Busan Calling

So it's Sunday night. It has been a very successful weekend. Saturday morning I woke up and had a wonderful conversation with my aunt and uncle while they were at happy hour, over facetime. I love having internet on my laptop. As I was leaving my apartment to go get Jayna from the subway stop a car stopped in front of my apartment and honked at me. It was the director from my school, Mrs. Kim. She had come, with movers, to move my furniture in. She told me, in her broken English and my broken Korean, that I should go meet my friend.

I left for the subway station and quickly realized that I told Jayna the wrong subway stop. Well this is an adventure after all. We did find each other, she is a very calm, go with the flow person so that definitely helped. We took her stuff back to my apartment. Did you read that right? MY APARTMENT!!! Ahhhh awesome. We dropped off her stuff, messed around on the internet trying to figure out what we wanted to do. All of a sudden several Korean women walked into my apartment. It didn't take long for me to recognize them. They all work at the school. They were there to clean the apartment. I moved in before they could do so, so they came to do it now. We were ushered out and told 10 minutes.

We ended up heading for the subway and figured we could get lost downtown. We found out that above the subway but below the streets of downtown is actually a kind of mall. We walked around it for a while and found some fun stores that will provide many a gift in the future. When we finally made it above ground we were a bit lost. I hadn't been downtown in the daytime before so we explored a while. We found a good Italian place and had some lunch.

While we were walking we found this great store that Jayna likes in Busan, it's called ArtBox. It had a mix of everything. I loved it. I am going to go back this week I think. We walked around and ended up going to Diaso. It's basically the Dollar Store of Korea. I got lots of odds and ends for my apartment; trash cans, bath mat, mixing bowl, cutting board, basics. Two huge bags worth of stuff and it was 32,400 Won. Awesome.

We went back to the apartment and called up Luisana. Thought a Costo run would be a good top to the day. Both of us got wireless routers, so we can be wireless. Ha ha. I got Colby Jack cheese, a precious commodity here, dill pickles, bananas and the best part DR. PEPPER! You cannot find it anywhere. I carried a 24 pack with me through the store, around the exit (which was ridiculous) and into the taxi cab.

The night consisted of burgers for dinner and Jayna and I were talked into hitting the bars downtown. I had my first bag drink. It's basically a huge Capri Sun with alcohol. We hit a couple bars, made a late night McDonalds run (my first since I got here) and headed home.

Those are bag drinks. Pretty potent if you want them to be. Definitely an experience.

Sunday was fun. Jayna and I just wanted to be lazy. We went to the corner market and picked up a few more essentials. As you can tell, here it is a little complicated to get everything at once. We got eggs, oil, toilet paper (30 rolls, crazy), laundry detergent (gotta figure out my washer), peaches (we will see how they are) and Pringles for Jayna on the train ride back. 

 Making brunch!

This was brunch. Eggs and cheese on a croissant. Yummo

 This is the "kitchen" before rearranging the furniture.

 "Bedroom" before

 "Kitchen" after. We moved the fridge to the kitchen, because what good was it doing with the stupid washer?

 My bedroom after. The bed moved directions and the table just got a place by the moving wall. 

  The rest of my bedroom. The desk got a better place so I can look out the window. 

To answer my aunt Sue's question. Yes there are mosquitoes here. They are not friendly and they like to attack. I have a few war wounds. 

I am loving having Internet on my laptop. I have been on Skype with mom for 2 hours tonight. I am writing and she is going through mail. It's the little things. The dog even said hi to me, that was really cute. He started to go look for me. So at least he remembers me. I miss him so much. 

I am feeling much more settled today. I miss home, but now that I can Skype and talk to everyone I feel better. It's pretty lonely living in a small apartment in a building by myself, I'm hoping I get used to it.

Random Fact of the moment. You are not supposed to flush toilet paper down the toilet here. It's bad for the plumbing. Strange thing everyone needed to know, right?

I moved!

So today was an amazing day, it's not over, but I wanted to get a few things on here before we went out tonight. So this morning I packed all of my things from the motel and I brought them to school. Luisana was very helpful and she grabbed a load too. I made it to school and wouldn't you know it, during circle time I got a package! The kids were so excited, they wanted to know what was inside and who sent it to me. I just about cried. Here is a picture of all my loot. I realize I shouldn't miss things like granola bars, from home yet, but I do, and I don't care who knows it. 

