One Month Down...

Well its been a month, and while the first couple weeks dragged a bit, at this point I can't believe its only been a month. After a fantastic St. Patty's day weekend, everything seems to have started to fall into place. There are a few different area's of Busan that I've have really explored and now frequent with friends. I now feel like I have a general sense of the area, helping that under lying feeling of general discomfort and unknowing  start to fade. I don't even pay attention when I walk to and into my subway stop anymore because at least with that, I know where I'm going. School is beginning to fall into a routine and I really like my class schedule. I think I've mentioned this, but I'm done with classes everyday at noon. That gives me the whole afternoon to sit in my classroom and listen to music (thank god for 8tracks.com as Pandora doesn't work here) while, preparing for the next day's lesson, attempting to teach myself some Korean (or maybe at least just master the alphabet) and hang out with some students when they decide to stop in.

Chocolates for White Day

Last week on the 14th was what the Korean's call White Day. On Valentines Day it's custom in Korea for the women to give their men chocolates or whatever other Valentines Day goodies they decide on. So a month later, on White Day, the Korean men reciprocate this. Guess I made a pretty good first impression, because my best buddy, Jeiong Sa-In, brought me a heart shaped box of chocolate from Paris Baguette, the bakery here (which has been abbreviated for obvious convenience to P-Bags). In addition, a couple other students stopped in with lollipops and rice cakes, and some just stopped in ask for one of my chocolates, which I gladly shared. Apparently, the 14th of every month here has some significance. April 14th is black day...for the single people... the name is just so encouraging for them.

I've had Korean BBQ a couple times now and can easily say that it's my favorite food by far. It's kind of like Hibachi but you grill everything yourself. I went to a place on the Gwangalli Beach with some friends and we ordered pork, which just comes out on a dish completely raw, with a couple different sauces and lots of vegetables and lettuce. You just cook everything up on the grill in the middle of the table, roll in up in some lettuce, and eat. It's delicious and super cheap. As much as I sometime miss American food, it's not worth it to get it here often. It doesn't come close to the same taste and is significantly more expensive. So I'm working on finding my go to Korean dish.

Oh yea, and we tried some bug like bar food....definitely avoiding these in future.

Rugby on St. Patty's Day

I spent this past weekend with what seems like almost all the foreigners in Busan at bars called Beached and Thursday Party celebrating St. Patty's day. We spent most of the afternoon watching some Rugby and then headed to the beach that night for some beer Olympics hosted by the Busan Rugby team. I had a great time, met lots of people and my all girls team totally kicked butt in the olympics. I bet you can all guess where we spent the next day recovering...the beach. Definitely taking full advantage of the beautiful surrounding of Busan.

Last week I finally got my ARC. I'm now officially a registered alien of South Korea and could finally open up a real bank account, so I can get paid (yay!), and get a Korean sim card and phone plan for my iphone (yay!yay!). A month without a phone was plenty and it's pretty nice that I won't have to continue getting super creative every time I need to make an emergency phone call.

Best Package Ever

Last night I went to a language exchange here. Every Monday night a bunch of Koreans and foreigners meet at this coffee shop, grab a drink and just hang out. It was a really great way to start making Korean friends and get some help with survival Korean. It seems like most of the Koreans that go are in University here and it's great to meet lots more young people. However, it's pretty much custom for Korean's to live with their parents until they get married...yikes. We had a good time comparing things like that here to what is normal for us in the US. AND TODAY, I got my first piece of mail. My Aunt Dot send me a box FULL of American Snack food. It was so hard to contain my excitement in my classroom until I could fully enjoy some snacks after my classes finished for the day. Thank you Aunt Dot!

That's all I got for now. But check back soon for updates...there is talk of going to baseball game this weekend.