Rewind, rewind! Then fast-forward!

Where have I been?

Okay, well, my previous laptop kinda exploded, so that left me pretty high and dry. I've gotten another laptop now and PROPER working internet, so.. I can actually update this thing! It's been so long since I've updated, I've got to get a bunch of pictures out of my way.

Apartment pictures!

Long overdue picture dump: what my apartment looks like, starting from the doorway.

Oh, hello room.

The entranceway where shoes are dumped.

The shower! That beige thing on the floor is my mop-head drying.

Bed. AC unit is up there on the wall, but I haven't used it yet. Storagey corner in the left (though I've moved all of that, basically.).  In the lower right hand you can see my table with random stuff on it.

I moved my sofa over to the desk to use as a chair, heee! Though it wasn't that comfortable so I moved the normal chair back over there, anyway.

The TV and stand (which is next to the desk), the coat rack thing. The island of the kitchen with the red microwave on top. The fridge is built into the cabinet, so it's not that obvious, but it's there!

Another view of the kitchen. Fridge is just right of the sink. The range (stove) is there on the left, on top of the washing machine. 

A shot from inside of my kitchen, facing my bed. Little storage unit thingy. (You can also see that table with stuff on it sitting there.)

WASN'T THAT EXCITING?!

Oh here is my kitchen a bit closer. Hello, frying pan and teapot!

HELLO FEET.

Oh hey it's my feetsies. These are my house slippers. I bought them cause they reminded me of Charlie and Boo! (I wanna shout out to my homie g-dawg Dillasaur.)

Then I went to the airport to pick up my friend Rachel. 

Here's some shots of the scenery on the way to the airport.

It was still late February so that's why there's snow. 

It's almost march! Engagement party!

So, at this point, it was almost time for all of my coworkers to complete their contracts and move on.. but before that, we had an engagement party for two.  One Canadian coworker (seen below in the pink cardigan) got engaged to a Korean man, and a Korean coworker got engaged to an American man. Switcheroos~

The two engaged ladies enjoying their finely crafted toiletpaper dresses!

The aftermath. Toiletpaper havoc!

A challenger has appeared.

One of my coworkers got a cat. But she already had a hamster so she lent him to me. Obviously he's not a long-term pet but he's chilling with me for the time being. He's cute but he's really stupid and mean, so, I can't really touch him or anything.

February ends: Graduation!

For the month of February, I was a substitute teacher for one of the Korean teachers. You can see her in the pictures below. You can't really see her body but she was 9 months pregnant at graduation, ready to deliver at any moment! Also the baby was really big, so, I took over her class as much as possible to give her time to rest.

(Click to see a bigger pic of the kiddies graduating.)

March 1st. National Holiday.

It's a holiday to celebrate Korea's independence, so there was a big show put on at the city building. That tall green building you see at the left side of the picture is my apartment. I heard a loud ruckus so I went out to explore it. Lo and behold, stuff!  I took some video clips so I'll post those whenever I get the editing done.

Oh hey, that Korean friend of mine got married! Here she is, gettin' married.

Lychee! It's a fruit for those of you who don't know. The hard outside shell is opened and the inside is a meaty white fruit with a relatively large, smooth pit.  I'm not sure why some lychee are smooth on the outside and some are "hairy" looking. Does anybody know what the deal is? Regardless they both seemed the same on the inside. 

It's your fun! Chicken World! Chicken Castle!

There's so much bad English in Korea, this doesn't even begin to scrape the surface but I just liked the idea of a chicken world.  Anyway, Koreans love fried chicken.  They love eating it and drinking beer.

A trippy time in Seoul?

I went to a strange dub-step show at a "psychedelic" bar in Hongdae. The bar was decorated awesomely though the show itself was a disappointment. These are the only pictures that are even partially visible. The first one was a glow-in-the-dark painting (with a guy sitting in front that came out looking really creepy) and the second picture is of some of the stuff hanging from the ceiling. I know it's pretty much impossible to make out, so don't worry about it.

Views from my window.

Just some views from my window.   You can see my little plant. His name is Plantie.

I went on a picnic.

Mah coworker and mahself, looking a bit haggard from the wind. But besides that, we're very gangstuh.

We went on a picnic near the river. It was a bit too cold and the wind got pretty strong, too. But it was nice. We ate cheeto-type snacks and soaked in the stares of the passing Koreans.

Random chipmunks.

Lil chipmunks for sale at a department store near my school. :C Poor guys? I've seen them several times, though. I took a video too.. I'll have to get that edited and posted, soon.

