I have finally taken the time to clean up my apartment so that I could take people on a virtual tour of my house. There are many more photos up if you look on facebook, but I feel that these are enough for a blog tour. If, however, you are a friend of mine on facebook, check out my Cheongju photo album and the pics are all in there.

I live in apartment 201, The White House. Please notice the awesome keypad that has replaced my lock.

This is the view walking into my apartment. On the left is what constitutes my kitchen, straight ahead is the door to the bathroom and on the right is my door leading into my bedroom.

Before you walk in, please take off your shoes and stow them in the shoe cupboard - Koreans disapprove of shoes being worn indoors, even in one's own home. At any non-Western restaurant you will have to do this as well.

Now, a closer look at the kitchen (ignoring the dishes in the sink, if you don't mind.) My sink, gas range and my three cupboards. Exciting is it not?

Now, we get to the bathroom. Please put on the plastic slippers - you are not supposed to walk around your bathroom barefoot either - and mind the drain on the floor - the water from my shower this morning might not have dried completely yet.

Bow and exalt before the showerhead of doom that, together with the drain on the floor, constitutes my shower. I still need to get used to this.


Okay, now that you have seen the kitchen and the bathroom, it is time to backtrack to the main entrance and turn right into my bedroom. Here you might notice my gorgeous grey, pink and white duvet and the school's laptop (which has been my saviour) lying on my bed. The sliding door at the back of the room leads through to the laundry room, which I will show you a bit later.

This is my room from another angle. Here you can see one of the two closets that I was given (the other, which is in the laundry room, wasn't feeling particularly photogenic, but is very similar to this one. Just a little shinier. You can also see my TV (adorned with some relics from home) and my bookcase, which was given to me by a South African family who were returning back to Cape Town and were generous enough to give me some essential items of furniture and some useful crockery.

From this angle, you can see back into the kitchen (on the left hand side of the photo) and you can see my coat rack (another essential item from the South Africans), my dining room table and pair of chairs (a luxury in Korea - most people prefer to sit on cushions on the floor and, once again, in many restaurants this is what you are expected to do) and my fridge and microwave. The last two cannot fit into my minimalist kitchen, and therefore must reside in my room with me much to my dismay (the fridge has a bit of a multiple personality disorder, and is sometimes compeltely silent while at other times being ridiculously loud.)

Finally, this is my laundry room. As you can see, I had just done laundry when this picture was taken. My suitcase also lives in this room, out of the way. This is also the only room to have any windows, but the view is of the apartment block next door.

And this concludes the virtual tour of my home. I hope that you have enjoyed your visit.

So after arriving at work at the beginning of last week completely exhausted and dreading the week ahead, I decided that this last weekend would need to be a slightly more relaxing affair. And so, on Saturday I headed out to Shinae - the city centre - to look around with the Canadian that I met earlier in the week. The pictures that follow are evidence of our excursions on Saturday and Sunday.

This is the CGV - a three storey movie theatre that shows a lot of English movies with Korean subtitles, which I was very excited to discover was showing Alice in Wonderland in 3D. And so I dragged a slightly reluctant Patrick to the theatre and forced him to watch what we ended up agreeing was a pretty good movie. I will be keeping CGV in mind the next time a movie that I am dying to see comes out on circuit!

This is the main street downtown. I am fairly sure that it doesn't look like this during the week, but on weekends you suddenly find carts popping up everywhere selling food and drink, scarves and socks and other various odds and ends that I have no need for, but find myself wanting to have regardless.

These are the dreaded silkworms that I have heard are a delicacy here. I didn't try any, but decided to take a picture as evidence of how popular they are These were only three of the bags that the lady was selling.

At about 1 pm, the street went ridiculously dark as clouds came in and the thunderstorm began. This was just before the storm started when Patrick and I were staring at the lights, hoping that they would spring to life, since I had seen them on a couple of weeks before and they are beautiful when they are lit.

This is a fishtank that we found in the underground mall. Surrounding the tank itself are a number of seats and a number of screens, that I can only assume were televisions.

