Day 2 - Holiday Dinner & Snow

SNOW!!
Me & Qi in the snow
Burger King... they have everything plus a few additions like Bulgogi Burger
Holiday Dinner Korean BBQ
Korean BBQ with Kyndra's school family

Today was a very busy day for us on Jeju. Jordan, Kyndra's good friend from back home came to visit her for the holiday weekend. We were worried about how he was going to find Kyndra's apartment because my school director was supposed to take me to the medical at the same time as his arrival. As luck would have it my director was late. I told Jordan to get a cab ride to Hanmaum Hospital, looking lost off the ferry I suppose, the local police offered him a ride. Lol. They took him downtown to City Hall area, stopped traffic and hailed him a cab. I seriously doubt that the police back home would do anything like that. Meanwhile, I walked to the hospital to meet Jordan. Just as I reached the hospital a lady and man pull up in an SUV and yell at me to get in. The couple are the directors of my school, Tony & Angelina. Well I guess I stick out like a sore thumb. They don't speak very much English and start to drive away with me just as I see Jordan pull up to the hospital. Quickly, I take the keys out of my purse and point and say my friend, the keys, hospital. Ohh ohhhh & they turn around. As I was explaining Jordan how to get back to the apartment, my directors were nice enough to give him a ride.

After dropping him off, they tell me that it is not a good idea to do the medical today and that I should go tomorrow by myself. They proceed to take me to my school which is very nice. Way nicer than I expected. It takes up two floors in 5 story building, it is located beside a nice middle and elementary school in a rich neighborhood. Inside it has a fish tank, wood floors and is very clean. I couldn't ask for more. Although they do not speak much english Angelina and Tony are very nice. After the school they tell me that they want me to have a cell phone immediately and then take me to buy one. They added my phone to the school plan & it only costs me 11,000 wan out of my paycheck each month. Like less that $11 a month! Amazing! After we leave the phone company and I thank them they then take me to eat. We go to an official Korean restaurant, I mean you walk in the door and take off your shoes before entering. This is because the heater comes from the floor here. All the floors have a heating element beneath them and shoes damage it. Anyways, we sit down on the floor and they order this boiling hot, spicy, OX TAIL soup! I felt like I should try it and eat it all, after all I did not want to be rude. They laughed at how I held my chopsticks and how I dipped everything in bean paste... but seriously I love that stuff. Finally, Angelina helped me by scraping meat off of the bone with her chopsticks into my bowl. I think she hated to see me struggle. Lol. The ox tail was actually quite tasty and the soup extremely spicy! Which I LOVE!

After lunch they took me back to Kyndra's place, where I found Jordan sleeping. He awoke and we decided to do some light exploring. We walked to the gas station to get a drink. Well guess what? In Korea, the gas stations are just that, gas stations. They do not have any food inside them. Disappointed, we decided to continue our walk to Kyndra's school since her director Alice and her husband had invited the three of us to the holiday staff dinner. I remembered how to get there and earlier had pointed it out to Tony & Angelina, who were impressed by how "smart" I am for knowing my direction so early. But I have always been good with directions. Her directors were so nice they brought us dumplings to eat while we waited. Her directors took us to a Korean BBQ & ordered us some kind of pork that tasted a lot like bacon. We also got to eat chigae, which is a brothy soup and in this case had crustaceans in it. The people Kyndra works with are quite lovely and we had an excellent time.

After dinner we met with Qiana and hoped a bus to Seogwipo. Once we got up to Seogwipo it was snowing!!! We met up with a bunch of other foreigners. The bus ride up the mountain made me pretty sick feeling. And my ears popping again did not help my jet lag. At the bar I just chilled with Qi, didn't drink and played several, several hand of kings in the corner. Once I realized that nobody but me wanted to leave anytime soon I decided to fall asleep on the couch. Bars here are not like back home. The only people in the bar were friends and they have nice couches. I only woke once, when the bartender covered me with a blanket so I could sleep better. Seriously people here are so nice. We left the bar around 6 am only to find it snowing harder! We waited an hour to ride the next bus back to Jeju-Si. On the bus, all still exhausted we fell asleep and missed our bus stops! Oppps... well a cap ride back to Kyndra's was entertaining.

Later I will move into my apartment. :)

Day 1 - REAL Korean BBQ

Jeju City Hall Area

It's freezing here. Well not really, it's actually warmer here than back at home 52 vs. 37 ha ha. But we have snow on the mountain, kinda makes up for the cold. Last night I bundled myself up in knee high socks, skinny jeans, boots, undershirt, sweater, hat, scarf, jacket and mittens, finally warm enough to go outside. I had to walk 10-15 minutes to Kyndra's school to pick her up so that we may go to dinner. It was a little scary walking by myself at night, I feel like it gets dark early here, like around 5:30.

To walk to Kyndra's school I must walk by several tangerine groves. Tangerine's here are very small but delicious. I arrived at Kyndra's school early and the principal at Kyndra's school gave me a few to try while I was waiting. Kyndra had already warned me to never pay for a tangerine because people will give them to you for free all of the time. The teachers at Kyndra's school were very exited to meet me. All the teachers there besides Kyndra are Korean. Once she got off she showed me around her school, it is small and quaint, but very cute.

