Sunday, September 24, 2006

1st weekend

Well, usually when you move to a new place you don't expect to be very busy, simply because you don't know the area. That would be an incorrect assumption for moving to Seoul.

Saturday morning after I wrote Stephanie and I set off to find a bed for me. The director of our school gave us directions to a used store and off we went. The subway system here is so organized and easy to use. You even take different exits from the station, just so you can be on the right side of the street when you exit. There are often a lot of transfers to different lines (which are numbered and colored differently), but everything is really well labeled in Hangul (the characters of the Korean language) and then with the English spelling of the same name. There are also neighborhood maps in the subway stations.

Well, the first store had one single bed, but it was sold, and so because Stephanie and I both know NO Korean (except for yes, no, hello, and thank you), we tried to find out where another Recycle City was. The workers were very nice and circled the subway station we would have to get off at. We found our way there fine, but they also had no beds. We began talking to a lady about a bed (basically us finding the word "bed" in the our phrasebook), and she called another Recycle City and said they had beds. She gave us a little map of the store's location and sent us off again.

That was very nice, and so we set off, go to the station, and then walked the way we wanted to go to the Recycle City. Unfortunately we walked for quite a ways and didn't see anything, and so we tried to ask some people for help. "Asking people for help" really means pointing to something (like the store's business card we had), and looking confused. The first lady worked at a pharmacy store, but wouldn't give us the time of day (she held up her hand to Stephanie). The next lady pointed to her eyes because appararently she couldn't see well. A group of boys told to go straight, but we weren't quite sure if they knew what they were talking about because they had a heated discussion among themselves. We finally stopped at a gas station and three very nice men told us that yes, we needed to keep walking straight. We finally ended up at the Recycle City and found no single beds. So back to the subway we went, giving up.

We headed over to the area where my training is, and stopped at a Dunkin Donuts for a sandwich. Apparently Dunkin Donuts is all the rage here. Mood lighting, fancy places to sit and eat, lots of choices, very clean. Not like the Dunkin Donuts I know at home. We then went to the COEX mall, a huge underground shopping center that was packed with people. We tried to find a plug for my computer (successful), and speakers (unsuccessful). We had some frozen yogurt at a place called "Red Mango", and decided to head home.

We were so exhausted by the time we got home that we slept for two hours, got up to do some grocery shopping, and then came back home, where I promptly fell asleep. I think I have caught up on my jet lag.

Today we got up and went shopping at the local EMart for some more basic things- drying rack (no clothes dryer here!), trash can, more hangers, etc. We went over to the church where Stephanie went last week. They have an English service in the afternoon, and a small 20s group meets for it's own class-like time. Some of them are English teachers, and others are here for various reasons. There were about 10 or 12 of us. It was nice to be able to have two things in common with people: Christianity and English.

We went to service and then afterward we went with one of the guys from the church group, Eddie, to see about a power converter for my computer. I was thinking I needed something really special for it, and so Eddie took us to a store where he thought there might be one. He had this whole conversation with the clerk about it, but I finally decided that the plug I had bought on Saturday would probably work, considering my computer has a power adapter. I apologized to Eddie for making him do that for me.

Stephanie said she had been in that area before and thought there was a taco place, and it just happened to be a block or so away from the store we were at. The three of us headed over there to try and get some decent Mexican food. It certainly wasn't great, but I guess decent enough for whenever we have a Mexican food craving.

2 things I've noticed since I've been here:
-Apparently you walk on the left side of things. You know how if we were to walk somewhere, we'd go on the right side? They go on the left side. So as you face the escalators, you would enter on the left side. Funny, since they drive on the right side of the street.
-People here are really very nice. Saturday Stephanie and I stood looking at a map in the subway station. We weren't really lost, just trying to orientate ourselves and see the name of the station we were getting off at. A lady approached us and she spoke some English. She really insisted on helping us, and so we let her. She even pointed us to the right exit from the subway station. Also, people just really try to help, whether it's with directions or finding something in the store. It's quite awkward to ask for help, but they are willing to try and help.

For the videos I'm posting: If you have a faster internet, they'll work. If you don't have a faster internet- you should get it, because I don't think you'll be able to see them. Just press the little play button, and it should start playing when it's loaded.

The first one is of our apartment, and me and Stephanie being silly. The second one is of the busy street we were on tonight.



6 Comments:

At 8:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awesome to see your apartment. It is very cute - and you will have fun finding furnishings :-) Too bad, though, that we couldn't get the second video to play for some reason.
Hope your training week is off to a great start. We love you!
mom and dad

 
At 8:54 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Awesome to see your apartment. It is very cute - and you will have fun finding furnishings :-) Too bad, though, that we couldn't get the second video to play for some reason.
Hope your training week is off to a great start. We love you!
mom and dad

 
At 11:30 PM, Blogger AprilJoy said...

I can't believe where your stove is, that is awesome! I laughed so hard.

I dont know why I am still up, classes start tomorrow.. exciting, I know. Hope you find a bed. You could always just use an air mattress in the meantime, too.

I love your A/C unit, it does the cool thing that our microwave vent does and like you (or stephanie?) my dad thinks it's the coolest thing evah and likes to show it off to guests. I love weird people.

goodnight my dear, and tell Stephanie I said hellow!

 
At 11:32 PM, Blogger AprilJoy said...

oh, and you have the second video set to private.... so I'm like not on the "friend list" apparently. Or you just didn't know, but yeah...that's why it won't play.

 
At 6:36 PM, Blogger Sarah said...

Very nice! Love the tiny apartment. Can't imagine sharing it with someone else though. :o)

 
At 2:40 AM, Blogger Marcus said...

Dang it, I was planning on sneaking in to your apartment and putting saran wrap over the toilet seat, but since the camera looked away from the door code...

And I've now put up TWO blog posts. I'm a blogging freak.

 

Post a Comment

<< Home