I'm a Hypocrite (Part 3)

Figured its about time I finished this thing, so here goes.

2 weekends ago saw Hyemi and I heading out for Spanish food. Real Spanish food, so no tacos, enchiladas, burritos or tamales in sight. Sorry if that comes as a shock to some, but unfortunately Spanish food is not the same as Mexican food, kinda like how South Korea is not the same as North Korea. This place was an absolute hole in the wall, containing all of 5 tables in total, but tapas, paellas, whatever, they had it. And they were surely delicious. Hyemi had never had Spanish food, which frankly didn't surprise me at all, as I was absolutely floored to discover that there were any Spanish restaurants at all in Seoul. But there are, and I went to one of them and it was very good.

From there we headed to another cave-like bar for drinks and chit-chat. I've tried to understand why I'm drawn so strongly to these establishments that resemble somewhere that a bear or clan of bats may live in, but so far no answers. I presume it has something to do with my hermit/hobo nature that led to so many early morning wanderings and one attempt to sleep out in the arboretum. I guess this is as close as I can get to forgoing modernity's instruments and living simply with nature. One might reasonably suggest a park as a better option, but considering I'm been ushered off the grass.....AT A PARK (yes, you read that right), then maybe that isn't the best option here in Korea.

The next weekend, we met up again in a quaint little district filled with upscale restaurants. Hyemi was in charge, so she led us to a little Chinese restaurant for dumplings and other goodies. From there, we headed to my favorite tea house to down some tasty tea and try not to get hit by birds flying overhead. While there, we discussed some stuff. Namely, Hyemi's difficult situation. I mean, as awesome as I may be (and I'm pretty awesome), she is just about to turn 30 and the pressure is really on to get married. Technically the pressure is on for girls to get married as soon as they leave their mother's wombs, but it really reaches a fever pitch around 30. Not helping things is the fact that many of her friends are now getting married. As a result, she has to consider whether its worth wasting her time with me, knowing full well that I don't plan on staying in Korea long term. Then there's the whole thing of me not being Korean, which brings with it plenty of stigmas and bad press, at least for some people. Lots of stuff to mull over.

Lastly we come to the dreaded half-marathon. Man, I would have saved myself so much pain if I had just trained for the damn thing, but I really didn't want to quit doing capoeira for a time and I certainly couldn't have done both at the same time. With it kicking off at 9am in a town an hours subway ride outside of Seoul, I had to head down the night before. With the park being located in the middle of the city of Seongnam, accommodations were easy to find. However, they weren't cheap. At least it allowed me to watch a TV concert for one of the really big all girl pop groups.....in HD. I'm pretty sure that's what HD was invented for. Usually I can't stand to watch their performances, however attractive the ladies may be. Fortuitously for me, I've discovered a special button on each remote. I believe in English it is called the "Mute" button. A wonderful invention, this "Mute". It singlehandedly turned what is normally a painful experience into something quite enjoyable. I recommend you try it.

The marathon itself was solid. Despite running it in the middle of the city with nothing but high-rise apartments all around me, the scenery wasn't too bad. They were wise to have the entire thing run on their walkways that bordered a little stream that ran through town. From all the people out walking or riding their bikes to the running water to the grass and other green, nature-y things, you could almost pretend you weren't in the middle of a 1,000,000 plus city. I took my damn sweet time, as I certainly didn't want to collapse in the middle of the race. Man, would that have been embarrassing. Instead, I allowed myself to be passed by all manner of participant. Elementary school girl? Yup. Hungover (or perhaps still drunk) middle aged man? Smoked me. 3 month old crawling toddler? Left me in the dust. 99 year old granny in her motorized wheelchair? I don't wanna talk about it. For me, it was just a nice relaxing 12 mile run. So much for winning that sweet bag of rice for a top spot. Not like I ever ate the bag I won last time.

The highlight was the super enthusiastic people at the refreshment stations. Well, I guess I should specify. The high school girls at the refreshment stands. Everybody else was just going about their business, but these girls apparently had decided that returning home from the marathon with any fraction of their voice intact would be unacceptable. One particular group was screaming for every individual runner that went by, even breaking in a popular K-pop song and dance at times. Amazing, considering there were upwards of a 1000 people running this thing. That is dedication. Not surprisingly, I was a big hit with the kids, boy and girl. After they got over the shock of seeing just how wrong they had been when they declared Brad Pitt the most attractive man on the planet, it was time to try out your weird and limited English. I was in no rush, so naturally, I stuck around after finishing my cup of water to sign autographs, pose for pictures, teach a few free-talking English lessons, you know the usual. My favorites from the English they threw my way? When offering words of encouragement while I was running by, one girl said "Cheer up". Hahah. Not typically what you say to pump somebody up, but I think it works quite well. Naturally, around the 1 or 2 km mark you begin to realize how boring and stupid it is to run around for 12 miles or so, and a well placed "Cheer up" can do wonders to break you out of your funk. My favorite was the lady that yelled "Water! Here! Please!" Perhaps she was politely reminding me that she had water. To me, it sounded more like she was laying down the laws and I had best follow them. After I passed her, I thought about going back, just cuz I didn't wanna see that woman angry.

When it was all over, I clocked a very ugly 2 hours, 12 minutes time. However, I still looked good, as I was able to basically sprint out the last kilometer, mainly cuz I barely broke a sweat for the first 17km of 21km. Despite not being winded, my legs were killing me. The race people had me covered. Post race snacks? Cheapy little bread thing from one of the crappy chain bakeries, corn tea, and a coffee drink. After I finished my super food, I was ready to run another 21.090123421342341234234234234 km. But I decided I should go home, cuz running marathons is really boring. The end.

Next time, I'll have exciting stories about the teacher's volleyball tourney happening next week. I think we've got some legit talent this year, but I'll know for sure after tomorrow's practice game. I really wanna embarrass somebody, really, really bad. Or hit them in the face with a volleyball. Doesn't really matter to me.

I'm a Hypocrite (Part 2)

I'm back for part 2, but since I'm lazy and hella tired from today's half marathon, I think I'm only gonna cover a few weekends and leave the rest for part 3. I best get to the dirty details before I pass out....

