Annyong Haseyo!

I know it’s been awhile and I had a request by Mr. B-rad-ee himself to update my Korean adventures in blog form. Eat you’re your heart out B-J GAYBERT!

So all my friends took off for Boracay on Christmas day and left me basically alone. I think I’ve gone a little nutty at times! I’ve done a butt load of hiking to say the least. Today I went on a 3 hr adventure up some mountains. I was lazy and wasn’t sure how fair up I was going to go but this all changed in my head once a Korean mountain goat (some rando man) was like racing me. When I go hiking I go kinda hard and when the normal Korean goes it’s a leisure activity. So this dude pushed me. I was ahead of him for a long time until I came to a head on with a family of 50 people. I stepped aside to let the family go by then the Korean mountain goat went pass me and totally pushed his way through the family! AS IF! Anyways I was over the racing mode because my lunch almost came up. I decided that I made it that far up the mountain that I would go to the top to a peak that I’ve been to numerous times. As I approached the peak I felt my body lacking energy and water…a bonking experience, as an athlete would say. I got to the rock look out and looked out. HAHA! Then a Korean man and like 5 women joined me. They started talking to me in Korean then they realized I wasn’t one of them. They got super excited and the man wanted his women in a picture with me. After a couple photos the man continued to try speaking English to me and asked if I was Russian…SERIOUSLY why do these people think all foreign women are Russian?! I made it clear that I was Canadian – they love Canadians out here. The man also asked if I had a GIRLFRIEND over and over. Once again I made it clear that I had a boyfriend back in Canada. I’m pretty sure he was confused with his English but you never know! After all of this the women rewarded me with two mandarin oranges! This was like gold at this point because of the bonking experience and they tasted amazing. I thanked them in Korean and made my way down the mountain.

My next update will be in the New Year so have a safe, fun, and happy one! I know you all wish you were with me on the beaches in the Philippines ☺ Miss you, xo.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from Korea!

So my Korean Christmas really did not feel like the holidays back in Yellowknife. The lack of snow, cold, and the fam-jam not here was the issue. In addition, the fact that Christmas not being a big holiday here in Korea also contributed to this feeling.

However, we tried our best to get into the spirit. On Christmas Eve at school we had a Christmas party slash watched a terrible Brendan Fraser film all afternoon and ate so much crapola. OH before the elementary kids came Megan and I were both Santa Clause (or as the Korean teachers told the kids, we were Santa’s Grandmother…weird) for the preschool kiddies. Our school also did Secret Santa with all the teachers. I had the director’s wife, Scully. GAWD! I had no idea if I was being funny or serious with my gift. I ended up getting her these huge leopard print slippers and chocolates. Leopard print in so in here in Korea so I she loves them but they are HUGE. Also, she might be wearing them in sympathy cause she knows one of the foreign teachers gave them to her. I got a bath gift set…too bad I don’t have a tub in my bathroom!

We got off work early on Christmas Eve, which was a present in itself! YAHOO! I met up with the girls for some dinner and we picked up some necessities for the evening’s festivities and Christmas brunch. The night lead us to having some drinks that included champagne being shot out Kaley’s apartment’s window then heading to our building’s rooftop terrace for the firework show…aka the fire cracker I got Kaley for her Birthday. It was hilarious to say the least. From here we headed to Lindsay and Jim’s party in the building next to ours. In all the night was super fun and def different from the usual Christmas Eves with the fam at church then the drive around YK looking at Christmas lights.

The next morning I woke up super ass early; not intentionally I swear! I couldn’t tell if I was still drunk or if I was just that excited to open presents…HAHA I KID! I opened a package from Chad and Cleo. My parents and Tess had sent early Christmas presents that I couldn’t wait to open…oops. The presents definitely made it feel like the holidays. Thank you so much for them! Then I proceeded to log onto Skype for my morning routine of talking to the rents and Chad. “Merry Christmas from the future!” After all the well wishes I cleaned and rearranged my pad before the girls came over for brunch. OH and I also jacked Kaley’s xmas tree to make us feel like it was xmas in my apartment. We had coffee and baileys, mimosas, fruit salad, hash browns, deviled eggs, tofu rice wraps, and French toast! Def a treat for us! Molly also graced us with her presence, which was nice, and we can all definitely say that Seoul hasn’t changed her. The girls were all leaving for Boracay that evening and I was in charge of taking care of Taylor’s cat and Kaley’s orchid.

