4 months in Seoul

Yesterday was the four month mark from the day I arrived in Seoul, it feels like I've been here forever but whenever I tell students the time frame they always exclaim, "you're so new!" April is two days away from being over and winter has still not relented. Yesterday we experienced the coldest day in April in the past 100 years, hmmm, another historic day I didn't want to partake in. I even turned my floor heating on last night, because the morning before it was too hard to get up with the combination of coldness and lack of sleep.
Today was good, I actually got up at 5:30am, not the usual snooze and hide under the covers until 6 routine. I worked out, put together a good outfit, and had some breakfast, a rarity for me. I really need to get in the habit of getting up on time because the morning goes by so smoothly when I don't feel rushed, and there is a significant drop in the "you look so tired" comments.
Yesterday I went over to my friend Sylvia's place. Her and her boyfriend have lived in Korea for the past year and they are about to move back to the States, she's also from California. They are living with a friend's parents in a really nice apartment near Seoul station. The apartment felt like a mansion, a REAL kitchen, multiple rooms and bedrooms. I forgot places like that existed! Sylvia had invited me over to take some of her clothes she was getting rid of. After living in the co-ops and having the Free Pile, my inner vulture sprang at the opportunity to get some good and complimentary stuff. Luckily Sylvia is not only my height, but also very stylish, so I got some great digs. I didn't bring enough clothes with me to Korea so it was nice to get everything.
today, after a nice morning at work I went to Costco with two of my coworkers, and needless to say, I'm not impressed with the Korean costco. Not only was it way too far (a bus transfer, aw hell no) but it was mostly comprised of junky American snacks that I never ate back home. What really turned me against the place was the beer section. Or should I call it the overpriced lager section? No ale! The European beer "section" was four different types of lagers, Becks and Stella (bleck) and guess what counts as premium beer? MGD! Yep, though the only association I can muster up is empty red cups sprawled across someone's lawn in Davis, apparently it's classy stuff over here.
But it wasn't a total bust, I did get two bottles of wine for Sylvia's going away party on Saturday. and they are California wines, so I'm excited. AutoMotor Merlot 2005 (good year?)
I'm still collecting funny comments that my students mak and one of these days I will have a post solely dedicated to it, they can be so funny and harsh. Korean's are known for calling it like it is "you look tired" "you look fat" "fat people are lazy", so the list is ever growing. The other day a student started telling me about how he hates fat people and they make him pessimistic and I had to try my hardest to hold it together. People say the most ridiculous things to me, and I have to nonchalantly check their grammar. I am really improving my poker face though!
In the videos we watch, there is this one character named Danny and he works the night shift at Kinko's and bad things tend to happen to him. I had a class with an uptight and quiet doctor the other day and we watched a video where Danny runs into an old friend who is clearly doing much better in life, after the video I asked my usual, "could you summarize the video for me please?" The doctor furrowed his brow, paused, and then said, "in that video.... danny is a ... loser!" I almost laughed out loud. But I held it in. I gotta go back to work, I'll update more later.
miss you all

