We have a ceiling!!

We finally have a new ceiling in our kitchen! It's been 18 days since the leak from the apartment above us began, and 13 days since they tore the old ceiling down, and now we FINALLY have new drywall up, in both the kitchen and entry! They still need to install the wall paper, decorative elements and light fixtures, but they are suppose to do that today. It's just wonderful being able to move all of our kitchen stuff back into our cupboards and bathroom stuff back, be able to do laundry, cook and all the wonderful things you do with a normal apartment.

1 Month + 1 Week

So we have made it 5 weeks. I intended to write last weekend but didn't find the time, and this past week was a long week so I'm just getting to it now. Mainly I didn't write this past week because I came down with a fever early Monday morning which progressively got worse in addition to chills, headaches, body aches, muscle aches, exhaustion, vomiting and loss of appetite. By Tuesday night I figured I had something more than a cold so I went to the doctor with our director Wednesday morning. They determined I had Tonsillitis, evident from my grossly swollen and painful tonsils which he said we also covered in white spots... Maybe that was too much information. At any rate, I received a three day supply of pills and was told to come back after those 3 days. After a day of taking the pills I began feeling better. Which was a huge relief, because shivering all night and sweating at the same time sucks, and then having to get up and go to work makes it about 12x suckier. At my checkup on Friday the doctor said the spots were beginning to decrease and gave me another three-day supply of pills, which seem to be doing the trick and at least have allowed me to get some sleep.

So here we are in our 5th weekend. Yesterday Amanda and I slept in quite late, which frankly felt fantastic. And let's be real, I'm not talking late, I'm talking early afternoon sleep-in :) After our glorious reunion with soft, drifting clouds, occasional numbered sheep and infinite interesting dreams we got our butts up and decided to attempt to take the bus to Gimhae to do some shopping at Home Plus. We were surprisingly successful, and managed to get on the right bus which dropped us off right in front of the large department store. We even managed to run into our new friends from last weekend who showed us how to get to the bus station so we could get back home. Here is a glimpse of some of our purchases. I am most excited about the coffee and french press :) The silver knobby thing is a suction shower head holder, so that we might actually be able to have a somewhat real shower situation, also quite exciting!

Besides the aforementioned items, I also picked up some bagels, a coffee mug for my hopefully delicious coffee, earmuffs, black socks, a soup bowl and lint roller.

As I mentioned earlier, last weekend we made new friends that we ended up traveling to Busan with. They showed us a little of how to navigate the buses and also showed us the "Golden" Gwangandaegyo Bridge and Haeundae Beach. Both were stunning. Here are a couple photos and a map showing where they are in relation. The beach we were at was the first one east of the bridge.

If you have been listening to the news this past week, you most likely know that North Korea bombed the South Korean Island Yeonpyeong. The North is blaming the South for provoking them by firing into their waters, while the South defends that the firings were planned, annual exercises that did not enter the North's side. It has been said that this was the most violent attack between the two sides, who have still technically been at war since 1953. Suspicions have it that one key reason for the bombings was a demonstration of Kim Jong-il's son, Kim Jong-un's power and ability to be his father's successor. Nothing says "I want to make you proud, dad" like a few hundred bombs raining down on unsuspecting innocent civilians and marines. Way to go North Korea, yet again you prove to the world your idiocy.

Lastly, I have been meaning to upload this photo from a couple weeks ago when we had dinner with our director, Glenn, and her husband Luke.

Houston, We Have A Leak

Last Thursday morning when walking to the bathroom my sock got wet. Strange, I thought... Did my business and returned to the kitchen. It took a few passes but I finally noticed a small puddle on the floor. Huh, that shouldn't be there. I looked up and saw exactly what I didn't want to: a dripping ceiling. Something was leaking from above us. Well, long story short, what started as this:

Became this:

And is now this:

7.14 miles (11.49km) through Masan

Last Friday Amanda and I drove to Masan with our director Glen for some more training before we had class in the afternoon. It was about a 45min-1hour drive in Glen's car. During our departure from Masan back to Jinyeong, we discovered there was a large interesting port in the city, so we thought it would be fun to come back and visit, take photographs, walk around, you know, the we're-American-and-want-to-be-adventurous stuff. So we did! After classes finished on Friday our friend Kang and our director's husband Luke showed us that we could get to Masan from Jinyeong on the train in only 20 minutes; they looked up the times and prices for us so we had everything we needed. The cost was incredibly cheap: only 2500 won for one trip (less than $2.50)! Not bad at all; the round trip cost for both of us comes out to something around $8.84. Saturday night, the night before we planned to go, I looked up where the train station was in Masan. It was then that I realized we may have a bit of walking to do. The station was on the very north end of the city, whereas the port we wanted to check out was much, much further south. But we decided to go for it anyway, so Sunday morning we hopped on the train and were in Masan at about 11:30. As you'll see in the photos below, there's a channel that leads up into the city from the port, so we decided to head for that first instead of trying to make it all the way to the main part of the port right off the bat. Well, with our good walking shoes on and cameras over our shoulder we set out from the station with nothing but my phone's compass and occasional ability to pick up some WiFi to check the map. We reached the channel in about 45 minutes, which was not as long as we expected. At this point our spirits were high, at least they were until we smelled the channel. Let's just say it wasn't the sweet smell of roses, but more of... 대변... 

So we continued down the channel to reach the port. After much walking we reached our destination and gazed upon the dynamic port before us:

 

It was really stunning. The water was calm and the air was quiet. The occasional squawk of a seagull interrupted the sound of the lapping water. We could see the new bridge out in the distance in the haze (which we've been told is moisture and is more prevalent because of the time of year, and maybe due a little to pollution...). To sum it up: it was cool.

