Our latest

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Yesterday was Meet the Teacher Night at Busan Foreign School. We got the option to leave early (as soon as the kids left) and go freshen up etc for our long night. Since Haley had a bunch of homework, we just stuck around. I got caught up on scanning class notes to post on my web page, and Haley worked on her homework. We did walk home briefly, to eat dinner and snag Haley’s laptop.

Dinner was Chamchi Kimbap — tuna kimbap, which is a lot like a sushi roll with veggies and canned tuna. Then as we left the kimbap restaurant carrying our rolls, there was a big oven on a truck with meat on spits rotating. I asked (using mime and sound effects) and the man told me it was pork. So I bought $10 worth, and he sliced it for me into a container. We ate our kimbap and dipped the pork into the sauce it came with. Very good, if a bit fatty. I would definitely buy it again though 🙂

Then we came back to school for Meet the Teacher Night. The parents followed their kids’ schedules, except we shortened all the periods to 10 minutes. Haley hid in the back of Ivy’s room and I did my roaming teacher thing. Luckily, the order in which we ended up doing the 2 days worth of classes meant I only had to move rooms once. It was pretty funny though, since several parents came to 2 or more presentations. Some of them have more than one kid in my classes, and a few kids are taking 2 math classes at the same time. I didn’t really do anything different, so they got the same speil twice.

After the big meeting in the cafeteria, we were able to leave at 9pm. Bleah. Haley walked home with Ivy and Zoey and went to bed. (It’s really cool having a keypad to open our door — it totally eliminates the worry about your kid losing the key.) Meanwhile, I caught a cab with another teacher and rode down to Emart. I bought a toothbrush holder and a vacuum.

No, I have no idea why Haley has two toothbrushes…

Brooms here are weird; most of them have a very short, 2 foot handle. They are used one handed, and the sweeper bends over at the waist to sweep. They do have long-handled brooms, for outside use. I bought one, not knowing what it was. However, the bristles are stiff plastic, good for sweeping stubborn twigs but not so great for catching grit and dust. Watching the fluffballs wafting away from the broom was so disheartening that we didn’t want to sweep. Our floor got pretty disgusting, so I talked to some other people and found out how they cleaned. Most of them said that they bought one of the little vacuums that are sold in Emart. They’re very, very lightweight upright vacuums intended for use on hardwood floors (because nobody here has carpet).

Our new vacuum is pretty neat. It’s a cordless vacuum with a charging station. Not having to worry about a cord is very liberating! I’m not really worried about the battery life; I just vacuumed this morning and it took less than half an hour. The floor part has a rolling beater, the dust goes into a cup that I empty into the trash (not a bag that I have to replace), and the middle of the vacuum comes off and is a little hand-vac dust buster thing, to get in crevices and vacuum the couch. This is going to make it much easier to keep our apartment clean. Now I just have to find a place to store all of my groceries and get my trash and recycling figured out, and we’ll have it made 🙂

Guess What?!

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In Korea you can’t really do anything until you have your alien resident card (like a green card in the US). You can’t sign any sort of contract, so there’s no way to get a cell phone or open a bank account or get internet in your home. We applied for our alien cards just a few days after we got here, but they didn’t get here until yesterday. After school I helped a few students who had math questions and then Haley and I hiked over to the nearest branch of the expat bank. Except, it turns out that that “branch” is a couple of ATM machines (though they’re fancier here and do more things). The gentleman in the business next door told us about another branch with real people in it, about 10 minutes away. Except it was already 3:50 on a Friday afternoon and banks close here at 4! Well, we walked very, very quickly, and made it to the bank just as they were closing. They graciously let me in and helped me open an account. Yay! So now I have a purple debit card 🙂 It will be nice to have an account that is in the same currency that I am spending; it gets hard to keep track of my expenses otherwise. Hopefully my school will be able to direct deposit my paycheck — that would make things very simple 🙂

Anyhow, we then ambled back to school and asked Miss Jin (one of the secretaries) to help me set up internet at home. She was able to find me a good deal *and* to set up an appointment for Saturday! So the internet guy just came and we are online!!! I am posting this from my home!!! I brought my Airport Express router with me, so both Haley and I are wirelessly on the internet right now 🙂 🙂 🙂

Anyhow, this is excellent because I will be able to Skype people in the morning before school, and not be doing it during my prep periods when I’m too busy to hold a good conversation :p So feel free to give me a call around 3pm Pacific time 🙂

My next thing will be to get a cell phone. I’m holding out for an iPhone for my permanent cell phone, but I figure I can get a cheap flip phone and give it to Haley when I get my iPhone 🙂

Cold Snap

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Right now we’re on the edge of a storm that has brought some rain and a week of unusually cold weather (for this time of year.) It’s been so cold that building superintendents have turned on the heat so that the residents can use their heaters. Today’s chilly temp? 78˚ F. Oh yeah, I am loving this cold snap.

