Broadcasting From the Future!

09/03/02
That's how we type the date here. It's approximatly 2pm here. I have a couple hours to kill. Il-kyu (my co-teacher) told me that this is free time for me, so I figured it's time to start typing up some stuff for our blog. I have no idea when I'll actually get to put this up (Mel has all the login and password data) , but I can start typing it now.

So, let start with the flight. It was long. Sooooo long. You know what though? Best flight ever. There were little tvs in the back of the seats. I watched several movies. They fed us twice and the food was quite good. There was also a couple beverage distributions inbetween meals. For lunch it was beef roast and they gave me wine. :D Dinner was chicken or pasta. I believe the side was kim chee. We're still not sure though. It was kind of like cole slaw with a little undercurrent of horseradish. Hard to describe. So the flight passed by pretty quickly. Very little turbulance, nothing exciting to report.

We landed. Customs was quick and painless. Then came luggage pickup. Oh boy, we're trying to negotiate four suitcases and two large carryons. We went to meet the gentlemen who was waiting with our cats. I don't know how he didn't laugh. Luggage carts are free. We didn't even look because at most American airports they cost money and we had no Korean change. Ha! So the cats were alive and went through fine.

So, we emerged into the terminal. No sign of anyone to pick us up. So we wait. And wait. Nothing. Mel wanders to the other gates to check around. Nothing. I also make the wander and still nothing. We're frustrated and confused. We have no numbers to call. Finally Mel had a breakthrough. She got some cash (korean) from the ATM. She then went up to the internet cafe and got the phone number of our contact in Korea. A call was placed, some hijinx ensued, and we finally met up with our driver.

Korean drivers are crazy. Seriously, don't drive here ever.

We made it home to our apartment. Both Mel's and my coteachers are there to meet us. Mel's coteacher seemed to bring along a cadre. There were four people from her school. Or maybe they were just friends of the coteacher. I don't know. They were nice enough. Il-kyu and I did a couple paperwork type items while Mel and some of that crowd ran to the store. Eventually we got to settle down and sleep.

There's probably some more excitement I could expand upon in that first night, but it eludes me at the moment. I suppose I will allow Mel to cover that.

So, let's talk differences. Sure, I'm betting there's a lot of obvious ones that most of you expect. Nothing shocking in the fact that everyone speaks korean. How about the keyboards? Most of them have a key that alternates the type between korean and english. That's fun before you figure it out. Beds. So our bed's "matress" is a bit odd. I'm pretty damned sure that it's actually just a box spring. My school doesn't appear to have western toilets. In the boys bathroom there is a couple urinals and two stalls that contain items that I've affectionally heard called "squatters" by foreigners. I have no idea how one uses these and I am counting on having at least one nightmare while I fall in poop. Soju! Soju is the local liqour. It's cheap and readily available. It also tastes like rubbing alcohol. Seriously, just like rubbing alcohol. No, I haven't ever tasted rubbing alcohol, but I'm more than sure that it tastes like soju. There's tons more differences, but that's enough for now. I tire of typing and wish to move onto something else. Bye!