I'm not sure when I'll post about my neighborhood but the quick version is, I live in the North West corner of Gwangju. I live in a newly developed upscale area of Gwangju where almost everything was built in the last 5 or so years. So my neighborhood is not what you (or I) envisioned when I thought of Korea. But I like it, a lot. It means I don't live in a nasty moldy old apartment. It's small, but it's clean and nice. Most of the apartment complexes here are tall 20 something story buildings. In the video, all the really tall thin buildings you see out the window...are all apartments. I live in a 3 story building. The bottom floor is a pork restaurant (who doesn't love pork?!) and then above it is two floors of apartments. It's small, it's quaint, and I couldn't be happier with what or where I ended up.
Sunday, February 24, 2013
I love my Shoebox.
I'm not sure when I'll post about my neighborhood but the quick version is, I live in the North West corner of Gwangju. I live in a newly developed upscale area of Gwangju where almost everything was built in the last 5 or so years. So my neighborhood is not what you (or I) envisioned when I thought of Korea. But I like it, a lot. It means I don't live in a nasty moldy old apartment. It's small, but it's clean and nice. Most of the apartment complexes here are tall 20 something story buildings. In the video, all the really tall thin buildings you see out the window...are all apartments. I live in a 3 story building. The bottom floor is a pork restaurant (who doesn't love pork?!) and then above it is two floors of apartments. It's small, it's quaint, and I couldn't be happier with what or where I ended up.
Day 1: Lost in Translation
So I've been without internet for a few days, so I am behind on my blogging and picture posting, so bare with me and I will start getting out all the blogs and pictures floating around as quickly as possible without overwhelming you. So it seems appropriate to start with Day 1 in Korea.
The flight wasn't too much to write home about. It was nice enough and I ended up with an aisle seat which made life a little easier on such a long flight. Other than spilling my water on the girl next to me or my smoothie on my luggage which dried looking like pink vomit...the trip wasn't real noteworthy. So after 19 hours on two planes, I arrived in Seoul at 6:30pm and then after a long bus nap I arrived in my city at midnight.
My boss (American) and the director picked me up and checked me in to a love motel in town where I dropped my bags. My boss was then going downtown to meet up with a few of the teachers at my school for the Thursday trivia night at local pub foreigners frequent and invited me along. My nap on the bus suggested that it was best to go along and meet other people. Skip ahead to 3am and my boss drops me off in front of my motel in a taxi and then drives off to go home. (It should be noted that at the love motel, you don't leave with the key. You lock the door behind you and turn the key into the office where they hold it for you until you return) So I was instructed to just tell the man "702" and my key will be given back. This seems easy. It wasn't, but I didn't know that then. So I walk in, tell the man "702" and make a key turning gesture and he asks me in Korean for 30,000kw. We proceed for the following 30 minutes to play a game of charades where I try to communicate "I just need a key, my bags are upstairs in room 702, which is already paid for" and he tries to communicate "I don't know who you are and don't have a key for you". So when charades didn't work, I tried Pictionary. With paper and pen tried drawing a key and before I drew anything else it just looked like a big penis. Really it did. And at a love motel, at 3am I don't know that I want to be communicating "I'm here and I need penis". I just want a key so I can go to sleep. So then we decide I should show him. So I take him to the 7th floor and point at the door. He then buzzes the door and I hear a man's voice. So I quickly motion. "no, no, no...this isn't it. Can't be it. No one is in the room i'm trying to get to". At this point, my phone was dead, I had no written phone numbers for my school staff and fear started to creep in and I heard the voice of everyone back home saying "This is what I warned you about" as I started thinking I may just have to pay $30 to sleep in a room without my bags and try to find a way to contact someone from my school the next day.
So we go back downstairs and I take out the business card I was given (to show the taxi driver in Hangul where I was staying) and his face lights up. He walks me outside and points to the door next door. Both doors look identical and both lobbies are small and unremarkable. I motion "thank you" and next door I go. I start prepping myself for another game of charades and hopefully penis free key drawings when I open the door and the man behind the desk looks up, smiles, and hands me my key. No words, just hands me the key I just spent 30 minutes trying to force out of the kind man next door. I was happy to be home (even if home was just a love motel with a brick hard bed).
So the moral of the story is, specify which door before getting out of a taxi in an unknown place. Don't draw body parts on paper in hopes that it will clarify anything...it only make's your situation more confusing, and while they have almost not English proficiency, most Korean's are pretty patient and attempt to be extremely helpful. So while my first night was spent lost in translation (literally), it has made every day since seem that much easier. So I survived my first day in Korea, and you should all be very glad.
Since I've been here a few days I should have a blog coming with pictures of my apartment, school, and stuff from the weekend exploring the city.
Annyeonghi Gyeseyo,
Leslie
The flight wasn't too much to write home about. It was nice enough and I ended up with an aisle seat which made life a little easier on such a long flight. Other than spilling my water on the girl next to me or my smoothie on my luggage which dried looking like pink vomit...the trip wasn't real noteworthy. So after 19 hours on two planes, I arrived in Seoul at 6:30pm and then after a long bus nap I arrived in my city at midnight.
