Mud and Muck

So, I've taken the train, the fast one, and a slow one, and a couple of busses and taxis--even the subway. None of this I did alone, however. I met up with a few friends, american ones. We ventured out to the west coast of Korea to the Boryeong Mud Festival. Here we got ourselves covered in mud, which is supposedly really great for your skin(I feel much softer now), and we proceeded to run into two classmates from university, none of whom we even knew were in Korea--ridiculous!! I had a Newsies type of hat on, one that cost around $30, and while eating grilled things from the sea, which I threw up the next morning because I was sure they were trying to escape up my windpipe, a drunken Canadian demanded I sell it to him. At first this sounded ludicrous, considering I really loved this hat and I had taken much time searching for it, so I told him, "There's no amount of money you could pay me."
He said, "Oh, everything is for sale."
"I dunno; I spent a lot of time searching for this hat--its kinda sentimental."
"Ah, c'mon!! How much do you want?"
"Dude! You can go online and buy it for like 30 bucks!!"
"How much?? C'mon!!"
"Okay. Fine. How about 200,000 won?" (The equivalent of $200 US)
So the guy puts 40,000 won on the table and says he'll be back. He takes a long time. Finally, after all of us have agreed this guy is a real deutschbag and that there is no way he is really going to get the rest of the money, he comes back, saying, "Alright...How much do you want for this hat?? This sentimental hat."
I say, "200,000 won."
He says, "I'll give you 100,000 won."
"Fine. 100,000 won, plus the 40,000 on the table."
"Alright, then you got yourself a deal!"
And I walk away 140 dollars richer, but hatless.
Granted, I miss my hat...but not that much. HaHa.

Teaching has been easy and frustrating. I really have no curriculum, so I have to come up with everything on my own, which could be awesome. Koreans, however, really do not have opinions on anything of worth, so that makes things very hard. So far, most of my students really only want to talk about luxury goods or love motels(hotels that couples go to for an hour at a time, mostly because everyone here lives at home until they're, like, 30) or K-Pop (think Britney Spears, N'Sync, and T-Pain with a Korean flair).
So, as much as I like it here, it definitely has its downsides. Like, no turkey. How many Koreans does a guy have to kill for a Turkey sandwich?? Apparently, a lot. No, but seriously, the food is not all bad--just different.

Oh, and by the way, the crazy Canadian guy, who was smoking like a chimney and drinking Hite(equivalent of Budweiser) like a Nascar fan at Daytona, told me this, "Dude. Money is just paper. I'm a Buddhist. I just taught you a great lesson on material possesions. They mean nothing. I own a piece of you now, a piece of your soul. Whaddaya think about that?"
I replied, "No worries. I already sold my soul at Bible College."
HaHa.

ARRIVING

Upon arriving in Korea I was met by my recruiter, who strangely enough looked a bit like KIM JONG IL. Surprisingly, he was really cool. Although he did get us lost and it took twice as long to get to Daegu.
When I got to Daegu I was met by the manager of my school, Herald Foreign Language Institute, and immediately I got into an awkward situation which ended with a hug--not exactly the best greeting in Korea, especially with another man. I found my apartment to have been previously occupied by a schizophrenic woman with a taste for sunflowers. Luckily, they allowed me to remove the hideous wallpaper. Lets just hope that they put new wallpaper up. We'll see.
My school is located in the middle of downtown Daegu, or Jung-gu(the district), and the building also houses the largest Starbucks in Daegu, although it is extremely overpriced. In contrast, I ate a meal today that cost 9,000 won, or 9 dollars US, that included complimentary green tea, coffee, an appetizer of bread, salad, and soup, as well as an entree of Chicken Cutlet, and afterwards included more coffee and dessert. The shocking thing was that the place was so nice that in the US it would have easily cost $25 a person. So, I will be going there again. The school I work at is very large, probably 20 classrooms and a fluctuating attendance around 1500 to 2000 students. From what I understand Herald is inexpensive compared to other Hagwons, or language schools, so students come to Herald more to have fun and speak with native speakers than to have an academic type education. Most all of my students read English extremely well. They just struggle with pronunciation and articulating themselves in conversation, so my job is to lead them in some type of activity that sparks dialogue and conversation. So far I am really enjoying it. One of my students, Song, is very helpful and extremely well versed in many subjects, so we've had many good conversations thus far. Some of my students are university students and high school students, while others are people of prestige (2 are well-known doctors in Daegu, and 1 is a medical professor).
As far as the city itself....I have never been to a place with this much life. I have never felt this comfortable in a new place in all my life. It is somewhat eery.
I have more to write, but I have to meet the BIG BOSS, as he is called, and a few other teachers for dinner.

-ANNYEONGHI GASEYO