Yesterday was great overall. Around 9:30am my co-teacher came to our house and we all walked to my school. I am amazed at how close it is. We were walking leisurely and it took less than ten minutes. So the first thing I saw at Song-Il elementary was the playground and modern infrastructure. We go in to meet the School Director (Korean version of the principal) and he seems like a nice guy. A girl came in and served us all green tea. After a short translated conversation, we headed up to meet the Vice School Director, who made us coffee and told Steve and I we were an attractive couple. We waited for a bit until my co-teacher found us a ride to get our mandatory health check-up. Soon, we were in a car with the P.E. teacher driving to "Good Morning Hospital." When we arrived we were sent to a series of rooms to check our height, weight, hearing, sight, teeth, blood pressure, get a chest x-ray, urine test, and blood test. The results come back next week so until then we can't get our Alien Registration Card which allows us to get a Korean cellphone, open a Korean bank account, and set up internet and cable at our apartment.
After the hospital we headed for a speedy trip (seemed like the P.E. teacher was in a rush) to E-Mart (like a Korean Walmart, but more expensive). They had everything there, so we quickly got some necessities and left. One thing that was a little different was that we had to box (not bag) our own groceries.
The P.E. teacher dropped us off at home, we put our groceries away, and rested for a bit. Steve's co-teacher was supposed to come by and show him his school but she never showed up so we decided to explore and look for dinner. We found streets filled with bright neon and flashing lights. After walking a few blocks we stopped in a place and asked, "menu?" A woman pointed to the wall at a list of items and prices, all in Korean. So we point to a dish that a group of people had that looked good and sat down. She brought us soup and asked, "Soju?" to which we nodded enthusiastically (hey, it was our first Saturday night in Korea!). About 5 minutes later she brought out a steaming pot of whatever it is that we ordered and served us. Everything from the soup, to the kimchi, to the main dish was incredibly spicy. We started eating and notice that the dish was full of whole shrimp (or crawfish?) with antennae and eyes lookng at me. I lost my appetite. We noticed a guy who seemed to know a few words of English so we asked him, "How much?" pointing to our food. He looks at us and says, "One-hundred thousand won" (roughly $100 U.S. dollars). Steve and I said thank you and tried to hide our disbelief. We looked at each other like, what the heck do we do? This meal was not worth $100! We checked our wallets and found that we only had 60, 000 won. We sat there and waited a long time, scared to ask for the bill. Finally the woman comes by and Steve takes out his wallet. He starts pulling out money and she takes 13, 000 from him ($13 bucks!). We realized we had been sitting there for a good 30 minutes freaking out about the bill when a guy had just played a joke on us. Wow. Good times.
After the hospital we headed for a speedy trip (seemed like the P.E. teacher was in a rush) to E-Mart (like a Korean Walmart, but more expensive). They had everything there, so we quickly got some necessities and left. One thing that was a little different was that we had to box (not bag) our own groceries.
The P.E. teacher dropped us off at home, we put our groceries away, and rested for a bit. Steve's co-teacher was supposed to come by and show him his school but she never showed up so we decided to explore and look for dinner. We found streets filled with bright neon and flashing lights. After walking a few blocks we stopped in a place and asked, "menu?" A woman pointed to the wall at a list of items and prices, all in Korean. So we point to a dish that a group of people had that looked good and sat down. She brought us soup and asked, "Soju?" to which we nodded enthusiastically (hey, it was our first Saturday night in Korea!). About 5 minutes later she brought out a steaming pot of whatever it is that we ordered and served us. Everything from the soup, to the kimchi, to the main dish was incredibly spicy. We started eating and notice that the dish was full of whole shrimp (or crawfish?) with antennae and eyes lookng at me. I lost my appetite. We noticed a guy who seemed to know a few words of English so we asked him, "How much?" pointing to our food. He looks at us and says, "One-hundred thousand won" (roughly $100 U.S. dollars). Steve and I said thank you and tried to hide our disbelief. We looked at each other like, what the heck do we do? This meal was not worth $100! We checked our wallets and found that we only had 60, 000 won. We sat there and waited a long time, scared to ask for the bill. Finally the woman comes by and Steve takes out his wallet. He starts pulling out money and she takes 13, 000 from him ($13 bucks!). We realized we had been sitting there for a good 30 minutes freaking out about the bill when a guy had just played a joke on us. Wow. Good times.
