Elaborating

Hello again,

I have been in Korea for about 4 days now, and I absolutely love it!

I apologize, I had written an entire post about my trip which was funny and witty and wonderful as always, and then my computer ran out of battery. Which wouldn't have been a problem had my converter worked, but it tragically did not so I am now sitting in a "PC Bang" (a room filled with computers where pre-teen guys go to play World of Warcraft, etc...) to update you on my life. You're welcome, it's actually kind of awkward. That being said, I'll give you just a brief summary of my trip:

Flight #1
We had a frighteningly chipper flight attendant named Vince, who assured me that adding Jack Daniels to my water would reeeally bring out that water flavor... At about 7am.

Flight #2
I was bored and stuck in the last row of the plane, so I turned to the SkyMall catalogue for amusement. My favorite product was the "Slanket", essentially the exact same thing as a Snuggie, but with more creatively named colors(Carrie Almasi take note...) like "Walk the Slank" (Pirate print), "Imminent Bloom" (Bad 80's floral), and my personal favorite, "Sofa"(???).

Flight #3
Comparitively uneventful. I tried to sleep as much as possible, but it did't work very well. Part of our lunch consisted of a bowl of tiny silver fish that looked a lot like Burrito(RIP), so I did not end up trying them :(

Eventually I made it into Bucheon safe and sound and passed out for about 15 hours straight. Oh travel days...

Korea is such a strange country and there are just so many little mundane things I don't understand like "why do motorcycles ride down the sidewalk?", and "why can't I distinguish between laundry detergent and dish soap?" and "What exactly is a 'love hotel' and why am I staying in one?". Definitely culture shock, but it keeps my life interesting :)

Bucheon is a city of about a million people, from what I've been told, and everyone lives in these eerily similar high-rise apartment complexes. Flying in, it really looks like someone stacked up legos in these neat little patterns or something. I can't explain, but I guarantee you it's different than anything you've even seen in the States. Today was the first chance I'd had to really roam around the city and see what's out there beyond Avalon and my hotel. Of course you have your Baskin Robbins, Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks, and Pizza Hut, but they also have a lot of these little cake shops where they just specialize in making these gorgeous (and yummy...) little cakes. I don't understand why there are so many of them, but I'm not-surprisingly very ok with it. And of course there are all the Korean restaurants we've been going to which are 1)really cheap and 2)reeeeeally yummy. Oh dear, I'm afraid we're going to have a freshman fifteen situation all over again...

As for the job, you know the reason I'm over here, I really like it so far. My coworkers are fantastic and the kids are adorable. I've been shadowing the other native speaking teachers all week figuring out what I should be doing, and Monday I get to actually start teaching for real. Wish me luck!

I need to go back to working on my apartment... let's just say I'm very excited for the cleaning people to go through it in a couple of days...

I promise I've taken pictures, and I'll put them on here as soon as I get my computer situation all squared away. And maybe I'll keep you all updated on my life now that I figured out how easy PC Bangs are to manage :)

- Christine -