Monday - Hit the gym in the morning and made a new friend! I met a girl named Kelly that lives and teaches in this area too! Very nice! Then I headed to school...Back to work..ugh. I hate Monday's for the pure fact that the weekend joy has to come to an end. It's sad. Monday's are also my busy day at work so that's no fun at all. The day flew by with 5 classes and 2 phone calls at the end of my day. After work I headed home and did some Spanish stuff before I just passed out.
Tuesday - Gym in the morning and then off to work. Nothing too exciting at work this week except for the fact that some of our co-teachers have moved classes so I had some new teachers and that created a bit of extra work for me but nothing too bad. After work I didn't do anything. I live too far away from everyone else to do stuff, it sucks sometimes and other times I like it that way.
Wednesday - Gym in the morning and then work again. Wednesday's are my favorites because I only have 2 80 minute classes and so much free time that I don't even know what to do with myself. I also got my first pay stub on Wednesday! Yay! I must say, it's pretty cool to be paid in millions! haha. We also had to work 2 holiday's this month so I got an additional 100,000 won! Altogether it turned out to be a pretty nice pay check and I am going to try to save the majority of it.
Thursday - Gym in the morning and then I headed over to Susung branch for work. Thursday was the official payday when our money gets deposited into our accounts so everyone was in a fabulous mood. I was pretty lenient with my classes too. I like almost all of my students but there's one or two that I would love to just have kicked out of school! After work I decided to skip TND this week to hang out with one of my other friends named Jon. We grabbed pizza downtown and it was delicious!
Friday - I skipped the gym in the morning because I just couldn't pull myself out of bed! It was pitiful! I headed into work, the day seemed to creep by so slowly and right before it was over I got an email from our boss saying that he needed to talk to Brendan and I. So, at 10 we headed to his office only for him to be at the other branch so we had to call him up on the phone and that is when he told us that the Beommul branch that I live by and work at is closing down due to the fact that the lease is up on the building and they think it would just be best to move all the teachers over to Susung. So, I will also be moving. Now, this is obviously a little bit of an inconvenience to me considering the fact that I have been here for like a month and I will have had to move twice within two months! I'm a little annoyed but at the same time, I'm happy to be back on the subway line and closer to the other foreign teachers. I will no longer have to pay 10 dollars for a cab ride home every-time I want to go out after work! It's exciting.
The downside is this...They gave Brendan the option of staying in Jisan, where we live now, or finding him an apartment in Susung closer to the school and they just flat out told me that I would be moving back to Manchon. I was excited about the move until they told me this. I do not want to move back into Manchon. Compared to where I live now, Manchon is like living in a closet and I would still have to take the subway to work everyday! Plus it's like living in a college dorm with people that live in the same building always knocking on my door and what not. Ugh, annoying. So I decided, after talking to Karissa and the other foreign teachers, that I was going to ask them to find me a different place too! It's only fair, even if they do favor guys here. lol It was alot of excitment within a short amount of time. It has it's downsides and it's upsides. I'm sad that I will have to find another gym and the fact that i finally know my way around here and now I have to leave! The move will be official on the 17th of July but I will probably be moving sometime before that. After working I got invited to do a couple of different things but instead just decided to stay home because I had to be up early the next morning to go to Costco! BTW, the World Cup officially started on Friday! WOO HOO! I'm so freaking excited for this! I am backing Spain all the way because I think they have one of the best teams in the world. I am also in favor of Portugal, Brazil, and Germany....in that order! All have great teams and it's going to be interesting to see who ends up in the final together. I think that soccer players have the best bodies of all athletes and this is one of the main reasons that I have started following this sport, plus, it's so much better than American football and all the other professional sports that are out there these days...So yea, if your a fan, let's hear who you are supporting! I'd love to know!
Saturday - I had to get up at 8:30 in order to meet everyone at 10:00 to go to Costco. I was going to pick up a few things for Brendan so I met him around 9:20, took out some money and caught the bus to meet everyone else. We taxied it to Costco and I was so excited when we got there! We started out on the bottom level where all the stuff is that isn't food. I didn't really get to look around much because I was with 3 other people and I felt really rushed. I did get a normal size bath towel though so I was pretty stoked about that! Here in Korea they only use towels the size of hand towels back home to dry off with when they get out of the shower. It is beyond me why they do this, I think it's strange and I don't see the point in depriving yourself of a luxurious bath towel if you don't have to! I think it's silly. I need normal towels, I like to be able to wrap up in a towel when I'm done with my shower!
