Day 1.

Yesterday was quite an experience—a very long day. On Thursday, I arrived in Seoul (Weds night), and didn’t get much sleep on the plane at all. 14 hours is entirely too long to be on a plane on one leg. Korean Air was very roomy- much more so than any of the American airlines, but although I could stretch and walk around, I still had to sit back down and my behind was over that about 5 hrs in. That’s when I woke up and realized that we still had 8 hours to go. Boo. I did get to watch a couple of movies I didn’t get to see in the theater—X-Men Origins: Wolverine and The Soloist—so that was cool.

Anyway, I finally arrived at 4pm-ish and went to get Hayes and my luggage. Hayes-y was PISSED. I couldn’t get him to stop barking. I thought customs would send us home, it was that bad. But they let us thru with no problems and I went out of security to find the person with my name card. He wasn’t there. Short version: the dog quarantine office was by a different exit than where I was supposed to come out. A very nice man helped me to call my recruiter and find him. He took me to his brother’s van taxi and shortly we were off.

Although I don’t remember the driver’s name, he was great. He explained many things to me along the way. He pointed out a bridge in Incheon (where the airport is) that is like 5 stories high and was entirely built in 9 days. Yup, that was the look on my face, too. We stopped for food and such, and he explained what everything was. It took about 5 hours to get to Gyeongsan City (my town, pronounced Gee (like Gordon)-yong-sahn). He took me straight to my apartment, where I was met by Mr. Park (director of my schools), Mrs. Park (or Candy, the VP of the schools), and Jon (who has been showing me around, but I haven’t quite figured out his relationship in all this). Mrs. Park brought blankets, a few dishes, a few pieces of silverware, coffee, tissues, and shampoo to get me started. It was a nice gesture. Mr. Park went to the store for bottled water (no drinking from the tap here), milk and bread. They stayed about an hour, then I crashed. They asked me many questions about what I needed, but all I could think about was sleep. I slept most of the way in the taxi, but it wasn’t nearly enough.

So finally to Friday, my first full day here. I woke up at 7am and couldn’t get back to sleep. It was really annoying. Jon came at noon to “show me around town”, as was decided the night before. We walked to my first school (much longer than I thought), and I met the 3 Korean teachers.


Along the walk to my school in Okgok-dong.


Candy came to get us for lunch of Bibimbap. Good, but I think I’ve figured out that I don’t like sesame oil. She drove Jon and I to a bus stop, and we headed to a hospital in Daegu.

On the drive to the bus stop. I have no idea where I was.

It was a very small but nice enough place, but I’m not terribly fond of getting weighed and measured and poked and x-rayed in any country. (Especially when you’re twice the size of the person doing it.) It was humiliating. And of course it was all in Korean. Having Jon talking to everyone about me in Korean was just awful.

Luckily, that didn’t take very long. Jon said we were going to my school. Funny me, but I thought he meant my actual school; my branch—the other one. But alas, it was not. But I didn’t know that for the next 3 hours. We got off the bus and I said, “Wow, is this Gyeongsan?” He said, “No, it’s Daegu.” Okay, so I’m confused. Jon didn’t really know where we were going, but we found it after asking many people. (I get the impression that Jon doesn’t get out of Gyeongsan much.)

We met Ryan, the director, and I was even more confused, because I had met and talked to “The Director” last night, Mr. Park. I thought maybe he isn’t the Director, maybe he’s like a VP or something, and that Mr. Park is the actual director or something. But no, Ryan is the director of the Daegu-area GnB headquarters (where we were). His English is amazingly good. I was thrilled. And then I saw another white, Midwestern girl, and I was ecstatic. Unfortunately, she’s from Michigan.

I said, “Hey! You’re not a native!”
She said, “No, I’m American.”
I said, “Where are you from?”
And she said, “I’m from Michigan.”
And my immediate gut reaction was, “Oh, I’m sorry.”

Luckily, she laughed. I asked if she was a Meatchicken fan (U of M), and she looked at the floor. I said, “Oh, you are! That’s okay; we’ll just have to throw down on game day.” I was wearing my OSU t-shirt, so it was kind-of obvious where my allegiance lay. Her name is Nic, shortened from Monica. She’s been here for 3 weeks.

I also met Joe and Emily, who live together. I sat in on Emily’s class. It was easy, although I made the kids a little nervous being there, I think. They were maybe 7 years old, and didn’t understand why I was sitting there in a small chair with them. I probably looked just as nervous, honestly. The class reminded me a lot of 5th grade, except that I’m a lot older now, and could totally take down anybody that treated me like I was treated back then. Let’s just say it was a little unnerving, but overall fine. It made me feel a lot better to see what an actual class was like, and what would be expected of me, more or less.

