Good Thing I Only Went 4 Days Without Hearing Katy Perry's 'Teenage Dream'

While Bundang is incredibly westernized, it still has its own distinct culture. I stole Erin's idea from her blog so I will make lists of interesting things I have learned and observed during my first days here.

1. Korean’s believe that you are already 1 year old when you are born. So that would make me 26 years old. When the New Year rolls around you become one year older, no matter when your birthday is. So as of New Years 2011, I will be 27 years old. I had no idea this whole experience would age me so quickly.
2. Korean’s drive on the right side of the road, but they don’t seem to understand the concept of staying in one lane…which makes me incredibly grateful that I won’t be driving here.
3. Korean’s do celebrate Halloween by dressing up but they don't really go door to door asking strangers for candy. What a concept.
4. My students will call me "teacher" or "Amanda teacher." I kind of miss "Miss Amanda" but that is ok.
5. Korean's use heated floors instead of central heating. I must say that is works really well as every place I go is really warm, except for my school. For whatever reason it is absolutely FREEZING inside!
6. When you enter someone's home you should remove your shoes as a sign of respect. I also learned that a person's home is their sanctuary and a very private and special place. Being invited to a Korean's home is a very rare occurence and is a great honor.
7. My new friend Erin has told me that shopping is a national pasttime here in Korea, and I am quickly learning how true that is. Every store I have been to here has been as busy as U.S. stores are on Christmas Eve. And everyone has shopping bags. Everyone also has really, really nice cars. I have not seen a single rusted out junker in this city.
8. In order to throw my trash away, I must purchase special trash bags, which happen to be bright pink, and I just place it outside my apartment building on the sidewalk. A trash truck comes around and collects the trashbags.
9. Hello is "Anyang haseo" (On-yong Ha-say-o)
10. Thank you is "Kahasamnida" (Kom-som-nee-da)
11. I have tried some traditional foods and I have to say that I have liked most of them. Sorry Dad, I did try Kimchi, but it was in a spicy hot sauce so I didn't enjoy it. Mandu (Mon-doo) are potstickers and you can get them boiled or fried. Bee bim bop is a rice dish. Tangsuyuk (Tong-soo-yook) is fried pork and is by far the best thing I have tried. Jjajang bap (Ja-jong-bop) is rice with a black bean sauce and is sweet, and pretty tasty. I guess I don't understand how Korean's are so skinny because they eat an awful lot of fried food!

I still have so much more to learn, and I am learning slowly, but that is what this experience is all about. I won't be getting paid a full paycheck until December 15th, so for this next month and 15 days I will be living frugally and simply. Hopefully after that I can start to travel and see new places and learn more new things. I get my furniture and hopefully the internet tomorrow as well as begin teaching my first classes. Big Monday for me! I will have 5 classes on MWF and 6 classes on TTh. Wish me luck! Peace out girl scouts.

I Must Have Really Good Luck with Girls Named Erin

Out of all the people I will be working with, I have found and clung to one that stood out the night I met her, Erin. I have never been more grateful to one individual in a shorter amount of time than I have been to her. She took me under her wing and showed me lots of things on my first day in Bundang (pronounced Boon-dong). We went to the bank and exchanged my money, she took me to Daiso the Japanese dollar store (BEST place I have ever been to), Tom N Tom’s for some coffee and showed me how the local bus system works. She is also hilarious and we get along really well, and she is the reason I will be really successful here.

I have continued to explore my surroundings with my new BFF Erin and it is absolutely GORGEOUS here! It is also incredibly westernized and I have access to McDonald’s, Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Starbucks, Emart (Korea’s version of Target), Home Plus (Korea’s version of Wal-Mart), and Daison (Korea’s Japanese version of Dollar Tree). I got really lucky to have arrived here during the last of the beautiful fall weather. The city I live in is pretty affluent. I live in an apartment building that is a 5 minute walk up a steep hill from the school I work at. Here are some of the sights I see on a daily basis:



My apartment building. My apartment is directly up a half flight of stairs from the front door.



The building and wilderness across the street from my apartment building.



My street sign.

I will post pictures of my actual apartment after I get furniture in it! Right now there is nothing to see...

I will be teaching at a hogwan (hog-won) which is a private school. That means that the students have school during the day and then their parents send them to my school to learn English in the evening. I will be teaching classes from 4:25 PM to 10:20 PM Monday-Friday!



This is the building where I teach. The blue sign about 5 floors up that says HR is for my school. Most of the buildings here cover their windows with signs.



The Dunkin Donuts across the street from my school. We don't even have these in CO anymore!