After leaving Kyndra's GnB, we headed down to City Hall area and met with Qianna, one of our new friends. The three of us stopped in a foreigner bar called The Bar, where we saw 2 other American/Canadians whatever & the Korean bartenders could speak English to us. We each had one drink and then proceeded on to Korean BBQ. The girls guy friends, Chris and Charlie were there waiting for us. I used to work in a Korean BBQ back home and I love Korean food, so I was dying to find out what it would be like here! Korean BBQ is served with several side dishes, to my surprise the side dishes that it is served with back home are the same that is served here! Fish cake, spicy pickled radish, spicy kale, kimchi, and vinegar onions. They also brought out bean paste and garlic. I love bean paste! The only thing is they do not bring any rice to the table and apparently the rice here has seaweed and other weird stuff in it. The BBQ was fantastic, it was not quite the same as back home but still amazing! And I had my first taste of real Korean Soju! It was quite tolerable although now I do have a slight headache. The feast only cost us about 11,000 wan. After dinner we all started the walk back to our own homes. Charlie stopped and got one of those dragon waffles I mentioned before. It turns out that they are filled with custard & very yummy. Charlie was the first to reach his home, then Chris and then Qi, finally me and Kyndra had a pretty far walk back to her place. I can't wait to get my own place next Monday, hopefully closer to City Hall area.

Today, I have my doctors appointment which consists of a full physical, blood work and a piss test. After all that I will probably be taken to my school to meet the staff and then Kyndra's brother Jordan, from back home, get's here today. We are going to go exploring while KK is at work. Tonight we are all thinking about going down to Seogwipo a city on the other side of the island to meet up with some other friends and to play poker. This should be interesting!!

The adventure begins

The view from Kyndra's house!
Seoul at night from the plane!

I'm still a bit jet lagged, but the 20 hour plane ride really wasn't that bad. I got to catch up on my sleep and also watch a few movies that I had been wanting to see. The worst part of the plane trip was switching planes in Atlanta, which has the most confusing layout for an airport and hardly any information desks help you to be directed correctly... Ah-noy-ing! From Atlanta we flew across the United States, over Alaska & Russia. Not too much down there but a whole lot of snow. Before landing in Seoul the first thing I noticed was this huge bridge, I can't remember the name of it but it is a 7 mile huge bridge. Myself & Marcus were looking at pictures of the bridge the day before, so that was a pretty neat thing to see from the sky. When I arrived in Seoul I asked for help with my luggage from an Army man, he obliged and showed me how to get a cart. From there I went through customs and got my first stamp in my passport. :) Once I got outside the airport, I was waiting for the buss which costs 4,000 wan to take me to the next airport. Looking lost I guess I accidentally got a cab which cost me 100,000 wan. AHhHhH well that was a learning experience. Swindling cab drivers are everywhere. When I arrived at Gimpo airport I was starving so I took a look around the food mart. They had a various assortment of meat on a stick, think hot dog form meats. And lots of brown quail eggs in a basket. I passed on the "hot dogs" & eggs & got a vitamin water & a chicken and herb sandwich instead.. not too bad actually. After a 2 hour nap on the bench, I was awoken by a flight attendant to board the plane to Jeju, my new home. Exhausted as I was I fell right back to sleep on the plane, lucky me I had a whole aisle to myself and stretched out. It was a short trip only about an hour. But the nap was much needed.

Jimmy, from my recruiting agency picked me up from the airport and brought me to Kyndra's house. Not wanting to carry my heavy luggage up 3 flights of steps he went to make sure that we were in the right place first, leaving me downstairs. Well we were in the right place and Kyndra screamed and about jumped Jimmy when she opened the door. I'm not sure who was scarred more, Kyndra that it wasn't me at the front door or Jimmy being scared by Kyndra! After toting my luggage upstairs, I quickly called my mom & Marcus to let them know I was safe! Both were very worried & pleased that I had called.

After finishing up my calls, Kyndra & myself walked down to catch a cab. We got a ride to downtown, near where I will be living. Our cab was only 2,200 wan. From there we went searching for a place to eat. I noticed several American places, such as Burger King, Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robins & Krispy Kreme. It appears that Koreans love their donuts. The streets at night are all lit up with neon signs and kinda reminded me of what I would think China town to look like. I will take some pictures tonight. There are a lot of street vendors here. Selling all sorts of things from "hot dogs" which there was a long line for, to waffles and even dragon shapped waffles, dumplings and noodles. Korean men all dress/look like Jonas brothers. They wear boots, skinny jeans, t-shirt with blazers and big hair. The girls here wear a lot of tights and boots and short skirts. Very fashionable. Kyndra and I ended up eating mexican food. Yes, mexican food! We ordered nachos & guac, I got a soft taco and found out that the beef here is from Australia. Kyndra got chicken quesadillas. The food was very good and only cost us 18,000 wan. After dinner we walked around a bit more. For a Monday night the streets were all full of Koreans. We saw no other Americans. And I guess neither did the other Koreans because we got stopped and asked if we would have our picture taken. After having our picture taken looking like a mess we went to a quick mart, bought Hershey's chocolate milk and some bananas. The bananas are an odd shade of yellow and I still haven't tried them. The milk was great. Kyndra bought Pringles, milk and a sushi roll for lunch. We then cabbed back home and slept.

This morning a awoke talked to those I love & opened the window to see a full view of Mt. Halla. The largest mountain in South Korea. It is beautiful. Kyndra is gone to work now and I am watching The Hills on MTV & eating. Tonight all of Kyndra's friends are meeting up to take me out to Korean BBQ. I'm exited. Well nap time...