After looking around in the home goods area we headed upstairs to the food. It was sample day but I didn't have time to try much like I said, I felt rushed. Overall we were there for about an hour or two, we shopped and then we had lunch at the cafe which was really good. We all spent a total of 360 dollars and each time I spend money I get a certain percentage of that back at the end of the year. So anytime someone wants to go to Costco and use my card I'm okay with it! Everything comes in bulk at Costco so I ended up with a substantial amount of things...here's what I got: Egg-o waffles, honey nut cherrios, fiber one bars, pace salsa, slices of smoked salmon, slices of turkey breast, a huge block of colby jack cheese, 6lb. bag of veggies for my lunch, and a 4lb. bag of trail mix! I saw so much stuff that I wanted but I'm just going to have to go back another time when we aren't in such a rush.
After I got back from Costco I headed to the gym, I love going to the gym on Saturday's because I'm never on a time limit so I always get the best workout. Got home around 5, showered, and then headed over to meet up with everybody to go to Druyu park, the huge park here in Daegu, to watch the South Korea vs. Greece match! We arrived at the park about 30 minutes before the game started and it was absolutely packed! There had to be, and I'm not even exaggerating, at least 20,000-30,000 Koreans there! It was insane! We couldn't even get close enough to see the huge TV screens. Honestly, you would have thought that we were going to a live sporting event the way that people were acting. They are really backing their team here and I think that's great. It was very exciting just to be there in that crowd. The game was obviously in Korean so not only could we not see the TV's but we also couldn't even understand what was going on...haha it was a bit of a waste and we probably should have watched it in a bar but nonetheless, it was a good time. Afterwards we had Galbi, or Korean BBQ nearby before heading home and calling it a night. We were all too exhausted from getting up early to stay out late.
Sunday - I got up around 11 and realized that I had no reason to be up so I went back to bed and got up again around 1:30. lol Sunday is my day of rest. After I got up I decided that I was going to go downtown and do a little shopping before I had to meet up with everyone for dinner. I found this great store called Basic House and they actually had clothes that fit me! I've been having trouble finding things that fit right. Here in Korea, the women do not have boobs and a butt so everything is like a "one size fits all" kinda deal and it literally does. Unfortunately for me..this isn't going to cut it. I need clothes for curves and this store just happened to have normal stuff! I was pretty excited and I ended up finding a skirt that I really liked. I bought it and then I later bought a shirt to go with it! After my shopping adventure I met up with the majority of the other foreign teachers and one of our Korean co-teachers. (his name is Soo-jin and he went to school and lived in texas for 10 years so he's very Americanized, it's great) We had decided about 2 weeks ago that we were going to get together the first Sunday after payday and go to this western place where you can BBQ! So, we arrived, and we ordered this huge platter of meats and stuff and then had a cook-out! Each table is equipped with it's own grill, an actual grill. It was sweet. We had squid, steak, shrimp, duck, chicken, pork, sweet potatoes, smoked salmon, roasted chestnuts, veggies, and of course no meal would be complete without some Korean salad! Everything was delicious! We will definitely go back . After dinner us girls headed downtown to do a little more shopping, we also grabbed a Coldstone Creamery ice cream and then had bag drinks later. We called it an early night and headed home around 11:30.
So one thing about Korea is that they have TV's in almost all their cars AND buses here! Talk about a distraction! If you think cell phones in America are bad...try having a TV in your car! Haha, so all of the taxi's have them of course and on the way back in the cab I was watching the World Cup while sipping my bag drink! Life doesn't get any sweeter than this! Someone is chauffeuring you around while you drink a martini in a bag and watch the World Cup! Life at this moment was grand! It was ruined when I was exiting the cab and accidentally spilt more than half of my drink the floor of this guy's cab! AH! I felt so horrible because he didn't even try to rip me off! I tried to say I was sorry but it just wasn't happening in Korean, but the good news is that he just waved his hand and basically said no worries! I was so relieved! After getting home I of course checked all the updates on the World Cup for the day, made my predictions for the next round of games and headed to bed.
Monday - I went to the gym in the morning and then headed to work. Like I said earlier, mondays are always my busiest day at work so I don't enjoy them. I got most of my grading done quickly and I had sent an email to my boss about my new living situation. He eventually called me into his office and I calmly and rationally explained to him that I would like the same option as Brendan was given to move closer to Susung and explained to him my reasons and why I did not want to live at Manchon. Long story short he said that he would see what they could do....I'm not sure if this means they are going to look for a place for me or what? Hopefully they do though because if not then I'm going to keep complaining until I get my way! After that discussion I proceeded with my classes and as my day was coming to an end I learned that 2 of the teachers, Robin and Karissa, had gotten into trouble for using the internet for personal use. So then we all got an email telling us that we are not allowed to use the internet for personal use, we are not allowed to use the printers at work for personal use (even if it's to print out one thing), and we are not allowed to have our MP3 players out at work listening to them. lol I just laughed out loud when I got this email...seriously...that's the dumbest thing, but whatever...rules are rules I guess. I'll follow them because I'd like to keep my job.