An Update

Hey all, I'm sitting in my office on a Saturday afternoon, watching the sun toying with the idea of peeping out from behind the clouds (psst, do it Mr. Sun, I dare you!) and waiting for a student to arrive. I had this same student two weeks ago, he books multiple classes on Saturdays and then usually only shows up to the last one. If he wants to ditch his last class... that would be okay... Er, I mean I huge hassle for me.... I'd get off an hour early and who wants that?!
Last night I went out for sam gip sal (I'll learn the spelling some day, maybe..) with the work gang and our new coworker. He's lived in Korea before so he brought a whole bunch of his friends and it was fun to meet some new people. Tyler and I called it early last night and I was home and in bed by 11:30pm.
Last weekend I was really spontaneous, I took an impromptu trip down to Busan because a friend from college was in Korea visiting one of their friends from high school. I'd been really wanting to get out of the city so a familiar face was all the incentive I needed. I'm actually really pleased with myself, I woke up Saturday morning expecting to bum around Seoul and after a quick phone call I found myself sitting on the KTX (Korean version of Amtrak) talking to my new friend Seong Jin about korean grammar as I watched the Korean countryside out of my window.
The KTX was great because I got to see a completely different part of Korea. Busan is on the southern coast, so I passed through almost the entire country. I saw farms and small cities, it was great.
For anyone trying to start conversations with Korean people, all you need is korean homework. I've never successfully studied my Korean on public transportation because as soon as I start looking at my flashcards, my neighbor taps my shoulder and asks me, "you're studying korean?!" I feel like one of those frat boys that takes a cute puppy to a beach and walks in near the bikini clad girls. Seong Jin and I ended up talking for the entire ride and he was humorously irritated when I told him I was visiting a guy.
"So... why are you going to Busan."
"To visit a friend from university."
"How do you know HER?"
"I know HIM from university."
(insert side eye) "hmph, him?"
Woah, woah, buddy we just met, a little ealry for the jealous card. The trick is to pretend you aren't jealous in the beginning and once you've roped me in, then you release the full-on crazy!
After I got to Busan I took a taxi to my friends-friends apartment. I have to admit my jealousy was rapant when I saw he lived in a nice, new, high rise apartment (grr) and then we took an elevator (double grr) up to his funished (ra!) and spacious studio (oh, thats it!). We went out and had some dinner at a restaurant that had bad service and the worst kimchi I've ever had. I don't know if Busan always puts salt in their kimchi, but I'm not a fan.
After dinner we jumped in another taxi (taxi drivers in Busan DO let five people smash into their cabs! score) and went in some direction to some part of Busan. Busan has a lot of really cool, tall buildings. In one of the bars we went to we were on the 14th floor with a beautiful view of the beach. It was nice to smell the ocean and breath fresh air for the first time in almost four months. We went all over the city, but I'm not sure exactly where. I was pretty disoriented being
in a new city, I'm still figuring out everything in Seoul!
(I'm not going to say who I was with because I really want to tell the next part of this story without incriminating anyone)
The next morning I was awaken by loud belligerent yelling at 8am. Two of the guys had burst through the front door yelling about the "damn casino" and all the "damn money" they lost. I doubled checked the clock, yes, it was 8am. We all yelled at them to be quiet, which onyl fueled the fire. One of them picked up a chair and threw it at nothing in the midst of the drunken rant. Then they decided that it was a great time to start blasting music, the beatles?
"You guys shouldn't be shushing us! It's his house! You should be asking us if we're okay... (pause and look at the guy on the floor) is there someone under there with you?" I look up. Yes. Someone had snuck a random girl into the apartment, and she was terrified. She probably had one of those is-this-really-happening-to-me moments. LOL.
Everyone eventually clamed down and we all went back to sleep and we got up to get "breakfast". I had some delicious kimchichige, it was the spiciest one I had ever tried. After breakfast we saw some of the hosts friends, one of which informed us that he had... purchased a lady of the night. A 24 hour one to be specific. um..... yep. Only in Busan right?
I got back on the train and started my long journey home. I had intended to study on the way back but I was so tired I just watched surfthechannel until my computer battery died. Crazy weekend, but I got a good story that I can retell for the rest of my life.

The creeping cold

I'm laying in bed before I have to go to work and the dull irritation in the back of my throat is getting more prominent each day, yep, it's cold season again. I'm been trying to fight off the startings of my sickness for a couple days, but it's really difficult when students who are clearly sick keep coming into my class and contaminating it! I've already had three students that came in coughing and sniffling throughout the class, as I edged my chair further away in disgust.
"Do you want a tissue Mr. Kim."
"No, no."
"Are you suuure you don't want to go get a tissue?"
I went to the pharmacy yesterday with my symptons written in korean and got two little boxes of some sort of medicine (written entirely in korean of course). Medicine is so cheap over here, it was only 8,000 won for two boxes of medicine. I just hope it works. I'm debating if I should go to my korean class today because I didn't go yesterday and if I can't finish all the homework I don't want to go, but I also don't want to be extremely far behind... hmmm...
I'm trying to will myself to health. "Listen body, you are NOT ruining my weekend, you hear? I've been waiting for a weekend for TWO WHOLE WEEKS and you are getting better!"
We have two new coworkers that we are supposed to take out to dinner tonight, so I'll try to stay for dinner and then run home and sleep again. I just took two more mystery pills so I'm crossing my fingers that they do their magic on me, cheers.

나 자... (my name in korean)

It's friday morning and I'm quite sleepy. In the midst of exploring Versailles with my mom, taking pictures and looking at the old british buildings that reminded me of Mary Poppins...it quickly came to my attention that I was in fact, not in France but in my bed in Korea and I had dozed off after my alarm! I got up, assessed the damage... 6:13am, it's okay... as long as I leave NOW. I pulled on the nearest dress shirt I had and hightailed it out of my apartment. Three floors make a pretty dramatic departure when you're running down them. I made it to work on time though, with a couple minutes to spare.
I started Korean classes yesterday with Kathy, Ron and Mark. We're taking them at a rival company right around the corner from my office in Jongno. The class is taught entirely in Korean, which was really intimidating at first, but by the end of the two hour class I had already picked up a few words. It dawned on me how much more effective middle school and high school Spanish classes would have been if it had been taught entirely in Spanish by a native speaker, instead of a pretentious Californian that lived in Spain or Mexico for eight months and felt that they "deeply related" with spanish culture...uh huh...
My Korean teacher is really animated and through her charades and white board comics, we were able to go through the alphabet and a couple words. It doesn't sound that impressive, but I really needed to spend a good two hours going over this alphabet that's so different than my own, and I just don't have the patience to do it by myself.
우 유 is milk ... pronounced oooo (in moon)- you, oo-you
주 리 .. is Julie
잔 었 .. is janice