I finally got a phone

The past few weeks have been pretty busy. I am finding a routine that I can stick to and it seems to be working. I go to bed too late, wake up groggy, walk to school and sometimes see my students on the way, make it to my shared office, make a pot of coffee, drink said coffee, wake up and by 9:00am I am ready to teach 4 to 5 classes a day. I do this Monday through Thursday and on Friday the only thing that is different is that I go to the sports academy and I need to take a cab to get there.

I try to meet up with friends in the evenings which has been anything from meeting for dinner out, staying in to cook at someone's house or having guests over to play with my new Wii. I am terrible at the Wii, but like most things in life I enjoy it more than I should. I go out and before I know it I have to go home so I can sleep.

Wait...what I am doing going on and on about the banality of my everyday life for? I got a future phone! OK...so I wanted to get a "smartphone". It turns out that the one I wanted (and as it turned out due to my status as an alien with a one year visa the only smartphone I could get) was about $850. So I didn't get that one. I decided to go way cheaper but still go for a totally adequate (aka not the smartest) phone. I got an LG Cyon. This phone is nuts. It has a typical graphical user interface like most touch screens in the US as well as some other fun features. I can send text messages in Korean or English, it has a 3 mega pixel camera, fast internet browsing, and it has HD tv. My phone has an antenna that extends for television, My Favorite Martian-style.

What else have I been doing? Like I said before, I got a Nintendo Wii. My school picked out and was responsible for furnishing my apartment. Before I came to Korea I watched several of the the infamously bad "my Korean apartment" youtube videos. I got an idea of what apartments were like here and on my first day in Daejeon when I was being driven to my new home I already had lots of ideas of what it would look like. When I opened the front door and looked around I was admittedly (and in hindsight, embarrassingly) a little disappointed. We drove past lots of high rise apartment buildings on the way there only to stop at a building in a slightly more run-down neighborhood. It wasn't like the places I had seen in the videos and . It took me a little while to realize what a great place I actually had. My school furnished me with a fantastic Samsung plasma tv and all new Samsung appliances. Only after seeing other teacher's places did I realize what a fantastic place I actually had. It turns out that no one else got a nice TV. I did what I thought was the best thing I could to assuage my guilt: I bought a Wii so people could come over to play video games on my sweet TV.

I was also a little disappointed about my neighborhood the first week I was there. A few regrettable words got thrown around...ghetto, third world, and dangerous were used to describe my neighborhood. After hanging out there for 2 weeks I have come to love where I live. I am surrounded by 2 and 3 story buildings and there are no sidewalks. At first this was a bit off-putting but now I love it. Yes I walk in the street, but so does everyone else. It is an intimate setting. There are restaurants all around my home. I see street-food vendors that say hello to me when I walk past and have taken pity on me for my almost total lack ability to speak in Korean. They seem happy that I love to eat whatever they are selling and I will keep buying what they make.

The more I explore my surroundings the more I absolutely adore it. I would say that my neighborhood is "charming" but unlike two weeks ago I would be saying it without any irony. I think that this is an authentic Korean neighborhood that is much less westernized than other places I have seen in town. Sure I can't get a burger or pizza anywhere near me, but with all the great Korean food around me, who wants American food anyway?

So this is my life so far:

• I live near enough my school in the same lower-middle class neighborhood that my students live in that I walk to school every morning. I feel totally safe at night walking down the street.
• I am near 2 subway stops and I walk to them daily.
• I have an apartment that I am incredibly grateful for and is just big enough to entertain in.
• I am surrounded by amazing restaurants that I am eagerly anticipating exploring over the next year or longer.
• I can see mountains on the edge of town that are begging to be climbed as soon as the weather gets better.
• My classes get easier to teach every day as I fumble my way to becoming a real teacher.
• I have an awesome group of friends who I see all the time and who have helped me out in more ways than I can post here.

I am happy, life is good. Spring is around the corner and I am about to embark on adventures that I haven't even imagined yet. I'll keep you posted but hopefully I will be away from my computer and out enjoying this amazing place.

Oh yeah...and here is a peek at the apartment.

Jesus stopped by, made waffles.