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Published: March 3rd 2009
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Our street below
A little traffic tonigh So we have been in Korea for eight months now. We have finally really settled in to our jobs and our lives here. As of February 25th we officially have four months left. This is good and bad. First we have finally made a great group of friends and it will be hard to leave them. But on the other hand when we leave we will fly directly to Thailand and vacation for as long as our money lasts. OK so the point of this blog is to show and write everything that we have learned by living here the past eight months. Basically all the differences between US and Korean culture. Also we will show you pictures of our school neighborhood and friends.
First I have to say Korea has been an experience both good and bad. Korean people can be extremely helpful and they also can be extremely rude. We have been a witness to both. Everyone knows that Korea is a small country and I feel because of this the people here do not value space. I say this because on the subway people don't mind cramming on a train just to get home. On the other
hand Koreans have done some amazing things with the space they have. All businesses are in high rises, basically instead of having everything next to each other everything on top of one another. This makes it very difficult to find things because you are looking up instead of around for everything. Also in Korea they have no shortage of open space which is amazing because they don't have much space.
We thought that when we came to Korea we would learn Korean and we would be fluent by the time we went home. Well that is not the case, we have learned little Korean. Basic phrases and the numbers are easy to pick-up, but actually studying enough to become fluent is very difficult. Another problem with learning Korean is we just don't really need to learn it. We can get around and ask where things are and many people speak English. Also all the friends we have here speak English, many of them are from the United States and Canada. So basically that is my excuse why we have not learned Korean.
Korea has very hard working people. The adults and the children are very dedicated and work very
hard. It seems they are constantly in school. Most children go from a public Korean school into a private English school, and then many of the children go to a private tutor once or twice a week. As for the adults they work at least 10 hour days and then they go out all night, I mean all night. It is very common to see a businessman passed out on the sidewalk wearing a nice suit. Or my favorite is when their friends try to carry them home and they do a piggy-back/ fireman carry, its pretty funny. As for how hard we work ehh its not so bad we work from 10am to 7pm and we have 1-2 breaks a day along with an hour lunch. The job gets easier everyday, except when out bosses give us short notice and change things constantly.
Korea is a beautiful country it has so many things to see and do, that we will not be able to experience them all. We were amazed, especially when traveling to an island off Korea, how beautiful it really is. But along with the beauty comes the dirty. The older Korean generation is accustomed to
not flushing their toilet paper after it is used, so in many bathrooms there is a garbage can.... NASTY.... Also they have what they call squatters here; this is essentially a urinal on the floor. They use these in place of a standard toilet.
While in Korea we realized that we don't really miss that much other than family and friends. Korea has pretty much anything you could want. We have a Costco, KFC, Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks, Subway, Quiznos and many other stores that are in the US. The malls here are amazing; they are huge and are always crowded with people. The transit system is also very good in Korea. Subways and buses are easy to find, however if you don't know where the bus is going your out of luck. That is one thing that takes getting used to here. You have to find out where things are and how to get there by other foreigners who have already done it. So the learning curve here is pretty slow, like i said we now are just really settled in. The Subway here is amazing you can basically get anywhere in Korea on the subway. This is
nice because directly across the street from our apartment is a subway stop. The downside of the subway is it takes longer than the bus.
We have included many pictures of our school and our town. We are really lucky because we got set up with a great apartment and we are walking distance from the subway. It takes about five minutes to walk to work which is a huge plus. School is tough but we are almost finished, and we are looking forward to a very long vacation. Hopefully this gives you a good picture of what it is like living here. We miss everyone very much and we can't wait to come home, until next time.
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Kristen
non-member comment
Miss you! I'm glad that you're having a good time!! You'd better get back before I move to Costa Rica!