This kind of random building that doesn't seem to fit in anywhere in a modern city is quite a common occurence in Cheongju (I can't speak for the rest of South Korea.) It is definitely a modern building, but it's almost like they see this kind of style as being modern, which I find quite amusing.

So, after a day in Shinae, Patrick and I decided to head out to Chungjae jungmun and meet some more Westerners. It was St. Patrick's day after all, so we expected there to be many many people out. After stopping at all but one of the bars, we were almost ready to give up on our night out because everywhere was dead. But we decided to give the last bar a chance, and it was here that we found everyone huddled into one space.

My travel companion and I was the shamrock stickers plastered on our faces. They wouldn't let us in without one.

The first people I met when I got inside were some randoms who were sitting by the bar. We started chatting, and it turned out that one of them was from Durbanville! I decided that I needed evidence of this coincidence. He is the one in the middle. I went on to meet two more South Africans at the pub that night.


On Sunday, Patrick and I were supposed to go touring the city by bus. But Patrick (poor lad) was far too hungover, and so we decided to go on a hike in the hills next to his building instead. And I am glad that I did, because it gave me a completely different perception of Cheongju. From my area, all that you can see are buildings in every direction. It was nice to learn that there is some nature out there as well.

This is the view from the foot of one of the hills, and was the only place where I could get a good shot of the city without the hundreds of trees getting in the way.

When I took pictures of this, I honestly had no idea what it was, but I was impressed by whatever it was. I later found out that this is a tombstone. I hum'd and haw'd about whether to put the picture up at all once I found out what it was, but I ended up deciding to put it up because I think that it is a beautiful tribute to a life once lived.

Having realised that I was supposed to be cooking for my two co-teachers on Thursday night, since they were coming to give me a Korean lesson, I made the mission to GSmart on Wednesday evening to go and buy ingredients (I still haven't found anything closer.) With my trusty camera in hand, I documented my journey through the city.

This is GSmart - the mega, super department store where you can buy absolutely anything that you can think of. When I say anything, I mean from cameras and electronics, to groceries and household items, to clothes and accessories, to hedgehogs and baby turtles (live ones, to be kept as pets.) The shop has about 5 levels, and takes up a whole block.

This is a typical Korean building. You see all those signs? Those are telling you what is in the building. Some of them will be for companies, some for restaurants and some for internet cafe's. The internet cafe's are the easiest to spot because they all say "PC" in big letters. The restaurants and other things, not so much. I went to an amazing restaurant in one of these kinds of buildings with Kim, but I don't think that I will ever find it again.

This pet store nearly broke my heart. The puppies were so cute and were vying for my attention as soon as they saw me. The maltese poodle started rolling around as soon as it saw me and the poodle jumped up with its paws over the side of the box and stared at me with its puppydog eyes. It took all my strength not to buy one of them, and I think that I am going to have to chain my wallet to the bottom of my bag for the next time that I walk past. This isn't in GSmart, interestingly enough, but just another shop on the way there.

This is a typical apartment building in Korea. These are the kinds of buildings that most english teachers are given. Apparently EPIK owns a couple of these buildings in the big cities and will place all english teachers together in one building. That wasn't the case with me, but I find the buildings so interesting. I'm rather glad that I don't stay in one though, because the only distinguishing features on these buildings are the sign and the number, so I feel I would end up getting horribly lost and confused.

This is the street at night with all the neon signs lit. It really is quite pretty to walk through at night. I still remember Jodie's desciption of walking through the more populated areas as being "like walking through Las Vegas".


That night it actually snowed in Cheongju. By the time I woke up, the world was covered in white once more. So I took my camera with me to school, snapping a couple of shots on the way, intending to take more when school finished in the afternoon. But, when Ginny (one of my co-teachers) saw the camera, she insisted on taking photos then and there, saying that the snow would have melted by the afternoon (she was right.) So Ginny, Cindy and I all headed to the park across from the school and had a mini-photo shoot instead of going to class (which thankfully I wasn't teaching anyway, though it was the only class yesterday that I didn't have.) Here is the evidence.

