Apartment Tour

Here is the much anticipated video tour of the apartment! I made it with my little point and shoot camera, so the quality is a little sketchy, but it will give you the general idea! Enjoy!!

Figuring things out

Today was a pretty busy day. I was finally able to figure out some things that have been plaguing me ;-)

First on the list was trash. In America, it is pretty easy. You throw everything into the little bag you buy at Wal Mart, and throw it into the can and that is the end of the story. If you are feeling particularly industrious you can choose to recycle as well. In Korea you have to buy special bags based on where you live and this is how you pay for trash removal. Recycling is mandatory, and there are bins for large glass bottles and small glass bottles, large plastic bottles and small plastic bottles, newspaper, styrofoam, metal, normal paper and shiny paper. There is also a bin that is for compost/food waste and then a special area where you put the trash bags with anything that doesn't get recycled. As if this isn't confusing enough, all of these bins are in different parts of the apartment building. I spent some time wandering around while carrying my trash trying to figure it all out. But, I think that I got it!

I also did two loads of laundry today. I was able to loosely translate the buttons on my washing machine, and my clothes all stayed the appropriate color! The washing machine is so tiny that one pair of jeans and four or five t-shirts is a full load. I think that I'll be doing laundry much more frequently, especially since everything has to air dry. 

There is a Craigslist that operates in Seoul, and it is primarily used by the expat community. I found a girl who was selling a complete set of sheets (that's right, two pillowcases a top sheet and a bottom sheet) AND an electric blanket for 22,000 won. That is about $18. She lives about an hour away from me by subway, so I spent two hours riding around on the subway today. 

I also spent a lot of time writing a syllabus. Yesterday we had an orientation of sorts at KBU. At one point during the orientation, someone walked in and said "Who is going to volunteer to teach the IT English class?" None of us really wanted to, but that wasn't an option. Of the available teachers, I am the most tech savvy, so it was decided that I would teach this class. It is a MTW class, so I didn't have much time to prep. I think that the syllabus is done, but it is more vague than I would like. I'll definitely be working on this class a week at a time as the semester progresses.

For the other ESL classes, I actually found out that I don't really have to do any planning. One of the other interesting things we discovered at the orientation is that they are changing the way these classes are run. Previously, each teacher would plan their own curriculum and do whatever they wanted. Now, we have a part time coordinator and she is responsible for choosing the books and writing the syllabus and exams for all of the classes. Elli, our coordinator, didn't find out that she would be doing this until yesterday morning. So she is working on choosing books and planning everything over the weekend and we should get our books and curriculum just a few minutes before we start teaching. It will definitely be an interesting day ;-) 

I also spent some time making a movie tour of my apartment today, but my internet connection isn't strong enough to upload it. Hopefully I'll get the chance to do that at school tomorrow. 

I think that is just about all of the exciting things I have to report right now! I'm sure there will be more news on Monday. Lets hope I'm not so exhausted that I can't write ;-)

What do you get when you go up/down 32 floors worth of escalators in three stores?

A simple fitted sheet of course! Korean bedding is different than bedding in America. I have a Western style bed, but it had Korean bedding. In place of normal sheets, there is this thing that is about the same texture as a mattress pad. It is just slightly larger than the mattress, and it just sorta lays there on top. Then there is a normal blanket on top, and this is the bedding that I was given. It would work just fine if I didn't move at all when I was asleep, but every morning I wake up in a tangle of blanket and mattress pad thing. It was starting to drive me crazy.

Western style bed sheets aren't very common in Korea. I knew this, but I thought that I wouldn't need them or something. I had a set of sheets packed, but took them out when I was trying to make everything fit. That was definitely a poor decision. I had heard that you could find Western style sheets in a store called Home Plus, so I decided that it was going to be my task to find sheets today.

I got on google maps and discovered that there was a Home Plus that was four subway stops and a short walk away from my apartment, so I wrote the directions down in my handy dandy notebook and set off. I found Home Plus with very little trouble, which was pretty exciting! I almost got killed trying to cross the street, because I keep forgetting that in Korea cars have the right of way at all times, but I managed to escape unscathed. I walked into the store and it looked like I was in a high end department store. Only there was a dippin' dots stand in the middle of it. It was very strange.

