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Published: October 10th 2008
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Hi guys,
So last weekend was a holiday here in Korea, making it a beautiful long weekend and the last one till Christmas ☹. It was our friend Danny’s birthday, and he wanted to celebrate it in Seoul. Like us, Danny lives in a small town so he wanted to have his birthday with our crew from Orientation and not just him and the other foreigner in his town (I’m kidding…sort of, its probably more like four foreigners). So the plan was to go to Incheon on Thursday night, where our friends from orientation live. I thought Incheon was right next to Seoul, and it is on a map, but as we found out it takes about an hour and a half to go from Seoul to Incheon. We were fortunate enough to have to go to Deajeon on Thursday afternoon with our co-teachers because we still don’t have an alien registration card. We are required to get one in our first three months here. We have to have a medical check for it, a letter from your school, and a passport sized photo. I really thought that once we had a visa for Korea that we were done with
the scrambling for documents, but at least this was much less painful compared to gathering the documents in Toronto last year, so I can’t complain too much (even though I am really good at it). The immigration office has to keep our passports too, and we don’t get them back for two weeks. I am not going to lie: it is not easy to give up your passport in a foreign country. I am sure it will all work out though. At least that is what I tell myself.
So we were off to Seoul from Deajeon and then to Incheon. We took the KTX (Korea Train Express) to Seoul doing 300/km and hour. It normally takes 2 hours to get to Seoul from Deajeon but on the KTX it took a sweet 40 mins. I only wish the bus to Incheon from Seoul was as much fun. As soon as we got off the KTX we saw McDonalds. Nothing is finer than a bacon cheeseburger with fries when you have not had good fast food in almost two months. We eventually got to Incheon at about 7:30 and met our friend Brian. We reunited with our orientation crew
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Shanny I took this one for you. The orange balls reminded me of the beautiful photos you shot at the exhibition place. at about 9:30. Danny, the birthday boy, was supposed to get to Incheon at 10:30 because the only train leaving his town was at 7:30, and it didn’t arrive in Seoul till 10:00. The bus to Incheon is in an obscure location so our friend got lost. People at the bar marveled at this because our friend Danny is Korean and speaks Korean. So our friend Sid said “so the two people that don’t speak English had no trouble and Danny who speaks Korean can’t even get to Incheon.” Danny arrived at about 12:30 and took the Subway instead of the bus. (The bus is usually shorter but in this case he definitely should have just taken the subway in the first place).
That night our friend Brian was gracious enough to put not only Jonathan and me up, but Danny as well. Unfortunately, I forgot about Brian’s roommate at orientation complaining profusely about Brian’s ridiculously loud snoring habit. Even that is an understatement. Brian has the loudest most consistent snoring I have ever heardin my entire life. I fell asleep with earplugs in and about 20 minutes later I awoke to thunderous snoring. I tried putting my mp3
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This is when I realized I was with four boys in a shopping area of Seoul. My face is saying "please let me go shop" player on to drown out the noise and even on full blast this didn’t work. Then I figured I shouldn’t damage my ears over this. My solution (Brian has a bachelor by the by) was to grab a blanket and head to the washroom. And it was there I spent the night. I slept quite soundly on his bathroom floor with the earplugs in and the door shut only faintly hearing him. I would take a bathroom floor any day over Brian’s snoring!
The next day we all headed to Seoul. I quickly realized I was with four guys and we were staying in a shopping district. NOT GOOD. Thankfully my boyfriend is amazing and saw that I was in desperate need to spilt from the group and fulfill my habit. This we did. And it was glorious. I found the neatest little market with all these small winding streets filled with little shops. The only strange thing was that almost all the stores don’t let you try on their clothes. I thought that was the fun of shopping. I took the gamble though and bought a dress that luckily fit.
Later that evening we went for Korean
BBQ, which is very delicious if you haven’t had it. Then we went to a bar and then to our very first noraebong. This was quite fun. Some people were picking the slower songs, which don’t do to well in a group setting, but hey, whatever is clever. So we were in the noraebong for about 20 mins when some new people arrived. Noraebong is Karaoke for those of you that don’t know, but it is a little different because you rent out private rooms with 5-20 of your friends. On a side note - This past summer Jonathan’s dad had given his friend, who has a cottage on their lake, Jonathan’s contact information because his daughter was going to Shanghai to teach English; and if she had any questions she could contact Jonathan. It just so happened that one of the new people that entered the room was the daughter. This is a major coincidence considering she is teaching in China and we live in Buyeo; Seoul is massive and noraebongs are private, but she had the week off and came to Seoul to stay with her friends who happened to know the birthday boy… small world.
The
next day we did more shopping (yeah!) in these tall buildings that were filled with floors of individual clothing/accessory stands. It was pretty much a department store market where you haggle for a low price. We had one more mission before we left Seoul and it was to find a bookstore with a foreign section. Luckily we had a friend with us who had heard of where one was, and even more luckily it was close to our bus terminal. The last bus to our town left at 6:30 so it worked out perfectly. When I shop for clothes, Jonathan has no idea what to do with himself; he usually stands around with his arms crossed and looks completely bored and keeps me from looking at things too long. But get him in a bookstore and we are not there for more than ten minutes and he will have 5 books in his hands and a huge smile on his face. We spent close to 200 bucks stalking up on books that day. It just had to be done. All in all, Seoul was amazing. The city is really alive and has a wicked vibe. I have a feeling that
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Cute shopping area there is much more to discover with that city.
This week in teaching has been much the same except for one kid giving the finger to his friend and saying “f**k y**” and claiming he had no idea what it meant….yeah okay. Teaching can be one frustrating job, but it is surely building character! I think I would really like teaching here if it wasn’t for those lovely grades 6’s and there ‘I am the coolest attitude’. I think when a child turns 11 he/she should just stay out of school until they are 15 for the teacher’s sake. I am just kidding because the parents would probably kill themselves!
Well that’s all from this side. I hope everyone is doing well despite of the annoying economy. I love hearing from all of you so please keep writing!!! xoxooxxo
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