Mas Gringos!

Interesting couple of days in SoKo! We are STILL sick! It's crazy. I think part of it is because the Korean cold meds do NOTHING! You feel no difference at all when taking them. Luckily, a friend of Jullia who is going home soon had an excess supply of Dayquil, so she hooked us up. Mom is going to send me a package of cold meds from home. I never thought I would need to pack this stuff with me!

Anyway, since we are still sick, we thought it would be more beneficial to have a quiet New Year's. We wanted to go out for a non-Korean dinner and maybe a beer or two. We subwayed it over to Sinchon (cool area with shopping, bars, TONS of cafes, Red Mango, etc), with no real destination in mind. We just felt like some beer and junk food. It took us about a half hour in the freezing cold to find the general area where the bars/restaurants are. We were turned down by the first one because it was too late, like 11pm (mind you, this restaurant was On the Border, lol, but a margarita sounded sooo good!). Then we found "Beer Factory." I'm thinking "score!" this place is totally going to have good beer and nachos, exactly what we want. Well, not so much. Beer was good, I ordered a dunkel and Jullia had a hefe. They were 20 oz, so that was nice. The menu was all in Korean, even though it wasn't Korean food. Not sure what kind of food it was really. Everything in Korea comes in sets. At Coffee Bean, set one is a latte and a bagel, set two is an americano and a muffin, a box of Special K comes with a scarf, etc. So we ordered set one at Beer Factory, which looked like nachos (or cheese fries) and a small pizza for 25 bucks. Hmmm. Food was horrifying! After about 5 minutes of debate, we determined one thing to be a BBQ chicken pizza with kidney beans on it. It was v difficult to identify the beans! They were microwaved beyond all recognition. Pizza was topped with shredded cabbage, ketchup posing as salsa, and a whipped something that might have been sour cream - neither of us dared to try it. The other dish (aka the nachos or fries) was something on a whole other field! We were able to identify the following ingredients: lima beans, corn, onions, sausage that we initially thought was mushrooms, thick rice cakes, rice noodles, peppers, carrots, cheese, scallions, and prolly more, all in a red spicy sauce. We gave up on this dish pretty quickly, It was nasty! I wish we had a camera. At the end of the night, we went home with no dinner and about 80 bucks poorer :-( Yikes!

We woke up starving on New Year's Day. My bed still totally sucks, so we went shopping for a mattress pad next to Jullia's house, then took the 45 min subway ride to my neighborhood for Mexican food - we were determined to get our junk! Lugging the damn mattress pad around, we busted through the mall to the Mexi place. Now, I thought LA was a crowded city, but I have never seen so many people in my life than the mall near my house. Place is out of control -- ALL THE TIME (more on this to come). We roll into Mexican, all Koreans cooking burritos. I order "quesadia", Jullia gets burrito, we are sharing. That's as far as we can get really, Food comes, "quesadia" has chicken and ground beef in it, disgusting! Another foiled attempt at eating.

We decide at this point to see Avatar at the Imax theater. Not happening. It's 2:30 and the movie is sold out until 10pm, it's not even opening weekend, this shit's been out! There are people EVERYWHERE, pushing and shoving of course. We take a number to buy our tickets, we are 725 and they are calling 605. WTF?! We peaced. That was our second attempt to go to the movies this week, we might try again today...

Now we are determined to get our junk food meal! We research online and find another place in Sinchon called "Beer O'Clock." Menu is online, has pizza, burgers, fries, this is our place! We roll in there around 7pm, someone yells out hello, and my jaw dropped. It's all foreigners!  Even the people that work there! Like a meeting place for gringos!  Idk why I was so surprised, it was just weird to see unexpectedly. The place turned out to be pretty cool, and might be a good place to meet some other teachers from different schools. As Pauly D says, we lit some fires, but we will have to go back and see what pans out. We finally got pizza, and it was really good. Plus, they have Max, which must be the Korean PBR for 3,000 won, like 2.50. You know I was downing that! In the next post, I will discuss the massive amounts of white guys with Korean girlfriends, it's all the rage here.

Since Pauly D has been mentioned (obvs), thoughts on The Situation just chillin when Snookie got knocked the fuck out? Then trying to creep on some girl outside the bar? HA! We can't watch Jerz Shore online, so we have to buy every episode on Itunes, it's worth it though. Will The Sitch ever get laid?? Doubt it!

donde esta la biblioteca?