We start 4 weekends ago (jesus, has it been that long since I wrote a post??? wow). On Friday of that week, I went with Carrie and Jenna to some foreigner's magazine party or something in Hongdae. I was spotty on the details, but the little information available seemed to indicate there would be music as well as a primarily foreign clientèle, meaning there would be people to talk to. Now, obviously the people who know me will realize that "people to interact with" is never something that I chalk up as a positive, but in this case, having had 2 straight incredibly boring and isolated weekends alone, I was willing to take the chance. I really was that desperate. Before we could find the place, we of course had to wander around lost for some considerable amount of time as the maps and directions and street names and navigation is always crap in this country. When we finally found the place, we were quite hungry from all the searching, so we settled on a faux-German beer haus in the hopes of actual drinkable beer. On that front, we were successful, as the beers were indeed drinkable. I took my chances on the sausages they were serving. And given that I'm writing this post some 4 weeks later, they turned out okay. Ms. Carrie, having had a bit to drink, felt the need to explain in detail, the damage and blockage I was doing to my colon by eating such filth. Thanks Carr, really needed that. Jenna was delighted to find that her french fry plate came on an actual silver platter. No joke, these guys were classy. Odd, but classy. You can't help but laugh at some of the weird stuff that goes down in this country.

Once dinner was over, we headed over to the party and were thoroughly disappointed. I don't know what we were expecting, but the party wasn't it. Beforehand Carrie had laid it out thusly: "This thing is either going to be really awesome or suck really bad". Sadly, it sucked really bad. They started out on the wrong foot by charging us 10 bucks to get in (okay, fine it was a fund raiser, so no big deal), but then our free drink ticket was only good for one really cheap and shitty drink. Boo. We immediately felt out of place as we sensed that we were the only folks in the place that weren't straddling the 30 year mark. Buzzkill. Also, it was swarming with hipsters. Fucking hate hipsters. One would think I would have something in common with these people given how elitist I am about music, but one must remember how much I despise myself. Thus, I'd prefer not to be within 50 miles of these folks. So we left.

At least the St. Patties Day thing turned it around. The basic premise was this: get yourself to the Irish Pub, pay around 40 something dollars, then gorge yourself on all the food you can eat and all the guinness you can drink. Plus there will be bands performing irish music and even some step dancers. With all that, it would have been pretty hard for it to suck. Anna and I arrived first, as Amy was coming later with some of her foodie friends. Well, because the directions were suspect (see a theme developing?), we headed to the one Irish pub we knew of. Clearly the Gangnam district couldn't have 2 Irish pubs, right? Wrong. We soon found out we were at the wrong one, and that the buffet was at the one we didn't even know existed. Not to worry, as the owners had clearly foreseen the foreigners being dumb and going to the wrong one, as we were politely lead to a car and driven to the actual party, completely free of charge. Pretty awesome I gotta say. Especially when we found out our Korean friends, who also went to the wrong bar, were simply given directions and told to walk. Hahah. Sometimes it pays to be dumb/foreign/beautiful.

Once we were at the pub, we had to wait in line, as they weren't allowing anybody in before 7pm and we arrived early in order to ensure we could get some beer and food before the lines shut down everything (we learned a thing or two from the monstrous lines at the thanksgiving buffet). Ms. Amy was dedicated to get there bright and early, meaning we were at the very front of the line. And given that it was 40 or 50 people deep by the time they let us in, that was a pretty big fucking deal to be at the front. Around 7 they let us in and it was bloodbath. Well, it would have been, had the Korean bartenders and waiters been stupid enough to get in our way. We immediately headed to the buffet and beer lines and filled our plates/gullets. Originally I was disappointed at the lack of Irish food in the buffet (there wasn't really anything Irish to be honest), but then I remembered Irish food kind of sucks, so win for us. And man were we glad to get in there fast, as at their peaks, the beer lines and food lines ran about an hour. Ridiculous to think they can't manage to pour beers fast enough to serve that many people in an hour, but it is what it is. With our stomachs filled (for the moment) with food and beer, things got interesting. It was at this point that Amy told me that her Korean co-worker, Hyemi, would be joining us, and then not so subtly told me that Hyemi found me attractive and that I should hit on her. It wasn't a request, so much as an order to hit on her friend. Now, normally in an instance like this, I would begin sweating profusely, shaking and stammering until I finally retreated to a isolated corner to hide from the women.

It would appear, however, that the Guinesses had loosened me up, as my only response was, “Okay, I’m in.” Surprised me too. Soon after, she arrived with her friend and it was time to step up. Looking back, I sure was feeling funny that evening. I mean, when Anna and I were waiting in line for beer and we spied the ladies staring at yours truly, I felt something strange in my chest. I believe this is generally referred to as “confidence”, but having zero experience with it in the past, I can’t be sure. Maybe it was just indigestion/gas from those tasty Guinesses. Either way, we struck up a conversation and it turned out she didn’t suck. I’m still pleasantly surprised whenever I met someone that doesn’t suck. Perhaps I’m too pessimistic? With the bar filled up, grabbing food and Guiness was out of the question, unless you were content to wait for an hour or so. After waiting for near 30 minutes for some wine and moving nowhere, we just settled for the tap of shite Korean beer. Anna and Amy made themselves scarce, leaving Hyemi and myself plenty of time to chat (coincidence? Perhaps). Most shocking of all was when she went to leave and I asked her out and she said yes. Obviously me not getting shut down is a big thing, but asking someone out after only 3 hours of knowing them? That’s about 4 months quicker than my previous best time. Go me.

After Hyemi left, the group ate a bit more, drank quite a bit more, danced along to and listened to the Irish music before calling it a night at midnight. Early, I admit, but we started drinking and eating at 7, so it was a respectable outing, nonetheless. Before leaving, I managed to run into the other foreign teacher at my elementary school as well one of the Badgers who came to Korea with us. Small world. Ohhh, and then there was the rando guy who wanted to know where Anna was from (his buddies had a bet on it), but Anna wouldn’t tell him, so he was for a time speaking in Spanish to the other Badger trying to find out the dish on Anna. Weird, weird, weird.

Sunday was considerably less dramatic, as Jamie, Amy and I met for lunch in my area, then wandered around the nearby universities, while marveling at the impressive, albeit gaudy architecture. That kind of Greek style of architecture looked just a little out of place in the middle of a relatively dumpy and unimpressive area of Seoul, but I can’t fault them for trying.

The next weekend saw the group taking in multiple sporting events. In the US, that would have probably cost us our entire paychecks, but not so here. On Saturday night, Amy, Anna and I headed out for a FC Seoul game vs. Pohang. Both teams are rather respectable, normally, but the game was anything but exciting. That was okay, as we bought ourselves a family’s worth of cheap beer each, and armed with those annoying long plastic horns (well, Anna and Amy were), we were determined to enjoy ourselves and perhaps make the people sitting around us miserable while doing so. While it pains me to see so many empty seats at the gorgeous Seoul Olympic Stadium (seats 60,000 and attendance hovers around 3 or 4 thousand, max), I do enjoy the freedom to sit pretty much anywhere I want, with nobody too close to me and the ability to stretch out. I appreciated this even more after the following day’s baseball game. Sure, the soccer game was cold, and there were a bunch of annoying high school kids behind us, but FC Seoul won, we got to drink some brews and we only paid like 10 bucks for the tickets. That’s a win in my book.

