I'm Going Through Cell Phone Withdrawal...and other random thoughts

It's Thusday--one of my long days at school.  I do like this break, though.  Especially today.  I started the day a little bummed out...of all reasons, because I miss the endless possibilities of free communication that comes with having a cell phone in the same country as all the people with whom I like to regularly correspond.  Whew!  That was a mouthful.  Can you tell I haven't been talking enough?  Not that I don't get to talk to my friends...I just have to wait until they are signed on to Yahoo Chat, or Facebook, or Gmail...and there's a 14 hour time difference between here and Eastern Standard Time.  Night is day and day is night.  I am already in tomorrow...most of you readers are currently sound asleep, resting up for your Thursday.  My Thursday is already half-way over...crazy, right?  And those "Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?" commercials should be applied to Skype these days...oh, Verizon, how I miss your unlimited moble-to-mobile texts, Wordfeud, and crystal clear reception...

All I can say is, thank goodness for my night owl friends.  Up at 4am and want to talk?  Look for me!

I've decided to pass the time (this hour and a half break I have) by spewing out some random thoughts about life in Korea which haven't made it into my other posts.  Let's start with the internet.  Those of you who have surfed the web abroad know that when you type in some of your favorite webpages, it automatically redirects you to the country in which you are located's version.  For example...when I type in "Google.com" I am automatically redirected to Korean Google...no matter how much I cry and plead with the computer.  I can get to Canada's Google or British Google, but I haven't figured out how to get the American version yet.  I haven't really tried that hard, though, honestly!  And for some reason, iTunes doesn't want to sell me any albums.  My Facebook is regular, but I have Korean ads on the sides.  It's cute.  Yahoo is the same as Google.  I can go to "My Yahoo," though, and it's the same.  Luckily, I am using Google Chrome as my web browser and it offers to translate all the alien talk into English for me.  And sometimes, it actually works!  Also, I had to cancel my Netflix subscription...online streaming is blocked here.  That one was a real bummer.

Next up--walking to school.  Walking around town in general.  There are lots of pedestrians everywhere you go, which is really awesome.  I love seeing people out and about.  I love walking by the same little shops every day...fruit and vegetable shops, household goods shops, cute Hello Kitty accessory shops, even the stinky fresh fish, eels, and stingrays being sold out of the back of little pickup trucks...I love it all.  At first I loved its newness...now already I am beginning to love its familiarity.  I'm recognizing shop owners and they are recognizing me (that part's pretty easy).  Yesterday was funny...we were walking to the school and Kylie says, "Whoa--look over there!"  I looked across the major highway we were walking along.  On the other side of the road I saw little G.I. Joe figurines...except they were real-live people.  They were doing some sort of drill where they jumped out of their truck, ran down the street, and went underground via a small manhole. They were carrying little plastic machine guns.  At least, that's what I had to tell myself they were.

That doesn't happen often, apparently.  And for those of you wondering what went on during that whole bombing fiasco with North Korea that they made such a huge deal about on the news over Thanksgiving...they had one bomb drill and that's it.  Nothing happened, nothing was different.  No one freaked out.  Not in Seoul, anyways.

Now, the big roads...they have sidewalks.  The small alleyways in between, however, do not.  You walk down the middle of the road just like everybody else.  Oranges and passion fruits' stands spill out into the road for easy access shopping.  When a car comes...they drive where you are walking.  They go slow (usually) as people mosey on out of their way.  Even when there are sidewalks...sometimes cars drive on them.  It's every man for himself out here.  If a car hits you, it's your fault, so I've been told!  You don't hear as much honking as you'd think, either, it being a big city and all.  Honestly I rarely hear a car honk, even though the driving is pretty crazy (no more crazy than NYC).  And the cars here aren't all teeny tiny like they are in Europe.  I see plenty of SUV's out on the road.  They're all Hyundai or Honda or Kia, though!  Not too many Fords!

This one's for my recycling-lover friends--Trash.  You have to divide your trash here.  There are large white bags to put regular trash in.  Then there are small green bags you put your compost in...banana peels and apple cores, etc.  Recycling can go in any bag you want...and that includes cardboard, plastic, glass, and aluminum...you know, the usual.  You bring different bags downstairs to the curb for pickup depending on the day...and I don't have that down pat yet.  I did bring about 8 little compost bags down last Monday, though, I think.  I eat a lot of fresh produce.  And--if you don't divide your trash correctly--a man literally knocks on your door to let you know.  They are watching.

The sink.  The sink is weird.  It almost looks like it should be a garbage disposal--but it's not.  It has those little rubber flaps on it and it's a big wide drain, but it just has a plastic double strainer that catches all the single pieces of rice and bits of food that get washed off my plate and creates a stinky, nasty mess inside my drain.  It's pretty disgusting.  I cleaned it a bit but it's difficult.  I painstakingly make sure that every grain of rice and bit of food is scraped off my plate into the green plastic bag before I will rinse it.

You have to push a button on the thermostat before you take a shower, or it will be barely lukewarm.  Then when you're done, you push the button again.  It works nicely.  They told me to wait 10 minutes, but I find I don't really need to.  I will get a gas bill at the end of the month that will be maybe $10, if that.  It's just for my hot water.

I just looked out my little classroom window and realized I am staring one of those tall highway street lamps straight in the face...directly across from me a sign on a building reads (in English) "COFFEE, BEER, WHISKEY."  To me, it may as well read, "POISON, POISON, POISON," as I haven't been able to touch any of those things in months.  Chemicals react all wrong in my body.  I ate a piece of chocolate yesterday and the caffeine in it drained away about 75% of my energy.  I even have a recurring nightmare that only happens when I eat raw or almost raw spinach right before bed.

OMG...one of the supervising Korean teachers just came into my classroom and gave me my alien registration card!  I'm Korean now!  Yay!  LOL...I think that means I can go get a cell phone!

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