This was taken on the way to school and this is the park that we had the photoshoot in.

This is the playground of the school. I won't lie and say that I took it to show you more of the school. I just couldn't resist taking a photo of the beautiful tree. But you CAN also see the basketball hoop in the background.

The entrance to the school, this time covered in snow. You tell me which you think is prettier. I know that my mind has been made up.

Ginny and I at the start of the photoshoot, just outside the entrance to the school.

Cindy and I with the park in the background, about to start our winter wonderland adventure.

All of us being the photographers that we were meant to be. This was not the only time that we were all taking photos of the beautiful scenery.

An example of the beautiful scenery.

Some handcrafted benches that Ginny and Cindy walked past. They must have been so used to them by now, but I thought they were hilarious and, having never been into the park before, they were entirely new to me.

Some normal benches covered in snow. Scenery.

Me holding my first snowball, which I never got to throw at anyone. Apparently some of my friends at other schools had their lessons cancelled so that the kids could have a snowfight. I was incredibly jealous!
Cindy capturing some more of the scenery, and me capturing Cindy

I have finally gotten a camera, and though they are not the most interesting of pictures, I have taken some of the things that I see on a daily basis. Just for a bit of a change, you know!



My apartment building. They call it "The White House", which I couldn't help but snicker at the first time I heard it.




This is my street. I still have no idea what it's called because they don't really seem to go by street names here. I know that it is in the Yong-am dong province, but I have no idea beyond that. I have written the address outside in Korean so that I can give it to taxi drivers though, which is pretty useful since I no longer have to tell them to take me to my school and then direct them from there, leading to confusion and annoyance.



This is the main street that I walk along everyday to get to school. This was taken from the top of the street and my road is at the bottom. As I have said before, it is not the prettiest of streets, but it is certainly a lot prettier at night when everything is lit up. Picture all those signs in neon lights.




This is the road that the school is on. I mostly took it to show you the apartment buildings in the background. These are the kinds of apartment buildings that most Guest English Teachers (or GETs, as we are referred to), stay. They are scattered throughout the city and all have numbers and signs on them, these being their only distinguishing features. Also, try to picture all of those trees covered in snow. Gorgeous.



This is the best picture that I could take of the school. It still didn'y fit into the frame. WonBong Middle School has around 1350 students spanning grades seven through 9. I only teach the grade 7's and 8's, but this is more than the other teachers do. Most of the teachers focus on one grade and one level. Cindy, the teacher who sits next to me, only teaches high level English to the grade 7's for example. Whenever the other teachers hear that I am having to teach for 22 hours a week, they all look concerned for my health (though this seems to be their general state of being) and announce that it's far too much.



This is a rock that sits at the entrance to the school. To be honest, I have no idea what it says. But I thought that it was pretty anyway.



And finally, these are two of my co-teachers, who have been absolute saints. Cindy has been especially nice, and I am thinking of buying her a gift as well as buying one for Kim (it is traditional to buy your main co-teacher a gift at the end of the first month, and I feel that Cindy has helped me almost as much as Kim has.)

It is Saturday morning, almost eleven o’clock. I should be sleeping off a night of raucous partying or relaxing in my room or even exploring the city. But I’m not. Instead, I am at school, having just taught two lessons and preparing myself for a third.

Whenever I tell people that I have to teach on Saturdays, they sound outraged on my behalf, and I am sure that when I have settled into teaching and my weeks start getting busy, this outrage will come to me too. But for the moment, I am thrilled to be here. This is mostly because the two lessons that I just taught were my first lessons.

All through this week, I would turn up at work, a bundle of nerves, ready to face the kids that I believed would be awaiting my instructions. But each day, there would be a new excuse.
“It is their first day, there are no real lessons.”
“They are taking an entrance exam, there are no real lessons.”
“We are only introducing them to their subjects, not really teaching.”
And so, although it irked me that I had to wake up on a Saturday morning, ruining any plans that I might have had for the weekend, I was excited at the same time. Saturday, I had been promised, I would start teaching.