On Sunday, I met with Hyemi for lunch. I must say it felt very strange not being the super nervous and anxious one of the two, but a very good time was had. That is all I’ll say. Basically I wowed her with my combination of intimidating yet approachable badassitude, sex appeal and overall awesomeness. Actually, it was exactly like that.

With that finished, we headed over to the ballpark to meet with Jamie, Amy and Carrie for some baseball. Now this turned out to be much less fun than we had hoped. For starters, we got lousy tickets. I had gone to the ballpark the day before, to buy tickets in person at the gate, only to find out that they don’t presell tix even a day in advance. What???? How much sense does that make? Maybe that is standard procedure, but it seemed silly to me. Instead they want massive crowds to swarm the gates on the morning of, rather than space it out and have it work more effectively with presales days in advance. Whatever. I arrived 3 hours before the first pitch, assuming I could grab some decent seats. Wrong. Already all the decent seats were taken, leaving only the general admission outfield seats. No biggie I figured. We’d still get seats. Wrong again. As soon as we got into to the park, we realized 1) that the stadium is much too small for the fans of Korea’s most popular sport in a city of 15 million and 2) That they had way oversold the tix in the outfield area. We got there an hour before the game started but there were no seats. Anywhere. All the aisles and steps were taken by people sitting or camping out there, making movement through the park slow, difficult and fucking dangerous. I mean, it was silly of me to think anything in Korea wouldn’t be crowded. Looks like I’ll have to go to soccer games if I want some peace and quiet and alone time. The game was fine, well outside of the first inning, where our team gave up 5 runs and looked like there were gonna get run out of the park. Thankfully, the other teams pitching was just as bad, as they gave up 6 runs in an inning to make the whole thing interesting again. Sadly, the whole sitting in a freaking aisle, with people constantly moving past, and all the group sitting 5 rows away from each other, took away from the enjoyment of the game. Ultimately, we ended up leaving early with the promise that next time we return, we will buy our tickets in advance on line. Man, did that suck.

Ooops, I just realized I’ve now written several pages of this extended post and have yet to cover the reason why I’m a hypocrite. I mean, there’s about a hundred different ways I’m a hypocrite, but in this particular sense it refers to Korean women. Some of you may remember that in the past I talked about Korean women being super superficial, vain, boring, self-absorbed, and immature and that I would/could never get involved with one. Sure, this judgment holds true for the most part, hell it holds true for a lot of women, not just Korean women, but it really was only a matter of time before a cool girl came along and shut me the fuck up. Well, consider me adequately shut up on that subject. The moment I realized I was full of shit was when, while talking in the subway, she told me “I would never have my boyfriend carry my purse. Why? I can carry it myself.” Bam, right there she dispelled one of the biggest examples of some ladies’ vanity or helplessness or whatever. It is completely common to see the boyfriends carrying the girlfriend’s purse, while she carries nothing, so presumably she could carry it herself. Is it because she is playing up how helpless and childish she is, that she needs somebody to carry her things for her? Is it because she is so self-absorbed that she thinks that she is entitled to having a slave/servant to wait on her hand and foot? Does she really believe that she is deserving of such servitude? I don’t know and frankly, I don’t really care to know. What I do know is this: Foot, meet mouth. I think you guys should get acquainted, as you figure to be spending a lot of time together.

Part 3 soon

For Pics, see Amy’s albums “Korean Taste Tour” and “All in V4! Hustle-doo 2010!”

I’m a hypocrite

Yes, that’s right, I said it. I’m a hypocrite. And if this preceding statement shocked or surprised you, then you’ve probably never met me or read anything I’ve ever written. For those unfortunate enough to know me, this fact is common knowledge. Why I felt like reiterating this information will be explained later in the post. Now to quickly cover the school stuff.

It’s been about 4 weeks since I’ve written about life here, and in regards to work/school/Korean/capoeira, not much has changed. School has been especially relaxed, with several of the grades going on field trips and excursions, leaving me with no classes to teach on multiple days. All that downtime allowed me to study Korean, chat with the co-workers, listen to music, and even write this blog post. Whatever I felt like. The kids have been good for the most part and they seem to take quite well to the activities and tasks we ask of them, which is definitely a relief. However, our reliance on candy as a motivator has begun to make its effect known. It is an almost daily occurrence to see the sugar junkies, twitching and shaking while trying to score their next fix, slither on into the classroom begging for candy to get them through the day. The whole thing makes me feel like a god damn drug pusher. Weird. The office ladies, however, are amusing as always, and as more than a few have workable English, we’ve had some interesting conversations. Plus, out of boredom, I’ve started attending the teacher’s English conversation classes taught by the other foreign teacher, so I’ve really started to gain some interesting insight on the teachers. Some interesting tidbits: two of the teachers said that whenever they think of their mothers/fathers and the fact that they aren’t around with them (as they live in different areas of Korea), they feel like crying. Everytime. Yikes. I can’t even imagine feeling that way, as the only way thinking about Bob makes me want to cry is when I accidently stumble upon the innumerable memories of him wandering around the house in just his old, worn out, red underwear. That image would make anyone cry. But why share that nightmare with all of you??? Well, frankly I feel its unfair for just my mom and brother and I to suffer through that and I’m feeling in a very giving mood right now, so you are most welcome.

The ladies in the office seen to keep to a pretty laid back work atmosphere, which is very refreshing considering where I currently work and live. Hell, the young teacher even April fooled the other foreign teacher and myself, saying that she was getting married. Thankfully, that was a trick. I don’t think I would have been able to handle being around someone my age who was married. Would be too weird. Marriage is something you do when you are an adult and no young anymore. Does that make me an adult? I sure hope not. Again, would really like to avoid those questions.

The apartment is still small and still kinda sketchy. It’s been thoroughly cleaned and the massive collection of the previous tenant’s hair removed, but I still seem to find hairs that appear to be much longer than mine. That’s some pretty freaky and disturbing shit if you think about it. Where are these hairs coming from? How are they getting into my abode? Is some mysterious woman breaking into my apartment every night and doing unspeakable ills to me whilst I sleep? Do I have……….wait a sec, that last one sounds pretty good actually, come to think of it. Let’s go with that. Overall though, I can’t really complain. Sure the kitchen is way too small and my mattress is kinda lumpy and the shower loses hot water after a few minutes, BUT there is a freakin miniature pony that hangs out just down the road. Totally worth it.