The rest of the Christmas consisted of lazing around then going to an Indian restaurant with Stephanie for dinner. Twas a nice day! I had to work on the Friday and only two more days of class till I’m off to Boracay to hit the white sand beaches and meet up with my posse. Should be a nice break of hot weather, exploring, drinks, and relaxing on the beaches. Be jealous!

Hair Asianized

I’ve had some funny encounters with Koreans while I’ve been here because they think I’m Korea and it doesn’t help that I embraced a Korean haircut with bangs. (This was a spur-of-the-moment decision plus all haircuts are a set $10 rate. The lady told me God loves me then hacked my locks…I’m over it.) Anyways back to my story! By far the funniest/creepiest encounter was by a foreigner, who we like to call Creepy Dan. This went down a couple weeks ago at Korean lessons. This 65-year-old grease ball bee lined it towards me as we were waiting for the elevator and got right up in my face and proceeded to say “OH! You’re not Korean are you!?” I let him know that I get that a lot and no I’m not. While in the elevator he continued to stare and I made it super awkward by being my awkward self. My friends got a kick out of it. This was not the end of the Creepy Dan experience! During our 15 minute break at lessons he snagged me in one of those hard to leave talking sessions. I learned so much about Creepy Dan. He’s been in Korea for 12 years, knows 5 languages, he’s from the States, he’s a chemistry Major, and the list goes on. Once again my friends got a kick out of my “Koreaness” and Creepy Dan and tried their best not to save me from the situation! GAWD! However, Taylor pulled the “Sarah the cake is really good! You should go get some” card, which I’m grateful for and I bolted!

Hilarious Korea

Here are some pictures of day-to-day Korea.

Popcorn anyone?

They love to drink.

Hooked on FONICS.

Hey all!

Sorry for the lack of bloggage these past few weeks. My only excuse is laziness and lack of interesting things to write about. That makes no sense though because I’m in Korea and day-to-day I encounter hilarious things. However, some of these hilarious things seem to be normal now! AH.

Since the DMZ tour I’ve been kick’n it in Busan. I still can’t get over how its DECEMBER! Time is flying by quickly. I’ve started Korean lessons every Saturday mornings for two hours. It’s a super great deal - $3/mth with a one on one Korean teacher. I really need to make more of an effort to learn this language…The book is beside my bed and I glance at it but most of the time it remains unopened. YAR. Ok, starting now my New Years resolution will start. I’ll make myself do some every night. The language is difficult and I do really admire my students for being able to speak Korean, English and some of them are learning Chinese. If only my brain was still a sponge!



Two weeks ago I had the pleasure of going on a field trip with my kinders and coworkers to a factory. This was not just your ordinary STOCKING/LEGGING, SOCK, YOGHURT, AND TOFU factory. It was some sort of religious based cult factory. YUP! It was super eerie and there were pictures of their religious leader everywhere who looked like a Korean version of Eugene Levy. The Koreans who lived in this compound never leave and they ride bikes around, eat at designated times with the same sex (they made an exception for us BUT Patrick Teacher was served his food and us ladies had to get our own lunch), and they played weird music in the streets. We got to test of the yoghurt and quiet frankly we thought we were going to be drugged and have to spend the rest of our lives in the Zion-land factory. While we walked through the factory we watched the people doing mind-numbing jobs and I was told numerous times not to take pictures…OOPS. From here we had some lunch. After this we had a photo shoot as we do on all field trips then jumped on the bus back to ILS to teach for the rest of the day. Def an experience but common it was free! And in the situation my school is in, they’ll take anything! Haha, I joke…


