Hi Again! I'm back with a quick update in the midst of frantic final preparations for the start of classes next week. Best to all east or west of here and hoping this installment finds you well.
Last Sunday I was heading out for a short mid-day stroll (turns out that while the temperature is higher in the middle of the day the humidity is lower than the morning or evening so it's kind of a wash - equally miserable anytime - although now that I write that it seems a little harsh and over dramatic: maybe I'm adjusting) when I bumped into my across-the-hall neighbor and "lifestyle mentor" (a peer who has been around a while - in this case 5 years, though not all at this school - and thus knows the geographic and cultural ropes who is assigned by the school to help us newbies adjust) Eric, who has rapidly become a very good friend. In fact, I'd be lost (literally and emotionally) without him. He's an extremely patient and caring guy who is passionate about his desire to be the best 10th grade literature teacher he can be for his students and who not only knows how to request a cab and get into the shopping district and negotiate Home Plus and order lunch and get back to campus but also knows how to order stuff on the internet here and how to set up a VPN so you can watch Netflix. But that's really just scratching the surface of his many skills. Perhaps I can gush more about him later.
On Monday night Eric made me a delicious dinner of sauteed chicken and lentils and cous cous which we enjoyed while watching John Oliver and 30 Rock on his computer and tomorrow night he's organized a potluck dinner for any teachers who are interested. Many are in similar straights as myself which means they haven't got much in their kitchens and less in their refrigerators so it will be an interesting but welcome get-together. Eric and I both enjoy reading so we've had a good time discussing our favorite books.
I didn't do as good a job documenting our walk "downtown" last weekend as I'd intended and I think that's because my brain overheated at some point and I forgot to keep taking pictures. But here's what I got. If you're following along on Google Maps you can start by locating Cheongna Dalton School then the Home Plus just southeast of there and you can probably come pretty close to spotting the route we took around the bottom of the golf course then down along the top of the west side of the long north-south running park and across the middle of the lake on a bridge then along the east-west running canal to the Home Plus. I haven't been far from campus yet but so far it's much less exotic around here than I'd imagined. As I've mentioned to several folks in emails recently what I've seen of Korea so far is not much different than the US except suddenly I can't read, write, or speak the language and there are Korean people everywhere (at least off campus). Otherwise it could be downtown anywhere (anywhere that they only have tiny napkins - basically a square of toilet paper - and no public trashcans, that is).
Gotta get back to work so without further adieu I'll get to the pictures. Once again, best to all.
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| From the bridge crossing over the lake on our way downtown. |
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| All just different directions from the same place. |
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| Can you see the sweat glistening on my neck? I think my pores are getting a good cleaning-out. |
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| That's a different set of huge apartment buildings to the south. I haven't made it that far yet. |
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| Behind us here is where we were headed. |
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| Mitch, if you're out there, this one's for you! In the grocery store I mentioned to Eric I'd seen a can of Spam and Eric said that's nothing, they have Spam gift-baskets here and around the next corner what did we see? Indeed. 24,150 Won is roughly $24. Overall I would say that food prices are not particularly cheap here. Neither are any other prices I've seen, come to think of it. Happily I don't need much. And I don't need any Spam at all because I'm not canoeing with Mitch at the moment. |
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| By the time we were done shopping and had walked a little further east through the business district along the canal to find a place for lunch we were pretty beat. Eric apparently feels about as excited about having his picture taken as I do but he's a good sport. |
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| Appetizers. The small dishes are standard and include kimchi just to the right (Eric's left) of the larger central dish. |
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| The larger central dish is Kimbap (different spellings exist) which literally translates to "seaweed rice" (Kim = seaweed, Bap = rice) because of the seaweed wrapping and rice (with other stuff) filling. There are different types of kimbap depending on what you get inside, and yes, you can get Spam kimbap! In a different restaurant we'd gone to previously there had only been one thing written on the wall in English and it was apparently some sort of common saying, which translates to "So in the end we compromise and just get kimbap". Apparently this means that often someone wants one thing and someone else wants something else so they both give up and settle for kimbap (There is a lot of food sharing here). |
After this our main courses arrived but apparently I just tucked into that and forgot about taking any more pictures. But there wasn't much more to see anyway because we just caught a taxi back home with our shopping bags (a convenient excuse not to retrace our steps in the heat of the afternoon).
Until next time, I remain your intrepid sociological kayaker, Chris.