After a while, you become accustomed to not understanding anything anyone is saying to you. Jullia and I have responded to this problem by speaking the few Spanish phrases we know over and over. If only we were in a Spanish speaking country! We could at least inquire about the library and order food!

Not much is new since yesterday's post, but I have been confined to the house with this damn cold the past 2 days, so I figured I would update again. We have decided we need to be very proactive about making friends here. The teachers at my school are so not into it. Most of them have been here awhile, some have family here, others are just kinda lame. I am sure we will be friendly at school, but I am doubtful for outside of school. Jullia's school is definitely more social than mine, however very clicky - we are not in to. All in all, peeps are not up to our level of coolness. Therefore, we will have to go out and make friends on our own. Idk how we are going to do this...book club? jelly of the month club? hiking club when weather is nicer? something!

Tomorrow is New Year's (obvs). Not sure what we are up to yet. It totally sucks that we are both sick. We missed out on a lot of exploring these past 2 days while coughing our lungs out. I think we may go to Hongdae, which is a pretty cool area with lots of bars and shopping - we went here on Christmas Eve. This weekend, we are going to hit Itaewon, which is foreigner land. We'll see how that goes. Lots of military hang out in this neighborhood.

(BTW - I have decided to keep the blog a secret from people here. Makes for funner entries.)

Pushing and Shoving

The other day I consulted Jullia's Korean phrase book to find the proper term for 'excuse me' because I feel like I need to say it 50 times a day. Turns out there is no such word. Just a lot of pushing, shoving, and get-the-fuck-out-of-the-way looks. Peeps don't care. If you are standing where they want to be, they just knock right into you. Don't mind me! The subway is the worst, they will run you over. And 'ladies first' does not apply either. When coming out of an elevator, it's every person for themselves. If it's packed, you just shove your way out. If someone falls, not your problem! It's really weird, and aggravating, but easier to just go with the flow and join in on the pushing than to try to be polite.

Hats are all the rage here. Animal hats. I now have 2. One is a bear hat that Jullia bought me as a welcome to Seoul present. It is a bear head that comes down around your ears and ties under your chin. It's pretty sweet. We also each got a new hat at Dunkin Donuts a couple days ago. It has a huge pompom on it and 2 bear heads at the ears. I love it. I will post pictures of the hats soon. However, we are quite pissed off because Baskin Robbins has some pretty awesome penguin hats and they won't sell them to us unless we buy a $20 ice cream cake. WTF?!

I have a pretty bad cold, which totally sucks because I am on vacation this week. I had to go to the pharmacy to get cold medicine today. You basically describe your symptoms, and the pharmacist gives you a box of whatever. Of course, no one speaks English, so I had to sniffle my nose and fake cough to get my shit. Weird that she was able to tell me to take 2 capsules 3 times a day, hmmmmm.

Pics of food to come as well. Korean food is sooo cheap. Full dinners cost anywhere between 3-6$$. Western food is so expensive though! Yesterday, we were feeling severely hung over after a night of drinking somaek (soju and beer, like a sake bomb) followed by late night dance party. We traveled across Seoul to get an American style breakfast (ie eggs, french toast etc), and it costed the 2 of us $45!! Last time we will be doing that! We need order the $5 Snapple though, so that prolly wasn't smart.

It's cold as shizz here, like 15 degrees during the day. We were going out a lot at first, exploring and whatnot, but since I got sick, we are laying low. Oh, we did try snowboarding on Sat. It was a nightmare for me, I am still sore! There is really not much snow in Korea despite the freezing temps. All the snow on the mountain was man made, so super icy. I am still in a lot of pain...

annyeong haseyo!

First post from Korea! HOLLA!! I would have posted earlier, but was working with limited internet. Anyway, I'm here, bags are finally here, and I have worked 2 days at the school. Where to start? Here's a quick rundown on different stuff:

Neighborhood -- it's pretty awesome. There is a ton going on around here. I live/work pretty close to central Seoul. Within a couple blocks of my apartment, there are hotels, restaurants, bars, shopping, a huge mall, a coffee bean(!!!), an imax theater, something that def looks to be a strip club, an Outback (where I ate tonight...say what?!??), and prolly much more. I have only explored a few blocks. And there is a gym in the apartment building so chunkaaa can work on her fitness.

