Day one, need food!

Saturday, November 24^th, 2012

I woke up at 6am, which was a bit earlier than I anticipated.  With the time difference I was able to Skype a couple of friends back home.  I continued my cleaning, reviewed my books and starting writing this blog as I was anxiously waiting for all of my stuff to be delivered.  Although I had very little to eat at the apartment, I was still a little bit nervous for my first grocery trip and I did not want to miss the opportunity to collect my bags.   I finally realized I had the phone number to call baggage claim and called the number over Skype.  The woman told me they had been calling and calling the numbers I gave them.  Those numbers were again my recruiters, who were not answering their phones.  She said the bags could be delivered in the evening around 9pm.  I was meeting a family friend at 5pm so I gave them his number to contact. 

I went for a walk in the afternoon to explore my area.  They have little fruit and vegetable vendors on the side of the street to buy produce.  They also had little market stands on some streets.  The cars are pretty reckless here and some people ride their motorbikes on the busy sidewalk almost running into people.  It is actually a little bit scary crossing the road because they don’t give pedestrians the right of way.  There was not too much to see around my house but it was still interesting.  The giant fish they were selling on the side of the road were not appetizing to me.  I returned back to rest a bit before my meeting.  I did have a shower using the “hose” in the middle of the bathroom they call a shower.  It was not the best shower in the world, and having to air dry is never fun but it was definitely necessary, especially if my bags were not coming until the night.  My family friend called me before our meeting saying the airport had called and they were now not going to deliver my bags until the next morning.  Ugg, I was destined to another day with no clean clothes. 

My shower and yes the entire bathroom does get wet.  I have shoes to wear in the bathroom when the floor is wet.

Cleaned Kitchen!  That is a washing machine in my kitchen if you were wondering.

My lovely view

Scott meet with me at the metro and the first thing we did was find the closest grocery store!  The store was pretty big and similar to a typical western grocery store layout.  Man was it full!  There were Korean families running around everywhere, it was hard to navigate the chart.  They also had samples out in most sections.  I was able to buy pretty everything I would normally buy.  I didn’t buy much produce though because Scott told me it is better to get those from the markets.  The produce was super expensive at the grocery store too, around 10 dollars for a giant Korean pear or for 5 apples.  I found everything a bit expensive but that was probably because I bought mostly western food.   We taxied back to my apartment with the load and it was only around $2.50 for the cab.

After unloading the groceries, we took the metro back to the University area I was in the night before to have dinner.  We went to a Chinese restaurant and had chicken skewers.  Scott also brought me to some foreign bars where he knew some of the owners and I tried Korea beer for the first time.  It wasn’t as bad as people were describing it.  I met some of his co-teachers at the University he works for and some of his other friends who have all been in Korea for a while.  We even went to a birthday party in a private venue for a little while.  It was really interesting meeting all of these people who have worked and lived here for so long.  There was a very laid back atmosphere in the bars we went to and the last one had live music.  I took the last metro home but really enjoyed my night!

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