What i would give for a boring day!

Okay so life here is soooo busy. This is one of the first times I have been able to sit still lately because I am normally running around and doing different things all the time. Which is great right because I am not bored at all but all the fun and all the stress of work and other things are making me tired. Anyway I think I have easier times coming. Testing at my school is mostly over and we have Korean Thanksgiving soon so I get a few days off of work.

So I am starting to loose confidence in this blog because I am so bad at posting and even when I do post I feel like I cant communicate much.. if anything. The reasons for the bad communication is that I don't understand half of what I see over here myself, its just amazing or extrodinarely different. But hey, I think I will keep it going and just write what I can when I can.

Anyways hiking in Korea is a huge deal. Simply put the hiking here is the best and can you guess the age group that hikes the most? Nope! All the middle aged and older people are the ones who hike in Korea. Yeah how crazy is that? These aren't just normal hiking paths either, there is lots of scrambling and climbing. They are really hard and steep. Apparently the older generations for the most part don't watch much tv and they go on these unbelievably challenging hikes often.

I was truely amazed to see all the Korean middle aged and old people doing these really difficult hikes but there were also a few amusing things. If Koreans go hiking they have the gear. When I say the gear I mean they are decked out in the best hiking shoes, hiking pants, hiking shirts, hiking goggles, hiking sticks, hiking backpacks and more with all the best brand names and a full load on their backs. I am talking like REI top brand quality here. And not just a few people, every single person is in the best gear available.

Oh and when they get to the top of a mountain (yes I mean mountain, not like the little hills or little iron 'mountain' we have in poway) they throw down a picnic cloth and sit and have a picnic for an hour or so. And they dont just have a picnic, they have a huge Korean meal for their picnic. It is pretty amazing. And of course a huge korean meal always includes a green glass bottle or two of their favorite drink, soju.

Here is the picture album i made: http://picasaweb.google.com/drobison100/HikingKorea?feat=directlink

eeeeh I didnt mean to spend much time talking about the hike.. oh well.

Anyways what I really wanted to talk more about is my awesome Korean friends. I have made a lot of really great Korean friends through church and seeing them is always the highlight of my week. I am glad to have Christian influences again in my life and people I relate to really well.

They are the best and I am learing loads of Korean. I am finally able to start using it too because I know enough to ask where things are or just to make very very basic conversation. At church I have a good friend who is teaching me Korean and I teach her English. But the awesome thing is this weekend is Korean Thanksgiving so I have some time off work and we are going to go to a concert with one of the most famous music groups in Korea! Yeah and the president might be there! And it is a TV broadcast too! Yeah how awesome right? Well the group is called Girl's Generation but wait dont think I'm gay, the men here love them just as much as the girls do. Infact my elementry school students love them and so do older people. Music in Korea is much much much different than in the US. Middle school kids are normally into pop music and like the same music as their parents.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7mPqycQ0tQ&hl=ko



And then after that on Sunday it is the day of Thanksgiving (Chuesok) one of the pastors at the church is going to have me over to his house or maybe ther church or whatever for a thanksgiving meal! I can't wait. Maybe there will be a bunch of Koreans wearing the traditional clothes called hanbok's. Who knows? well I should probably blog about those after the fact.

Ok c ya, 안녕히 계세요

Church n' Friends!

I am soooo bad at blogging! Sorry about that. I thought since I now have internet I would get better but... hardly.

The main reason I suck at blogging lately is because I do non-stop studying! Yeah I totally planned on getting out of college and not studying much if ever again. But now I am studying because I actually want to! I really want to learn how to speak Korean but my skills are so basic still that the only thing I can do is look in books until I can get a handle of basic sayings. The progress is really really slow and sometimes rather disappointing because learning Korean is super hard but at least now I have really good motivation which I am about to tell you about.

So I have been looking for a church in Korea for quite some time and I thought finding a church here would be easy because there are so many people here that go to church and there are a pretty decent amount of churches here. I was very wrong. Finding a church is not easy at all because based on a Korean friend advice, many of the churches here are closer to cults and since I cant speak Korean I can't really tell the difference. And more than that, I cant read anything to find out when the service times are or where to go / what to do. It is all really confusing and really hard. Also another thing is, you never know if a church here would be accepting of a foreigner.