There was a set of escalators that I eventually found, and since I was on the first floor, I thought it made sense to go up. The second floor was men's clothing and the third floor was electronics. The third floor was a pet store, and the fourth, fifth and sixth floors were part of a parking garage. I was perplexed by the time I reached the sixth floor. Home Plus is supposed to be a grocery store, and have a bunch of other stuff too, but I hadn't found any of it. As I was riding the escalator back down through all of those floors, I noticed that it kept going past the first floor. There were in fact three more floors under the first floor, but I only had to go to the second one.

I wandered around trying to find the bedding section. Based on what I saw today, the way that the store was laid out made absolutely no sense. After looking around for awhile, I finally found the bedding, but I was having a hard time telling if something was a sheet or a duvet cover or something else entirely. I should have written down more Korean words before I left ;-) I found a British guy in the store who must have lived here for a really long time, because he spoke Korean. He helped me ask an employee and they told me that they didn't have any Western style bed sheets. The British guy gave me directions to another store that was relatively near by, and suggested that I try there.

I left the Home Plus to try to walk to the 2001 outlet store, and on my way I passed a dedicated bedding store! I was excited, so I walked in to find a tiny shop with only Korean style bedding with one employee who spoke about as much English as I did Korean. It was a little awkward. I left that store and found the 2001 outlet. It was another very tall store and again I went all the way up to find the bedding on the 8th floor. They had sheets, and I was super excited!! However, they only had fitted sheets, but that was definitely the main concern. In Korea, at an outlet store, it costs 29,900 won to buy a single fitted sheet for a super single size bed (somewhere between a twin and full size). It isn't 500 thread count Egyptian cotton, it is just a normal bed sheet. I've never been so thankful for Wal-Mart in my life ;-)

After I bought a sheet, I actually managed to make my way back to the subway and my apartment without getting lost OR run over by the crazy drivers! It was a pretty exciting day, and I anticipate being pretty excited in the morning when I wake up with all of my bedding in the appropriate place ;-)

Wherein Sarah Plays Adventurer

Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. I was puttering around my apartment, working on unpacking and settling in and trying to come up with a game plan for the day. The expat community in Seoul is fairly active on MeetUp.com, so I was looking around on there to see if there was anything interesting happening in my area.

About this time, someone knocks on my door. Well, they don't really knock. I have this cool video doorbell thing that I haven't figured out how to work yet. I opened the door and it was someone from KBU. She said that she was here to take me shopping. Her husband was downstairs with their car and we were going to go to Lotte Mart and get the things that I still needed for my apartment.

Lotte Mart is like Wal Mart meets the dollar store. We bought clothes hangers and pots and pans and dishes and dish soap and all sorts of other really boring but really essential things. She wanted to get me some food for the next few days, so she took me to the noodle section. For those of you who love ramen noodles, you should definitely come to Korea! There were like three whole aisles dedicated to instant noodles. Everything was in Korean, and I had no clue what I was looking for. I eventually found some that looked innocuous enough. They are called "후루룩국수" or "Hururuk noodles" and from what I can tell, they are a little bit like spicy chicken noodle soup without the chicken.

After we went shopping, she took me to eat at a place called "Shabu Shabu". It is a variation on hot pot. You are given a plate of raw meat, sliced very thinly and assorted vegetables. Each seat at the table has a mini stove installed and you cook all of your food right there at the table. There was a really good spicy sauce to dip things in, and also a peanut sauce.

Korean meals come with banchan, or side dishes. It doesn't matter where you are, or what you are eating. There will always be side dishes. At nicer restaurants, there can be up to 20 different banchan. We were also served pumpkin soup, kimchi, spicy carrots, pickled onions and jalapeños, and rice balls wrapped in sesame leaves topped with caviar and red pepper sauce. It was all really good! I'm definitely going to have to practice with Korean chopsticks though. They are much longer and heavier than I'm used to, made of metal, and shaped differently. At least I have plenty of time to learn ;-)

After lunch, we went on a whirlwind tour of the university. I think I was also recruited to accompany a small womens choir, so we'll see what happens with that. I met one of the other American teachers, and I will meet the other two in just a few hours. I cam back home and decided to take a nap.

