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Published: March 27th 2010
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So I'm now a month into life in the ROK and so far I'm really enjoying it. Despite many frustrations of not knowing where things are, difficulties with simple things like finding a meal and household items I'm slowly getting a grasp on things. I can now read Korean somewhat, although I need to work on my vowels, and therefore I've become much more comfortable finding food on menus written only in Korean and finding my way around when only a few of the street signs have English translations. Still pretty lost but starting to figure things out. Next missions include finding Homeplus to check out microwaves, and finding my way to the jimjilbang in Cheomdan and the Ethnic Cafe downtown when my cousin Russ comes to visit me in just a few weeks, as well as the art street, and other markets I've heard about but am clueless as to where they are or how to get to them. Speaking of the jimjilbang - might I just say they are a genius and amazing invention. Essentially, they are made up of multiple sauna rooms of various temperatures and designs, and a bathing area involving hot and cold tubs/pools also of
various temperatures, and individual washing stations for after that. You can also sleep there so basically use them like a hotel if you like, and they are extremely cheap costing only 6,000 and you can stay as long as you want. We were discussing the fact that if they existed in Canada or the US they would cost a few hundred dollars at least for a limited time. The sauna rooms are amazing, all different designs, but are somewhat cavelike and different floors with my favorite being the stone room, which is the most comfortable but hot temperature - some are room temp, one is ice cold, and one is wayyyy too hot. Also investigated this month was a bit of downtown - although I have much more to explore there, and especially in the daytime, but Ethnic Cafe was quite the experience. It's almost grotto-like, being an underground cafe with little caves in the walls with pillows and a low table and low lighting, as well as other tables lining both sides of a shallow stream like thing down the middle, filled with wax volcano candles and various buddhist statues and other interesting figurines, and a very strange looking
tree like figure. Serving cocktails, beer, wine, tea and various snack plates it's a really chill little place to hang out and chat. I've also figured out my way around Kimbapnara which is a restaurant right near my house as well as hundreds of others, at least one per block it seems, they are exclusively Korean and serve traditional Korean foods at extremely cheap prices and the one closest to me is open 24/7. I have translated the menu for that one and am starting to learn it so I can take what I learn from studying that one in comparison to the English version and reapply it to the others which have slightly different menus or ordered differently. As for school it's starting to go really well, after a pretty rocky 3rd week involving children who seemed obsessed with shrieking at each other and me for the entire class and all but preventing me from teaching entirely the 4th week went much better and I've begun to figure out what "works" for each class. Although this is just as I find out my schedule will be changing slightly in mid-April but I believe that's only for my 5:30 classes,
taking 3 and making them into 2, most likely giving me an early finish one of those 3 days so shouldn't impact my most insane classes which are my 2:30, 3:30, and sometimes the 4:30's. Only one of my classes past 4:30 is really that bad and that's my Friday 6:30 class which has no interest in learning anything, 3 boys who prefer to spend the hour humming or singing while I'm trying to teach and all but completely refuse to do anything I ask them to do, and the rest of the time they ask to go to the bathroom or get drinks, they don't do their homework and 2 of the 3 won't even start doing work when I give them 10 minutes in class to work on their homework which I know they can easily complete in 5 if they actually choose to look at it. However most of my classes in this age group actually do want to learn so I guess I can accept 1 class of that level that couldn't care less. Lastly, I'm finally starting to meet people and network around my area, although eagerly anticipating expanding my circle sooner than later and
really settling into life here and an active social life. Will write more, later, very tired after wandering for several hours today, got very lost but eventually found my way home.
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