Seoul: A Learning Curve

Duk (chicken) Galbi in Myeongdong shopping district

Lance on the corner of Seoul on the way our subway stop.
Can you see how bad the pollution is?

We arrived in Seoul on Thursday and after an exhausting day of traveling we met our boss and saw our new school. We're exploring Seoul and trying to carve out a corner of this big city for ourselves. So far we've enjoyed traveling by subway and eating all the Western food we lay our eyes on. (Subway, the restaurant, is right around the corner from where we live.) Shopping, transportation and lots of yummy food are all things we love about Seoul so far.

It would be amiss to say that everything is sunshine and daisies though. We met our new boss and he seems nice and the school is absolutely beautiful. We start Monday, so I'll try to give more detail about the job next week. Our living situation is not great. Right now Lance and I are living in a Studio apartment (or what Koreans would call an Office tel) that about 150 square feet including the bathroom. Because we're a couple our boss wasn't able to find us a two person apartment right away. He told us we'll move into a villa (with two or more rooms) on March 20th. Until then our boss is covering our taxi fair because we live so far away from the school. We're pretty far from the Subway stop but we're going to try and take the subway as much as possible, even if that means walking a bit further and waking up a bit earlier.

When we arrived the apartment was absolutely filthy. We spent all day (and quiet a bit of cash) cleaning up the apartment. It was pretty disgusting. I'm not at all happy with the other foreigner who decided it was okay to not even clean out the old food out of her tiny fridge or pick her hair out of the bathroom drain. The apartment has some furniture, a mini fridge and a microwave, but not much in the way of cooking utensils.  Which means we'll probably be eating out more than eating in. It's terrible because I have a mean hankering to make some beer cheese soup. I'll be holding out for March 20th I guess.

Most everything we own is still at the school, boxed up in a back room. We'll be moving it to our apartment on Monday, but I have no idea where we're going to put all our stuff in this tiny apartment. I'm a worrier by nature and how everything's going to possibly fit in here is stressing me out. We're supposed to get a full bed on Monday as well and I'm not even sure how that's going to work.

So I guess the moral of this story is that we're in flux. It will remain in flux for the next three weeks or so. Hopefully school life will be so good that home life won't matter. So far, we love Seoul (even if we miss our friends on Jeju). I hope that It will only continue to get better.

Crazy busy subway car during rush hour on a Friday night.

Soju toast to a new chapter of our life together