And that catches us up to about 2 weeks ago. I still have a batch of pictures to update after that, but this is way too massive and I need to get to sleep!  Now I still have to upload tons of pics to facebook. Oh geeze! It's so hard to catch up when your computer explodes for ages..

First day of classes.

Today was my first day of classes. Unfortunately, my schedule is pretty bad.. every single day. Here's my tentative schedule.. it may change later.

Monday
9:00 - Reading and Writing Japanese
10:00 - Spoken Japanese
------------------------------
4:00 pm - Sexuality and Culture in Japan


Tuesday
10:00 - Spoken Japanese

Wednesday
10:00 - Reading and Writing Japanese
11:00 - Spoken Japanese
-------------------------------
4:00 pm - Manga and Anime


Thursday
9:00 - Spoken Japanese
10:00 - Reading and Writing Japanese
-------------------------------
4:00 pm - Sexuality and Culture in Japan

Friday
10:00 - Spoken Japanese
------------------------------
4:00 - Manga and Anime


So, it really sucks that all of my days have a super long break in the middle, from 4 to 5 hours. But at least I live close enough to campus that I can easily return home in that break.


Picture time!!

I haven't really been taking pictures, been more distracted by settling in and everything, so here's the first batch. My living situation! (Probably boring for most of you, but I know mommy and daddy want to see.)

My dorm room. Our futons are unrolled and everything. They can also be folded to a small size and used as a fluffy seat. We get lazy and leave them unfolded. This room's not usually this messy. (My side of the room is the right, with the purse on the bed.)

LET'S GO TO THE BATHROOM!

You can't walk into the bathroom with your house slippers, silly. Kick off your slippers and slip on these 'toilet' slippers. They're officially approved for bathroom use. When you leave, of course, take these slippers off and put on your house slippers.

The magical toilet! It's a regular-looking toilet, except with this little "attachment" on the side. You can choose such awesome things as "Oshiri spray" = "Butt spray", Bidet, and Flushing Sound (japanese people are shy and don't want people to hear them pee, I guess). The toilet seat is automatically heated all the time, which is awesome.

I'm going to be taking more pictures and posting them in clumps, as they're related.

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Today I wandered around with a friend to find a small japanese restaurant. We were the only customers, and we had some delicious tempuradonburi (tempura fried shrimp, fish, and veggies on top of a bowl of rice). It was a bit more costly than cafeteria food, but we got to talk with the owner. He spoke very, very little english, so we got to practice a lot of Japanese with him. He was a funny guy, and it was really nice to get some exposure to Japanese. I think I'll return there soon, maybe just to have something to drink and talk to the owner. He seemed really happy to practice the words he knew in english (January, February, snow, go, famous, mother, father) and he asked us to come back soon to talk with him again.


I had my first fun experience as a gaijin the other day. Japanese people are generally really polite, and look away from me when they see me. It gets a little bizarre to be 'ignored' so thoroughly-- I could do just about anything while walking down the street and nobody would dare look at me. So, I find myself really entertained by children. They don't yet understand societal 'politeness' like adults do.


I was waiting at a crosswalk with a friend when a group of three little girls (really young, probably two were 5 and the other was 4 or 3) and they were being a bit loud and playful until they looked up and saw that we were foreigners. They went quiet and stared at us, whispering to eachother. It was pretty funny. Other kids have pointed, their parents quickly correcting them.


Wednesday I meet my Speaking Partner. This is more of an informal program where you're matched up with someone you can practice Japanese with, and you can meet with them as often as you want. If you don't get along, you can just stop meeting. Hopefully we can become friends!


On Thursday, I meet with my Home Visit family. It's like a homestay program, but I only go stay with them for a few weekends a month--- whenever they invite me over, basically. I haven't met them yet, but from their little introduction letter to me, they seem like fun. They have 3 golden retreivers and one poodle! I love dogs so I'm really excited. I'm going to teach their dogs english.


I bought a used bike the other day, for about 50 dollars. Japanese bikes are pretty hard to ride.. the wheels are really slim so you need good balance to keep from being wobbly. I only ride it to class when I'm feeling confident. The sidewalks are huge here, so it's a safe ride, but I'm so wobbly I've managed to get shaky and nearly crash into bushes and whatnot. I'm going to keep practicing though.


One more bit of news before I call it quits: I feel like I'm eating a lot, though I still seem to have lost some weight. I only know because I was able to put on some pants that got really tight due to holiday weight. They're still a bit tight, but definitely looser. Good sign!

Okay. That's all. More pictures to come soon, of the neighborhood I live in and the walk to campus.