Tuesday - Today I didn't do much before work, I went to the gym and bought some awesome whole grain oat bread at the Dong-A department store. Work was pretty boring...most of my classes were good except for the last one. It's been predicted that we are going to lose some of our students in the move and I honestly wouldn't mind losing my last class! Haha, they are a group of those stubborn teenagers that think that everything you do is "uncool and lame." How did I get stuck with this class? I hate them probably as much as they hate me! Whatever..I laid out the rules and they have to follow them...and if they don't..I'll enjoy every minute of punishing them..! After work I came home and actually turned on my TV for like the second time since I've been here! I finally located the World Cup on some sports channel and even though it's in Korean and I can't understand what they are saying..I can still tell what's going on in the game. So, my day was made whole by this. I probably won't turn the TV off now until July 11th! I love World Cup fever...I'm so into this year!
Side-notes:
- I have been diligently practicing my Spanish! I love it!
- Did you know that Samsung makes cars? A NICE car at that however, they do not export them!
- I found the one place that you can buy English magazines here. I wanted to get Travel and Leisure but it was 17 dollars! No thank you! - Crazy! Someone mail me one please!
- I want to go to the Philippines and Thailand but I'm too poor, at least for this vacay..I hate student loans, they might be the death of me...I wonder what would happen if I just didn't repay them? Could they take me to jail? Will I have to hide out here forever?
- It is very quiet here on the trains and on the buses. I was told there's like this unwritten rule that you don't talk on the trains, subways, or buses. It's creepy..I don't like the silence...this makes me reflect back on my train rides in Spain...always conversation, always song, always dance..I miss it!
- I bought some spa stuff, like face masks and an under-eye treatment thing the other day...I tried them out..and they work! They are crazy about their skin care here, there are so many products to choose from, it may take me a year just to try them all!
- They drive with absolutely NO CAUTION here in Korea...they are crazy drivers...if anyone thinks Europe is bad..you should check out Korea...they drive without even thinking that someone might be around the corner..no possibility at all! I'm surprised there aren't more accidents. I know pedestrians get hit a lot and if someone even TRIES to run me down with their car I'm going to beat the hell out of them if I am still standing! haha
- Something else I've realized this week...We all stereotype..it's just what we do as humans...but, I discovered this week just from teaching that we actually learned how to stereotype in school. It's inevitable.
- Most days here in Korea...I feel like I'm living in a world of gay men and high class women. All of the men here are extremely feminine...and I mean..to the extreme's worse than Europe..except here..being gay does not exist whereas, the majority of the flamboyant ones in Europe are 50/50, straight or gay. They carry nicer handbags than me, wear tighter pants than me, and use more products in their hair than I do! It's just gross..I am completely repulsed by the majority of Korean men...it's sad...The women here are equally as crazy. They all wear high heels everywhere they go..to the grocery store, in the pouring rain, to the SOCCER GAME at the PARK of all places where there are dirt paths! In fact, while hiking I do recall seeing a couple of girls in heels. They are also crazy about their sun umbrella's here. Koreans refuse to let any light penetrate their bodies. They will wear turtlenecks and pants and visors even when it's 90 outside and THEN, in addition to all that, they will also carry around their annoying sun umbrellas and they will just hit you in the face with them and then keep on walking. I'd like to slap these *****. Don't these people know that you NEED 15-20 minutes of direct sunlight a day to get enough Vitamin D? The sun can be good for you in moderation. In western culture..we think tan and golden is beautiful but here they think that being as white as a ghost is attractive. They even have moisturizers and skin creams to help bleach your skin and keep it it's whitest! Crazy! I wonder if that's what Michael Jackson was using? lol Just wondering...
- They also do not sell normal size brooms here. They only sell short brooms, you can't buy a normal one at the store. Trust me, I've checked 6 different stores. I'm just going to go ahead and throw something out here...I think that I'm putting two and two together when I say this... I've noticed that the majority of old women here are hunchbacked...like bent all the way over..and I'm just taking my best educated guess when I say this..I think this is because they have been sweeping their floors all these years with brooms that are too short for them! Maybe, if they would have thought to make the handle longer..they wouldn't be in this positon...literally!
Oh Korea...this week you and I have not seen eye to eye on everything.....I hope this week is better so that I don't have to buy my own sun-umbrella to take people out with.....
Annie
