Oh look, Korea!

Alright, I know you've been waiting for an update on Korea, so here it is. I've been here about 10 days now, and it's getting better every day.

This is the majority of my apartment. There are a couple more things on the wall now (like the velcro dart board I scored for about $2), but this is pretty much it. 

I knew coming in that the  apartments here are tiny. And they are. In the picture below you can see even better just how small my apartment is. It's fine, though, because I don't really need much space, it would just get messy.

This was taken from the back room-thing of my apartment, on the right is my bed, the white door in the back goes outside.

I have a two-burner stove and a microwave. The fridge is in the room I'm standing in to take this picture, along with the washing machine.

The view out my window. I live on a pretty quiet street, but the other side of my building is on a huge street, so it's pretty convenient still.

Despite being located conveniently for grocery shopping, etc., I'm way in the southeast corner of the city, so it's farther than I can bike (my preferred mode of transportation) to get to the foreigner bar area, and closer but still farther than I really want to bike the city center.

The view from the other side of my building. About three blocks down on the left is the giant everything-store, Lotte Mart.

My adventures in small-kitchen cooking have turned out rather well. I've recently acquired some delicious sauces/marinades, so it's gotten even better recently.

 As I said, I have a two-burner stove, and my counter space is about 1.5 sq FEET, so cooking (especially with lots of veggies to cut), is interesting.

We had a holiday on March 1st, Korean Independence Day. I didn't know anyone yet, so I went for a bike ride. I ended up here:

This weird-looking tower and adjacent lake (with swan boats!) are not too far from me (though the bike ride is very steep uphill at the end).

I went for a nice walk, getting stared at by Koreans enjoying the beautiful weather on their mid-week holiday. It's a nice little area, but it was kinda strange to be enjoying by myself.


On another note, I've been trying to learn some Korean. I have found a benefit of having glass doors in my house:

Yes, those are paper towels taped to my door to make a whiteboard. Hey! I'm taking advantage of the space I've been given.

Now for the work part. My first week I just kinda got acquainted with the book/software, and then on Friday I had my first adventures with a laminating machine! Here are some of the results:

I also finally got my teaching schedule on Friday, It looks pretty good. Here it is:

I average about 6, 25-minute classes per day. The earliest starts at 9:20 and the latest ends at 3:05.

It's actually a pretty sweet schedule, although I have to be in the building from 9-5, but that gives me time to review the lessons and do the afore-mentioned laminating.