There are granola bars, soup mix, a People, a cute frog washcloth (the kids went nuts for that), and tons of Twizzlers. I would also like to point out that there was a set of plastic silverware, nice touch.

Later in the day, after afternoon class and our staff meeting I was hurried downstairs to move into my apartment. It was very sudden. I didn't even have time to grab my outside shoes before I went downstairs. Needless to say, I had to make a second trip back to school to get all my crap to my apartment. The apartment is so nice. Currently, it has no furniture. They said tomorrow it would come. Yay! It is clean and it seems pretty safe. It is about 5 minutes from school so very close. It is also really close to most of the other teacher's apartments. Kelly will move into this building once she arrives from the US. 

Here is the video of my apartment. 

Tomorrow, Jayna is coming up from Busan. I am really excited to meet her. She seems so nice, we talked on the phone for almost a half hour tonight. We will be making a Costo run I believe and probably do some shopping downtown if I can talk her into it. 

Maybe vacation week won't be so bad. I will have time to get settled and get things unpacked. Ahhh it's the weekend!

Paperwork

So today was another adventure in being flexible. When I got to work today I was told I would be going to immigration in the afternoon and my medical check was in. My medical check was interesting. Apparently I had high cholesterol and a UTI. I think they are a little crazy. If I had a UTI I would probably be rolling on the floor in pain, or so I have been told. Thankfully I had lunch to go back to the motel to get my passport, right? Wrong. At 11:15 a teacher walks in and says that I have been summoned to Mrs. Lee's office. She said to get my passport and I am going to immigration. Well that would be fine except I didn't bring it to school. So I had to run to the motel and get it.

I was then taken in a car by Mrs. Kim's father (who speaks no English) to the immigration office. I had to be fingerprinted and something needed to be filled out. I was shuffled from one desk to another without a word. Adventure. Check. Next I got back to school and Mrs. Lee said she needed my passport. Apparently it has to go to the ARC office to be verified. Hopefully, I should have it back tomorrow.

Later in the day I got another surprise. Something had arrived for me from the States. Unfortunately, it was detained by Customs. They had some paperwork they wanted me to fill out, it was in Korean. So Mrs. Lee had to translate (kind of) and had me write some things down and now I am hoping for the best. I cried when I heard I got mail, I was so happy. Let's just hope her English to Korean written skills are better than her Korean to English speaking skills. I hope it comes before vacation.

I miss everyone so much.

Mug Shot

So today Diane cornered me in the hallway (where it is hot and small) and asked me if I went to get my passport photos taken. Apparently I was supposed to bring two photos with me for my ARC card (Alien Registration Card), I turned into an alien, who knew? So anyway I told her no, I did not go the weekend. She told me that I would need to go today, and I could take Victoria(our other new teacher) with me. She is very nice. She has lived just about everywhere, and she is 42.

So here I am kind of freaking out, kind of feeling confident that I can accomplish this task. Well I was in Elizabeth's class in the afternoon and I told her I was going to E-Mart (where they have a photo place). She said she needed to go too. Awesome I don't have to go alone. So after school we get into Diane's car, so she can drive us (we caught a taxi home). We got out pictures taken and holy moly, it is a full on mug shot. Not a cute picture.

Elizabeth ended up getting some supplies at E-Mart and I got a couple too. Some crackers and I believe I found Digestives (The same kind that I loved in Paris), and no they are really just cookies. They do not aid my digestive system in any way. After E-Mart we went to a little Galbee restaurant. It was pretty good. It was beef, which I am sure I will pay for later, but this place didn't do chicken.

In other news I got back to my motel this afternoon and I found my room clean. Yay right? No. My towel was gone, again. This time however when I walked down stairs the lady I spoke too last time seemed a little more ticked off. I think she was mad at the cleaning lady. The little old cleaning lady was all smiles and they could tell I was frustrated. I was trying really hard to go with the flow and take what came but I had no idea what they were telling me. I smiled, I nodded and eventually the older lady took me to the roof, where the towels of the day were drying. Yes! My towel was on the roof. I think she thought it needed to be washed. How sweet of her!? Crisis once again averted. I think I have to hide my towel any time I leave the room, not just take it out of the bathroom.