Last week I started up a new exercise regime. I’ve joined hot yoga! Its amazing and us foreigners in Hwamyeong have invaded the classes by the bunches. It’s an hour-long workout and the first half is seriously yoga on steroids. It’s more of an aerobic based with a yoga mix. The second half is slower and all yoga based. Needless to say you sweat buckets and bend, stretch, and move in ways you didn’t think your body could move. I absolutely love it and I can’t wait to get the sound track to the workout! Hopefully I’ll get more rhythm to my body’s movements…Haha

Other than these new things to my life experiences here in Korea I haven’t been up to much…Hiking is done all the time and teaching has become a breeze. I’ve officially been here for 3 months! CRAZY. On December 30th I’m heading off to Boracay, Philippines for my winter vacay for a week! BE JEALOUS!

Check this vid out. Wraps up some of the things in a teacher in Korea's life.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QjBfy_HVoSM

Keep it reals ☺

DMZ Tour

This past weekend a group of us from Busan ventured up to Seoul for the weekend! We left right after work on the KTX (super fast train) for our 3 hr ride. While we were sitting in our family seats (very special) we had the surprise of seeing a Korean mother make her two-year-old son pee in a water bottle right behind us. KOREANS ARE SO ODD! Once we got to Seoul we were in search of a “love motel”. These are super cheap motels and are supposed to be used for couples/lovers/hook-ups to do their business…Anyways! We found one, which was super gross, but it was late. Molly, myself, and David toughed it out and got two rooms there for a couple hours of sleep. The others went on a mission to find a ball’n place near the USO/tour location.

I’m pretty sure I had maybe an hour of sleep that whole night because we didn’t get to bed till 2:30am, the room was flippen cold and disgusting, the pillows were as hard as rocks, and we had to be up at 5:30am to find where we had to meet the tour- USO army base. We jumped in a taxi and the language barrier kicked in. It was pretty stressful cause we had no idea where we were going and the taxi driver didn’t either…We got on the phone with a translator and got things figured out. Turns out we were going completely the opposite way. It was supposed to be a 5 minute taxi ride but it was about 25 minutes and we had to be at the USO for 6:45am. We got there finally, signed in, and jumped on the bus for a hour and a half bus ride up to the DMZ. Our tour guide was so awkward which made the tour info a little annoying to hear but we got used to it. I liked the bus ride up because I got to see more of the country North of Seoul. Once we arrived to the DMZ we got hooked up with a USA army tour guide. He took us around to all the sites and informed us on the importance of each place. We were his second tour and boy was he nervous. He managed to throw out “that’s gay”, “oh fuck”, and “my bad” due to his nervousness. OH and as Molly said, “He just gave us Korean history for dummies”. Hilarious. We were able to go into the boardrooms where North and South Korea meet and talk. This was the JSA. We were able to physically stand in North Korea there, which was super cool! We took a bunch of pictures and the South Korean soldiers in the room were quite intimidating. After the boardroom we stood at the House of Freedom and stared at North Korea’s “House of Freedom” which stands taller than South Korea’s intentionally. It was eerie looking at that solider just standing there staring back at us occasionally pulling up his binoculars to look closer at us.

In our single filed lines we walked back to us bus and went to a look out to see Propaganda Village. This village was built to mimic South Korea’s and no one actually lives in the North Korea one! Very weird. They was also a flag tour built initially in South Korea and then North Korea built one exactly the same but taller then South Korea made theirs taller then North Korea retaliated and one upped South Korea, and so on. Finally, South Korea quit the silly game and let North Korea have the taller flag tower. It is now the tallest flag tower in the world and the flag weighs over 600lbs!


From here we had lunch, went to a souvenir shop, and went to another look out where we could see North Korea better. There was a line painted on the ground showing where you could and where you couldn’t take pictures. If you took pictures where you could the soldiers would either take or make you delete you pictures. Kind of intense! At this look out we saw lots of hawks and eagles soaring around. It made the experience even more eerie. For a second I was convinced they were fake but they were definitely real. After looking out into North Korea we were bussed down to the third underground tunnel that was discovered which the North Koreans built into South Korea. There have been 7 tunnels discovered and the latest one in 1990. The tunnel walk was about 500m underground and we weren’t aloud to take pictures down in it. It was pretty cool being that fair underground and to think that it was used by soldiers back in the day to get into each other’s countries. To end our tour we were blessed with a weird-ass video about the history between South and North Korea. There was definitely propaganda at its best there. They were trying to convince us that all was well between the two countries. SERIOUSLY?! But anyways the tour was awesome! Definitely a great experience. Oh and rumor has it…Kim Jon-IL had a stroke and is dead…ಹ

Jagalchi Fish Market

YOYO!

