Hi Korea, I'm Here!

Today.... I spent an hour on the bus. Normally a bus ride of 5 mins turned into a bus ride of 1 hour.. Why, you ask? Well... I believe I missed the stop the first time around so I had to sit on for a whole another loop! I'm not even sure if the bus driver was supposed to stop where he did for me but he took me straight to the school when I noticed I was far far away haha. I really like the bus drivers here! I'm forever going to tell the bus driver my stop from now on so they point it out for me each time. Maybe at some point I'll figure out where I am and figure out how to get the bus to stop >_>;.. I saw a buzzing thing on the ceiling but no where else.. are we supposed to press that?? What about the short people? :x Anyway, my day started out with an adventure, at least I now know where the LotteMart is XD



Back to continuing yesterday's post!

edited out apartment stuff.. found a picture ;D

Yesterday, the Vice Principal came up to my office to visit and greet me :D I really like how everyone puts the effort to try to communicate even with broken English and hand motions. He kept having to leave the room to maybe look up sentences he wanted to say or ask someone how to say it. It was really cute haha. I learned that everytime I describe the Principal as nice, they laugh (does that mean he's really scary behind his nice grandpa look??). I also learned that the Vice Principal's son is in I think either Middle School or High School studying sciences. He wants to be in a Chemistry field later on in life. So, the VP respects me (as a scientist??) and thinks it's nice to have females in the sciences field too. Apparently there aren't that many here. After about an hour of discussing/him going in an out, he informed me that we'll be having lunch in the meeting room. They ordered pimbimbap (sp?) delivered with nice bowls and trays of appetizers. I really like how the delivery orders here aren't all paper and plastic.

"Nice Guy" - termed such because on the first day I went to school, they told me that if I needed any supplies to see him and he'd help me set up the internet.. so he was a "nice guy" and is now always referred to as "Nice Guy" instead of his name, and the manager who carried the heavy luggage up took me to GS Square to buy stuff after school around 3:30pm. It was really funny when they debated on how to tell me the 300,000 won was going to be deposited straight to my bank account b/c they couldn't figure out if I had any money at all on me lol. Eventually they pointed at the line in the contract (Umm they don't even know what "GEPIK" is..) and then drew this schematic lol. The manager really loves to write and scribble constantly. On the housing contract (the 2nd apartment we looked at.. he scribbled ALL over it even
though we didn't get it in the end). I also busted out my ds for the touch dictionary program I had on there to act as a translator at some points. Anyway, after we get there, we stop at the grocery floor. I ask if we can get Shampoo and some bathroom supplies and so we do! Goodness their Pantene big bottles are freaking $9!!! I ended up buying some Korean brand that had 2 big shampoo bottles and 1 big conditioner bottle for $12. The store helper lady gave us a little extra 'service' and gave me a free small bottle of shampoo haha. Afterwards she helped me find everything else I needed. 24 rolls of toilet paper = $15 (I'm so going to go broke from just TP), All purpose cleaning spray = $7?, Soap tray = $2?, Bath towel = $2, Detergent = $7, umm either I'm forgetting something or something was more expensive but the total came up to be $46. I'm very used to getting CVS deals where everything comes out to be close to free so this was a major shock for me lol. I see why they give us the $300 settlement allowance!!

When we finally got up to the floor with the household goods (bed sheets etc) they stopped and tried to decide how to ask me about money again. I already told them I exchanged a lot at the airport but I guess they didn't understand last time lol. So they ended up calling my coteacher to have her translate and after translating they still decided that the department store was too expensive and I probably don't want super high quality stuff (GS Square is like a SOGO or Shinkong Mitsukoshii) and took me back to my apartment to drop off my stuff. When we got back there was some notice on my door that ended up being just a notice that the gas people were going to come to check for leaks since the gas repair dude came in the morning. I had been taking icy cold showers for 2 days lol. It's fixed now so it's all good.

The manager dude left after checking for hot water and me and nice guy went to the market in my area to do economical shopping! Ah, I love markets! There we got a "bed cloth"-- something like a thin blanket to place on the bed instead of sheets, and a pillow. Nice guy helped me haggle a dollar off XD We also got cheap shower and indoor shoes and got me some groceries :D Nice guy was amazed my frozen dumplings I picked would be enough for dinner :o After grocery shopping, we stopped at the cheap Sheng Li type of shop (many things for $1 or something cheap) and picked up utensils and shower hanger/hooks and a toothbrush holder. It's really inconvenient not having a sink in the bathroom. I have to hang everything everywhere! Oh well.. one less thing to clean. Nice guy was very nice.. he patiently waited for me to choose everything and made sure I bought all I wanted and carried ALL of the bags. I feel bad that the guys keep insisting on carrying everything. (picture = first home cooked meal XD.. I forgot that I hate the juice in Asia too.....)


Anyways, since this is getting long.. to summarize the rest really quickly.. I've been spending the rest of my time cleaning my office and apartment and making things comfortable for me :) I'm really liking it here! I didn't really like the apartment at first (too big.. somewhat dirty) but I really love the location and after clean up it's awesome :D I still need to buy some things but with that dollar store near me, I'm happy to go shopping!! (Pictures are of the inside sandals they gave me to wear at school. There is a heal b/c the students are too tall lol)