What I've Learned About Korea after 9 months...
No pictures this time but I have been busy moving into a new apartment here. I'm now living farther away from Kid's College but closer to the nightlife. I am right next to the subway system and Starbucks, Pizza Hut, movie theaters, and shopping malls. I'll take some pictures and post them soon.
It's also nice to have a place to myself. The place is called the BYC and the first few floors are shops and restaurants such as T.G.I Fridays, while floors 5 through 9 are apartments - mostly filled with foreign teachers.
Well it’s time I suppose to give my thoughts of Korea the good and the strange:
1)Korea is a very clean country relative to other places that I have been to. This is impressive considering the population.
2)You can get a medium pizza, and pretty good ones, for $5.00.
3)You can get a hair cut for $5.00 but you have to shampoo your own hair over the basin
4)There are never garbage cans or recycle bins around so you usually have to carry your rubbish home with you.
5)A subway system that is extremely effective once you buy a subway card that you can add money to. Trouble is that you can’t actually buy the subway card at the subway??? You can go to three different 7/11 chains to ask for one and none will carry them – oh except the 7/11 that does. Once you get one don’t lose it because they’re apparently rarer than diamonds!
6)Taxi rides are ridiculously cheap and taxis must employee 20% of the population. Well not exactly but you will not wait longer than 5 minutes before one drives by. A $15.00 ride in Canada would be about $3.00 here.
7)Eating out is cheaper than cooking food at home. All the single guys would probably be happy about this. An example would be a big bowl of Bibimbap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap for about $3.00. This is a huge bowl of rice, fried egg, vegetables (lettuce, dried seaweed, etc) and is very filling. This comes with Kimchi and a soup that is similar to the Japanese Miso. Vegetables and fruit are expensive in Korea. Though you can get about 12 mandarin oranges for $2.50.
8)Korea is a conservative country which seems to be emulating 1950’s American conservatism. Men wear suits all the time it seems and they work long hours.
9)Kids go to school 6 days a week here. Though recently they have changed that a little bit so kids only have to go to school every other Saturday. And they do not get 2 month summer holidays. My kindergarten kids start at 9:50 and go until 2:40 which is long for their age. A few of them then stay for more classes until 4:45. Or they go and learn Piano or some other musical instrument. One girl goes to another school to learn math.
10)Korea seems open 24 hours but the transportation system stops at 11:30 for the subway and 12:00 for the busses. Once the clock hits midnight taxis charge more for their services. There are PC Bongs and Saunas everywhere that are open 24 hours. A PC Bong is usually one floor of a building with wall to wall computers and usually packed with men playing Star Craft. Some sort of very popular video game. They have no less than 2 channels on television for people to watch gamers play these video games.
11)Cell phones – everyone has one and they are the first and foremost lifeblood of everything here I think. Kids as young as 6 have them and everyone is either text messaging or playing games or taking pictures with them. They have a wonderful system though where you phone a number and pretty much ask any question. Need to know how late Costco is open – phone the special operator and they will tell you. Need directions somewhere, same number. There is a fee of course but it’s kind of like the Yellow pages without the pages.
12)Everything is always advertised as the ultimate or number one or premium or the best.
13)Corner convenience stores really are convenient – they are the same price as the big grocery stores or often cheaper and they are open fairly late.
14)Spam is some sort of delicacy here. It is fairly expensive and very popular. Indeed, that is strange.
15)People who own dogs have an odd desire to dye their dog orange, pink, or some other colour. Most of the little dogs wear coats and even booties. The boots make sense because Korean’s take their shoes off when they come because the floors are usually hardwood and also serves as their bed. Having dogs with dirty paws makes a big mess. Still it is funny to see.
16)Police have a low visibility and yet the crime rate appears to be very low. Though do not fall asleep on the subway because any bag you may have will probably be stolen. Generally though you are very safe even females at 3am alone. Or so the women tell me.
17)Driving is fast and cabbies and busses are all over the place but very few accidents and nobody seems to tailgate. Everyone seems to know how to use their horn – to ask some other driver to shove over a bit while they make a right turn. It works. Red lights are semi-optional. If no one is coming you can head on through but if you get hit it’s your fault.
18) Cash – their highest bill is a 10 and they pay me in cash. You walk around with big stacks of money. I have a bank account but the funny thing is that if you use the bank machine during the bank’s hours it is free. But if you use the machine after house they charge you .50. Many of them close at 10pm and you can not take any money out after that.
19)They don’t have credit cards the way we do. You cannot get into debt as easy here. For example if you want to go on a vacation and the air ticket is $600.00 then you can ask them to put $100.00 a month on the card for the next 6 months. But, you must pay the $100.00 off each month. So you cannot put $5000.00 on a card and pay interest and minimum payments etc like you can in the west.
20)They generally won’t hire black people as teachers. Schools a few years ago would hire teachers and when they saw that the teacher was black at the airport they would fire them then and there. (I have been told this is getting better but Korean Hakwans now insist on pictures with resumes). They also generally prefer Canadians and Americans over Brits and Australians because apparently they all talk funny. They want Caucasians with no accent, which is strange since a teacher from Mississippi or New Found Land will certainly speak differently.
