Apartment!!!!

I HAVE MY OWN LIVING SPACE AND AM NO LONGER LIVING OUT OF A SUITCASE FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THREE WEEKS!!!  WOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!

Geoff (the former tenant) left me some very helpful sticky notes like this:

along with some much less helpful ones like this:

There are also some Tagalogs in the freezer and a balloon in the fridge (???) among other things.  It was kind of like Christmahannukwanzakah.

Spent most of today unpacking with a brief lunch break for the Korean take on tacos.  Not the same but still very good.

GRATUITOUS APARTMENT PICTURES GO!!

 Shoe entry closet.  Seriously awesome.  I kind of want one always.

 Plant I inherited.  I need to name it.....

 Look who came with me!!

Korean word of the day:  아파트 (ah-pah-tuh) - apartment

It has been such a long day

And I got lost.  I hate getting lost, it's scary, especially in a brand new place.  Thank goodness for $3 cab rides.

After a week of eating mystery things I got tired of not knowing what I was eating all of the time and treated myself to a hamburger and french fries and it was glorious.  It was also nice after getting lost.  On the other hand it may have been counter productive to me getting a gym membership right beforehand.

I may be going MIA shortly for a little bit because I'm not sure how long it will take me to get the internet connected in my apartment.  I may have to have a bank account in order to get it connected and I can't get a bank account until I get my Alien Residence Card which I should be getting sometime next week.  Same goes for a cell phone.  So much complication.  And I hate not having internet in someplace I'm completely unfamiliar with because it's how I figure out where I'm going.  I guess I could get a map.  Although I'm not sure where to do that either.

Today was my last day of watching classes, and the teacher whose position and apartment I'm taking is leaving tomorrow.  I got to test drive a class as well and it wasn't too bad.  Monday, I start actually teaching all on my own.  Yikes.

Korean Word of the Day:  저기요 (jeo-gi-yo) - excuse me (only used to get someone's attention or to get a waiter in a restaurant)

Recovering

I am so glad that I don't have any food allergies, cause about 75% of the time I have no idea what I'm eating.  They serve us lunch at school and it's all Korean food which I mostly can't identify outside of the rice and kimchi.  I am having no qualms about chopsticks though and actually haven't really thought about how I have used them for every meal so far.

Less jet lagged today, hooray!!!  But still sleepy and still in teeny, tiny hotel.  I did however see my future apartment, and I am very pleased, very pleased indeed.  I have a full sized bed and I'm so ready to sleep in a sprawled-across-entire-bed position again.  I almost inherited a hamster but I was afraid I'd kill it/I've owned enough hamsters to last me an entire lifetime and don't want to be responsible for a small, fluffy life right now.  I will, however, be getting some toothpaste, a couch, a microwave, a TV and some random other stuff.

Apparently Korean people do not use deodorant because I have been told that it is hella hard to find.  I really don't understand, do they not sweat?  What do they do instead?  Cause I know that France used to be unpleasantly smelly until recently because people didn't use deodorant but I have not had the same impression here.

Korean Word of the Day:  네/아니요 (ne [or nay]/ ah-ni-yo) - yes/no
In Korean, yes and no are used to express agreement or disagreement with what the other person said.  So if you are asked "You don't like coffee?" and you want to say that you don't, you would have to say "네 (ne)" to agree with not liking coffee, instead of "aniyo" for no.

First Day of Orientation

I must admit it is very weird being the only white person in a sea of Asians.  Very new thing being a minority.  Also, I just realized that I can touch the ceiling of the room I'm staying in temporarily.  And no, that is not while standing on anything or while standing on my tippy toes.

Still super, super jet lagged to the point where the manager of the school saw me mid afternoon and told me I could go home early.  That could also have been because I had gotten blood drawn for my physical (which involved lots of needles and subsequent band-aids with anime foxes on them) and that always makes me woozy.

Today was spent following around the teacher whose position/apartment I'm taking, seeing his classes and whatnot.  Little kindergarteners are freakin adorable, I'm pretty excited although it appears I have some pretty big shoes to fill so I'm a little nervous about it.

I really need to work on this learning the language thing, I really hate not being able to understand things.

Korean word/phrase of the day:  뭐 예 요 ? (mwo-ye-yo?) - What is it? What's that/this?

And I'm spent..

Twelve hours is a helluv a long flight.  Especially after a night of "leaving the country for a year" celebration.  There was a lot of sleeping and I did get through two and a half of movies on my list and one that I had already seen.  I'm sorry to say that today was the first time I'd seen Black Swan but that can be checked of the list so all you previous haters had best step off.

This whole language barrier thing may be problematic for a while but I'm proud to say that I can recognize some words and was able to tell when my boss and the hotel manager were having a conversation involving me and food.

I am currently checked into a little hostel/hotel thing with a teeny tiny room and a teeny tiny bathroom (which doesn't actually have a shower but instead a shower head attached to the sink faucet so you can douse the whole room while you clean yourself) until the teacher whom I'm replacing moves out of my apartment.  My main dilemma right now is whether sleeping, showering, or eating is more important and in which order to do them.  Obviously blogging supersedes all of these.

Korean word of the day:  감 사 합 니다 (gam-sa-ham-ni-da) - thank you

The Beginning

I'm one day out from getting on my 12 hour flight across the Pacific (well, actually it's more like up past Canada and over a bit of Russia but whatevs) so I thought it was an appropriate time to start my blog considering that I'll probably be too wiped out and busy to do anything for the first week or so.

As you all should know, I am quite the fan of food and bad puns, so expect to hear a lot of both especially considering the name of the city I'm going to be living in.  These circumstances just happens to play nicely into a title for my blog.

I am currently nice and crispy and lobster colored on my back and just enjoying my last 24 hours of good friends and sunshine in LA before my departure.  I don't actually have any idea where I'm living yet, but the school that I'm working for does so I'm not too worried.  Speaking of, I work here:
http://www.ybmecc.co.kr/index.asp?sub1=loca&sub2=2&seq=3
http://www.ybmecc.co.kr/index.asp?sub1=school_pic&sub2=2&seq=3
And yes, that is a picture of a Dunkin' Donuts across the street from my school.  Score.

Korean Word of the Day:  안녕 하세요 (an-nyeong-ha-se-yo) - hello