Today (November 8) Molly and I made our way down to Nampo-Dong to check out Jagalchi fish market and do a little browsing in the shopping district. We ventured on the bus rather than the subway so we could see more of the city instead of being underground for an hour. But we didn’t really know where we were going…I had done this once and Molly hadn’t at all. OOPS. But everything went smoothly after jumping off the bus cause everyone else was! We try not to buy anything when we go browsing but always seem to buy some ridiculous stuff because it’s so cheap. It’s so cheap that we’ve become cheap and try to bargain things down. GAH honestly in Canada I would buy a scarf for $20 easily but here we see so many scarf vendors that we say “As if they’re selling those scarves for $12”. However, I always come home with a new one. We had way too much fun getting a couple special things for my BF then headed down to the fish market.

The market is several blocks long full of live, dried, dead, and half dead seafood. We also stumbled upon dead dog…I can’t grasp the idea that people would eat dog…Sick. We walked up and down the market taking pictures…being total tourists and watching living things being skinned live then thrown into a bucket and still givin’r moving around. So crazy! We also saw a live octopus escape from its bucket and we screamed/pointed then she nonchalantly chucks it back in the bucket like it was nothing. Hilarious! As we were getting soaked with fish stank on our clothes and shoes we walked down to the dock where the fishing boats were to take some pictures. As we were leaving this area no really paying attention to anything we found a dead shark! AS IF! It was just lying there with its stomach hacked up. SICK, yet so cool, yet kinda sad….After that point we were over with the market and ventured back to the subway BUT being crazy we decided to try the bus it back to Hwamyeong….We asked a man and he knew a little English and got excited and started to run so stupidly we ran with him and jumped on his bus because we thought he was showing us where to go. We had no idea if we were going to Hwamyeong and the traffic sucked so we jumped off in Seomyeong (an area we know) to catch the subway home.
Molly smelled like ass/fish cause he jeans we soaked at the feet so she was killing everyone/me on the ride back. Twas, definitely an adventure but really you can’t get lost in Busan because of the comfort of the subway and it being so easy. Until next folks! xo

Korean Halloween

Hey Folks!

So the past couple of weeks have had their adventures for sure. On Halloween my school had an all day Halloween party for the kids…no teaching which was a nice break. However, Halloween is definitely forced out here in Korea cause of us foreigners. Our day started by decorating the school and dressing up. The Korean teachers did pretty much all the prep and I guess during their prep time they decided that “Sarah Teacher” would be the Korean dead woman in the traditional dress that makes anyone look a trillion pounds. SWEET. I would like to say I can rock any kind of MOO-MOO clothing…EF. Haha! I was in charge of the treasure hunt room which lead to kids to be running all over the place and not really understanding what was going on due to the excitement and of course the language barrier. In the end everyone got their candy. During the afternoon we had our elementary kids coming and going with their classes participating in the scary room, my treasure hunt, arts and crafts, face painting, and relay games. In the evening the pre-school/kinders came back dress up in their awesome costumes with their parents. From here it brought us outside for the annual “Halloween Parade” around Hwamyeong. Somewhat humiliating due to my attire and chanting “Hal-lo-ween” repeatedly but watching the kids doing their “tricks” for their treats was so cute…. They’ve been practicing for the past month for this moment. Our director brought some candy to two stores and they gave our kids their treat after their “trick “skits. The workday ended with a potluck feast back at the school thanks to the parents.



