Sunday - Another Week

Hello Everyone -
I am finished with my first full week of teaching and things are going well. I work from 1:30 until about 9 (Tuesday/Thursday are shorter and Monday/Wednesday/Friday are longer days)

I am starting to find restaurants around work and places to eat near my apartment. I have a Dunkin Donuts near the school and that has become my standard breakfast and I have been eating "Kimbop" (probably not spelled correct) often for lunch. This is egg, vegetables, crab, and rice wrapped in seaweed, it looks a lot like sushi.

Last night I met the girl who had my job before me and also lived in the same apartment. She stayed in Korea and is now teaching adults in a town about 20 minutes away by subway. She came to pick me up with her boyfriend and they showed me several places to go around where I live and we ended up eating together at a restaurant nearby. The food was excellent, the 3 of us sat at a round table with an opening in the middle where the waiter put coals and a grate on which we cooked beef. We were given an entire plate of meat and we cooked it ourself. When the meat is cooked you put it on a piece of seaweed and top it off with rice and some other sauces. The food was excellent and it was one of the first true Korean dinners that I have had. The three of us then took the subway to Buo-Pyong (again, probably spelled wrong) and we went to Amanda's apartment which is above a huge underground mall. The mall was unbelievable, it was almost like a maze with shops everywhere. At night we went out to a "Foreigner Bar," which kind of made me laugh because I guess that there are places that are mainly for foreigners and everyone speaks english. I met several people that are all friends and it turns out that one guy lives right around the corner from me. Everyone was teachers and it was nice to hear some fluent english and hear some stories from people that have been doing what I am doing. We were planning on going to Seoul on Saturday but it rained all day and we did not feel like sight-seeing in the rain. =) I had a great time and I think that I will be friends with these people and be spending a lot more time with them in the future.

It is Sunday night here and I am going to attempt to do laundry, my apartment has a washer and I am hoping that I can figure it out.

I am planning on going to a baseball game next weekend and in July (starting on my birthday) there is a mud festival. It is exactly what it sounds like, everyone goes to this place with their bathing suits and basically has a huge mud fight. I am excited to have met people and they were very helpful with everything so I feel a bit more at home now.

Forgot one thing, after going out we went to another Korean restaurant and at the same type of food as dinner, but this time it was chichen mixed with some type of greens and some very good sauce. The Korean food restaurants are amazing and it is typically cheaper to eat at a restaurant than to make your dinner at home. I was very glad to hear this because my signature entre selections at home are frozen pizza, chips and cheese, and other microwavable things which I cannot make here because I do not have an oven or a microwave.

I guess that is all for now,

Kevin