On Friday, I was inundated with invites to places all around the country. First my roommate from orientation, Grace, invited me to Seoul for a weekend of shopping with her friend Hope, offering me a bed at her aunt’s house. Then I was invited to a Friday night dinner in Eumseong, on the other side of my province, and was offered a place to sleep there as well. Both of these I had to politely decline (the second one having to decline numerous times as all the different people who were going invited me) as I had to teach on Saturday morning. Then Jodie, another girl from orientation, asked if I wanted to come out with her on Friday night and go to the foreigner bar in Cheongju. This, I decided, I could do. I wouldn’t have to stay very late, could leave in time to get home at midnight and get enough sleep so that I could wake up bright and sunny in the morning. And so I accepted her offer. We made plans to meet at Chungbuk University, and at 20:30 I caught my first taxi in Korea, since I have not yet figured out how to use the bus system. Twenty minutes later, I was standing outside the main entrance to Chungbuk University in the pouring rain, waiting for Jodie to pitch up. I walked up and down the road outside the main gate, hoping that maybe she was just waiting somewhere and I couldn’t see her. But alas, after twenty minutes of waiting, I was cold and wet and decided that it was time to go home. I made one last attempt when the taxi arrived, telling him the name of the bar where Jodie and I were going to go, but Pearl Jam meant nothing to the driver, and so I settled for getting him to take me home. When I got back to my house, I was damp and annoyed at having wasted an hour of my time and almost R100 on taxi-fare. I got to my computer and typed out a message to Jodie asking her what had happened, trying to hold back my fury and consider that something might have happened to her. Seconds later, I received a message from her, explaining that she had gone to the wrong university without realizing it, and that when she had realized she had taken a taxi to Chungbuk University, only to find that I had already left. She had run to the nearest internet café, and was sending me the message from there. She apologized profusely, and begged me get another taxi and meet her at the pub itself, giving me it’s address and promising that she would pay for the fare. By this time, it was almost 10pm, and knowing that I wanted to be back home by midnight, and that it would take 40 minutes to get me there and back, I decided that it wasn’t worth the effort. Instead, I turned the TV onto American Idol (the only other shows were movies that had started at 9) and lay in bed, chatting away on the laptop that I have borrowed from the school (I had cable and internet installed in my apartment on Thursday).

This morning I woke up nice and early (7am) and started my daily routine of getting ready (without the cereal, since I am out of milk. Reminder: Go to the shops today!) and then made my way to school in the drizzle that remained after last night’s rain. I arrived and nervously fidgeted in the office until there were only ten minutes left to my first lesson. This was it, no going back now. I made my way upstairs to the hi-tech English classroom and put all the powerpoint presentations that I had prepared for the occasion onto the computer there. Slowly children started to filter into the room, shooting curious glances my way, as though they had never seen a foreigner before which, I realized, was possibly the case (they had seen them on TV, of course, but never a real live one.) Once everyone was inside, I started my lesson – the powerpoint presentation about me as an introduction, the map of the world to show how far I had come and the talk about airports to introduce them to the first exercise in their book, which was conversations that happened at the airport. Before I realized it, I had finished everything that I had planned for the lesson, and was now left floundering, not knowing quite what to do for the fifteen minutes of lesson that remained. And so, I played the game that I had planned for the beginning of the next lesson, and then invited them to ask me any questions that they had about the lesson or about me. Of course, this was a dangerous move, and led to questions about whether I had a boyfriend and whether I was married and other such awkward questions. This went on until the bell blissfully rang, and I was given a ten minute break before the next group arrived. The second lesson went better, as I was better prepared – asked more questions, went slower, explained more, and though there still ended up being a questions section at the end, it was far shorter and was filled with questions like “What is South Africa like?” and “What was your first impression of Korea?”

Now I am preparing for what is referred to as a Club Activity. I am teaching English Conversation lessons with my co-teacher, Cindy, and have half an hour to introduce ourselves and just talk about the kinds of things that we will be having conversations about over the course of the year. Afterwards, a group of the people in Eumsong who invited me over for supper last night are arriving in Cheongju, and I am meeting them at the bus terminal. From there, our exploration of the city of Cheongju will begin. I am excited, and will likely provide an account of my adventures in my next e-mail. For now, I hope you are all doing well.

