Day 2

Ok, I have to admit, I’m a bit stressed out that I’ve been here 36 hours and the only person I’ve seen since arrival is my director yesterday. And that was only for 30 minutes. My first day at work is tomorrow so that will definitely help but I guess this is the truest test of whether or not I can make it here on my own. This is definitely not for everyone.  If I hadn’t brought Charles I would have lost my mind by now. The blogging is definitely going to slow down once I get my internet set up and start work but right now I haven’t got much else to do.

Today I decided to do a little exploring.  I chose the traditional way-pick a direction, walk straight, and for the love of God don’t turn any corners.  I ended up covering quite a bit of area today.  There is a 24 hr KFC in the next building over and the line was out the door!  There is a Starbucks right across the street from me but this was my first time seeing it.  How do you order a tall non-fat vanilla chai latte in Korean?  I didn’t stop because I’d hate to embarrass myself and then not be able to go back. I think there is an 8 coffee shop per block minimum here. 7/11’s  are everywhere and being Sunday morning there were flyers all over the sidewalks and streets from the night before. I also walked back to my school, I wanted to make sure I would be able to find it tomorrow. My main goal was to find a grocery story but to no avail.  I eventually just went to my GS 25 mart (a different location than yesterday) for more drinks and bought a sandwich for lunch at the Paris Bistro across the street. This really is a neat city. 

The money here is really easy to figure out so that helps.  $1 US dollar is essentially equal to 1,000 Korean won.  A little more actually but that’s easy math.  A bottle of water is 700 won or about $.70.  A loaf of bread is 2200 won or about $2.20.  Really closer to $2.00 but easy math is better when shopping.

Children everywhere either stare at me or yell out an enthusiastic “hello!”  I can’t blame them, the last blonde person I saw was Anna at the airport two days ago. I am definitely the minority here. 

I think I will go practice my Rosetta Stone… I need to work on my Korean.  It’s still non-existent.

*****

Update from Sunday night.

This place rocks.  After a two hour Skype call with Allison (I don’t have internet yet but magically Skype works…go figure) I decided to venture out again to go find dinner.  I chose a new direction than this morning and quickly noticed just how far American culture has traveled.  Across the street from the KFC is a Dunkin Donuts. Next block over is a Krispie Creme. Upstairs from that is Papa Johns.  I feel like there was one more but it’s not coming to mind right now. I peered down an alley and I saw a word that I know very well…CUPCAKES.  Stellar.  I bought three.

Green Tea, Tiramisu, and Lemon Cheese. 

I think cheese and cream might be interchangeable here because they also had a cookies and cheese cupcake.  The very nice man working there gave me a free chocolate chip cookie.  Double stellar. I still hadn’t had dinner so on my way back I thought, “let’s just make this easy.”  I really don’t eat fried chicken but KFC seemed easy enough at the moment and Charles would love some chicken too.  Inside I met a man named George.  George is from Vancouver and has been teaching in Korea for  6 years, currently in Daegu. We spent the next two hours talking about everything.  It was so nice to have someone to talk to. After dinner we went to get coffee at Krispie Creme and he taught me how to say “hello” in Korean.  Yay, my first real word. :)

Moral of the story…

I’m going to be just fine here! (and after KFC and a mocha latte, I think I’ll save the cupcakes for tomorrow.)