The River by our Apartment

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Our apartment building is part of a complex of apartment buildings. They are grouped around two open areas in which the garbage and recycling are kept. Our apartment building is very near the main road. If we walk away from the main road, past the other buildings, we arrive at a nice walking path by the river.
First we walk down a staircase.
Then down a ramp to the river path. Under the bridge it’s nice and shady. They have a neat stone path with lots of different textures. You’re supposed to take off your shoes and walk on it, to self-administer a kind of acupressure on your feet.
Most of the little kids and their moms and grandmas hang out under the bridge, to hide from the sun. (Koreans really don’t like sunburns or suntans.)
This is the view from across the river; the stepping stones are really pretty 🙂
None of the kids wear swimsuits; they’re all swimming in shorts and t-shirts. Haley decided, “When in Rome…”

Our Korean Apartment

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I didn’t want to post photos of a messy apartment, so I’ve been putting this post off. But we finally finished unpacking and got all the luggage and junk put away. So here it is!
 I did a video tour:
I also have several photos. Here’s the view as you enter the front door. Straight ahead is our bathroom.
To the right is the kitchen and Haley’s room.
Opposite the kitchen is the living room and my bedroom.
 Past the living room is the veranda, where our washing machine and clothes drying racks live.
My room overlooks the veranda, and offers me a lovely view of our drying clothes *grin*

Ghost House

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On August 13, 2011 I went to a haunted house with my mom, my friend Zoe, and her mom and dad in South Korea. The building was huge it was named Bexco.

There were so many people dressed like comic book characters it was so cool.

We went into the building and found the haunted house, Ghost House.

I got very scared and Zoe was excited. When you walk in you go through a black ripped cloth onto the ground but, the floor is squishy. Now you go through another black cloth and people are jumping from hidden places and holographs of ghosts and a t.v. with bloody mary and phones ringing and all kinds of scary things. At the exit you see small booths. I went in to some and you can scare people. So the people scaring you got scare by other people it was so cool.

Money

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I’ve been having trouble with money here in Korea — I have (hopefully) enough money in my checking account, but that’s back in the US and none of the ATM machines here seem to want to talk to my bank back home. I was down to less than $1 in pocket change yesterday, when I got a tip about an ATM on the way home that works with foreign cards! So with Haley and Zoey in tow I headed to the Family Mart on the corner. All seemed to be going well, but then the ATM crashed! So no money for me 🙁 But this morning I stopped by the ATM again and this time I was able to withdraw $200. Such a relief to have money! Now I can buy bread and eggs and other groceries. At lunch I overheard my coworkers talking about going to CostCo this afternoon, and I asked if I could join them. Woohoo — CostCo trip! They told me that CostCo only takes cash or a Korean credit card. So I might want to withdraw some more money before heading down there — I’m not sure how much I’ll be buying, but it’s the only place I can buy a lot of American products.

Stew & Friends

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Today the school took a bunch of us to immigration to apply for our Alien Resident cards. Another mother-daughter pair were on the school bus with us. Ivy is about my age and Zoey is a little younger than Haley. The two girls really hit it off 🙂 It turns out that Ivy and Zoey live in the same apartment complex as us, two buildings down. Zoey came home with us from school and played with Haley while I made stew for dinner. It was pork, rather than beef, and chicken broth rather than beef. But it turned out pretty darned well! After dinner we all went for a walk. We brought Hoolie too; she was glad to get out of the apartment. Ivy showed us the river right behind our apartment complex. There’s a really nice walking path. Then we went to Ivy and Zoey’s apartment and let Hoolie run around a bit while we chatted. They had a little dresser that they were giving away so we scooped it up to go in Haley’s closet. All in all, a very fun night 🙂