Love from Korea
Lara

Whenever I thought of moving to Korea, I always pictured myself teaching children, settling into school life, taking trips to Seoul on the weekends, constantly being surrounded by students, colleagues and friends. Somehow, being alone escaped my attention. It didn't feature in my idea of what Korean life would be like.

This weekend, I experienced more aloneness than I think I have ever felt. Sure, when I was at University, there were times when I was left to my own devices. When I was looking after the house and my parents were on holiday, I was left alone. But there was always a friend just a phonecall or sms away, and it ended up being my decision to be alone rather than a necessity. Here, I knew few people, and had no way of contacting them. I had no cellphone to just call people up and make arrangements, I had no idea where I was (I knew what it was called, but I didn't know any landmarks) so I couldn't arrange to meet anyone in any case even if we could have made a plan, and I had no computer to just chat away to my friends back home. I was left alone in my room, lapping up books as though they were oxygen and counting down the hours until 14:00, when it would be 7:00 in South Africa and my friends might be waking up. Then I would walk down to the internet cafe (which I thankfully found on my second day in Cheongju) and chat away for hours until I felt like I had overstayed my welcome and then I would go home, find some food (once even cooking for myself after finding groceries) and then go back to reading. This was my routine for two days, with nothing of excitement in between. I struggled to sleep at night because of the strange noises that the fridge and the plumbing in my apartment made, not to mention the loud clanking footsteps on the stairs to the building, the sound of doors slamming and of neighbours moving around in their apartments above and to the side of me. By the time Monday night rolled around, I was exhausted, but knew that this exhaustion would still not be enough to give me a good night's sleep. I had been eyeing the bottle of pills that the doctor had given me for the plane, and eventually gave in, deciding that taking a sleeping pill would be my only real option for peaceful sleep. I needed to be rested the next morning - it was my first day of work, after all.

Monday morning rolled around, and for the first time in days, I moved around my apartment with purpose. I woke up at 7am (or more rolled out of bed, since for no apparent reaosn, I had woken up at 5 and had been rolling around trying to get more sleep since then) and began what I hoped would become my new daily routine - pouring myself some cereal, sitting down to watch CNN (a discovery I had made the night before) as I ate, then dressing, making myself gorgeous, gathering my things and heading out the door for the 10 minute walk to school. When I got to the school, my first discovery was that I would not in fact be teaching. It was the students first day at school, and those who weren't being shown around the school were taking some kind of test. Tomorrow, I was told, my lessons would start. And so, my first day at school involved meeting my fellow teachers, all of whom seemed very nice and helpful and seemed fascinated by me - a native English speaker, a foreigner, a new toy - and not much else. I was taken to lunch by the principal, along with about 10 of the other new teachers to the school (a lunch at which I ate very little, because everything seemed so strange and I didn't know what kind of meat they were serving). I puttered around the internet, replying to e-mails and facebook messages and seeing what was new in all of my friends lives. And then, it was 16:30. Hometime. I got to take the school laptop with me (which made me happy) only to find that I couldn't connect to the internet (which saddened me beyond reason.) I turned on the TV, watched some CNN, tried to read only to find that I was all read out, and then took another pill and went to sleep.

This morning, I woke up slightly earlier, having rushed slightly to get everything done on time yesterday. I had decided that I was going to take my time today, and I did, And at 7:35 I was ready, having taken 5 minutes longer than the day before despite waking up more than half an hour earlier (my alarm is a funny thing whose hour hand often decides to jump back slightly when it sees the silver alarm hand approaching, as though rushing to greet it). I puttered around in my apartment for an extra 10 minutes, absentmindedly watching CNN and trying to make sure that I didn't forget anything (which I ended up doing anyway) and then started my walk to school, which went quicker than yesterday because, I like to think, I was walking with a little bit more confidence. I arrived at the school earlier than most, but that was okay because I didn't mind having the chance to check my mail before most people arrived. Then I was informed that, once again, I wouldn't be teaching today because the students were taking some kind of entrance exam. And so, my day has been much the same as yesterday - spent puttering around the internet, though this time I went to lunch with the rest of the teachers and thereafter found myself walking with the two who are closest to my age to the art gallery (at the suggestion of the art teacher, whose work was featured there once upon a time. The same art teacher is also making arrangements for a housewarming/birthday party at my house towards the end of the month, which he intends to invite all the teachers to.)