By 9:30pm I ripped home to get the real Halloween started by dressing up as a Korean workout woman. These women workout in the most ridiculous outfits at the gym I go to. HILARIOUS. I was able to get something together with the clothes I owned and what I found in the apartment from the previous tenants. GOLD! I inspired Molly and Erin to get decked out the same and we had a workout crew. We headed down to Pusan National University (PNU) for a pub-crawl. That area is a foreigner fest mixed with some Koreans so it’s a good time for sure. There were tons of people in the streets, in the bars, and a costume contest was on where the first prize was a trip to Thailand fallowed by keg parties, $100 bar tabs,etc. We ripped around till 3:30am or so then cabbed it back to the boonies (Hwamyeong). Halloween in Korea was ok…not the best I’ve had but then again it’s a forced holiday here! Plus there was no discount candy…However, I’m hoping that this Depepro holiday (some romantic, chocolate eating event) on November 11th will hook me up with some treats!

Some silly things/interesting facts about Korea:

-Older Koreans love, love, LOVE hiking. It’s honestly a fashion show for them to wear the most intense hiking gear in the world.
- At the gym I was going to the aerobics/dance class of some sort displayed women in the most hilarious outfits/costumes…80s dance party! However, they love it. Oh and you will hardly ever see a Korean run. All they do is walk to workout; weird.
- There's random workout equipment on the walking trails and on the mountains.
- Koreans love looking at themselves in the mirrors that are plastered everywhere or with their personal mirrors. Oh so vain.
- Everyone and their baby owns a cell phone. (I’m so not cool here…phoneless) Plus cell phone charms are key to being in.
- Kids go to school from 8pm to at least 8:30pm sometimes-even 10pm! From Monday to Saturday.
- You may think that Korean people are really polite but really they might be the rudest people ever. They push, spit, never cover their mouths when they cough, and definitely treat foreigners like crap.
- They love their Soju and brewskis where you can buy in the many of GS 25’s (a convenience store chain) located on every street sometimes more than one.
- Oh and Karaoke. They love Karaoke! It’s called Norri-bong here. SOOO FUN!
- If you are dating someone it is costumed for you to have matching outfits. Watch out Chad.
- Men hear are sooo metro sexual. The way they act and dress would not fly in a lot of places in Canada. They all have purses and hold hands. True story!
- Since us foreigners look different we get a lot of stares from all ages of Koreans. Honestly take a picture with your fancy cell phone…it’ll last longer! Sorry it’s just super annoying at times.
- I swear the women were born in heals. They all have heals, hike in heals, go to the beach in heals, just love their heals.
- Oh and women showing any shoulder skin or lower back skin is seen as scandalous.
- Foreigner women here are labeled as sluts due to the Russian prostitute stereotype. (I experienced my first encounter with a real one last weekend!)
- Koreans marry for money rather than looks/personality.
- They eat so much but are sticks! WTF
- Toast shops/vendors are seen all over the place. I never would have thought toasted sandwiches would be popular here!
- It is cheaper to eat out than it is to buy groceries. BOO!
- Koreans are very whiney at all ages. Ask me someday and I’ll make the sounds they make. GAWD I want to kill that sound.
- Korea has made me cheaper than I already was…I won’t even consider spending $15 on a shirt anymore! There are some dirt cheap stores here.
- Also Korea has made me rude and I really think I’ll be coming back and not remembering how to say “Sorry!”

The Next Perez Hilton?

So today I went with Steph to see what Deokchon had to offer. We walked around a market for a while then decided to find some place to eat. On our way to get some pizza we ended up walking by a dog restaurant area. There were about four different restaurants with dogs in cages being ready to be slaughtered and cooked up for someone’s dinner. AS IF. I almost puked my guts out. Just typing about it makes me feel ill. Gross. I actually witnessed a dog that was JUST butchered and its bloody body was laying spread eagle on the chopping block. That image is permanently stamped in my brain. SICKNESS!!