So now that you understand the struggle you should also understand how awesome it was when my friend Calvin who you can see in the last blog post invited me to go to his traditional Korean church with him. This was a huge undertaking for him because everything is in Korean at the church and he took it on himself to translate everything for me so I felt comfortable. He is really involved in the church so we went to all the services and he translated for them all and for most of the time inbetween. So he basically translated for me for over 5 hours. Yeah the guy is amazing.

The music was really good. Of course it was all in Korean but every other song I could recognize and I knew the English words to. For the Korean songs I can read Hanguel but I read too slow to follow along so I am really trying to study that this week. There was a few Korean songs that were beautiful and they really made want to speak Korean so I could sing too. Fortunately I had Calvin with me to tell me the meaning of the song. I would just hum along.

The people of the church were so accepting of me! I totally didnt expect people to be hospitable to a foreigner who cant speak their language and is invading their church. But everyone took the time to say hello to which I tried to say hello in Korean back and give them respect. Everyone gave me their names which I remember about 1% of because Korean names are still very new sounds to me; it is always very very hard to remember sounds youre not used to. Infact I must admit out of the 50+ people I met I only remember Calvin's Korean name and one other persons :( Yeah, I need to work on that. But everyone was really friendly and they wanted to speak with me if they could or speak through Calvin.



So to welcome me to the church they had me come up front at the end of the young adult service and they gave me a gift. It was a nice little bound booklet so I can write down any Korean I want to learn. They had me come to the front of the service and stand infront of everyone and they all prayed for blessing for me. It was sweet.

So at the end we had a small groups Bible study which Calvin also translated for me so I was able to stay very involved. It was really nice and it was based of the Purpose Driven Life. The people in the group were very kind and helpful. Infact I even met someone my age in the group! The first 22 year old I have met in Korea. I really really really really wish I could speak their langauge because I want to speak with them directly.




We are 22!!!!



I pray in time God will help me make that happen.

After church we went out for some really tastey food that the area is famous for and no, I have no clue of what the food's name is. Anyways check it out! Calvin took this picture secretly while I was eating.

Seoul!!!!

Okay I am back to posting! Sorry for the long delay, I was really sick for a while so I would just come to work and do my best to survive the day then go home and sleep until work the next day. Thank God that is over with.

But anyway I went to Seoul and it is such an amazing city. Really I only saw one small part of it but I think it is like the time square part of new york. So it was really fun.

I met a Korean friend there that I was hooked up with through another friend in the states and he was super cool. He showed me around and helped me when I took the wrong exit from the subway.

Oh! quick funny prestory. On my way to Seoul after work I hopped on the subway but I left at like 7pm so the subway starts closing down cars after rush hour. Everything is in Korean so I have no clue that my subway car is getting closed down before I get to my destination and then some Korean dude came up and grabbed my knee and said "last stop." So fortunately, once again super nice Korean people saved me again.

So back to Seoul. The main station was super confusing so i went out the wrong subway exit but Calvin (my new Korean buddy) was resourceful and he found me. First off, Seoul is HUGE, like HUMONGEOUS! Yeah everywhere I look the buildings are 15+ stories high for as far as I can see. There are thousands of people on the streets and hundreds of vendors everywhere on the streets. And plenty of 위극인 (foreigners like me) too. There is a good chance I totally did that word wrong, but since I am really trying to learn Korean I like when i get the chance to use it.

Anyway we went to eat this really really good Military Soup i think it was called. Because after the Korean War the people were too poor and didnt have much to eat so the US military had ham and sausages which they gave to the Koreans and the Koreans combined that with their own food. So it is a soup with a very spicy red broth and many different vegtables and ham and sausage. Sooooo very tastey. And of course we had the side dishes too which is some very spicy kimchi (김치) and some japanese fish like things and more. Sooo good! Every Korean food that I have tasted I have really enjoyed so far.