That is my little neighborhood in a nutshell. I can take a local bus to the busy part of town or the city bus to go shopping at the big stores, so I will get pictures of those places later.

Back To Sleeping on the Floor

My flight to Korea was really long and uneventful so we will skip that part of my journey. Suffice it to say that I got to drink wine on the plane and I still only slept a total of about 2 and a half hours out of a 13 hour flight…I can’t sleep on airplanes! When all was said and done I was awake for about 24 hours from leaving my house in Colorado to arriving at my school. Yes, the cab driver was instructed to drop me off at my school instead of my new apartment. Of course I would get to meet all of my new co-workers looking like a hot mess and not smelling much better. A Korean boy named Leo met me at the cab and took my hot mess self and my luggage to the 4^th floor of the building, where I got to meet my new boss, Harry. He seems very nice and he doesn’t speak much English. I have also been told that he is very uncomfortable around white women, especially when they cry, which I fully expect to do at some point here in the next few weeks.

Harry sat me down in his office and proceeded to tell me that I have an apartment, but no furniture in the apartment. He said “You come at bad time.” And I thought “You’re the one who bought my ticket.” There are eight foreign teachers, and I am here to replace Steve. When Steve leaves at the end of the month, they are going to move all of his furniture to my place. For now, I have Harry’s son’s twin size futon pad on the floor. And nothing else. No washing machine, no refrigerator, no internet, no BED! At this point I was literally the walking dead so this news didn’t phase me too much. I met all of my new coworkers and they all seem so nice and helpful, which is the only reason I am still sane at this point. That nights’ sleep was the best sleep I have had in a long time.

This Must Be What It Feels Like To Go Sky Diving

Words cannot describe the feeling of sheer terror I felt on Tuesday morning when I left. I have never been more nervous and plane sick in my life and the three hour flight from Denver to San Francisco was the worst flight I have ever been on. The best way to describe the way I was feeling is to compare it to going sky diving. Now, only handful of people have actually been skydiving (Kelly – you go GIRL! (I do suggest you hire a manager now)) but I would consider the two experiences very similar. When you decide you are going to hurl your body from a moving plane thousands of feet in the air, you sound like a fun, adventurous person. You tell everyone that you are going to sky dive on October 26^th. Everyone is super impressed and they have lots of questions about it. They tell you that they could never do such a thing, but that you are amazing for doing so. The day comes and you feel slightly nauseous thinking “what did I get myself into?” Despite any reservations you get into the car to go to the airport. You fill out paperwork, get all suited up and board the plane. You have the entire plane ride to think about what you signed yourself up for and to consider the consequences of your decision. Then the time comes where you have to stand up, walk to the open door, close your eyes and jump.

Ok, now change the sky diving to moving to Korea and the story is exactly how I felt that morning, minus the jump suit and actually jumping from the plane. The jumping in my experience is slightly more metaphorical. I think I can best sum up my feelings by what I said through my tears when I had to say goodbye to my darling Julie (having you gotten that manager yet?): “It has been fun talking about it but I don’t actually want to do this.” In short, I was scared shitless (sorry Mom!) and if I had gotten a dollar for every time I thought “What did I get myself into?” I would be a millionaire.

Homeless and Overwhelmed by Toiletries

As many of you may know, I decided to go on this adventure very close to the end of my lease at my last apartment. My lease ended in June, and I was lucky enough to move my things to Josselyn’s apartment for the month of July. Then I became homeless… not living on the streets as that word connotes, but I had no place to call my own, and worse yet, no bed of my own! So many awesome friends stepped up and offered to let me stay at their place and invade their homes. These past three months have been somewhat of a nomadic period for me. I would like to give a shout out to my peeps who let me stay with them: THANKS Shaunta and Emily; Melissa and Brandan; Marjorie and Brian and Ethan and Claire; and finally Julie and her wonderful parents. Just FYI, if I mention you in my blog you should probably get a manager and publicist because of impending fame.

In packing for this grand adventure, I became very overwhelmed by all the things I wanted to take with me. I knew I needed to bring lots of clothes, as Asian women and I are built incredibly differently, but it is hard to pack a ginormous suitcase and keep it under 50lbs (it topped out at 47 lbs which shows you what an awesome packer I am). I had the most trouble when it came to my toiletries. I always believed I was one of those women who lived simply without the aid of several beauty products. This experience has proven me very wrong. For example, I am addicted to my face wash. I knew I wouldn’t be able to buy it here, so I packed several bottles. I wanted to bring one of every product because I had no idea what would be available here and how quickly I could have gotten it. So I blame only myself for the weight of my bags.