Tae Pyung Yang Ansan

... it was too late at night. The cabs are also quite a thrill ride. The cab drivers are extremely reckless and have quite a lead foot. They will drive around 60 miles per hour in what would be a 25 to 30 mile an hour zone in the US (in the middle of a crowded city). It's a bit nerveracking especially since there are rarely seat belt buckles in the back seats of the cabs.

Anyang, Kyonggi-do, Korea, Republic of nickerrico

... it was a security issue, but most likely a privacy issue).


Thursday Sep. 24

Fortunately I get to move into my apt. a day early. The school director (Mr. Joe is what we call him, but def. not his real name) picks me up from my motel. We get in his car that is parked in a garage underneath the motel. He presses a button for an elevator that is exactly the size of his car. The door opens, but he can’t quite get his car at the angle to drive into the ...

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Soo and Daniel took us to Maritza's apartment first. It was really modern with contemporary decor. Definitely what I expected mine to be. We went over to my apartment on the other side of the city and it didn't meet my expectations. It smelled like a frat boy and it was still dirty. The person who cleaned the apartment didn't do a very good job of it. I knew I was going to have to spend a few days getting this place close to my level of cleanlinesss. The walls were dirty ...

... mainly sat on the river's edge talking and taking pictures. Actually, a few of them decided to do "fashion pictures". I can just imagine how crazy the Koreans around us thought we were!

During this time, since I am a visitor, I tried to play match-maker. I'm not sure why, but when I told one of the Korean young ladies that I was now single (they knew I had dated a Korean before), she got WAY too excited. And said "now you can date me!". Oy! It was ...

... one of Seoul's mountains. After that, we headed to Insadong and then ran around downtown trying to find a theater for a show we had heard about. Thanks to a kind barista, we found the place and saw Nanta, a production about chefs, but with no speaking. Instead, they bang rhythm on kitchen equipment. It was like nothing we'd ever seen and turned out to be surprisingly funny. There will be more to come when we have more time. Good night!

... that surround Seoul and there is also a market. Then we wook the subway to an area called Myeongdong. This area is known for shopping :). It reminded me of Tokyo because there were so many people! There was a lot of people traffic and I'm glad we didn't spend much more than a couple of hours there. We ate our supper from street vendors. It was very good and very cheap. Then we took a cab to Namsan park ...

... is what they sell. The 20 year old place has noodle soup with beef and dumplings! Sounds good to me! Last night the other teachers finally asked Elena and I to go out with them! It was a mixture of Korean and Western teachers so we had people who spoke great Korean and people who THOUGHT they spoke great Korean! It was pretty funny! OMG! I was drunk after a beer and three shots of soju! I don't drink that much anymore so my ...

... floors who teach three or four - they don't have as much marking. As it's a new academy, my classes weren't exactly overflowing with students at first, but I certainly wasn't complaining. I averaged about four students per class for the first week, and while it's since grown, it was less daunting to start with a half-empty classroom.There certainly weren't any behavioural issues to contend with, as the kids were incredibly quiet. In fact ...

This was my last evening in Korea. For this time. When we returned to Ansan it was already dark, but still relatively early. We wandered around downtown and on the fourth floor of one of numerous shiny buildings spotted "Le Ciel Café", a place advertising itself as a European-style café. So Su Yeon as a bonified Europe fan and I as someone who wanted to have a real milk tea ...

Sung Jae was on time. And there were no misunderstandings today. "I've never been to Ansan before," he said. "Then this is the first Korean town I know better than you do," I laughed. Since it was so, we settled for another random walk around town. We first headed in the Hwarang Public Park direction, but soon our feet took us elsewhere and we found ourselves in an entirely different park. I don't know its name and it may have been Ansan City Park, but I can ...