Then we went to a really famous stream in Seoul called Cheonggye (I think). It is a stream that runs through a very well known part of the city. It is basically like a long narrow park that lots of people go to hang out in. During the day families are hopping across the rocks in the stream to the other side and at night couples and friends are sitting next to the stream just hanging out. It is very peaceful and everything is artificial so once again it's very clean and comfortable.

Also there are loads of bridges that go over the stream since it is like a story down from ground level, hmm hard to describe. But yeah you look down on the whole mini-park/stream place from the sidewalk on the street above and you go down a story of stairs to get there.
But back to the bridges. The bridges represent history and on the walls all the way from the start of the stream for probably miles are these very well done asian art style murals in tile that show lots of Korean history and culture. They have lots of the Chinese writing that the Koreans used to use then a explanation in Hangul and then much to my suprise there was en explanation in English too. Calvin and I read them for a while until we got bored at looking at soo many because it goes on for a long time.

So on one of the bridges there is this awesome lights and music show! Yeah all for free and it was pretty cool and high tech. So there are these really powerful mist machines then a lazer light thing that really plays tricks on the eyes as it reflects off the really thick mist. I am sorry my explanation sucks but it looked pretty cool. Calvin and I were just lucky enough to be there when it happened because the signs said we came at the wrong time.

Okay, then we went and cruized around the city a little bit more until we got to another big open plaza area with fountains and a giant statue of one of Koreas really famous generals that fought off the japanese. He invented the turtle boat and fought the Japanese very succesfully until he died in battle... and I cant remember his name : / sorry. Anyways that was awesome and there was a lot about Korean history there which was interesting.

So to wrap up the night we saw where the embassy was and a giant gate! like a freaking huge gate which apparently hosts the Korean national building which is "The Blue House."


Oh and one of my favorite things is there is some new program in Seoul for a transportation system or who knows what? (definately not me) but the mascot for the program is a 'Haechi' which is probably spelt like this: 해치 or 핯이. I think the first one. Anyways you know those asian gargoyle like things that stand infront of their gates and houses, yeah that is a haechi. Anyways check out the picture of one made out of plant.




Well in the end I got home from Seoul and it was a load of fun. Getting home consists of me getting on a bus that goes within 10 minutes walk of my house but I have no clue what stop to get off at so I tell the bus driver where I need to get off and hope he remembers to tell me when that is. It has worked out 2 times now and I still dont have the hang of it, everything in Korea looks to foreign for me, so to identify one place over another from a bus window is near impossible.

Anyways I am really trying to learn Korean and really failing very hard becuase I can't think of any good way to do it. I tried buying a book for it and I have been trying to make Korean friends but time is an issue for me and them. But I am not terribly worried, I will figure it out eventually. I am open to ideas.

안녕히 나ㅅ세요

Ninja show! oh i mean baseball game

So this was a pretty awesome experience. Normally I am not a huge baseball fan but this game was actually really fun and exciting.

This is how it happened. I went to a foreigners bar and met the first person I saw there and he happen to be from San Clemente and he went to APU. He also just so happen to be friends with one of my close friends. Small world huh?

He said that in a couple days he was going to a baseball game with someone and he invited me to join. It happen to be on my 1 day off so i said of course. (yes i do work saturdays :( but not that saturday for Korean memorial day)

So we meet at the subway station and hop on. This was my first experience on a subway and it was pretty cool. I just swipped my hello kitty card at the entrace rails and walked on. The biggest problem was we had to stand the whole way because there were soooo many people.

Some things I should point out:
First off I was extreamely confused and didnt know where we were going since this was my first subway experience but I was very concerned with being able to retrace my steps because I didnt know the guys I was with that well. It became very confusing very fast because we had to do over 5 subway transfers and the subway stations are hard to tell apart but I think I had a decent grasp on it.
Secondly this was just funny, some guy on the subway was selling things and moving up and down the subway car to car. I cant even believe that is allowed, but he was selling arm warmers or something.

