Korea Life Blog - Leaving Nowhere-dong
I'm getting my stuff together for the big move tomorrow. I'm going to be staying in a yeogwan (small motel) for the next month. The good news is I'll be living in Seoul again and therefore I should have a lot more to post about. To be honest, things couldn't have gotten much duller around Nowhere-dong. For now, here's a pic at the mess I'm working on...
Not too bad. Julie's coming now to help me pack, the doll. We're using a "Call Van" service tomorrow. Only 45,000 won for the move from the country side into Seoul! Pretty cheap. They even load and unload the truck for you.
A huge bag full of word search puzzles, etc., by the kids from the last few months. I have brainswashed every kid in that school with only 1 or 2 exceptions that word search puzzles are sooooo much fun (and first kid to finish gets a sticker). They totally love them. Our school has no recycling system, so I bring home my papers and then leave them for the recycling haroboji (grandfather). Whether he gets a few bucks or curses and burns them, I don't know.
My last month's salary and bonus pay. Whoo hoo! Most of this, unfortunately, will likely be spent on traveling and/or an apartment deposit in the future. Most decent one room apartments require a 5,000,000 (about $4250) deposit, though you get it back and rent isn't too much. The thing is, even though it's free, I no longer want my boss to own the place I live. As much as I enjoy calling in to miss work and then having the boss bang on the door later asking a million questions, I'd rather have my own pad and have the boss pay me the rent money.
I was pretty well happy with getting that money (to be honest, even though I was entitled, I was really uncertain I'd actually get it) but have a look at the circled item from my pay receipt... "etc. Expenditure: 150,000 won"($125)? I have no idea what that is all about but it's typical penny pinching BS that unfortunately is all too common here. Due to the nature of my working status over the past year though, I won't be taking issue with it. I'm going to count my blessings and leave it at that.
Keep checking back for updates tonight. I'll be taking more pictures....
Mmmm...goodbye 10,000 won pizza. Not just that it's cheap, this place is right next to my home. I taught the guy's son for a year. He made me the best pizzas. Julie and I almost cried eating this last one.
Well, the cats ate all their food again today. I'll bet they'll miss me more than anyone else will.
Well, maybe this poor gal is gonna miss me too. I've been going out there almost every night for the past few months petting her and feeding her treats.
Tonight I'll go all out and make sure she gets her fill. Lots of hot dog/sausage snacks.
A couple more shots. I'm still sorely tempted to cut that strap off her neck, but I guess there's no winning situation for her. I wish I had my own house; I'd surely steal her and make her a good home. Sigh. Looking at her miserbale existence is heart breaking. Look at all the garbage. The owner burns his trash right in front there - you can see the big pile of ashes. Nothing like sitting downwind of a hot fire and smoke tied to short chain...
Bye bye, poor dog. I hope somehow your existence gets a little more exciting. Maybe you can work on getting your collar off instead of taking your house down...
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Changes
There's a lot to come in the next week. I'm moving! I'll have the whole story for you soon so stay tuned.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Hairdo
Before ending up at Ohoo (see yesterdays post below) Julie and I hung out in Seoul then went to the Ewha University area where we spent 3 long hours at a hair shop. I talked Julie into getting a "wave" done. She told me it would take that long, but I didn't believe. Man, was I wrong. It took forever! And I promised to stay there the whole time, which I did. Good thing they had the internet there and free canned drinks and coffee.
A shot of one of the side streets in the Ewha University area. If you actually walk down toward the campus on any given day and just stand around with your mouth gaping in awe, you'll understand the phrase Darwinism at it's best. A long time ago, my friend Mark and I went there and though we walked into man's heaven. It's an all female university, in case you couldn't figure it out or if you're a little slow.
Mmm...not a place you can go where you can't find some delicious dried squid. Now, sitting out there all day in the hot humid air right next to the main street bustling with traffic kicking up dirt, how hygienic can this food really be. Worse yet though is dokbokki with all the little insects nose diving into the sauce and disappearing. The best outside stands are the ones enclosed in a tent, if you ask me. However, before I sound like an sniveller, let it be known that on many occasions I've feasted on O-daeng at these places...but usually in the cold winter without the insects in the broth.
A lot of little shops for women (or some modern guys I guess) line the streets. If owned one of these shops, I'd turn it into a cool studio apartment with the front being a huge two-way mirror and rent it out to some old pervert for a few million a month.
Personally I don't like body piercings (or make-up, or jewelry). I guess I'm conservative and enjoy the natural beauty of a woman. I can deal with a belly-button ring but anything other than that just looks silly. Body piercing reminds me of freaky, over-action American chicks from back home. Fortunately, however, here the peircings are mostly normal: belly-button and the occasional tongue ring so far...no nose rings or my least favorite, eye brow piercings, though they may exisit; I just haven't seen any. I'm guessing the other two piercings I'm thinking of are still taboo here too.
Great, a body piercing event. Luckily they put lots of example pictures out to scare people away from trying. See the next two pics for more...
Hmm...if you're hungry, why not stop for a healthy snack: sausage wrapped in bacon! YUM!
OK, here we are finally at the hair shop, where we'll be spending the next three hours. I'm sounding old and conservative again I guess, but I don't understand why some Korean women dye there hair blond. It just doesn't look right and their natural black hair looks so much nicer.
Looking around, I'm glad I'm not a girl and have pay to endure this kind of madness.
There's Julie taking a last look at her straight hair.
At this point she's really apprehensive and getting a bit irritable. Click on the picture (or better yet right click and choose "save target as")to view the short video clip. Wait until you see the next picture.
I practically burst into laughter when I saw this. Julie practically burst into tears. What the hell is this torture contraption they have her hooked up too? She asked me not to take her picture...actually she pleaded, but come on! How can I keep such a classic scene from my faithful readers? Besides, it's not as if she can stop me. Muhahah! Snap, snap!
Ahh, the joys of fashion. Poor Julie had to sit like this for over an hour. I took so many pictures that the damn batteries died before I could shoot a video or photograph the results. Once again I left the good set in the charger back home. Argh! Alas, though, her hair came out just gorgeous...lucky for me. We both love it. This is both good and bad though, as now she fears she will have to go through this every three months or more which means I'll probably have to as well.
I got the camera to turn back on again and was going to take a picture of Julie, but instead took one last picture off of this Dominoes pizza we ordered to celebrate the new hair. We chomped this down before meeting Swiss James for a night out at the Ohoo club. Maybe I can get him to send me some more pics of us and I'll post them soon.
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written by shawn matthews
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Korea Life Blog - Ohoo
Had a lot of fun over the weekend. Julie and I met up with Swiss James and some of his cronies on Saturday and went to the new night club Ohoo. Since my batteries died beforehand and since James took a ton of pics, I'll leave it up to him for a run down of the evening. Check his website here. He should have an update about it soon...
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written by shawn matthews
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