Lazy Day

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Today is a lazy day — just hanging around the apartment reading and relaxing while some laundry dries. Haley just took a 2 hour long cold bath. It’s about 86˚ in here, which is comfortable as long as I don’t move around at all. 
Yesterday we went to Emart to buy some of the things we need that weren’t provided. Trash cans for our bedrooms and bathroom, an iron and ironing board for my work clothes. A wet/dry mop with two washable microfiber heads, cause our floors are already getting gross. Spray bottles for water, hair gel, and cleaning spray (vinegar). A pillow for Haley (a cutesy cat shape). A kitty scratcher for Hooligan (immediately necessary to protect the couch and chairs). Doorstops. By the way, I am a master of charades. I managed to communicate cat scratcher and doorstop to a nice store lady who spoke no English. I also managed to get fitted sheets for Haley and my beds (theoretically they are the right sizes — I got one queen and one single). Then we went downstairs to the grocery store. We didn’t buy much — some chicken, some garlic, salt, pepper, canola & olive oils, cooked meat patties, cheese, butter — some very basic essentials. Well, and a $9 bottle (the cheapest!) of what turned out to be a sweet sparkling wine. I’d assumed it was chardonnay! Oddly enough, it was only 6% alcohol. Anyhow, the grand total for our shopping trip? $420!!!!!!!!!!! That’s most of the money I had changed. I’ve now got about $60 left, so I need to get some more money pretty darn soon. We’re down to one package of ramen, cheese, uncooked chicken so I’m going to have to go shopping today too. Happily, there’s a grocery store in the basement of the next building (weird, but my boss says the prices are better than some of the big stores, so it’s going to be tremendously convenient!). Also, there’s a bakery, Paris Baguette, on the corner, so we’ve also got a good source of baguettes and packages of pre-sliced white bread (no heels!). They do not, alas, have any wheat bread. I’m going to make fried chicken with garlic and onions for dinner tonight, but I don’t know what else to make. I was completely intimidated by the produce section at Emart — it’s very small and has lots of weird stuff. No broccoli or asparagus, so I couldn’t figure out what to cook with my chicken. I’ll need to get that worked out pretty soon. Vitamins or no, we really shouldn’t live on ramen, bread, and eggs!

First Notes on Korea

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Our kitchen is tiny, but neat. I really like how the sink is set up. It’s a double wide sink, with a dish drainer that sets into the sink. So with the dish drainer in place, it’s a single width sink, but we can take it out for big tasks, like bathing the cat. It also has a sprayer head, so no need to attempt any plumbing before bathing Hooligan.
There is no oven, which I was expecting. There is also no microwave.
We have discovered that Korean ramen is really, really good. We found one brand that  we really like, and one that looks almost the same but is a little too spicy.
My apartment does not have air-conditioning. It does have two fans, which haven’t been off since we arrived. Hoolie doesn’t seem to be suffering too much from the heat; I think the panting at the rest stop must have been stress as much as heat. She mostly lies around, but does regular patrols of the apartment. She really likes that my bedroom windows open into the sunroom; she thinks jumping in and out as she loops through the apartment is great 🙂
The laundry machine makes a long beep when it’s done. If you ignore it, it’ll beep again later. Intermittently, for hours (I think). I started the laundry before going to bed and groggily ignored the first several beeps.
The washing machine doesn’t work if you don’t turn on the water taps running to it. Duh. That’s why it was beeping! It doesn’t beep noticeably when a load is done. A load of laundry takes an hour to wash and then less than a day to dry when hung up. I like our laundry room. We have two drying racks. One is a folding rack that leans against the wall when we’re not using it. The other is hanging from the ceiling. It lowers to chest height to get loaded up, and then can be raised back up to the ceiling to let the clothes dry. That way you can duck under the hanging clothes to move around the room, rather than having to dodge a whole rack. Hanging laundry is way more eco friendly, and cheaper. We’ll see how well it works in the winter. I’ve heard that winter is very dry here, so the clothes will probably dry pretty well and we’ll probably appreciate the extra humidity.
Haley’s room was completely empty. No bed, no wardrobe. The school arranged to have a bed dropped off, as well as some missing cupboard doors in the kitchen replaced. They were supposed to arrive after 3pm. The cupboard men came at about 6, and were finished in 10 or 15 minutes. The kitchen looks very neat with the missing cupboard doors replaced. No sign of the bed though. That was kind of a problem, since it was Friday, which meant a weekend of no bed for Haley 🙁 Haley went to sleep on a folded comforter in the sun room. I started to get ready for bed, actually had one contact in my hand, when they called in from the kitchen window. Holy cow, they make deliveries at 8pm here! They brought in the parts and put together the bed in about 5 minutes!
There was a really weird intermittent electric noise. I thought there was an electric trolly that was going by just out of sight. Nope, turns out Busan has cicadas. I’m awake early, and now know that the cicadas start humming shortly before the birds begin singing.

…back in 5 minutes.