Anyway we find our way to the game which was no small task because all 3 of us were pretty new here. And the ticket only costs like 9$ super awesome price right? And the seating was great, first come first serve. Let the true fans get the good seats.

And then the best part of all; 2$ beers. So before the game while we were sitting in our awesome seats for an hour we had a couple rounds and feeling pretty good.

Then BOOM OMG NINJAS! First they walked out on the field and set some things up and I was super excited then they left and I was bummed ;(



But dont worry a awesome funny mascot came out and I had no clue what he was saying but it was a lot of fun and we would just yell along with the people. Check out this mascot it was pretty awesome and very funny.

So finally, a car starts driving on the field and a bunch of ninjas dressed in black start leaning out the windows with toy guys and weapons. Honestly, i have no clue what that was about since it just made a circuit of the field and drove off it, maybe it had something to do with the narration.

Shortly after, a helicopter flys over and hovers above the outfield and four ropes get thrown down from it. Then these crazy ninjas in black just start jumping face first towards the ground down the ropes! yeah! and they were going really fast too. Not just like inching down, almost like they were hardly using the ropes and the helicopter was way up there! Like 12 ninjas jumped out of the small helicopter too. It was great. So then they get down on the field with more of then and get into lines and start doing forms and yelling and putting on quite a show but the best part came next.

They starting breaking out into a huge kung fu fighting (to be technical it was Taek won do). But they were going pretty hardcore. Obviously it was staged but it looked cool. Then they started breaking stuff. Some tiny Korean chick broke through like 20 pieces of roofing tile with her elbow (ouch!).

The best though was when they started fighting again and someguy came up behind the master or head guy and *Shattered* a long wooden board on his head. Yeah *shattered* into 5+ pieces. Full swing too.

Then the same guy jumped over three people and broke a board that another guy was holding on his stomache with the top of his head. (BA BA BA BA BA) So yeah he probably isn't overly smart but he wins the most awesome ninja award.


OOoookay back to the baseball game.

The stadium is reallly really small compared to USA stadiums. No seating whee you could catch homeruns and there was only like 10 rows back out in the sides of the outfields. But the game was completely filled up with thousands of people still. It might have been minor league, like I can tell.

So one side of the stadium was cheering for the bears and then my side of the stadium was cheering for the Seoul Heroes. almost everyone in the stadium had thunder sticks and was using them 90% of the game.

So of course I did the foreigners things and kept drinking cheep beer after beer so I was cheering super loud the whole time too. Well at least until the 6th inning when I started to feel uber sick. Then I went and stood near a trash can and cheered. But fortunately I get to keep my reputation of never having thrown up due to alcohol.

The game was close and kept going back and forth which increased the excitement. Sometimes we were in the lead and sometimes them. There was an american player on our team so when came up to bat we went wild. And there was a really fat player on their team (dont see to many fat people in korea) who we called a fatty fat fat fatty and he hit a home run against us multiple times :(

Despite my being especially tipsy and boarderline sick it was a wonderful game and the guys I went with were very nice people who looked out for me. I know it is horrible manners to get drunk when you first meet people but we just said I was doing things the Korean way. And they drank waaay more than I did, I just suck at drinking.

The game was extra exciting because it went into extra innings where we inevitably lost :(

On our way back home we couldnt find the subway so I had to ask some people, which consisted of me looking clueless and saying subway?! they pointed us in the right direction and we made it.

I would say that makes for a pretty good night!

PICTURES!!!!!!!!!

Yeah I have pictures, click the link!

http://picasaweb.google.com/drobison100/DustinSMostExcellentAdventure?authkey=Gv1sRgCPiMnunxyK_1hAE&feat=directlink

So today I tried going to a coffee shop with wireless for the first time, lots of fun and a little expensive but I was able to talk to my family for over and hour on skype and upload some of my pictures! it was great. Tell me how that picasa website works for everyone, I can put them on facebook but it is a lot harder for me. Especially seeing how facebook automatically switches to Korean while I am here.

Anyways, sorry for giving you a brochure blog post last time, I was a little rushed but dont worry the next one will be cool.