Capoeira and Korean class are much the same as always. At Korean class, we learn a few words, say some stuff in Korean, but spend most of it making fun of each other and saying stupid shit. ‘Tis a good time. Capoeira is still frustrating. Too little repetition of movements before moving on, too little time spent on anything but floreio, etc, etc. However, there were some exciting developments as of late. Firstly, the instructor had to head to Australia for the batizado, meaning the class was taught by his wife. And as it turns out, she is a much better instructor. She is a dancer by profession, so she focused a lot on movement and footwork and stuff that I really needed help on. Plus she always picked me to help demo stuff with her, so clearly she knows what she is talking about. And yeah, you didn’t misread, the instructor and some of the students here had to go to Australia to get advanced. That’s the state of capoeira here. To get baptized/advanced/attend the group’s batizado, you have to hop a plane for something like 14 hours. Wonderful. Much to my dismay, the massive pile of suck that I nearly came to blows with a couple months back got promoted. Yup. Can’t really play any of the instruments well, can’t sing, can’t play at a high speed, has no flow, and hasn’t seemed to improve in all the time I’m been despising his ass. Grrrrrrrr. However, we actually started practicing a song in class (what??? Capoeira and music? Together?? That’s crazy! That would be like putting peanut and jam together…gross), and my delight at practicing music quickly chilled my rage, so all is good. Plus, that weekend, some of the Korean guys invited me to a new capoeira class, taught by a different instructor. And it was incredibly awesome. The instructor, Zumbi, has been training for 10 years in the Cordao de Ouro group and really has a handle on his shit. Plus, he’s from the states, so if I have a question he can actually answer it, without confusion and language trip-ups. His style is much more geared towards Angola and ground movements, so it gives me a whole new angle and set of movements to learn. And the studio we practice in??? Absolutely kick-ass. It’s the practice area for some martial arts play/musical thing here in Korea, so the facilities are new and….they have a padded/spring enhanced floor. YES. After about 40 minutes of just bouncing around and trying all kinds of stupid shit, like 5 year olds in those bouncy rooms, we were able to start the class. And it was good. I plan on going every weekend, when possible. Still riding the high from that class, I headed out to Olympic Park where I had planned another practice in the park. And would you fucking believe it? People actually showed up this time. And they wanted to do stuff with music and practice some songs. I was so proud of the new folks, I almost cried. Well, in so much as a person without the emotional capacity to cry can almost cry. But it was beautiful. There may be hope for this group yet.

And on that uplifting note, I must leave you. It’s Friday and I gotta head home. I decided I’m gonna break up the post into 2 parts, to save your retinas as well as finally get something up online, as I don’t know when I’ll be able to write next about the exploits of the last few weekends. Hell, by the time I write next, I may be able to include this upcoming weekend’s events, which include a date and a half marathon. An unusual combo, but such is my life. Unusual.

Pics of the new area at long last

Here are the links to the pics and videos for my new area. As you can clearly see, my apartment is very small and the surrounding area is very sketchy in spots. Otherwise its pretty good.

Pics: See Facebook Album "The New New New New New New Digs"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yn-ZdcHcG_g
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXT-SE1rnRw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgmYDdzH1gY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=91uJDcmzb4A

Costco + Korea = Fun, Fun, Fun

Yes, as I mentioned in the previous post, I’ve recently begun shopping at Costco but I felt the goodies contained within that quest were too much to cram into a paragraph or two. The insanity deserves so much better.

Let me first say that I’ve not spent much time in big stores like Costco or Sam’s Club or something else of that ilk in America, so for all I really know, they could be just as bat shit insane at the Korean Costco. But, probably not. Just my opinion though.

First, we must address the noise thing. And no, I don’t mean simply that there are a billion people in these monstrous stores like Sam’s Club, cuz there are. In this instance, Koreans do things a bit differently. Somewhere along the line when Korea was developing its consumer culture and practices, its consumers decided they liked having their senses assaulted when shopping. Like how all their websites and online shopping sites are nuclear detonations of bright colors and flashing images and pop ups and colors and more flashing and more pop ups and text and more text and more text and….phhhew, I’m exhausted. Honestly, its enough to have your eyes resign in disgust. If you don’t believe me, head over to http://www.gmarket.co.kr/. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.

This assaulting of the senses isn’t simply reserved for your eyes. No, no, they are democratic about it, they let all the senses join in the fun. When it comes to shopping in person, there are literally hundreds of employees that stand, at least one per aisle, about the store and yell at you about sales and deals and other shit. That is really all they do. They can answer questions about shit, but primarily they just yell about sales. And this is okay. This is standard procedure. Hell, even the little ma and pa shops do it. They just have one guy or two (it gets really interesting when they have two as they have dueling mics) on microphones that consistently shout out about how the bananas are on sale today or how 2 lbs of cabbage is 1.50 dollar. Really inane shit like that, that is helpful the first time you hear it, but after listening to it on repeat for several minutes gets very old. I kid you not. I’ll stay in these small groceries stores for 10 mins and I’ll hear 5 different sentences and I’ll hear music (which plays whenever the guys actually stop talking and turn off the mics) for less than 30 seconds or so. If you want to feel what this is like, I shall accompany you to the grocery store, follow closely behind and shout things like “Most honored customer, our delicious strawberries are on sale today for just 3 dollars a package. That’s right strawberries for just 3 dollars. Did you not hear me? You can’t go wrong. Strawberries for only 3 dollars….” and so on FOR THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME you are in the grocery store. If I didn’t feel so bad for the employees who have to burn out their voices talking nonsense all day, I would seriously consider ripping out their vocal cords just for some god damn peace and quiet.

The next issue is the crowding. But this I always assume, as its Korea, and everything is crowded. Always. There are just too many damn people crammed into too damn small of a space. And for a city of 15 million people, they have 2 Costcos. So naturally navigating is difficult. Compounding this is the issue of driving carts. In this instance, Koreans drive carts like their drive their cars…..horribly. Sure the lanes are wide to allow for the monster Costco carts to pass through, but when somebody parks their cart in the absolute middle of the aisle, pointed perpendicular to the aisle, it pretty much closes down the lane to traffic. I had a few instances where I was stopped due to a poorly placed cart. I would glare at the owner for some period of time, they would eventually see that I was trying to pass, they would then look at me, then continue doing whatever the hell they were doing. They would move in time, but for someone that despises shopping as much as I do, any extra second inside a store is one second too many.