Hmm that’s it for now – any questions let me know.
It's also nice to have a place to myself. The place is called the BYC and the first few floors are shops and restaurants such as T.G.I Fridays, while floors 5 through 9 are apartments - mostly filled with foreign teachers.
Well it’s time I suppose to give my thoughts of Korea the good and the strange:
1)Korea is a very clean country relative to other places that I have been to. This is impressive considering the population.
2)You can get a medium pizza, and pretty good ones, for $5.00.
3)You can get a hair cut for $5.00 but you have to shampoo your own hair over the basin
4)There are never garbage cans or recycle bins around so you usually have to carry your rubbish home with you.
5)A subway system that is extremely effective once you buy a subway card that you can add money to. Trouble is that you can’t actually buy the subway card at the subway??? You can go to three different 7/11 chains to ask for one and none will carry them – oh except the 7/11 that does. Once you get one don’t lose it because they’re apparently rarer than diamonds!
6)Taxi rides are ridiculously cheap and taxis must employee 20% of the population. Well not exactly but you will not wait longer than 5 minutes before one drives by. A $15.00 ride in Canada would be about $3.00 here.
7)Eating out is cheaper than cooking food at home. All the single guys would probably be happy about this. An example would be a big bowl of Bibimbap http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bibimbap for about $3.00. This is a huge bowl of rice, fried egg, vegetables (lettuce, dried seaweed, etc) and is very filling. This comes with Kimchi and a soup that is similar to the Japanese Miso. Vegetables and fruit are expensive in Korea. Though you can get about 12 mandarin oranges for $2.50.
8)Korea is a conservative country which seems to be emulating 1950’s American conservatism. Men wear suits all the time it seems and they work long hours.
9)Kids go to school 6 days a week here. Though recently they have changed that a little bit so kids only have to go to school every other Saturday. And they do not get 2 month summer holidays. My kindergarten kids start at 9:50 and go until 2:40 which is long for their age. A few of them then stay for more classes until 4:45. Or they go and learn Piano or some other musical instrument. One girl goes to another school to learn math.
10)Korea seems open 24 hours but the transportation system stops at 11:30 for the subway and 12:00 for the busses. Once the clock hits midnight taxis charge more for their services. There are PC Bongs and Saunas everywhere that are open 24 hours. A PC Bong is usually one floor of a building with wall to wall computers and usually packed with men playing Star Craft. Some sort of very popular video game. They have no less than 2 channels on television for people to watch gamers play these video games.
11)Cell phones – everyone has one and they are the first and foremost lifeblood of everything here I think. Kids as young as 6 have them and everyone is either text messaging or playing games or taking pictures with them. They have a wonderful system though where you phone a number and pretty much ask any question. Need to know how late Costco is open – phone the special operator and they will tell you. Need directions somewhere, same number. There is a fee of course but it’s kind of like the Yellow pages without the pages.
12)Everything is always advertised as the ultimate or number one or premium or the best.
13)Corner convenience stores really are convenient – they are the same price as the big grocery stores or often cheaper and they are open fairly late.
14)Spam is some sort of delicacy here. It is fairly expensive and very popular. Indeed, that is strange.
15)People who own dogs have an odd desire to dye their dog orange, pink, or some other colour. Most of the little dogs wear coats and even booties. The boots make sense because Korean’s take their shoes off when they come because the floors are usually hardwood and also serves as their bed. Having dogs with dirty paws makes a big mess. Still it is funny to see.
16)Police have a low visibility and yet the crime rate appears to be very low. Though do not fall asleep on the subway because any bag you may have will probably be stolen. Generally though you are very safe even females at 3am alone. Or so the women tell me.
17)Driving is fast and cabbies and busses are all over the place but very few accidents and nobody seems to tailgate. Everyone seems to know how to use their horn – to ask some other driver to shove over a bit while they make a right turn. It works. Red lights are semi-optional. If no one is coming you can head on through but if you get hit it’s your fault.
18) Cash – their highest bill is a 10 and they pay me in cash. You walk around with big stacks of money. I have a bank account but the funny thing is that if you use the bank machine during the bank’s hours it is free. But if you use the machine after house they charge you .50. Many of them close at 10pm and you can not take any money out after that.
19)They don’t have credit cards the way we do. You cannot get into debt as easy here. For example if you want to go on a vacation and the air ticket is $600.00 then you can ask them to put $100.00 a month on the card for the next 6 months. But, you must pay the $100.00 off each month. So you cannot put $5000.00 on a card and pay interest and minimum payments etc like you can in the west.
20)They generally won’t hire black people as teachers. Schools a few years ago would hire teachers and when they saw that the teacher was black at the airport they would fire them then and there. (I have been told this is getting better but Korean Hakwans now insist on pictures with resumes). They also generally prefer Canadians and Americans over Brits and Australians because apparently they all talk funny. They want Caucasians with no accent, which is strange since a teacher from Mississippi or New Found Land will certainly speak differently.
Hmm that’s it for now – any questions let me know.
posted by Richard Austen | 8:38 p.m.
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