I have to tell you about a lot of things:

The Baseball game (W/ NINJAS)

Riding the subway

Going to Ittae won

My students (sooo fun)

Meeting other expats in bars

Poolhall

Crazy french and english

Attempting to meet koreans

Singing with a Korean Music teacher

Ilsans great malls and all their amazing shops that we dont have in the USA (if i ever earn enough cash i might try starting some of them in California)

The bars, Korean culture is partly defined by the drinking (Irish of the east)

Meeting a crazy frenchman, very nice guy.

Learning Korean

So it seems to me everyone is most interested in hearing about the female expat I met here and maybe went on a date or two with. But I dont know if I am going to blog about that, I will let you know when I decide. It depends on how things go this week, it would be really unfair to her if I write about it. So be patient, because if it doesn't go anywhere then I will probably write about it. It definately has been an experience.

A good author pleases his readers but maybe I just like to build the suspense, although i must say i do have a good story or two. So just wait a little ^^

Sadly most things I cant communicate because I don't even know how to explain what is happening here myself, all I can say is that living in a completely different culture has been very interesting and difficult but I love it.

Yeah so I have a lot of writing to do which I will try and do on Sunday (tomorrow). For now it's Saturday and I have to hurry and get dressed for work.

I need a 'I <3 ILSAN' shirt

Hi everyone,

Sorry I am such a bad blogger! Blogging is suprisingly hard when you don't have internet. So its another sleepy Thursday today because here I am at work with not too much to do until 3:30 when my classes start. Today I had a little more to do because it is Testing time next week so I am trying to figure out the best way to make all the kids cry. No I really hope they dont cry, I would probably start crying if one of my sweet little kids started crying. Could you imagine that? Ya anyways to the topic at hand.

So I have about 30 minutes max to write this and a crap load to say because Ilsan is my favorite city ever right now and I want to tell you all about it.

Lets start with Lake Park. It is soooooooooooo beautiful that it really really makes me wish I had a girlfriend to take to it. As it is, I just go and walk around it or sit down on some nice green grass under trees full of noisy mannys. So basically it is a lake about 2 - 3 times the size of lake poway which is surrounded by really beautiful walking paths (many of them not just 1). There is one that goes real close to the water and over these big beautiful asian arcitecture bridges. Then another that is a little further back from the water and it goes around the whole entire lake. Then there is a bike or scooter whatever one that I haven't done yet because I haven't rented a bike yet.

Here is more about Lake Park:

But Lake park has no fishing or boats (kinda a bummer but it keeps the place beautiful) and a huge stone plaza which overlooks the center of the lake and is where you can always find Korean teen agers and many couples hanging out more so during the night.
Then there is a little zoo with some funny looking birds and the only bird I know is an ostrige which really enjoys sticking its head in the ground.
There is a rose garden which, 'no I am not gay' but I will say it is very pleasant.
One of my favorites is that there is a old style asian castle home and it is awesome, I really really wish i could upload pictures at work because I have good ones.
After that there is a few buddhist asian small temple like structures that you can always see people sitting and relaxing in. The arcitecture is done with very intricate designs and paints.
There is loads of free exercise equipment everywhere which is commonly used and of pretty decent quality.
There is a waterfall side of the lake that is beautiful.
There are pieces of modern artwork, like sculptures positioned around the 3 walkways and they are very interesting.
Then there are basketball courts and some other sporting things.
There are many play structures for kids.
There is a great beautiful hill on one side that is all natual like rain forest like trees and growth that you can hike up and it has like trials area where you can do things like walk across pointed concrete with your bare feet.
The lake has area's with lots of lilly pads and other water plants which are really pretty especially at dusk.
There are docks with people feeding the ducks.

The best parts of Lake Park for sure are these:
During the day you can see hundreds of familys camped out under the trees on the grass all around the whole lake so it isn't crowded AND you can see lots of families riding bikes around the lake. Normally the bikes are the tandem ones with the 2 seats on one bike or have different wheel sizes or just really small wheels or random things (and normally flat tires) but it is just too funny to see and it looks like loads of fun.

