It has only taken just over two
months of nonsense, fiascos, bureaucracy, and spray paint target on wall and
bash your head level headaches, but I finally feel as though I am settled in. But wait Jack, I thought you said you were
already settled in? Yes that is true,
distant voice of the internet, but there were still things missing. You always feel that there are some basic
things that make your day to day life complete.
For those of you in or from the states, it might be something like a
car, internet connection, cell phone, and cable TV. Rachel and I are no different. This last week after a long series of other
headaches we have finally acquired everything that the day to day waygookin
(the local word for foreigner) should have.
Now
first, the head scratching, what the fuck moments... Now Monday last week started off with another
surprise. Somewhere around 6PM Monday
Rachel, John, and myself all got a message from our director, saying that we
had to be at a conference at 10AM that
day…yes that was not a typo. We were
supposed to be at a conference, and were told about it 8 hours later. Now there were two more conferences that we
had to go to on that Tuesday and Wednesday.
When I asked about the lack of communication, my boss said that it was
because she heard about the conference on Saturday, and since we still didn’t
have any kind of phone, she was unable to tell us about it. Now I don’t mind that we miss a conference,
except that it was one about classroom management for the specific group of
students that I have the most problems with.
Now
I was able to use this as a push for getting phones. Our pay day was upon Rachel and I, and we set
out to get new phones. We made a plan to
meet our boss (the vice-director), and go on and get some cell phones. Now before we did that I thought that I would
do a little banking. Rachel agreed with that idea as we both needed
to send money home to pay off bills, loans and so on and so forth. I started to notice that there was a problem
when a second banker came to my teller’s station and they started making a lot
of phone calls. I really knew that
something was wrong when Rachel was finished, and it looked like I was nowhere
near done. As it turns out Korea has a
law that I was unaware of, where foreigners, like me, can only have one bank
account. With me so far? Where is the problem you ask? Well I lived in Korea once before about 4
years ago now, and my passport was still registered to that bank, despite my
account being closed before I came back to the states. Now I was incredibly late for meeting with my
boss, and the problem had yet to be corrected.
Long
story short, Friday we were able to get our phones. Now I had seen the brand before and was interested
in getting something with a little more “wow” factor. Behold the Galaxy Note, an android phone with
5G service. I have no idea what some of
these numbers mean that are being thrown around, but they sound
impressive. I had heard some horror stories
about massive deposits, large fees, and other nonsense causing no end of
trouble, but accompanied by one of the head honchos at our school, I had no
fear. Well, as usual that was wrong. Earlier today, Brandon (the aforementioned
head honcho), said that there was in fact a massive deposit and that it needed
to be paid now. Now this wouldn’t
normally be a problem, but Rachel and I sent a large amount of money home,
remember the entire headache that we went through to transfer cash. Moreover we spent a lovely weekend shopping
around the local foreigner district for some new clothes. Just between you (entire internet) and me,
but Rachel looks absolutely fabulous in this new red dress that she bought. Now again, guilt is a powerful weapon, and so
is the pain and trouble that we keep getting put through. Brandon, the “honcho”, was understanding
enough and kind enough to say that he would cover it until next payday.
Now,
remember that shopping trip that I talked about? Well there are some interesting things that happened
there. Some are good, some
disappointing, and some have me convinced that something rather
unconventionally terrible is going to occur in the near future…stick with me,
I’ll explain. First of all Rachel and I
wanted to explore a little and look for a Sunday lunch that was both new, and
tasty. We settled on a British style
pub, called The Rose and Crown (I
know sounds perfect). To my amazement
there was a delightful selection of American microbrew beers, including Dead
Guy ale. Rachel and I split a massive
plate of fried delicious food; I had a tangerine beer with a slice of lemon,
and concluded that life was good. We continued
on our journey across Itaewon, looking for nice clothes, including that gorgeous
red dress. Now the disappointing thing
is that I am still apparently too fat for Korea. Well, not really, but I am a larger than
average man, and this is an aberration to the Korean size chart. I did a little research and my shirt size
isn’t even stocked on major store shelves.
I did manage to get a very nice red polo shirt from a street vendor, and
some new socks that fit. Granted, I had
to pay out the nose for those socks, but they are nice none the less. The real annoying part is when I went looking
for shoes. I have had my eye on a pair
of sandals for a while, but my feet are about 1 and a half sizes too large for
the locals to carry in stock. As I said
before, it’s disappointing.
Now I also
mentioned something that provoked unconventional fear and so on and so
forth. This happened on our way back to
the apartment. We were going down the
stairs to the subway, when a kid stopped us.
He looked like the scrawny, plays far too much Starcraft away from
direct sunlight, allergic to the opposite sex, type of kid. He was nice enough and asked to take a
picture of me. Not thinking too much
about it, I said sure. Now that wasn’t
the part that started to bother me, but it was when he kept on taking pictures,
and at multiple angels and light sources, asking me to move to the other side
of the stairway. I asked why he wanted
the pictures; his only response was “I like foreigners…” If you thought that sound creepy and pseudo-stalker
like, well yeah, it did to me too. My
mind raced with the possibilities that he might need all of this
information. Sure, he might be some
young art student that needs interesting faces, or perhaps he is some sexually
repressed digital animator, that needs a more “brutish” looking face to attach
to his newest program, “Sadists and Sheep molesters”. Perhaps in a few months I will be able to
Google horse fucker and find my face attached to animations doing
unconventional and horrifying things.
Perhaps I am overreacting, but then again maybe I’m not…
OK so much of this
is for humor purposes, so don’t worry folks out there in internet land. Going back to my original point, we have
settled in and we have new technology, new clothes, and plans for the near future. Take care dear readers.
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