Bus 39 to Nowhere, Sea Salt, and The Stairway to Heaven (my best day yet).

So I've been here almost 10 days and so far I've only posted my apartment and my mix up at the love motel.  There have been so many more things, and in my head I write blogs as I am experiencing new things, but I never seem to thing about it when I'm sitting at the computer.  But now I am, and so I will.

So we will start with last weekend. When I decided to move to Gwangju, I was put in contact with a friend of one of my best friends, who has been living in Korea for almost 4 years and lives in my city.  So they (Steven and Miranda) invited me to church, and instead of having to find it on my own (which I wouldn't have) they invited me to stay the night Saturday night and they'd take me Sunday to church and then show me around downtown afterward.  So we got on a bus Sunday morning and went to breakfast where I had some Korean version of sticky chicken fried rice that I thought was pretty good although I miss not being able to soak all my rice dishes in soy sauce.  We then took another bus to the church.

We got there a little early so we went up to see if they were having a prayer meeting we could join.  SO up the stairs we go, and round and round we went.  I learned during the journey up we were headed to the 6th floor, which I had already calculated as twelve turns as there were two sets of stairs between each floor.  When we got there, there was no one there.  So down we went down 6 floors and had a cup of coffee and back up we went.  I have never in my life climbed so many stairs for Jesus or anything else for that matter (11 up and 11down), but it was worth it.  I liked the church a lot.  There was a good mix of foreigners and Koreans and the service was all in English.  (yes, I secretly snapped a photo from the inside of my coat)

Afterward, I had the chance to meet a few really nice people before we went back down the stairs and back on a bus to downtown.  The bus seemed easy enough (which I later learned was a facade.)  Once downtown I was drawn a map, and shown where foreigners hang out, good places to eat, and then got the chance to take fun pictures of nasty Korean food and bad English signs (which I posted on FB).  We then ate lunch and it was the best meal I've had since I've been here.  (I couldn't get a good picture of it and we ate most of it before I thought to try and take a picture)It cleared out any sinuses I might have had as it was spicy, but it was super tasty and cooked at our table on this flat round skillet thing.  Not Genghis Grill style or anything crazy.

That evening we met up with two of their friends Damien (a Belgian) and his Korean wife Juhyang at a coffee shop to play some games.  What Damien failed to mention is that the game he wanted to play, all the cards were in Dutch.  But we played anyway, and I had a blast.  I drank coffee, ate a pastry, and played a Dutch game in a Korean coffee shop with a Korean, a Belgian, and a guy who lived in Arlington TX before moving to Korea. It was an all around great night, and hands down my favorite day start to finish.

So skip forward a week to this weekend.  Friday night I was told about a band playing at a local bar foreigners frequent by a coworker of mine.  I was told it was Korean Rockabilly and that the bass player played a stand up double bass.  I was sold, and so I went.  I took the taxi as I was running low on time and didn't want to be late. I saw a cowboy hat, two Gretsch guitars and an upright bass and suddenly didn't feel so much like I was in Korea.  I had a good night and turned in early by Korean standards hailing a cab at 2am. 

So today my one goal was to tackle the bus.  So I googled what bus I would take if I wanted to go downtown and found that the #9 and #39 should both get me there.  So I walked to the bus stop and the board showed that #39 would stop there and there were two other foreigners there which made me think I was on track to find downtown.  On the bus I learned that they were from South Africa just before they got off the bus as they were at their desired destination just a few stops from where we started.  So I listened to music, read my kindle, and road and road until no one was on the bus but me.

A few minutes later the bus stops and the driver starts talking.  They don't usually talk, so I gathered by context clues that since I was the only one on the bus that I had taken the wrong one and this was the last stop for that bus.  So I got off.  Bus 39 took me to nowhere (or the last stop before the bus transportation station) with nothing around that was open and I was the lone foreigner hanging out on a bus bench with no idea where I was going or what bus I would take to get me there.  So I walked.  I knew that worst case scenario I could put out my hand and taxi home, but I saw lights in the distance and knew a

neighborhood was nearby, so I decided to explore.  I still don't know exactly where I was, but at least what I found was a place with people, and open shops, and plenty of taxi's to get me home.  So I decide to eat something while in the area and found a little street stand and for $2 got two sticks of food.  One with some sort of meat and one with a potato thing on it rolled in some sort of chili powder.  Since it was only $1 a stick I considered some of the other mystery things but decided one stick per hand was plenty. 

So off I went through the streets of an unknown neighborhood with dinner in my hand looking at all the restaurants that had fresh seafood tanks in the front so you can either eat live octopus or have freshly cooked octopus (your choice I assume).  Once done, I grabbed a $4 taxi and went back to my neighborhood where I grabbed a pastry at one of the local bakery's.  It this soft bread thing with cream cheese inside and some nuts and grains on top. It's quite good. I was cold and thought that coffee, a pastry, and snuggled up with a movie sounded pretty delightful. Then I went by my new favorite little local grocery/corner store to buy coffee and one or

two groceries.  I wanted to try out my new rice cooker a girl from work gave me so I thought I'd grab a bag of rice and such to make dinner on Sunday.  When I got home, I realized that I had purchased a 3lb bag of sea salt.  I'm sure the man at the counter thought I was crazy for wanting that much salt. Maybe I'll find a recipe for a sea salt scrub or something.  If you have any ideas let me know.  Until then, I'll try a little harder to pay attention to the white stuff in the giant bag.  Who puts salt in a bag anyway?!

 

So my night was not exactly as I had expected.  I never made it downtown, I did not master the art of using the public transportation system, and I did not purchase anything I can cook for dinner Sunday. 

But I don't mind.  In Texas, I probably would have been frustrated and miserable.  But I'm not in Texas, I'm in Korea.  And the great thing about Korea is...I have no expectations.  Everything is an adventure.  So my goal was to learn to ride the bus and I did.  I learned a $1.20 lesson that I still don't get it and will try again.  I had a plan to roam downtown. Instead I found my way out of nowhere to a different neighborhood that I got to explore while eating my $2 dinner of meat and potatoes.  So tomorrow I will pay $10 to take a taxi to church so I actually get there, and will take another $1.20 shot at trying the bus back home.  Until then, I'll happily stay at home, drink coffee, have a piece of pastry, and fall asleep watching a movie on Netflix. 

I love my Shoebox.

 

So after one night of the love motel I was moved into my apartment.  Here most apartments are one room studio apartments and therefore often referred to as a shoebox.  So since many of you want to know where I'm living, so I made a video of my apartment.  I was too lazy to perfect it so you got the first shot of the day.  I am still waiting on a few other things to be delivered as I currently have nothing to eat, drink, or cook with (so don't drink my orange juice) and my room is missing a little furniture still, but I am okay with that.  When I dropped off my bags I didn't even have a bed as the company hadn't delivered my new bed.  Then it didn't have a comforter until my boss and his wife went down the street and bought one.  (note the pink chosen for me).  So at this point, I'm cool with the basics as I get settled in and figure out how I will decorate my walls, how I will cover or disguise my pink bed (currently flipped over for a less pink look), and all that lies in between.  If you have any suggestions...I'd love to hear them.  Welcome to my home in Suwan Jigo, Gwangju, South Korea. 

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

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!