When I was looking around on MeetUp, I had discovered a group of Christians who were going to see a concert in the heart of Seoul that night. The concert was cinematic music, with an orchestra, an operatic baritone, and a Korean broadway start. I was pretty excited about the program! After a short nap, I decided to start exploring a little bit. I live very close to a subway stop on line 7, but I needed to take line 1 to the concert. I knew that the two lines connected, but there was also a stop for line 1 that didn't look like it was too far from my apartment. So, I decided to see if I could find this stop and avoid the need to transfer lines.

I walked across a river that was about the size of the Wabash running through Lafayette. It was so funny. There were a lot of older Korean men who were fishing in the river right in the middle of the city. I wandered around for about 35 minutes in 95 degree heat and 80% humidity and didn't find the subway stop, so I came back home, cranked the AC and decided that I'd learn how to transfer on the subway ;-)

I made it to the concert without any trouble. All of the subway signs are in Korean and English, so that helped a lot. It was really nice to hear some good music and to be around other native English speakers. I hit it off pretty well with one girl, but she is going back home in a few months :-(

After the concert I came home. All was going well on the subway until at one stop, absolutely everyone got off of the train. Someone motioned for me to come too, so I did. It turned out that there was a mechanical problem with the train, and we had to walk to another part of the station to catch the new train. There was one girl who looked to be about my age, and she was very sweet and helpful. She didn't speak very much English, but she was determined to make sure that I got back on the right train. That whole fiasco took about 20 minutes and the subway ride was already about 50 minutes. It was close to 10:45 by the time that I got back to my apartment, and I was pretty tired. However, I was able to sleep until almost 7 this morning, so maybe I'm almost adjusted to the new time!!!

All in all, it was a day full of adventures. I think that I might actually be able to survive this year!!

I made it!

I am happy to report that I made it safely to my new apartment in Seoul, South Korea! Yesterday was a pretty crazy day. I ended up being awake for right at 27 hours, but I did sleep through the whole night here in Korea. Hopefully the jet lag won't be too bad!

The plane ride was good. I think that I watched enough movies to last me for at least the next month ;-) This was my first long-haul international flight, so I was surprised at some of the things that they gave us. We had real silverware for ever meal, slippers to wear around the plane, and food that was surprisingly good!

I was met at the airport by a shuttle driver who had my name on a card. He didn't speak any English at all, and I exhausted my supply of Korean after saying hello and thanking him for helping my with my luggage, so it was a silent ride through the city. There are some things that Seoul that seem very familiar. There are billboards that are completely in English, the road signs are all in Korean and English. It is definitely the largest city I've ever been in. I think that the shortest building I saw was about 8 stories. 

Geographically, South Korea seems strange to me. The mountains look like the Smokey mountains through West Virginia, there are pine trees everywhere like in Colorado, the dirt is red like in Arizona, and there were quite a few beaches that reminded me of Florida. Only you can see all of those things at the exact same time ;-) 

The shuttle driver took me to the university and we picked up the man who is the administrator for the English department. He is Korean, but he speaks very good English. I was pretty tired at this point, but he thought it would be a good idea to do orientation. So, he showed me how to work everything in my apartment, talked a lot about details of the contract, and then we went exploring. He showed me how to unlock and lock my door (which is much more complicated than it sounds) and how to navigate the Subway to get to work. 

We went to a few smallish restaurants around town and he introduced me to the owners and we figured out some things that I would like to eat sometime. It is strange to me that they will be able to remember me that clearly, but in the three hours we spent walking around yesterday, I didn't see another Westerner, so I guess it really isn't that strange. We also went to a bakery and a convenience store type place. I now have water, milk, bread and strawberry jam in my refrigerator. 

I have an official orientation at the university on Friday at 11, but I don't have anything else to do before that. I'm trying to decide if I feel adventurous enough to take off and explore Nowon and Seoul, or if I want to just lay low for now. There is a convenience store/grocery store on the ground floor of my building where I could go get food and just hang out here the rest of the day... We'll see!