First Thoughts

So, the last few days have gone by in kind of a whirlwind and I feel like now is the first time I've had to really sit down and process what has gone on. We have seen and done and tasted so much over the last 72 hours that I honestly don't even know where to start. All know is that I really like it so far. Almost everyone we've met has been friendly, I love being able to walk or ride the subway everywhere, there are a million places I want to go and see, and I love that not being able to be fully understood is really driving me to learn the language.

I will give you the biggest tip that I have learned since we got here: If you ever decide to go and live in a foreign country make sure one of your good friends has gone over 5 months earlier and has learned just about everything. Well, not everything, but we'll get to that later. Now, I'm sure it is entirely possible to get through those first few days completely on your own, and maybe I'm just a giant wimp, but in any case Jordan has been a life saver! It's been really nice to just jump into going and doing things from the start instead of struggling to find everything. Over the first few days we have tried most of the traditional Korean dishes... and one that we weren't so much expecting. You see, Jordan knows quite a bit of Korean, but when we decided to try to the restraunt that is on the first floor of our apartment building he didn't exactly recognize anything on the menu, so we decided to take a risk and order the cheapest thing on the, pretty pricey, menu. After the meal Jordan texted one of his co-teachers to find out what exactly we had eaten. Turns out it was either pig or cow intestines and liver. It was a actually pretty tasty, but I think that will probably be the last time we eat first text later.

So far we've mostly done shopping related trips. Sam and I ventured out to Emart yesterday to buy some home necessities. Think Walmart but in an up and down foremat (7 floors!) I was able to replace my straightner which I managed to almost burn down my apartment with the first time I turned it on. Even though my converter box had a picture of a straightner on it. Technology hates me. Also, being with Sam and Jordan I wasn't too surprised to find myself at Technomart within the first 72 hours of being in town. Technomart is nuts (I'm trying to get out of the habit of saying "crazy" because apparently that has seriously negative connotations here). It is 10 floors of every single electronic on the face of the planet (except converters, which was the whole "reason" for our visit) and is, I think, actually what heaven looks like for Sam and Jordan.

Anyway, now that we know where the free internet is we will attempt to post photos in the near future to give you a visual of things like showering over the sink (which, really, deserves an entire post of its own) our school and neighborhood and such.