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