We finally arrived in Korea after a two day delay. Our passports which, according to the Korean Embassy in Vancouver, were sent on Friday arrived at the house Tuesday with a stamp saying they had been mailed on Monday. Hmmm...
 
Either way, we are here now. We got in on Friday night after a grueling five hour bus ride. Brian and I got off the plane in Seoul quite chuffed with ourselves. Thinking ourselves to be seasoned travelers we remarked on how easy the trip was. (Asides from the fact that people were smoking in the airplane washroom...let me say that smelling smoke at 30,000 feet is NOT a pleasant feeling.) What we didn't know was that it wasn't even close to being over! We arrived in Korea at 3:30 in the afternoon and got to Daegu at 1:00 on Saturday morning. Ugh.
 
This morning I awoke to what I thought was the police yelling for someone to come out of their house. It was loud and insistent. It was blaring in my window and it was more than a little annoying. When I finally mustered up the energy sit up and look out my window I saw that it was actually a guy selling watermelons out of the back of his truck. How quaint. The parade of speaker-bearing salesmen continued through the morning. Onions. Garlic. Televisions. The list of items one can purchase of the back of a moving truck appears to be endless. I wonder if any of them sell earplugs?
 
Our little apartment is above a corner store owned by a Mr.Lee. (Of course it is!) It sells beer and milk and a lot of other things that I cannot yet identify. Mr. Lee appears to be friendly enough but there are sordid rumours circling around the neighbourhood about Mr.Lee and his dog. Apparently he really loves his dog. Nuff' said.
 

We went downtown today with Andrea and Ryan, two teachers from New Brunswick, who were kind enough to show us around. We went downtown and ate galbi at a small restaurant off a side road. It was delicious! Galbi consists of marinated pork (I abandoned vegetarianism until I can learn how to order and what's what) that you cook on a grill at your table. It was so good and came with at least a dozen side-dishes. Kimchi being one of them, of course. Kimchi is a Korean staple and probably best described  as this country's french fry. It comes with everything and there is always lots of it. It's a spicy dish made of fermented cabbage and hot chili paste. It's pretty good actually.
 
We start school tomorrow at Ding Ding Dang. If this is my last entry, I guess it means I was swallowed alive by the Korean education system...or by the kids themselves.