The most interesting aspects of Costco relate to the free samples, display models and the costumer reactions to them. I shall attack the free samples first. No doubt everyone is familiar and well versed in the tradition of employees giving away samples of some new product in order to foster customer interest. Generally they were never really crowded. If what they were giving away interested me, I would try one, otherwise I wouldn’t give a moment’s thought. Things operate a little differently in Korea. EVERYONE AND I MEAN EVERYONE takes EVERY sample. I do not jest. You should see the lines of people waiting for free samples of shit they can’t even see. Seriously, at the back of the lines you can’t see what they are giving away and can’t hardly smell it either, yet line up they all do. Hell, I personally witnessed a monster line waiting for ddeokbokki, the really popular rice cake treat that you can find on any street corner. I imagine most people here have eaten hundreds of pounds of those buggers in their lifetime (and rightfully so, as they are quite tasty), so why the need to try one more? Its not gonna taste any different. It would be like a grocery store in America having free samples of French fries. Not any special variety, just your normal ass French fries. I imagine most people would simply look at the fries, think “French fries? Meh…” and then move on. Not here. I’ve discussed this issue with people here and one of the postulated explanations is that the folks, having been a not so prosperous country not so long ago, where free food or even plentiful food might have been unfamiliar concepts, respond very differently than I do to free things or things given to them. That probably isn’t right though. Honestly, I don’t know. But it sure is weird.

The other point of interest was the display models of furniture and stuff like that. When I entered Costco, I was immediately placed within the patio/lawn furniture section. Now, at first glance I was dumbfounded as to the existence of this section, as I’m in Seoul, where everyone lives in apts and has no patio or yard whatsoever. Hell, I couldn’t even fit those patio tables inside my current apt, let alone actually have a deck to place them on. Sure there are super rich Koreans that have regular houses with yards, and yes those fabulously rich people have plenty of disposal income to spend on patio furniture like these, but really are there enough of people like that to actually make the patio furniture section profitable??? I wonder. Even more interesting was how the customers responded to the area. Every single patio table chair and bench were filled with people. And I don’t mean they were testing the chairs to see if they were comfy. These families had settled down and were there to stay a long time. The kids had set down and were playing game boys or reading books, while many of the parents were reading the newspaper or eating some food or something. Did they want to take the family out to relax in the backyard on the patio, but not having one, just settle for what was available? If so, then I have much more respect for the people. They are going to enjoy themselves no matter the circumstances. I could not find a single table or LazEboy or couch unoccupied. And nobody else seemed to think this was weird, so it must be the status quo. If that is the case, then what actually goes down if they have toilets on display? Do people actually sit down and take a shit on those toilets? And what if they have mattresses set up? Do people really sleep on them? What about having sex on them, in the middle of a huge store? If any of the answers to those questions is yes, then I must humbly bow down to Korea and its enormous balls, for their pair is most certainly bigger than mine.

잘 생겼어! (God, I hate when old women say that to me)

For those who don't speak Korean, it means "You are handsome". As a beautiful ivory skinned giant in this land of little people, I get told this quite regularly. The speakers range from male elementary students (weird) to middle aged men (more than a little awkward) to female middle aged coworkers (which takes on a sort of motherly tone, which is really weird in itself). But they've got nothing on middle aged, sorta manly but super scary female waitresses at restaurants. But that story comes a bit later....

First things first, school life. I've now have a full week of classes, and all appears to be quite good. Class sizes aren't anything overwhelming in size and the kids are really well behaved. But that good behavior might have something to do with the co-teacher being up on the naughty ones like a horny dog on, well, anything. She keeps them under control at all times. Plus the rules and punishment system is well explained and known by the students. Fuck, I sure as hell wouldn't want to have to write one of the class rules 50 times in a foreign language if I acted up twice. Being as this school is in a much less affluent area of town, the students' levels are much lower than the old school, but they seem to be willing to do the work, which is all I really ask of them. The co-teacher and I are still trying to figure out how to work together, but I don't have too many worries about that, so all seems to be good.

Being as it was the first week interacting with the kids, I naturally had to do my introduction to the classes. Sadly, I didn't get too many really off the wall questions like I was expecting. I really didn't get many questions at all. Poor buggers were too scared to ask questions in English. That's not to say there wasn't highlight moments. Like one student raised her hand and said "You look like Harry Potter". Obviously not a question but amusing none the less. My gut reaction is to think that they say that about any white fellow with glasses and hair similar to mine, but again, they don't see many white folk, so they can be forgiven. Methinks i should take advantage of this. People seem to really like Harry Potter and some people are in fact women (but not all women are people.....let that one sink in for a little bit), so it can't hurt my chances with the ladies to play up that angle. And it leads so easily into talking about one's "wand". I think I like where this is going. The other highlight was when one boy raised his hand and asked (I shit you not) "Did you dye your hair?". More than the shock over the absurdity of such a question was the realization that this 4th grader asked, in perfect English, a question using absolutely useless and random English vocabulary. What 4th grader in their right mind knows the word "dye" in English? Why? Why????? But then I remembered how much Koreans, of either gender, love their freaking hair and how Korean moms get their elementary children (boys too) f'n perms. Then it all makes sense. In answer to his question, I calmly explained that, no my hair looks this awful all by itself. Au naturale.

And if you were wondering how long it took before I was challenged to my first paper-rock-scissors throwdown vs a student....it was about 5 minutes. One 6th grade girl in particular wanted to cut the new guy down to size. And cut me down she did. She played by hardcore Korean rules, meaning that every time you lose, you get flicked in the forehead. Think the same flick motion used to knock a paper football around. Sure, it doesn't draw blood or anything, but it does kinda smart. And being the big, tough man I am, I didn't want to admit that it hurt, but darn, those things, sniffle, sniffle, really hurt. And of course, I lose a lot, so the shots to the head pile up.

The most interesting student, at least to me, would have to be the boy who lived in Ireland for 6 years. And he's in 4th grade, which means I've just about lived in Korea as long as he has. Poor bastard's gotta be dealing with some serious culture shock, as Ireland and Korea aren't super similar in anything. But at least he didn't like Ireland or miss it, so that helps. Probably the weather and all the Irish. Yeeeesh.

As for interacting with those kooky co-workers, times are still good. I went to my first badminton lesson last week and I was mildly disappointed. See, I was under the impression that all the office ladies were doing the badminton thing. Meaning I would get a chance to show off my athletic prowess in front of the young teacher my age (step 1 of the DENNIS system: Demonstrate worth). Plus, I'd get to see how she handles a racket (giggety). Sadly, I was mistaken. Just the older lady teachers would be doing it. Shit. Well, I guess there's nothing left but to use these lessons to become the greatest badminton player ever and break Asia's stranglehold on the badminton world. I was hoping I'd just get to play, cuz running around and whacking the hell out of the shuttlecock is a lot more fun then learning proper footwork and swings. But they weren't kidding when they said it was a lesson. But I caught on quickly and earned the ladies praise. "Wow, you're really good Eric." Geee, thanks ladies but given I'm competing against middle aged women who get winded walking up a flight of stairs, it doesn't take too much to look super coordinated and athletic. My only qualm with badminton: It is incredibly difficult to spike it at someone, let alone cause serious harm to them. Take volleyball for instance. It doesn't get any better than getting ready to serve and searching out/locking in on the weakest player on the opposing team and making them your bitch till you tire of scoring points. And headhunting when spiking? God, I miss gym class.