And now, here I am. Doing the same thing as yesterday, but with a big more confidence and a bit more gusto. And I actually have plans tonight - one of the teachers is going to teach me Korean, the prospect of which I can honestly say (without a hint of sarcasm) makes me a little bit excited. We'll have to see how it goes.

After two days of lectures and eating and a very small bit of partying, orientation ended yesterday. After a farewell dinner on Thursday night (involving food and traditional entertainment of dance performances and music by High School students) and a closing ceremony on Friday morning (where we were presented with certificates saying that we had completed the orientation even when some people, like me, hadn't) we were split into groups and packed into busses heading in every direction, with the organisers of the orientation waving so long, and probably muttering "and good riddance" under their breath.

After yet more travelling (an hour and a half bus trip), we arrived in Cheonju, the capital of Chungcheongbuk. Here we were told to line up outside and wait for the signal to walk into the hall full of teachers and principals and be introduced to everyone. We waited for about half an hour in the cold wind, most of us (including me) without jackets, as we had been told to leave all of our stuff on the side. After the half-hour wait, we were finally told that we could enter the heated room. Here, we continued to wait in line as each person was introduced to everyone and then fetched by their waiting co-teacher. Thankfully, I was fairly close to the front of the line (only number 14 out of the 70 or so nervous people making up the queue.) As it came to my turn, I nervously waved to the crowd of staring faces and tried to find my co-teacher. It didn't take long to spot her - she came running down the side-steps to greet me, a wide smile on her face. She took my hand, introducing herself as Kim (or a Korean name that began with Kim, the rest of which I cannot remember for the moment) and led me to a seat in the second row. As the rest of the new teachers were being introduced, we chatted a bit about ourselves, South Africa, South Korea, the school and the students. There were occasionally awkward silences where talk died down and neither of us really knew what to say, but the introduction ceremony soon ended and I was trundled into a tiny car along with my giant 30kg suitcase, Kim and another teacher from the school taking the front and passenger seat and relegating me to the back with the bag. From the introduction ceremony venue, Kim drove the ten minutes to the school that I would be teaching at, and showed me around there. I was shown where my desk in the staffroom was, where my classes would be taught (far fancier and hi-tech than any of the classrooms I was taught in), was introduced to some of the other English teachers and to the principal (who couldn't speak a word of English). Then, realising that I was quite tired from the journey, Kim decided that it was time to show me my apartment.

Down a main street whose name I don't know, right onto a side street, left down another side street and around a corner, we came to a smallish building that was covered with tiles. We walked in and were confronted with a narrow staircase, up which I had to carry the suitcase that was mentioned earlier. Thankfully, I wasn't alone. Kim helped me carry it up and once on the second floor we came to my apartment. I walked in, and was immediately reminded by Kim that I should take off my shoes and put them in the cupboard directly to my left (in Korea, wearing shoes indoors is frowned upon, even in one's own house.) Once this was done, I looked around. In front of me was a narrow kitchen adorned with a sink, gas stove-top and a number of cupboards filled with pots, pans, crockery and a couple of utensils (two pairs of chopsticks and two spoons). Beyond this short and narrow kitchen was the door to the bathroom. This was entirely tiled and extremely simple, with nothing more than a toilet, sink, showerhead and a pair of plastic sandals (with holes in them so that the water from the shower can fall through). Just to the right of the entrance (which is tiled, while the rest of the house has laminated wooden floors) is the bedroom. This is fairly large with a 3/4 bed adorned with beautiful brand new bedding (the price tag was still on, so I sneaked a peek at the price, which wasn't particularly cheap), a TV and cabinet, a wooden closet with a couple of drawers attached, a table, two chairs and, since they couldn't fit into the narrow kitchen, a fridge and microwave. There is also a heater against the wall, which I haven't made use of quite yet, although last night was fairly cool. One of the bedroom walls is made up of a glass sliding door which leads through to the laundry room, the only room with windows, though unfortunately the view is of the apartment block next door. In here there is a brand new washing machine (still covered in plastic), a frame that hangs from the roof from which I can hang my wet clothes and another closet. In all, I quite like the apartment, simple bathroom and all.

