One week down

I have taught for one week now. I am starting to get into the swing of things. I have made a few mistakes, like forgeting to send homework books home (Which results in every single parent calling the school to ask what's going on), and not really knowing what the procedure is when a student smacks another. But I love the students, and know that at least one student has told her mom that she likes me too.

My apartment has really grown on me. I had a problem with the hot water for a while. Hot water in apartments here either goes to the floor for heating (That is how apartments are heated, because it is the most efficient) or to the tap and the shower. There is a post-it note on the control panel on the wall telling me how to switch it. The problem was that even when I had it set on heat for the shower, I still had ice cold showers. After a week of taking cold showers (which was kind of okay because I am always warm from my morning run), I found another post-it note on the floor saying that the hot water tap leaks, so I have to turn it on under the kitchen sink too.

I got a chance to talk to both my mom and dad the other day. I called them using skype, which is only 2.1 cents a minute to a land or cell phone. I was really nice to hear a voice from home.

Okay, so I have some pictures of some things that are just different here.

When you buy carrots at the store, they look like they were just pulled out of the ground. This picture does no justice to the amount of dirt on them. It was kind of gross.

The sidewalks are half brick (Yes, brick, everywhere), and half the kind of surface that is on a track. On the sidewalks down by rivers or streams, it is all this track-like material, and when you are more in the thick of the city, it is just brick. I don't know if it is like that in Seoul too, or just in Bundong, where all the money is.

This is what all the buildings in Central Bundang look like. They are filled with signs, top to bottom.

McDonalds delivers! Can you imagine how many people they would need to deliver in the states if they did that?

In all of the parks there are at least eight different weight and resistence machines. And there are parks all over the place.