Sunday, December 28, 2008

Heres what happens when there is no dryer


i have a washer but no dryer, also the person before me did not leave one for me so i was forced to macgiver my own thing and heres what i came out with. this is the end result of my first load of laundry here.

Friday, December 26, 2008

Xmas come and goes...

this right here is the xmas eve dinner which consisted of quail eggs, fish cake and egg quiche thing, and yes of course you see soju (its korea!) and you may also spy some wine. [talk about culture meld] after this meal we proceded to go to yongtong which is kinda like downtown suwon to meet up with some cool peeps from facebook and have some fun with rusty nails and tequila sunrises. the second bar we went to had a few shows, including a fire show a couple games for the patrons, and something with backwashing alcohol and food among bartenders.... got back home at 530am... and thats considered a wee bit early... slept til 1230ish the next day



On xmas i was completely drained from the late night rendezvous, kinda did nothing all day, planned to make it to seoul's icebar in hongdae (plans fell through -.-). instead went out with the buddy down the hall to have xmas dinner (i can skip the turkey and ham this year for bulgogi hahaha) and walk around suwon station (btw it was faaaaaacking cold).



Came back from dinner and got one of our coworkers down the bar for a drink and just mingle, knocked out at like 1, uber drained.

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Work two, one off, work two, two off.

so over the weekend we went out to where Osan Air Force Base was and spent the two days there. the Osan AFB has a lot of shops right outside of it with a pretty big black market, and the funny thing is every vendor or shop owner knows english fairly well so its just very different. they have everything that you ever wanted or will want basically, they didn't make custom fit jeans.

we stayed at a yogwan aka love motel aka people go fuck there, and it was really cheap.

we ate at a mexican restaurant and they had freaking sopes AND corona with lime (<- impossible to find here)! i was very happy about that =] then it was to early to go out so we bought a bootleg twilight. then the night started with a shots from a kettle (redbull vodka), irish pub for carbombs and stellas, two more bars for long islands and cass (beers), then noribong (kareoke room) to belt out some tunes and lose my voice. called it a night and woke up with my voice gone... Sawadee for thai food (but can you believe they didn't have pad see ewe or pad kee mow...-.-..) wanted to get a tattoo but it didn't happen. and here we are, back in Suwon and loung'n and prep'n. after we watched prestiege and called it a damn good weekend.

Friday, December 19, 2008

My address.

This is my office address, my branch manager said to just send stuff to this address because it is more reliable

7F Geumgang Plaza 878-8
Jungja Dong Jangan Gu
Suwon Si Geyonggi Do Korea


Anything and everything is appreciated, including but not limited to hugs, non-perishable foods, seasoning, kisses, presents, gifts,books, love..

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

My bed + FOODS!!!


whats cool here is not the pink and purple covers but the fact that we made a damn pillowtop mattress!! and if you're good you already spot my lilo and stitch pillows! it helps to be innovative in a foreign country =)

Our branch manager Mr Han treated us to lunch the afternoon after we got to Suwon (past saturday). Some bomb ass pork kalbi. He also got all the teachers microwaves for free!! So our BM is pretty damn awesome.

So my typical day goes like this: wake up between 9-10, go down to Paris Baguette for pastries and bread, come back up to my room to shower, go out to coffee shop to prep for class, come back to my room to dress and head to school, teach for 6 hours, come back home eat dinner watch some TV and knock out.
I work mon,tues,thurs,fri... so i get wednesday and weekends off! dopeness on a stick i know.
however, winter intensives are coming up so i'll have work everyday then.

also i started cooking in korea, the first meal was a mushroom soup with green peppers carrots onions mushrooms and gangload of ginger because Jenny had a cold/stuffy nose. Decided to get adventurous so i tried to make some korean vermincelli that came out pretty nicely, and yes i pretty much used the same ingredients as the soup so i save money and maximize.

Friday, December 12, 2008

Home for the next year



Okay so this is my new place... its called an office-tel 400,000 KRW a month which is such a nice price for this big place.. i've heard of so many horror stories of living situations in korea. There are 3 closets on the left once you get in and bathroom is right across. The kitchen is to the right after you pass the bathroom. if you can spot the metal thing above the electric stove (which heats up super freaking quick) is the range and it turns on when you pull it out. There is a full bed and a 20" tv, and the heating is ando which comes up from the floor which is really nice. Our building is 12 stories up and 3 stories down, Basement 1 is a supermarket and B2&3 are parking, 1st floor is food, toys, books, and stationary stores, 2 to 10 are office buildings and a couple not as good english hagwons. 11th and 12th floors are apts like mine, there are a few english teachers that live on 11th floor and one more on 12th. There is a gym really close to me, probably 5 mins away. Basically, i am really happy with my living situation right now. =]

So relieved!!!

Last week was basically breakfast training lunch training dinner study study study sleep... rinse and repeat for 5 days... everyday we had training on how to teach and have to mock teach, i can't say it was the best training program i've had but it did the job even though it was painful and stressful. On a side note i passed my medical exam!!!! ahahah Food in korea has been so damn good and cheap, stuff like kimchichige (spelling it completely wrong?), samgynpsal (pre-bacon).. really good thing that one of the 14 trainee in my "class" had been here over a year and knows korean so he was a good tour guide/cultural teacher.

Yesterday, we finished training and final mock eval and got back to the hotel for dinner before leaving for our respective schools.. Little did i know i was in for PHO!!!! but unfortunately it doesnt match up but it was nice to have beef broth. Got back to the hotel and said bye to everyone which was quite sad because the last week has been amazing... i felt like i was in a set of real world seoul or something! So amazingly i was put into a school along with a fellow trainee that i got along with pretty well, JENNNNNYYYYYYYYYY!! (Say hi to a candid picture of her)

Saturday, December 6, 2008

Flight and then some more

Got up at @ lil after 0400, got to airport by 0530ish, first flight @ 0730, and this is my lay-over flight at SFO @ 1230


The coolest thing about the ~13 hour flight was that every seat had a screen in front of them and it was loaded with movies, tv shows, and music!


Pics of the hotel later because we had to move rooms to accommodate 3 other trainees... i had my first korean meal which was nakji bimbap (octopus and rice in a freaking spicy sauce) but it was so damn good and cheap for only 55000 won

Update:
This is the hotel suite, got a kitchen living room and 2 twin beds in each room

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Testing

Hey everyone. Just wanna test this out before I get on the first flight.