Then we had some lunch, YUM YUM! Haha, pizza. Where I also witnessed a woman changing her baby’s poopy diaper right in the restaurant. Friggen Koreans. After lunch Steph and I parted our ways and I took off on a sweet hike. I had no idea where the trials were going to take me so it made it fun. I hiked up for about 3 hours and made it to a peak overlooking Busan. It was such a good view! On my way down I wiped out super hard…Stupid leaves being all slippery like. I got home showered and then headed on the subway to Seomyeong in search of a coffee shop that wasn’t Dunken Donuts. After walking around I found the Coffee Bean where I'm currently typing up my Korean life story! That’s all for now folks!

Firework Festival

Last weekend was the firework festival here in Busan. The most amazing fireworks I’ve ever seen in my life. Also the most densely populated place I’ve ever been in my life. There were 1.5 million people stuffed onto the beach and streets near the Gimhae Bridge. Angela and I got there early and staked out a spot on the beach for us to sit so we hung out until night fell for the hour-long show.

While we were waiting we made some drinks, which lead us to needing to find a washroom. Molly and I decided to brave the crowds and find a toilet…I mean an ally. So Molly finds this ally slash someone’s area where they store their bikes and she pops a squat. I was standing guard and then it was my turn. I’m undoing my belt and jeans when I hear Molly yelling “Sarah! Sarah! We gotta go!!” I frantically put myself back together and see a man yelling his face off at us. We sprinted into the crowds amongst the army troops and cops. We honestly thought we were going to be arrested! So I almost peed my pants by the time we got me Soju (super cheap Korean-like vodka ethanol mix) and beer…we found a courtyard and peed for at least 5 minutes then headed back to the insane beach. We pushed and shoved our way throw to area 5 then were crushed sardines for about 10 minutes. The army dudes weren’t letting anyone move and everyone was pushing and shoving trying to get onto the beach. I swear more than half of these people didn’t even have a spot staked out and honestly there was no way in hell that there were going to find one. So this walking dead man…around 80 years of age…comes from behind and starts pushing Molly and I around. One army dude yelled at him then started yelling at us in Korean. WTF mate. Then this old man grabs Molly’s curly locks and pulls as hard as he could! In retaliation I body checked him and yelled “Stop pushing”…Not the brightest moment of my life…He clearly would not have known English plus I could have broke his ribs. But common, pulling hair?! We finally get to our spot on the beach and I vowed I would never leave again. Those crowds were the sickest thing on Earth besides the mess of garbage that was left after the fireworks.

The fireworks finally started and they were the most amazing thing ever! I’ve never seen fireworks synchronized with music before and they lasted an hour. Amazing. Once in awhile I was thinking that we were being brainwashed by North Korea or something…You know on Zoolander? “Relax don’t do it, when you want to go to it, RELAX” “Kill the prime minister of Micronesia!” Then I would look around and see everyone’s face and jaw, possessed by the fireworks. Hilarious! But really, the fireworks coming off the gorgeous bridge and boats were great. It was super romantic and we were joking around that if anyone asked us to marry them right now we would all say YES. HAHA. But on the other had, honestly if a natural disaster or a terrorist attack happened that would be the time for it. So many people in one little area! After the show ended we hung out on the beach for the crowds to die down then went for some dinner then hung out for the rest of the night mingling around.

X- Games & Jinju Lantern Festival

The next weekend were stuck around Busan and hit up the TreX Games and watched some skateboarding and BMX events. It was pretty neat. Saw some cultural stuff too…We also hit up a pub-crawl in a university area which was insane! It really didn’t seem like we were in Korea because these bars were invaded by all us foreign people. However, I still managed to be asked if I was Korean or not. I get this all the time! Then they go down all the Asian cultures and I have to break it to them that I’m Inuit. Then I have to break that down to Eskimo. A rare bred I guess! The night ended for most of us again around 5am and all of us taking separate cabs home…no intentionally.

The next day started late for me…3pm where I found myself at a Korean pop concert, Alex. Kayly’s coworker hooked her up with three tickets and took Angela and I. Alex is apparently from Canada or lives there and is HUGE here in Korea. The show was hilarious. He was quite entertaining but I managed to fall asleep a couple of times. OOPS. We witnessed an engagement, cell phone wars of some sort, crying girls along with crying Alex (while singing), and paper airplanes being thrown. I guess its something to cross off in the books!