Also! in the evenings people are getting exercise much more so than the days and it isn't wierd for some 70+ year old asian woman to be powerwalking hardcore in full exercise equip and they always overtake me even when I am trying to get a work out.

The best part of all is the Music fountain.
This i have over 30 pictures of. At one end of Lake Park there is a gigantic fountain that does shows on the weekend for free with lights and fire and music. It is super awesome and possibly extreamely romantic. I actually did end up there with an expat girl but that story will have to wait. Anyways there are literaly thousands of people that come to see it evey night and it is totaly free in a huge stone plaza in to lake park. I can't even describe the scene at the music fountain or lake park because it is sooo amazing.

Also the people here are really nice. One night, as is often do, I went to lake park and was hanging out by the music fountain reading and watching the hundred of people riding in circles around the fountain or playing badmitton. I was alone and watching all the families play together and a kid from a nearby family came up and had a very basic conversation with me. We both wanted to say more but the langauge barrier was too great. So a few minutes later he came up and offered me a can coffee that he bought from one of the vending machines and then ran back to his family. Canned coffee here is pretty good. Later he came up and offered me a badmitton raquet and I played badmitton with him and his family. Koreans dont play with nets or points, its just hit the birdie back and forth as long as you can. I was enjoying myself. Finally I figured out what was going on; the family just thought I looked lonely by myself so they were nice enough to include me.

This really amazed me and I have had other similar things happen with very nice Koreans. I really love this country and these people. I haven't met many Korean's around my age but I know lots of expats around my age so I mostly hang out with them but I would love to meet some Koreans my age too. Mostly I have become good friends with children and old men. The old guys here are really really nice which i didnt expect at all.

Sorry I wrote so fast and sloppy, I wrote all this in under 30 mins and I skipped like 90% of what i wanted to say. OH and lake park is 100% artificial but it is super nice.

OMG im in Korea

Hi everyone,
I can't upload photo's yet because I am at work. So that leaves me with writing a brief summary of some of the things that have happened here.

I am Dustin Robison and this is the longest day of my life. (enjoy the 24 reference) No not really the longest day of my life just a rather stressful day.

First off the plane flight from San Diego to San Fransico: zzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzz zzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzzz zzzzzzzzzzzz.

Secondly the 3 hour layover and 12 hour flight from San Fransico to Incheon, Korea: First I had to find my flight and get my boarding pass which was.. interesting. I had some really good exercise running around the airport but I did eventually find everything and it worked out but I may have been at risk of a heart attack. Anyway that first part only took about 45 minutes but then everything worked out great, infact I was very bored for the rest of the lay over while i waited.

Now the 12 hour flight was with Singapore airlines! i.e. voted the nicest airlines in the world. Lucky me, I had a whole row of 3 seats on one side of the plane all to myself! And not only that but there was this awesome little TV infront of me that I could watch really awesome movies on. Inluding the new Star Treck!! I'm not a treckie by the way but that movie rocks. Not only that it had all these fun games on it AND a learn a langauge program so I worked on my Korean for a few hours.

Ya pretty sweet right!? NO! it was only pretty sweet for the first couple hours then I was wicked bored : / Then I decided I am going to Korea right? so of course i want the tea the very nice flight assistant was offering me. Umm... might have been a very bad idea instead of sleeping like this -_- i was much more awake like this O_O the whole time.

But whatever, i survived it but it was very long and boring because I couldnt bring myself to do much of anything i was so bored. Some middle aged Korean woman really impressed me because she played Bejeweled 2 for 9 of the 12 hours of the flight. I attempted to be as cool but I was bored after an hour of sucking big time compared to her.

One other cool thing is that there was a screen that showed our flight trajectory and we went north along alaska and then almost to the north pole and then back south along russia, then south past the east coast of Japan before turning north west to fly across japan to korea.

So when we finally landed it was a little scary because right as we exited the plane there were a bunch of dudes in hazmat suits that were scanning everyone with some machines and their masks said "QUARANTINE" on them. But their machines made a few beeps on me and they waved me through.