Apartment -- it's pretty small. I will post pictures at some point. I have a stove with 2 burners (no oven, koreans dont have ovens), pretty big fridge and freezer, washing machine, couple closets, tv, table and chairs, etc. My bed is the most uncomfortable bed I have ever slept on - except maybe for the ones Bri and I slept on when driving cross country, yikes! This frigin thing is hard as a rock. I might as well be sleeping on the floor. The first night I kept waking up thinking I was sleeping somewhere else - like on cement. So I am going to have to get some nice blankets and an egg crate or something to fix this shit! The most interesting thing is the bathroom. It's like a shower, but with a toilet and sink inside. Def need pics of that!

School -- the kids are adorable. They might be the cutest kids I have ever seen. Some of them are a handful, naturally, but overall they are pretty awesome. I teach kindergarten and pre-k in the morning (reading teacher), and in the afternoon the kids range from 1st to 5th grade. Man, these kids work hard. In the afternoon, we are required to assign homework in every class, every day! Even on Fridays! Even for winter break, the kids have homework over Christmas. If we don't, the parents call complaining the kids are not getting enough work. So, yeah, Korean school is a lot different that the US. I am pretty tired after my first couple days. We work 9am - 7:30pm Monday-Friday and teach between 8-10 classes a day. That's a lot of kids!!!!

Food -- nothing crazy so far. It can be really hard to order in the restaurants, everything is written in korean characters and no one speaks english. Pictures are helpful, because then you can just point to what you want. I need to learn the names of a bunch of dishes and then just hope that restaurant serves them. Vegetarianism is out the door for the year bc half the time you have no idea what you're eating. And try asking for a dish without something -- good luck! You should have heard Jullia try to ask for soy milk in her coffee the other day, "do you have milk that's not milk?" LOL! Obvs the barista had no idea. And yeah, tonight I ate at the Outback with some teachers who were craving American food. It was still Korean-ish though. My seafood skewers were squid and the steamed veggies were baby bok choy. So yeah... Oh, and you can go out for a full meal for $3, score!

What else? Jullia and I live no where near each other. We are both in Seoul, but this city is effing huge -- 11 million people! Good thing is the subway is awesome, and super cheap (like 75 cents to ride it). I haven't gone too far yet, mostly to and from school, but tomorrow or Friday I am going to attempt to make it across town to her place. Should be interesting. If you're curious, here is the subway map. I live on line 5 (purple) at Wangsimni, you if you can find that! But overall, I don't hate the subway. It's super clean, incredibly fast, and there is a ton of shopping in there -- even a dollar store!

I have more, but am super tired. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve, but the school is still open, and it's another 10.5 hour day. I am bringing my camera tomorrow (Santa is coming!), so pics to come soon :)

Fuck My Life!!!

I left almost 48 hours ago and I am still nowhere near Korea. I am in the Frankfurt airport, which I am pretty sure might be one of the worst places on earth. Place makes LAX look like a vacation! There are lines everywhere! Long, long lines. And so many pissed off people. I met several people this morning who arrived 3 hours early and still missed their flights because of the incredibly long lines. And no one is sure what line to wait in. Peeps were waiting for over an hour, just to find out they should be in the line next door. It's mis here.

I should have landed in Korea 18 hours ago. My connecting flight to LA was canceled (after 2 hours of waiting on the plane), so therefore I missed the flight to Seoul. And I couldn't get another flight, so they threw me in a hotel at 1am and gave me a flight to Frankfurt the following night at 8:30...and that flight was delayed! I finally got on the over night flight to Germany, arrived here at 11:30am and will leave for Seoul at 6pm (3 more hours). I am beyond tired, I can't imagine how I will be once landing. Thurs-Sun spent in airports!! Luckily, I have a loaf of blueberry bread and carrots with me, bc I refuse to spend any more money on airport food.

So that's the start of the trip. Can only go up from here, right?

(pardon the profanity in the title. it's necessary.)

8 days

I leave one week from tomorrow. My flight is 25 hours with 2 layovers. Awesome. I depart Boston at 4:20pm on Thursday and get to Seoul at 7am on Saturday! Omg! Friday is just gone!!

I'm leaving in 2 weeks!

HOLLA!!!!