My boss (American) and the director picked me up and checked me in to a love motel in town where I dropped my bags. My boss was then going downtown to meet up with a few of the teachers at my school for the Thursday trivia night at local pub foreigners frequent and invited me along. My nap on the bus suggested that it was best to go along and meet other people. Skip ahead to 3am and my boss drops me off in front of my motel in a taxi and then drives off to go home. (It should be noted that at the love motel, you don't leave with the key. You lock the door behind you and turn the key into the office where they hold it for you until you return) So I was instructed to just tell the man "702" and my key will be given back. This seems easy. It wasn't, but I didn't know that then. So I walk in, tell the man "702" and make a key turning gesture and he asks me in Korean for 30,000kw. We proceed for the following 30 minutes to play a game of charades where I try to communicate "I just need a key, my bags are upstairs in room 702, which is already paid for" and he tries to communicate "I don't know who you are and don't have a key for you". So when charades didn't work, I tried Pictionary. With paper and pen tried drawing a key and before I drew anything else it just looked like a big penis. Really it did. And at a love motel, at 3am I don't know that I want to be communicating "I'm here and I need penis". I just want a key so I can go to sleep. So then we decide I should show him. So I take him to the 7th floor and point at the door. He then buzzes the door and I hear a man's voice. So I quickly motion. "no, no, no...this isn't it. Can't be it. No one is in the room i'm trying to get to". At this point, my phone was dead, I had no written phone numbers for my school staff and fear started to creep in and I heard the voice of everyone back home saying "This is what I warned you about" as I started thinking I may just have to pay $30 to sleep in a room without my bags and try to find a way to contact someone from my school the next day.
So we go back downstairs and I take out the business card I was given (to show the taxi driver in Hangul where I was staying) and his face lights up. He walks me outside and points to the door next door. Both doors look identical and both lobbies are small and unremarkable. I motion "thank you" and next door I go. I start prepping myself for another game of charades and hopefully penis free key drawings when I open the door and the man behind the desk looks up, smiles, and hands me my key. No words, just hands me the key I just spent 30 minutes trying to force out of the kind man next door. I was happy to be home (even if home was just a love motel with a brick hard bed).
So the moral of the story is, specify which door before getting out of a taxi in an unknown place. Don't draw body parts on paper in hopes that it will clarify anything...it only make's your situation more confusing, and while they have almost not English proficiency, most Korean's are pretty patient and attempt to be extremely helpful. So while my first night was spent lost in translation (literally), it has made every day since seem that much easier. So I survived my first day in Korea, and you should all be very glad.
Since I've been here a few days I should have a blog coming with pictures of my apartment, school, and stuff from the weekend exploring the city.
Annyeonghi Gyeseyo,
Leslie
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Testing, Testing, 1..2..
Unless you count Xanga (which I rocked by the way), I've never really had a blog. So this me figuring out how this works without the help of Julie, because Julie isn't going to Korea with me.
I leave in 48 hours and I have not put anything in a suitcase, my room is a mess, I have a long list of to do's that I need to accomplish, and I have a several important friends that I have to see before going as they are the one's that I need that "goodbye hug" from..yet everytime we're together I get the "don't worry, I'll see you again before you go". But not to worry...I'm perfecting my Pandora station, whitening my teeth, and figuring out how my blog works. So i'm multi-tasking, it's just not any of the tasks that really HAVE to be done before boarding the plane.
So this is my blog. I have no idea what is going to go on my blog, because I don't blog. Maybe pictures, maybe funny stuff I encounter in Korea, maybe deep stories that include a moral for the boys and girls reading. I'll figure it out. If you want to read it, be my guest. If you don't, I won't be hurt..I'm terrible about keeping up with blog posts from friends, so I will not question "why isn't anyone reading this", becuase I know why. It either needs to be about you, or it needs to be interesting. So it's possible eventually I'll rename my blog "Dear Mom.." as it's likely she'll be the only one to read it.
Time to do something more productive by my mother's standards. See ya in Korea!
I leave in 48 hours and I have not put anything in a suitcase, my room is a mess, I have a long list of to do's that I need to accomplish, and I have a several important friends that I have to see before going as they are the one's that I need that "goodbye hug" from..yet everytime we're together I get the "don't worry, I'll see you again before you go". But not to worry...I'm perfecting my Pandora station, whitening my teeth, and figuring out how my blog works. So i'm multi-tasking, it's just not any of the tasks that really HAVE to be done before boarding the plane.
So this is my blog. I have no idea what is going to go on my blog, because I don't blog. Maybe pictures, maybe funny stuff I encounter in Korea, maybe deep stories that include a moral for the boys and girls reading. I'll figure it out. If you want to read it, be my guest. If you don't, I won't be hurt..I'm terrible about keeping up with blog posts from friends, so I will not question "why isn't anyone reading this", becuase I know why. It either needs to be about you, or it needs to be interesting. So it's possible eventually I'll rename my blog "Dear Mom.." as it's likely she'll be the only one to read it.
Time to do something more productive by my mother's standards. See ya in Korea!
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