Made it.

Whew. I'm finally here. Who knew that one of my MANY schemes might actually happen. Blows my mind actually.

There's so much to say and not a whole lot of time. Actually I have all day but I might get lung cancer or something sitting in this PC bong for too long. I had no idea there were still places that allowed smoking....there are actually smoking allowed signs. Never seen one of those before. It's not a bad place actually. The guy who 'runs' it knows I can't speak korean and he's nice enough to tell me how much I owe him in English which is more awesome than it sounds.

So I arrived on Friday morning at 4 am, got into an airport taxi and slept for most of the 2 hour trip from Seoul to Jochiwon, the town that I'm living. We went right to the school I'll be teaching at and my co-teacher met me there. Her name is Mrs. Shin and she's pretty awesome. Her English is good enough to converse with but I've got to take it easy on the sarcasm because it definitely escapes her.

I never knew it was so hard NOT to be sarcastic.

It's Monday today, and my fourth day here. Here's what I've been doing:

Friday: Arrived in the country, went out for breakfast with Mrs Shin, which was awesome by the way because I LOVE Asian food, went to my apartment, which is pretty small but there doesn't seem to be any reason for it to be bigger, unpacked, napped, met Paul, the American I'm replacing, took a little trip around town, went back to my apartment, went to the GS, which is a little convenience store by my apartment, and went to sleep.

Saturday: woke up at 2am because the guy upstairs was being loud. I'm hoping he tripped, or fell out of his bed. Had a hard time sleeping after that, finally got up at 8ish, piddled around the apartment until about 10ish, went for a walk to the school and back, found out my gas line was cut because the girl in there before me hadn't paid her bills (no wonder my showers were cold), had a lunch of duck with Mrs Shin, and headed to a PC bong to email and stuff, went home, went to bed.

Sunday: Met Paul and headed with him to a church service in Daejeon, the very large town/city about a 20 minute train ride from Jochiwon. Had church, met awesome people, went to lunch with them, headed for the train, had to wait, watched some break dancing while waiting, headed back to Jochiwan, met some other English teachers, more Americans (they're EVERYWHERE, these Americans), had supper at a Chinese resturant of all places, went home, went to the 7/ll, bought some more jam for breakfast (I never thought I would need that little bit of non-asian food so much) and an MGD, went home, watched some Band of Brothers with the converter I'd bought in Daejeon, and went to bed.

Monday: Pretty dull today. Slept longer but the people in the apartments around me were up a whole lot later than they were on the weekends so I was still out of bed by 8, breakfasted, watched some more Bof Bs, drank coffee, and headed to the PC bong I had gone to with Mrs Shin on Saturday. It's the farthest one from my apartment that I've found but it's nice and the guy who 'runs' the place is nice and knows I can't speak Korean. He puts up with me pretty well, cleaning industriously around me. I try to be polite and move out of the way but these people take polite to the next level and there's no arguing with them. And so I sit.

This country is unlike anything I ever imagined and I haven't even started working yet. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow when I start.

Phew.