So as normal I was rather lost on where to go but I decided just to follow everyone else because they 'must' know where they are going. So the airport was totally different than a USA airport because in order to get to the baggage claim you have to take a subway and go through all these processing booths after walking for over a mile. So while it was scary not knowing where i was going or what I was doing it didnt compare to the next part.

So I finally got my baggage, and made a quick phone call to my mom I decided to walk out into the common area of the airport where people actually are other than the people I got off the plane with. There were crap loads of people holding signs and yelling names and the place was madness. I knew I had to find a bus to my town of ilsan and make a phone call to my korean contact but in all that madness with all that luggage I must have looked pretty hopeless.

Fortunately people in Korea are really nice. Some random dude grabbed my hand and showed me over to the pay phones but of course I didn't have any korean money to use the phone so he took out his own telephone and called my korean contact for me. He was very nice, i wish i had got his name and phone number but I was a little baffled.

Next I had to find the right bus. There were literally hundreds of buses and an amazing amount of people. But i found a bus ticket station and said my city and I got my ticket with some korean money a friends parent gave me before I left. Finding the right bus was very difficult, there are many Koreans who's job is to load peoples luggage onto their bus that stand in the street where the buses park and I would run around between them saying "Ilsan, Kintex!?!?! Ilsan, Kintex!?!?!" Yeah i was literally doing that. But hey, it kept me from getting on the wrong bus and then the next challenge came along.

What stop to get off at? Yeah so my korean contact just said get off when you see the big KINTEX sign (Kintex is some sort of international convention center). So after 40 minutes of riding the bust I see the sign but I see no bus stop. I look around a little bit and very nervously wait. We pass the kintex : / oh but then we take a right at the next stoplight so we are going along the side of it. I cant let that happen again right? So i wander up to the front of the bus (getting every odd stare imaginable) and say to the bus driver "Kintex?" He said something i couldnt understand and waved his arm around a little. I just decided to sit back down defeated and to think about what I should do.

HAHA we turned right and the KINTEX building was adjacent to me with a bus stop! ^_^

So now I had to find my director whom I have never seen before and talked to once before on the telephone because he was picking me up from the bus stop and taking me to my apartment. I was very very very nervous about this one because there could always be, "what if he doesnt show?" like where would I go then and what would i do? I cant figure out how to do anything in this country or read anything.

But i was lucky because as i was getting off the bus my director Mr. Cho said, "dustin?" So that worked out great. He drove me through this HUGE amazing city (I didnt see a building under 10 stories for miles) and showed me into my apartment.

It was on the 6th story of some building with a korean name (now I know it was Bobo county) and I was showed into my tiny little apartment. This was kinda a bummer because it was really really dirty and had just disgusting amounts of hair and dust all over the place.

Anyway it was okay, he handed me the keys for the place and then invited me out for a beer. I had been awake for 20+ hours (not counting the hour of sleep on the first airplane) but of course I was going to say yes to the only person I kinda know in Korea.

So we went to a fusion place and it was very tastey. Had some big Korean lite beers and I met another foreign teacher named Matt. Matt works at the same place as me and lives two floors above me. I will tell you more about him later but he has been really great and he is from orange county.

So Mr. Cho went home after a hour or so at the fusion resaraunt and Matt and I went out for some more beers at a foreigners bar. I met a lot of other very friendly foreigners who were delighted to see some 'new blood.' They filled my sleepy head with loads of advice from working in Korea for years which I can't honestly say I remember any of because I was soooo tired. Finally I told them I was about to collapse on the table and matt took me back to my apartment so I could get some much needed sleep.

We walked through the streets back to the apartment between skyscrapers and surrounded by Koreans but it didnt hit me until I laid down in bed and looked out my window.

Oh my god, I am in korea.


p.s. the reason I wrote so much is because my boss asked me to be at work at 10 am but I dont have a class to teach until 3:30 pm : / Well at least I am glad i wrote this because now I wont forget it.