lots of people. But we are surrounded by mountains and oceans and parks adn hundreds of other Americans/Canadians so it works out alright.

* African market was great. But Korean market is SUPREME. And it's on the 4's and 8's (eg; March 24, March 29. . . ) so it provides something to look forward to more than once a week.

* Koreans love Nike, New Balance, and North Face. Basically "N"'s--besides North Korea of course :) They like to wear bright, neon-colored tennis shoes with every outfit, no matter how dressy or bussiness-like.

* Koreans don't stop. Pedestrians do not have the right away. But every time I start to get angry that I almost got hit, I remember the 50,000 times I almost died in Africa due to negligent and crazy drivers. . .and I'm still alive.

* Drip-brew coffee in Korea is ridiculously expensive. I went to Starbucks one of my first mornings here thinking that Starbucks prices are always universal. WRONG. A tall drip-brew was $4.50!!! Lame. I invested in a plastic, $6 french press and buy the cheapest ground coffee I can find at *8.50 a bag. Bah.

* Koreans love to drink and screw. There are no drugs to be found. Sneaking them into the country results in an automatic death penalty. Stealing is unheard of (it is like proclaiming poverty) and murder, if it does occur, is national news. But you will find smartly dressed businessmen by the hundreds on the streets of Changwon, wasted and puking. and every barber shop pole you find on virtually every street corner is an understood "find prostitutes here." Welcome to Korea :)

* Koreans are rich. They have to be. At least the ones that live in teh city. I don't know how people go to so many schools, have so many name brand clothes, eat out so often. . . It's time like these I miss my $0.25 Ugandan avacados. Here they are $4 a piece.

*Teaching is OK- but Korea is better. It seems that is the general consensus of all who teach here. Teaching is tolerable at best. The hours are slightly horrible, the days are insanely long, adn the kids are brats. But at the end of the day we have a rent-free apartment in downtown Changwon, a decent salary, a ton of other world-traveling friends, and things like Friday night Ultimate Frisbee, Hot Yoga, Girls' Night, Korean BBQ, weekend trips to Busan, Game Nights at Ar.To Coffee--the list goes on.

Korea!

Well here I am in Changwon, South Korea and it has almost been a week since we first arrived! Honestly I think it flew by- so that is a good sign I think :) There is so much to catch up on I'm not even sure where to begin. . .

Tim and I flew in on Monday evening and were picked up by one of our Korean co-teachers, Nikki. In Korea they call their teachers "Nikki Teacher" rather than simply "Teacher" or "Teacher Nikki." So I am "AmyRose Teacher" to all of my kids :) We were glad to see that someone was at the airport to pick us up because that was one minor detail we forgot to ask our recruiter about. Ha! We were put up in an hourly hotel for the first 3 nights because our apartments still had the teachers we were replacing living in them. The hotel was. . .interesting? It charged by hourly rates so basically it was sort of a brothel. It's where all the prostitutes do their business. In the elevators the prostitutes would leave their half-naked business cards lining the elevator floors. Also we saw a TON of barber-shop pole things on almost every corner. We thought, "Oh wow that must be a universal symbol for barber!"

FALSE.

Those barber shop poles are code for "FIND PROSTITUTES HERE."

Welcome to Korea :)

Ok so what else. . .Oh we finally got moved into our apartments! Tim and I are in the same building. He is on the 9th and I am on the 4th floor so that is quite nice. His apartment has HUGE windows and he can see blue sky!!! I, on the other hand, open my window and literally have ONE FOOT between me and another building. 4th floor. No sky :( I was super bummed at first and tried to get Tim to trade me but I've settle in my humble 4th floor abode and actually like it now. Except that I only get 5 minutes per day of hot water. I learned that the hard way when I took my first shower last night. I also learned that the ginormous bottle of 'shampoo' I thought I was buying was actually conditioner. So I only have like 2 oz. of shampoo I brought from the States.

I attempted to do some dishes today and learned that my 5 minute hot-water issues I ran into in the shower was an apartment-wide issue. I can only hand wash dishes for 5 minutes at a time in 20 minutes intervals. Or I can wash them in cold water. Gross. We have washer/dryers in our apartment but they are two-in-one and apparently they will shrink all clothes if you try to dry in them. So we all had to buy drying racks. The washer is in Korean/Hongul so I am going to have to guess when I wash things I suppose. . .

Ok enough on my apartment. The area we live in is pretty nice; it is only a 2 minute walk from our school! That makes for very convenient lunch breaks :) Changwon is actually one of the "smaller" cities in South Korea but it has over a million people! Korea is smaller than the state of Arkansas but there 50 million people living here. Crazy. We've been told by other internationals though, that we actually live in a really great location. Apparently we are sort of downtown Changwon and teachers that live/teach on the outskirts of Changwon come to where we live to do everything. I also learned there is a Hot Yoga studio very nearby so I am stoked about that!

Alright I have to go attempt to make toast in a frying pan for brunch. No toaster yet. . . Peace!