So the badminton will be taking up Monday, Wednesday and Fridays every week. I wouldn't be so into it if not for the fact that they are during work time. I'm getting paid to play badminton. I can handle that. Also, I've been told that we'll be starting yoga on Tuesday and Thursday at the same time. I like, I like.

Now on to the creepy waitress. So Friday the whole staff headed out for dinner at school ended. Well, almost everybody. We were missing 2 English teachers, but I certainly wasn't lacking in people to talk to as I still had 2 English teachers, the young teacher who speaks pretty well, and the one older lady that really seems to like talking to me. I don't really understand why she likes talking to me so much. I mean, its just me. Not freaking Harry Potter or something. Or is it? No. It isn't. Anyways, when we sat down, as I was closest to the communal pot, the waitress leaned down right near me to distribute the goodies. While placing the goods on the table, she turns back towards me, looks me in the eye, makes some sort of facial expression (a wink? licking of the lips? gnashing of teeth? I'm not too sure, as I was paralyzed with fear) towards me and then says the words in the title. I don't think she knew I could understand some Korean, but she certainly didn't back away from it once she found out. She made sure I had a fork, in case I couldn't use chopsticks, and even served the food for me. Which would be flattering and wonderful had it not come for a middle aged women who physical appearance frightened me. At this point I should just admit defeat, give up on the young ladies and resign myself to the mothers and grandmothers that find me irresistible. Either that or dudes, as I seem to pull them pretty well here too. Le sigh. The rest of the meal didn't get much less weird, as some of the ladies inquired into my dating history (wait, I have a dating history???? since when???) and then the whole group of 8 or so debated my goofy haircut. "I don't like it". "Well, I think its cute". Ohhh, don't mind me ladies, I'll just be zoning out so I don't have to deal with this conversation. I felt so dirty, like a piece of meat, getting passed around and critiqued on its cut, texture, flavor, etc.....sob, sob. So yeah, that was a weird dinner.

As for other excitement at the dinner, when the subject turned to my weekend plans and I spilled that I had a date that weekend (a date? Yeah, surprised me too), the ladies got so excited they nearly shat themselves (actually, maybe I’m the only one that happens to when they get excited. Hmm….). Within approximately .0007 nanoseconds of the words “I have a date this weekend” leaving my mouth, the entire table had turned its attention towards yours truly and had begun the grilling. The co-teacher even got a little offended. “Eric, you told me you didn’t have a girlfriend.” I politely explained to everyone that this was the first date and that I barely knew the girl. They weren’t having any of that. “Eric, where is your girlfriend from?” “Where did you meet her?” “What’s her favorite type of rice cake?” “How many children does she want to have?” (those last 2 questions weren’t asked, as far as I know). So many people here really seem to treat not being coupled with someone else as a tear in the space time continuum or something that threatens to wipe out all life as we know it. Shit be serious.

Now, I imagine all of you out there just had your heads explode from the idea of me on a date, but fear not, it didn’t end up happening. Too bad about those exploded brain bits everywhere though. Who is she? Well, she’s a fellow member of the capoeira group here. Is she Korean? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH, that’s rich. Next question. How did you manage to fuck it up? A very good question which I shall now delve into.

Yes, despite the magical and mystical powers of Collin’s good luck in love charm (that I received during New Years), shit didn’t pan out. Can’t really blame it on a faulty love charm. There is only so much mystical power a little charm can wield and apparently said power is not enough to counter whatever I’ve already got working against me. Maybe next year he’ll get me 10 or 20 (hint, hint). That should do the trick.

Anyways, the female in question had been coming to capoeira for the last few months or so and I wanted to ask her out from the beginning, but being the big floppy wiener that I am, I didn’t manage it for quite some time. Not like it was all my fault, as she disappeared from class for a few weeks at one point. Whatever the excuse or reason, I didn’t muster the stones till last week. But when I actually did, things went very well. I asked, she said yes, and we would figure out the details after capoeira class on Saturday. Well, capoeira class rolled around and she laid on the bad news. First, she was busy today so she couldn’t make it today. No big deal. We’ll just reschedule it, or so I thought. Turns out she had misunderstood my intentions. If I simply wanted to grab food and such, then okay, but if I had intended the meal to be a date, well, then no. At least she was straight, clear and concise with her answer.

As for weekend plans the last few weeks………….umm, yeah. Zero. Nothing. However you wanna say it, there was nothing going on. 2 weekends ago saw me moving my shit from apt to apt all weekend, so that was hella fun. Last weekend wasn’t much better. After missing capoeira due to the aforementioned teacher’s dinner, I got called out to Hongdae by drunk Carrie and Jenna (which if you haven’t been priviledged enough to experience firsthand, I highly recommend), only to have them skitter off home after one hour. Which wouldn’t have been so bad if it didn’t take me 40 minutes to get to Hongdae, then another 40 back.

The rest of the weekend wasn’t even that enjoyable. After capoeira on Saturday I did nothing, as I had made no plans, you know, cuz I was supposed to be on a date. What did I do with my newly acquired free time? I went to Costco (the oddity of which deserves its own post), bought groceries and cleaned my apartment. Fuck yeah, I’m such a badass. On Sunday, I tried to get together a capoeira practice in the park to practice music or anything, but the weather ended up being shit, so barely anybody showed. Then I went home and cleaned some more. Then I found 10,000 won (which is only 8.83 dollars, so not even as impressive as finding 10 bucks).

I do have reason to believe that this weekend will be much more enjoyable, as the crew is getting together for some sort of club party/concert thing on Friday night and then reconvening for a big St. Pattie’s Day party on Saturday night. I’m confident there will be sizable portions of fun to be sussed out of the whole thing.

That’s all for now and I promise pictures next time.

P.S. The miniature horse came back again just the other day. I was so excited. Next time he rematerializes I will be sure to snap a picture of him.

I hate moving

Yup, absolutely hate it. And given that I've now had to do it 4 times in the last 1.5 years, I think I know what I'm talking about. Well, one of those times was only carrying my shit a block to Jethro's apt, but still. I promised the longer version of the last crazy week, and here it is.

