And so it begins

Well it is saturday morning and I just finished watching the first presidential debate on CNN -- all debates should be viewed in the morning with eggs and coffee; it's harder to be optimistic when you're exhausted from a long day of work.
More importantly, I am now settled in to my apartment here in Tongyeong, South Korea. Internet is hooked up, cable is on, and dishes have been purchased (although my refrigerator is still empty). The apartment is certainly more than I was expecting - brand new everything, heated floors, A/C, my own washing machine! ... not a rough life.
I finished my first week of school and the kids are ridiculously cute. And smart! Had I known teachers don't start their work day until 8:30 and end before 4:00, I would have studied education in college!
Starting to learn the new alphabet, picking up on some words here and there Having Galen here is a major bonus. Not only is it nice to see a familiar face (there are about 10-15 foreigners in the whole city), but he's WAY faster than me at picking up the language - I have the memory of a goldfish.
The city is kind of odd. It's technically a "small" town (we get extra pay for being in a "rural" area), but there are tons of boutique stores (Lacoste, Ralph Lauren, etc). You can do your grocery shopping at a walmart-esque type store or from street markets at the harbor.

Okay, enough about the general info - here is what I have experienced so far:

1) Our first week of classes was literally walking into the classroom and the Korean teachers saying, "okay, teach" ..... uh, teach what?! I managed.

2) We had to go to the hospital to get general tests proving we are healthy enough to be here (i think..). Well we walk into the hospital to find the whole place packed with mentally handicapped people running around screaming. I'm not going to lie, my first thought was, "what kind of hospital are they sending me to??". Later i found out it was some kind of free clinic day for them. It was funny.

3) Eating out here is super cheap, and I'm a lazy cook, so this is perfect for me. the other night Galen and I went out to eat. Not knowing where to go, or how to read Korean, we walked into what we thought was a fresh fish market. Well.. it was. Kind of. This place had buckets and fish tanks full of every kind of fish/creepy sea creature you could think of. The women started yelling at us to buy their fish by pulling the fish out of the tanks and letting them flop around on a plate in front of us. We finally chose one (wanted to order just one fish, but somehow ended up with 2). She pulls them out of the tank, lays them on the chopping block and kills the thing. We walk across the alley to the restaurant, and 5 minutes later, the once flopping fish is brought over cut into slivers and raw. Normally I love raw fish, however, this was awful. Chewy. I gagged.
We left with 16,000 less won and empty stomachs.
We did laugh a lot though.

4) oh yeah, as a welcome present, the second day we were here, the water was turned off for around 36 hrs. Awesome.

So far, two thumbs up.