While at this (Jisan-dong) branch, I got all my questions answered by actual English speakers. They more or less told me what the deal was. That’s when I started to figure out that I was not going to be working at that branch. I was disappointed, but I got phone numbers for all three of the English speakers, so maybe we can hang out at some point.

Ryan and Nic were talking about trying to find a time to go hiking, and asked me if I liked it. I told them I’m terribly out of shape, but I like to hike, and would love to go sometime. Hopefully we can work that out. Nic and I are going to try to get together next week I think. So that’s cool, even if I’m not working there.

We left there and got some gimbap, which is kind-of like a sushi roll that we’re used to in the States. It has some kind of yellow crunchy radish, and some other veggies (I think), rice, and then wrapped in dried seaweed. The first few bites were delicious, but I really don’t like the radish thing.

We got on a bus, and I thought I was gonna die. Literally. The driver was weaving in and out of traffic like nothing I’ve ever seen before. And it wasn’t only this and that he was going faster than any bus I’ve ever seen before, but that he wouldn’t start to slow down until about 20 feet before the stop, when he would slam on the brakes, sending everyone standing on the crowded bus flying forward. I was standing for the first few stops, and I was literally holding onto a different bar with each hand, and I still almost knocked like 8 people over when the bus ground to a halt. Of course, they couldn’t move because the bus was so packed. But as the crowd thinned, I feared I might go flying out the front window. “Well, I made to Korea. Very short stay. Dead within one day. But I made it.”

We got off the bus back in Gyeongsan, and headed for a grocery store to get dog food, on the way to my other school. Close to the store I saw a street food vendor selling steamed crab legs. And I’m not talking about a couple of legs. It was an entire crab body with 8 legs, steamed, for (in US terms) a dollar. It was 1,000 won. So I took a picture, because my mother is a huge crab fan. (Actually, she’s a huge fan of crabs, not a huge crab fan. Or maybe she’s both. ;)

Street food vendors selling CRAB.


(On a side note: On our way to the school, Jon asked me why we say in English “Oh crab!” when something is bad. I had to explain that CRAB is not the same word as CRAP, what CRAP is, and why we use it in this way. It was fairly hilarious.)

The grocery store is your basic, average grocery store. I got some butter and milk, juice and cereal. The juice I thought was orange, but Jon said it was tangerine. I got in anyway, and it’s actually quite awesome. It’s much sweeter than orange, so it satisfies the sweet tooth when no chocolate can be found. The cereal was Kellogg’s Almond Flakes (the only 3 words in English on the box), and it’s absolutely amazing. I took pictures of the packaging, because I’m a huge dork like that. Hey, I thought it was pretty nifty.

Nifty packaging.




Then we went to the Jeongpyeong branch of my school, and I met the other teachers. Mr. and Mrs. Park were there, and another teacher that lives in my apartment building. He’s in his fifties I think, and lives on the floor above me. (Jon, my guide for the day, lives on the top floor. With his parents. He’s older than me, but won’t tell me how old, and he seems more than a little sheltered and awkward in his own skin. I started getting the impression about then that maybe Mr. and Mrs. Park were hoping to hook me up with one of these two. Um, no.)

We finally made it home and said goodnight. I was very tired, and it was very late. Okay, it was like 8:30pm. But Jon met me at noon and we ran around everywhere, and I met a million new people, and ate many new foods, and was poked and prodded, and blood was taken, and I had carried heavy groceries all over, and…I had thought we were sightseeing around my area, so I was totally unprepared for the adventure. I was exhausted. I changed my clothes and went to bed. I didn’t even get the iPod out. I couldn’t even take the dog out. I was asleep by 8:45. I got up at 3am and took the dog out. I went back to bed until 3 o’clock in the afternoon, and then just laid around.

At the end of the day, I had a few injuries:

I've never seen ankles this swollen on someone who isn't pregnant...


My lovely blisters. It's actually one connected blister on the entire arch of each foot. Let me tell you how wonderful this feels...



I don’t have a comfortable chair in here, and the bed is as hard as the floor, so reading is difficult. I’ll need to find a solution quickly, or at least find somewhere that has comfy chairs where I can relax and read and such.

Jon wanted to show me around today, but I really just need to read the teaching guides for the books I’ll be using, and sleep and get rid of the jet lag. I just need a day to do nothing.

My door bell has rung several times, but I don’t want to see anybody. I haven’t successfully taken a shower here yet, and I look lovely. You have to turn on the hot water, which was explained to me briefly while I was basically comatose and overwhelmed during the first hour I was in my apartment. So, of course, I don’t remember how to do it. And cold showers are no fun. No one made plans with me, so I’m just staying in here and not answering. I hope it’s nothing important.