So as might have read in the brief synopsis last week, I was just going along, minding my own business, having not heard from SMOE in any capacity in 2 weeks, thus leading me to assume that I was sticking around at the same school for the next year. I mean, the new semester starts in 3 days? There is no way they could possibly make the move now....I mean, they'd have to give me some heads-up on this, right? WRONG. As usual. As I was randomly checking my email Friday afternoon, I found the cursed thing lurking in my inbox. Yep, they notified me of the decision via email. Super professional. Especially after they promised me they would call me....2 weeks ago. The email left quite a bit to be desired. Here, see for yourself:

Dear Eric,



This is Rachel with SMOE.

Your new school is decided and it's 상봉초등학교 (Sang-bong Elementary School / tel. XX-XXX-XXXX).

My supervisor will send your current school an official letter regarding your transfer and they will tell you what to do.

You will have to go to the new school from the 2nd of March.



I wish you good luck with your new school.



Regards,



Rachel with SMOE



Short, isn't it? It seems like something was missing, right? Maybe directions or information on my new school? Hell, I mean, if I received this thing Friday afternoon, who the hell knows when my new school will receive the notice saying I'm coming. Will they even know who I am when I show up on Tuesday??? (As I found out later, the new school got word about me on Saturday....3 days before I showed up). So much for saying goodbye to my old school or anything. I feel like a douche now, having just walked out casually on Friday and I'll never see any of them again and the office mates were so, so friendly and helpful, but the email came at 5pm. A whole 5 hours after I left the office. Not much that could have been done. Thankfully, I didn't leave anything behind, well besides my old, beat up sandals that I got when I started college (yeah, pretty old). It's too bad the notice was so sudden. I didn't even get to leave a flaming bag of shit on the vice-principal's desk like I wanted to. Darn.

As you might expect, this sudden notice set off a lot of aggression, frustration, and hysteria in yours truly. This was only compounded after I used Google maps to locate the school and found out it was in the only area of Seoul I didn't wanna live in, namely the Northeast, as its a hella distance from Korean class and capoeira. Also, it was near Cheongnangni Station, which I knew to be a pretty dumpy area, so that didn't exactly thrill me either. I freaked out originally, as I may be forgiven for given the circumstances, but slowly I mellowed about the whole thing. The heavy doses of cool motherfuckers and alcohol probably helped.

Saturday saw the gang getting together at Tomatillos for some quasi Mexican food and tales of the most recent absurd school related shit that's befallen us. The girls had already downed a bottle of wine and Jamie and I are kinda strange to begin with, so the conversation got pretty goofy. From the there we moved to Oktoberfest, one of the vaguely German themed bars that offer actual beers (hooray!!). Someone had the genius idea that if we start drinking real early, we can sober up and be home and in bed by a reasonable hour. GREATEST. IDEA. EVER. Sure we started drinking at 5pm, but we were home and sober by midnight. Sure, its a grandpa move, but I don't mind.

On Sunday, Jamie insisted that we check out the new school, just so he could laugh at me about how shitty is might be. I would have been more pissed about him being an ass that takes enjoyment in the suffering of others, but I can't say this is a new thing when it comes to my friends. Anyways, we wandered around the area and, much to Jamie's chagrin, the school looked very respectable and new and the surrounding area, while very, very quiet, looked okay. Jamie was crushed. His mood improved when we played screen golf and he won by 30 something strokes. It would have been much closer had I not had to golf opposite handed. More lefty prejudice. Somebody should do something about this discrimination. No lefty clubs to use, no machines set up for lefties??? Awful. Although, I didn't play too bad for going righty.

Well, this whole weekend I was hoping to hear from my new school and maybe find out what is going on, but I did not. Not surprising, given they only found out about me a day or so ago. I decided to just show up to the school on Tuesday and hope for the best. I mean whats the worst that could happen? They could have no idea who I am, call the cops to deal with the "creepy foreigner lurking around the halls", then have me put in awful foreigner jail where I'm forced to wear hanboks and learn about traditional Korean culture (I'm not making the last part up...they really do that). Wow, that actually sounds pretty awful, now that I think about it.....gulp.

Fortunately for me, it all worked out very, very well. I showed up to school while everybody was in a teacher's meeting, so I waited for everybody to pile out and then stumbled into another white person. WHAT??? Turns out the school has some new really nice new facilities (gymnasium, etc) that feature some high tech English lab that staffs a foreigner to teach different kids from all over the district that come to take part in some special program there. The guy was Canadian and seemed pretty cool and was able to direct me to the co-teacher, who also seems like a wonderful lady. From there on, it was your standard first week at a new school. Lots of bowing and introductions and running around taking care of logistics stuff (contract issues, lesson planning, apartment stuff, etc) and lots of sitting around doing nothing after the lesson planning finishes. The highlights from the crazy week:

Co-teacher: This lady seems super cool. Let that be said first. The last co-teach was really nice as well, so it would appear that after my lousy first year, I've been rewarded by the gods for my suffering. She's an older lady, but doesn't seem to have any of the "I'm the person in charge, so you better fucking do what I say" attitude, like the teacher from last year did. Plus, she's the head teacher, so very good to be on good terms with her. She was super friendly from the start and we hit it off and were chatting within no time. The young teacher at the last school was really nice, but nowhere as outgoing and friendly as this lady. We chatted and got along really well, but we never had times where we sat around and talked about the weather or other various chit chat, like I've done with the new co-teacher already in my first week. I think the office environment really helps with that, as everybody eats together and gets rather energetic and lively, as opposed to the last school, where the office mates all ate at their desks while surfing the internet.

The Rest of the Office: These ladies rock. Even better than the last office, which is saying something. The office squad is, I believe, 10 people, including me. One is the previously mentioned co-teacher. There is one, slightly younger English teacher who I won't be working with, but damn is her pronunciation good. Hell, sounded native speaker-ish. Also, caught her on friday watching American talk shows on her computer and reading English language sites, so she knows her shit. She is a
cool cat as well, laughing it up with the rest of the ladies. Then there's the 23 year old female teacher. Yep, my age. And attractive. And seemingly not vacuous like many young ladies. And speaks pretty decent English. And isn't so freakishly skinny that I just wanna go over and feed her (no, that is certainly not a turn on). And isn't so terrified of a male in her presence that she runs away. All very good things. Then there's the two ladies who don't speak much English, but try their damnedest. First, we have Mrs. "Jolie" Jo. Why the nickname? Well, in order to help me remember their names, since there are a few Mrs. Jos and Mrs. Lees, she decided to take a nickname. She settled on "Jolie" since her lips are big, like miss Angelinas. Or in her own words, "Lips...like Angelina Jolie. Body....NOOOOOOOOO. Just lips. Only lips." Priceless. The other woman speaks more English and is (noticing a trend here?) super friendly. The few other ladies that don't speak too much English still seem to have a good, laid back time with all the rest. My kind of people. Also, their work habits? Wonderful. Starting next week we will be taking badminton lessons together...on the schools time. That's right. Rather than sit at our desks in the afternoon doing nothing or pretending to do work, we'll be playing badminton. Awesome. Also on Friday, I got invited to "skip out on work" as they called it, to walk over to Costco and buy some snacks for the office, while on company time. The ladies were even kind enough to wade through the big long lines for free samples for me (something interesting to note about Korea...people go fucking crazy for the free samples. Hell, some of the lines for free samples were 20 or so deep. Not sure why they feel the need to take every free sample. Maybe the recent past where food was not always plentiful? Really don't know. Funny as hell to watch though). The office also has lots of snack breaks, which is mathematically impossible to not be a fan of. And lastly, of course, they constantly inflate my ego by talking about how handsome I am, or how in awe they are of my height or how impressed they are with my Korean. I'm a fan.