After showing me around, Kim had left, promising to be back at 6pm to take me out to dinner. The next hour was spent unpacking my bags and by the time Kim arrived to pick me up, the apartment was feeling like my own - the closets filled with my clothes, the fridge filled with the single 500ml bottle of water that I had bought, the bathroom filled with my make-up and toiletries and the bed covered in my books for lack of anywhere else to put them. Kim arrived with her 5 year old daughter, who hid behind her mothers legs and just stares at me as though I was both fascinating and terrifying at the same time. Again, I was relegated to the backseat, but I soon realised why as Kim's daughter started reaching across from the passenger seat to poke her mother's cheek, play with her lips and generally bounce about unperturbed by the fact that the car was moving. We went for dinner at a restaurant about ten minutes from my apartment, which I would never be able to find again, but which served anything you can think of, from traditional Korean food to pizza, to sushi and Chinese (which I was quite surprised about). I stuck to the Korean food, and even had some of the seafood soup which was cooked on a stove-top on our table and which consisted of seashells, octopus, some form of vegetarian dimsum (Chinese dumplings) and sprouts. After dinner, Kim dropped me at my apartment, promising to pick me up at 11:30 this morning to take me to the hospital for my medical exam, which needs to be done before I can get my alien resident card, which I need in order to get a cellphone and internet. And so, I was left to myself in my apartment.

After a fairly uneventful night (the most exciting thing to happen was the superintendant coming to my room to turn the underfloor heating up, or at least I assume that's what he was doing since he couldn't speak any english and he gestured to the floor before fiddling with the heating system on the wall) I woke up this morning just in time to get changed and ready to go with Kim to the hospital. She turned up just on time, bearing coffee and a fork to add to my collection of utensils as well as a teddy-bear wearing a traditional Korean dress which has become my keyring, only to inform me that the hospital would be closed. Instead, she told me, we were going shopping for supplies that I might need. This is how I came to be introduced to GSmart, which sells everything you can imagine under one roof. Here I bought the necessecities like cereal, milk, sugar and shampoo before being dropped back home. For awhile I puttered around my apartment wondering what on earth to do with myself, and then I realised that I was in a city, and I was going to have to get to know it eventually. And so, once more, I walked out of my apartment and went exploring on my own - I feel like I could get used to doing this! And so I came across a internet cafe and decided to tell my adventures to those who would care to hear about them.

However, my hour of internet is running out and I must shortly return to my adventure of exploring Cheongju and finding all the other wonders that it might offer. Hopefully I will remember how to get back to my apartment.

Until the next time that I stumble across an internet cafe (as I assume this will be sooner than I will be getting internet of my own)!

I am finally here! After 28.5 hours of travelling (including waiting in airports and driving in taxis) I made it to Eulji University in Seongnam City where my orientation is taking place.

Contrary to the negative images that were running through my head, Noma from docs4expats was waiting for me when I reached Johannesburg, and I was able to get my passport from her (with my visa - I checked) and check-in with some time to spare. The flight from Johannesburg to Dubai wasn't too terrible, aside from quite a bit of turbulence, and I enjoyed the selection of movies that they had to offer. At one point I tried to sleep, but after half an hour of tossing and turning I gave up and decided to carry on taking advantage of the entertainment system instead. I also got to know another girl, Stephanie, who was also headng to Korea, so we got quite friendly during the flight and kept each other company in Dubai during the three hour wait for the next one. As soon as I the flight to Seoul was in the air, I reclined my chair as far back as it would go, took a pill and got to sleep within minutes. Unfortunately it was not uninterupted, despite the sticker saying "DO NOT DISTURB" that I had put on my seat - they still woke me up to ask me if I wanted meals - but despite that, I managed to get about 6 hours of sleep before we landed. And I was grateful for the 6 hours when we did land.

