Little Differences: November 30, 2010

Here is another post that has been floating in draft status since November! Opps! Enjoy!

November 30, 2010

I just got home from work and immediately had to take a shower as there was another breakout of lice! Gross! The shower situation made me think about the little differences here.

For those of you who saw the pictures before I left, the shower is a hose straight from the sink in the bathroom directly next to the toilet. Basically you shower where you pee. No joke. Thank goodness I got pictures before I came out here so I knew what I was getting into. The whole experience can be a challenge since you have to turn off the water to put the shampoo and conditioner in your hair. You also have to shut off the water to lather yourself up as well. Needless to say it can get a little chilly especially when it's so cold out. It's 25 degrees Fahrenheit outside ride now. I forgot to mention that you have to set the hot water thermostat at least 10 minutes before you want to shower so the water can warm up. Did I tell you that bath towels in Korea are actually hand towels? I'm not kidding. I guess they just like to air dry or maybe it is because hot water is so expensive that it is cheaper to wash hand towels. I'm not really sure of the reason. I know that on average they may be a little smaller but not the difference between a hand towel and bath towel. Luckily I send over some bath towels before I left because they don't even sell bath towels.

Another little difference is that all cars have the right of way, even during a walk sign! Crosswalks seem to be a suggestion or sometimes a target zone. Today on my way to work I was almost mowed down by a bus and a runaway delivery truck. On my way home, I just got out of the way of a car that whipped around the corner from my house. Once you step into crosswalk you better keep your eyes and ears on all angles of the road. Plus you are always dodging and weaving around food delivery scooters that run red lights, no matter what.

A funny little difference is that although there might not be many western restaurants near me, there are three pizza places within one block of my apartment. The strange thing is that they put corn on all the pizzas. I am just assuming that it is suppose to help digest the cheese, since it is used sparingly.

That is just a few to name today!

Artholics Anonymous December 1, 2010

This has been sitting in my drafts since December, so I thought I would at least publish it! 

December 1, 2010: 

I sit here during the 3rd night of a weekly “Artholics Anonymous" party. An evening of foreign teachers in my dong (neighborhood) gathering to work on art projects, poetry, blogs, or whatever we fancy. In my package from home I received taco seasoning so I whipped up some ground beef and chicken tacos. As I was cooking the meat I realized that I may not have any artistic talent but with my love for event planning and passion for entertaining, I think my art will be cooking! Nothing fancy of course but hopefully a tasty alterntive to Korean food. It is going to motivate me to research recipies as well as provide guinea pigs for sampling the creations. I want to figure out how to make some desserts also, but that is going to be difficult without an oven. So far on my list of desserts I have a banana, peanut butter and chocolate milkshakes. I would try for chocolate chip cookies in the toaster over but I have yet to find chocolate chips at the store. Another reason to go to Costco, hopefully this weekend! 

Catching up . . .

Okay time needs to slow down! I can’t believe that it has been so long since I’ve posted! Well, let’s try to catch up!

I’ll work backwards.

I am currently on riding the speed train to Seoul for my training that I was suppose to have when I first got here, but there have always been schedule conflicts. It should be interesting but I will be working all weekend, since the training is Saturday and Sunday.  There is no such thing as missing work for training, so you are expected to fit into your “free time” on weekends. This comes from the fact that kids go to school 6 days a week and for 12 hours between the various types of schools: Korean school, math school, English school, science school, etc. It is crazy and the poor kids are so burned out because they have no time to just be kids!

Enough about that. Everyone would rather read about my trip to Beijing for Chinese New Year! Yeah, that’s right I was in China for Chinese New Year! Let me tell you that it was the best time to go, at least I thought so!

Shortly after I returned from my brief trip back to the States (another story for another post, promise) I found out that most of my friends were going to Beijing for our big holiday break (Lunar New Year or as they call it here Solar and Chinese New Year in China.) We had 3 days off for a five day weekend. Luckily, I was able to find someone to book with me to keep the costs down by sharing rooms and so we had an even number of people in our group.

As some of my friends know, when it comes to leisure travel, I do not like organizing anything! Luckily I have great friends and people in my life to help with that! This trip was no exception. Thanks to one of our friends, Mitchell, he organized everything. But it would not have been possible if it weren’t for Lauren and Andrew telling us all about the tour in the first place!

Anyway, the travel agency handled everything from getting our visas, airfare, hotel, bus, tour guide, etc. It was awesome. All I had to do was email my reservation request and transfer my deposit (also another story for another blog, but I will say I wish it was that easy in the States). Then I had to send my passport to the travel agency to get my visa. Yes, you have to get a visa to visit China and for Americans it is a little pricey,  $200. Most other foreigners from other countries only paid $50.  But it was worth it!

The tour was departing from Busan airport, which is south about 3 hours by bus from Daejeon. I was excited because our flight didn’t leave till Thursday so a group of us decided to go down a day before and explore Busan a little. The only bummer is that because everyone is off those three days, travel can be a nightmare. All transportation gets booked way in advance so finding seats on trains, planes or buses can be near impossible if you wait. Our group had to take the bus, which we were anticipating to take between 5 – 7 hours because we heard that all the roads are basically at a standstill. We got lucky and it only took under 4 hours. There was a little of scare when Emily, who had my ticket woke up late that morning and just made it on time. But all was good once we were on the bus. We played most of my games on my i-phone: Jeopardy, trivial pursuit, price is right, battleship, family feud, etc. It was great. Once we got to Busan we took the subway to the beach to find a hotel for the night. We got lucky again and found a really cheap place (less than $10 per person) only a few blocks from the beach! (Mind you that it was cheap because we had to sleep on the floor, but I did sleep great that night surprisingly).

As soon as we walked around Hundae, I felt like I was back in San Diego, with the exception of the weather being just a little cooler (like 20-30 degrees) and Koreans walking around. The area was awesome and made me wish I had taken a job down there, especially since it is the second largest city in S. Korea and has tons more foreigners than Daejeon! We even found a Mexican food restaurant a block from our hotel! We first went to the beach, then we went straight for Mexican food! We stayed there for 3 hours playing trivial pursuit and eating! The only bummer was the new waitress forgetting to give us two beers, then being charged for them and arguing with the owner about it. 

We then decided to go check out Busan tower. It was then I found out that my camera decided to crap out on me! The brand-new thing has a faulty screen! Thanks to everyone allowing me to photo hog their cameras. 

Once we got to Busan Tower, I was going to have a really hard time going up it. Damn fear of heights, which will get me again later on the trip. But I toughened up and got in the elevator but once I got out at the top, I had to stay up against wall, I could only get half-way to the window. After we came down we took some pics of the light-up heart, pad locks, and scenery. Then we stumbled upon a photo screen and all hell broke loose! I think we spent at least an hour taking pics of the 5 of us and messing with the settings, but it was so much fun!

After that we headed back to our hotel. But poor Michelle hadn’t eaten so we scoured the area to find a place to eat.  At first we were going to grab a pizza and chill on the beach but we couldn’t find one. We did, however, find an Indian restaurant that stayed open just for us and we indulged in delicious Indian dishes!

Even though our bellies were quite full we weren’t quite ready to head back to our hotel. So we ventured out to the beach again. It was great and reminded me of the many times I would go to the beach at night back home. We danced around the tide and did silly jumps in the sand for photos. The best part was having a Korean woman charge for Emily and I screaming in Korean and the two of us trying desperately to avoid her only to find out that Mitchell and Michelle sent her to us! She was selling fireworks, so we had to buy some! It was so much fun shooting off fireworks on the beach!

It was back to the hotel shortly after this.

More to come . . .