English classes: Truthfully, they haven't started yet, but I'm confident that they'll turn out okay. Firstly, I have a sweet new English lab to work in. I guess this is the standard policy now, to build a fancy English lab to conduct classes in. I'm certainly not complaining as the class comes with a high tech touch screen multimedia board, 6 computer stations for the kids to use during class, lots of english language story books, tons of vocabulary magnets and cards to put on the board, and lots of other materials for role playing scenarios. So I have a few resources at my disposal. Perhaps most importantly, is that the previous teacher, an Australian bloke that stuck around for 2 years, was a very experienced teacher who put together a very thorough program for the English classes. So now the co-teacher and I have the luxury of reusing the things that worked well and modifying and adding to what didn't work. Not having to start from scratch is a wonderful thing.

Apartment: This one took me a little time to come around to, but I'm okay with it now. Obviously, the place was gonna be a disappointment after the relative luxury I've been living in for the past 6 months. Not compared to what I've been living in for the past 6 months, though, I'd have to say I did pretty well. For the apt's location, its very, very convenient. Much more so than the current one, where I'm a 20 minute walk away from any subway stations. Here I'm 2 minutes away max from the major subway line that cuts through all of Seoul. As such, the trees and greenspace and quiet will all be gone, but I think it might be nice for a while to feel like I'm actually in a city. That's not to say there won't be other sights. As I'm located right near some major universities, there will be plenty of young people, which is never a bad thing, plentiful English speakers and foreigners (probably students, many of which live in my building), and shit is generally cheaper as nobody has any money. Couple that with some of the dumper areas around the apt and you get for some near constant entertainment. I mean, a miniature horse tied up to a gymnasium in the middle of Seoul? He didn't seem too confused by the whole thing, but man did that blow my mind. If this is the level absurdity I can look forward to in the future, then count me the hell in. Plus, I'm only a very short bus ride away from school and Costco, where I can finally shop like a really human again, getting to make decisions on what I actually want, rather than acting like a scavenger at these smaller grocery stores, having to pick and choose from what meager choices are available.

As for the apt itself, yeah its small. But luckily it doesn't feel small, as I have a loft, which means the ceiling is about 20 or so feet tall. Also, did I mention I have a loft????? The novelty of the thing will wear off, I'm sure, but for now the idea of having one is so fucking cool. Also, I have one of those attic pull down ladders to get up there. The kitchen? Tiny, with minimal counter space, cabinets, and a little mini fridge. Not cool. I'll have to modify my purchasing habits, but since I certainly wasn't packing the old monster fridge full of food, it really shouldn't be a problem. Cabinet space? Minimal, but there should be enough to hold all my stuff, especially after I buy some cheapy plastic storage containers and toss them up in the loft to hold stuff I don't really use (winter clothes during summer, etc). The desk seems to be workable and the desk chair is not as lousy and broken as the old one, so plus there. The bathroom is very compact but should do the job. The only squabble there is that the door is only glazed opaque glass, so not the most privacy (only becomes an issue when I have guests and really when am I ever going to have callers??? exactly). Plus having the stinking pot of excrement all of 2 inches or so from your living room is never ideal. The apt does include a little TV screen with cable already functioning. Hoorah!! cept all the stations are the shitty Korean ones I never watch. No ESPN channels for sports, none of the channels that often feature american movies (or movies at all), and no music stations. In conclusion, I don't figure to watch too much TV. Also disappointing is the fact that the TV doesn't seem to have access for AV cables, meaning I'll have to get another one to play video games or watch movies. Boo. The bed, as anticipated, was a major disappointment. A tiny not so comfortable little thing. Perhaps I will look into getting a bigger and better mattress. Perhaps. However, there are more pressing issues to attend to, like cleaning. Yet again it appears that I'm to follow a dirty, dirty female tenant. Why must women be so disgusting? I have no idea, but this lady left her hair all over the place. In an even more disturbing moment, while cleaning out the present apt, I found, on a top shelf, no anywhere near the bathroom, in a little used closet....a tampon wrapper. Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww. Not sure why in the world it would be there, but it just speaks to the depraved nature of the apt's former tenant.

Beyond cleaning, I have considerable redesigning to do, as I've decided, thanks to the helpful suggestions I've received, to move the bed up to the loft and set up the living room with a couch. This of course means I have to procure a couch along with a small TV and possibly a mattress. And given Korea's disgusting lack of thrift stores and used item stores (everything must be brand new and name brand...frankly their level of consumerism would make America very, very proud to see what monsters they've helped create worldwide), that task may be much more difficult and expensive than preferred.

All in all, not a bad switch. Course, I finally just heard from the supervisor that runs this current apt complex/dorm thingy and she isn't super pleased. I guess policy states that I'm supposed to give them 30 days notice I'm leaving, which was impossible as I had only 4 days notice. I had hoped nobody would ask any questions and I might be able to keep this place as a vacation cottage in the woods or something, but it appears my replacement at the old school showed up and caused considerable confusion. Oooooooooooops. Hopefully, I don't have pay the 50,000 won per day charge they supposedly ask for if you stay here past your contract. I mean, what did they want of me? The old contract ended on Feb 28th and I didn't meet the new school and get a new apt till March 2 and I certainly wasn't living on the street for a few days. They can send my bill to SMOE for fucking around and waiting to make a decision and for just generally being incompetent. I mean, I'll already have to pay some sort of fee for having to cancel my 1 year internet contract at 6 months. Again, thanks vice-prin and SMOE. Love you guys. Sadly, tonight figures to be my last night at the big apt, so I gotta say my final goodbyes before heading up north.

Pictures and videos will follow as soon as I get the chance.