As soon as we got off the plane, Stephanie and I were thrown into a mad throng of people walking at a ridiculous pace, and we just followed along blindly, not really knowing where we were going. Soon we found ourselves queueing to board a train that took us to the "Passenger's Area", where we had to go through passport control, baggage claim and customs (the pace relenting thanks to the queues) before making our way out to the arrivals. As soon as we walked through the door into the arrivals area, we saw a man holding a card that read "Lara Salomon and Stephanie", impossible to miss, so another one of my worries was taken care of. I mentioned that I needed to draw cash and he moved aside revealing, much to my relief, a Global ATM. I drew some cash (not knowing quite how much to draw since I didn't know how much the taxi was going to cost) and followed the driver outside. He took Stephanie to the bus stop and bought her the ticket that she would need before taking me to the car, which I nervously climbed into, the fact that there was no seatbelt not escaping my attention. He climbed in after me five minutes later and we started the trip to Seongnam City.

At first I was paying attention to everything, noticing how beautiful the bridges were and the amazing sunset (I had never seen a bright red sun before, not like that. It wasn't lighting up the sky behind it - it was just a bright red ball on a grey background) and even trying to read some of the signs that we passed, proud to have learned the Korean alphabet before I came. But eventually the sun started going down, and the highway wasn't too exciting so I started dozing a bit. Before I knew it, the sky was black and the driver was telling me we would be there in 5 minutes. I looked around me and realised that he could have dropped me in the middle of nowhere and I would have been completely clueless - I had no one to contact, knew no Korean, nothing. And when he pulled to a stop, I really did think he was dropping me in the middle of nowhere. There were buildings all around us, lit up by the neon Korean signs, but he had stopped outside the only building that wasn't well lit. I had no idea where I was. He pulled my bag out of the car and asked me for the money, which I hesitantly gave him. Then he grabbed my suitcase without my having to ask him and started running up the steps with me hurrying along behind him. As we reached the top of the steps and turned a corner, I saw a giant poster over a doorway reading "WELCOME 2010 EPIK TEACHERS", and knew that I was in the right place. I hurried into the building, which turned out to be Eulji University, after him and he didnt stop until he had found the administration room that I was supposed to be in. From there, he left me in the helpful hands of the dormitory staff who assigned me a room and gave me a welcoming package including a schedule, alarm clock, hoodie and towel. One of them took me to my room and showed me how the electricity worked (you have to put your room card into a holder to start the electricity running) before leaving me alone. I had been told that I would be sharing the room with an American girl, but she wasn't there when I arrived. I made a quick phonecall home to tell Mom that I was safe and then made my way back to my room, unpacked some necessities, briefly met my room mate (Grace, from Houston) and fell asleep.

I woke up this morning nice and early for breakfast (where I avoided things like the cabbage salad and the soup) before heading to the first lectures of the day which lasted until lunch. At lunch, I bumped into girl I knew from University, and she introduced me to some of the South Africans who would be going to her province, who in turn introduced me to some of the South Africans going to my province (there are between ten and fifteen of tem!) There was an hour before the next lecture started, so we took a quick wall through the town before returning to the university for the afternoon lectures. By the last lecture of the day, I had been introduced to most of the people who will be going to Chungcheongbuk, had tasted the traditional kimchi (which wasn't as bad as I had suspected it would be) as well as some other Korean delicacies - sweet potato salad (which included macaroni noodles and dates, and which I am not so sure about) and seaweed and rice balls - and had even explored the city a little bit. It made me feel brave enough to come out on my own after our Korean class (the last class of the day) and head down the road to try and find an internet cafe, which is where I am now.

And so my adventure has begun!