Two weekends ago I went out to Jinju to see the Lantern Festival. It was amazing! The crowds were insane and Ashley and I got separated from Kayly and Stephanie. We walked around all afternoon after the bus ride up and had some beers before the sun went down. The lanterns lit up and the fireworks went off so now it was time to take some shitty pictures! (My camera is sick). We took in the show and then tried to find Steph and Kayly to book it back to the bus station to head back to Busan. The whole lit-up floating lantern idea is awesome. Maybe I’ll bring it back for the YK river? Hmm…Don’t think it would fly.

Chuseok

The next week at work was stressful again…I felt like I wasn’t getting any guidance because I wasn’t…Ha. I teach 6 classes/day starting at 12:55pm and ending at 8:35pm. Its weird to think that I’m teaching kids still! AH. The fallowing weekend was Chuseok, the Korean equivalent to Thanks Giving. We hit up Seoul for our four-day weekend. Beth and Stephanie were on the train earlier than I was so I trained it alone. I was feeling confident that I could get to our hotel in Seoul with the super good directions Steph gave me but I started off on the wrong foot…I missed my train. WELL I was on the right train but the in the wrong cart and being the silly person that I am I jumped off the train and run as fast as I could to the right cart when I could have just stayed on and walked through all the carts without getting off. GAH. So I’m running with my huge back pack and purse (+33c plus humidity) then I see the doors to all the carts close. NO!! I turn to train and start banging on the door for them to open up meanwhile the security guard is freaking out on his whistle to me to stop hitting the train. I was in panic fo sho. What was I going to do in this foreign country with everyone I know gone to Seoul. WTF. So I gathered myself and booked it down to the ticket agent. He laughed at me and canceled my ticket and issues another one that was leaving in half an hour. THANK GOD. However since it was a major holiday here in Korea and the train was full I had a standing ticket and was supposed to stand for the 3 hr train ride to Seoul. EF that noise. I found a fold down seat near the washrooms and marked my territory. After that everything went smooth. I found my way to the hotel with no problems at all which I was proud of cause the subway situation in Seoul is NUTS. In Seoul we did some shopping around, took in some cultural events for Chuseok, did some site seeing, and some partying. I’m stoked that I chose Busan to live in because Seoul is just too huge for me plus I love my set up in Hwamyeong. In all, Seoul was a great first trip to see Korea.

YOYO

So I’ve decided that I would update you all on my Korean adventures over the past month and a half. A majority of my friends are in Seoul this weekend but I decided to kick it in Busan to some money. Smart move on my half because just recently I’ve heard that my school is going through some legal issues so I’m on the edge of my seat to wither or not I’ll be paid on time in November.

ANYWAYS…I arrived in Busan September 4th around 10pm after flying for a trillion hours. My recruiter picked me up at the airport then quickly took me to my school in Hwamyeong (the sub-division of Busan where I live and work). I met the head teacher and she informed me to be at work the next day for noon. After that they took me to my apartment and gave me the low down. There are 15 floors in my building and it is like uni res because there are so many foreigners who live in it! It’s awesome. I slept like shit and really had no idea what I was doing in Korea. WHY KOREA?! Essentially it seemed like the best option for me at this time in my life. Free flight, no rent, good hours, cash-money, and being in a different country. My first day of work was overwhelming and super jet lagged. I sat in on a couple classes and then I had to teach two! It literally felt like I was a piece of raw meat thrown into a cage of dogs. The next day I was able to take in some hiking with some people I met. Busan is a great city for everything! Hiking, beaches, nightlife, events, shopping, and if you’re into crowds, there are plenty of those here. That night we headed down to a club called Foxys. I was hilarious! Minus the part when I had to buy new shoes because they didn’t allow people with flip-flops on. Only if I had heals on those bad boys I’d be set! Foxys had two floors, lots of rap (heard the song “California Love” at least 5 times), sweaty people, and choreographed dancing. We stayed there till around 5am…The bars don’t really close. These Koreans love their booze. I’ve seen many of people passed out on the streets, subways, being carried home, and puking their guts out.