At this point we had been walking for nearly a few hours and were dreading the jaunt back to the station. I suggested we attempt to get a taxi but Amanda wasn't feeling it, so off on foot we were again. After we got only a few blocks from the port area we saw the entrance to what we believed to be a market, and oh man was it ever! We walked through blocks of live sea food: squirming crab, octopus, shrimp, fish (both swimming and decapitated), squid, eel, stingrays, mussels, snails, abalones, oysters, and a few things we had no idea about, plus a bunch of vegetables. Maybe next time we'll stop and try something...

After leaving the market we decided to take a different route back to the station, one a little more direct. We were judging our direction based on the hills we saw in the distance, you'll see in the map below there are two large hills in the middle of the city. Trouble was, we couldn't always tell what hills were in the city and what hills were the city limits. Shortly after the market, we came to a T in the road, and instead of going left or right, decided to see where the small passage leading through the middle took us. It was the most winding and confusing path we could have gone down. The "streets" were nothing more than a ~6' wide path leading to the different entrances of peoples' homes. We continued to randomly choose a path at each intersection we came to, trying to stay going in the right general direction. It reminded us both very much of parts of Greece. Looking at the map after we got home we saw just how large the area was: blocks and blocks worth! There must be hundreds of homes in this area, only accessible by extremely narrow paths. If a fire started, how would the fire department begin to even dent the density of this place! Absolutely insane.

Well after we made it through the "narrows" (-Batman Begins) it was a pretty straight shot up to the station. A pretty - long - and straight shot. We finally reached the station at about 15:00. We were exhausted, completely worn-out and somewhat regretted not getting that taxi back to the station. After getting home I mapped out our route and measured the distance we walked. In total: we walked 7.14 miles in Masan. Wheeew! Adding the distance we walked to and from the train station in Jinyeong, we clocked nearly 8.4 miles for the trip. Needless to say our calves are still a little tight. Below is a map of our route and the relation of Masan to Jinyeong. And here are more photos from Masan.

Sweet Persimmon Festival!

The hills surrounding Jinyeong are covered with Sweet Persimmon; it's the area's largest export. And every year the people of Jinyeong celebrate the season with non other than a festival. Our friend Kang invited us to join him and his family this past Saturday to get a little more taste of the Korean culture. After about a 15 minute walk from our apartment we arrived at the town's stadium where the festival was held. Admission was free and we were able to walk right in. It's a lot like a hometown fair, but with less rides and more vendors. We tried a number of foods like roasted chestnuts, little waffle blobs with beans in the middle, a corn dog with loads of batter and fries stuck into it, and a beef on a stick type of deal. It was all quite tasty. We also scored on buying a few inexpensive items we needed. They had an entire row under a tent filled with cheap goods all for only 1,000 won (less than a dollar). So we got 10,000 won worth of things like kitchen glasses, hammer and nails, shoe polish, dish towels and a few other things. It was a great deal. We also heard a very famous Korean singer perform on stage, however, I can not tell you what his name was or what he was singing, because it's all Korean. Check out the photos below of the festive times:

 Silk Worms (which we did not eat...)

 Kang buying some roasted chestnuts

 Making the waffle blobs

 Making waffles

 Fireworks

 And more fireworks!

 Lots of food

Rotisserie swine

 Stage

 Glowing things that Kang's son Xavier wanted to buy

 Balloons and tents

 Soap-making

Man-with-large-amount-of-dough

Fixing the leak

I thought I would throw this on here so you can see what a little utility repair looks like. Last Thursday was our first day of class, and as luck would have it our building's water supply sprung a leak out in the street that morning. And in order to dig the street up to fix the leak they also had to turn off the gas off, which runs our stove, our hot water and our heat.. Needless to say, some of us resorted to such tactics as placing a bowl of water in the toaster oven in order to get some hot water :) Below are a few photos of the repair construction I witnessed, literally right out our apartment's front door:

It was bound to happen...

Amanda's parents warned us about the toilets in Korea; they described them as holes in the floor... Naturally I didn't believe them, contending that this was the 21st century, and surely things have changed since they lived in Korea ~20 years ago. Well, I humbly stand corrected. This little gem was found in the hospital we visited in Changwon last week when we went in for our physical:

One Week

We have officially survived in Korea for one week! Bring out the soju! Actually, we haven't even had soju yet... in time...

A few things that I miss the most so far: incandescent light bulbs. (I know this must sound silly, but trust me, when you're in fluorescent light all day and night, you really miss the warm burn of the filament!) Having the ability to buy something in the grocery store or restaurant and know what you're getting! And third: a Tall Caramel Frappe Freeze from Wilde Roast Cafe (Bill will know what I'm talking about) those suckers are so good!

Anyway, Amanda and I are settling in pretty well and learning more and more each day. Yesterday (Sunday) we hiked up a nearby mountain (a shallow one) with a new friend we have made. His name is Kang U-Seok; he's the owner of the building that our school is in and drops in at the end of the day. He very generously drove us to the base of the mountain, and then hiked all the way up with us and showed us spots along the way. There's a bit of a language barrier there, but we are learning more Korean each day, and Kang is eager to sharpen his English. Along the way up the mountain we passed a small Buddhist temple, a whole bunch of sweet persimmon trees, some really big and scary and ugly and scary spiders, and to our surprise quite a few middle aged locals that seemed to be hiking around as their norm. I must say that the age of these guys was probably close to that of my parents, and let's just say I don't think I would see them hiking around the mountains like the Koreans were. I'm very impressed with the fitness Koreans have. Anyway, we spent a few hours hiking the mountain with Kang, taking a lot of photos, and keeping a look out for spiders. Did I mention they were big and scary. It was a gorgeous day for hiking, warm in the sun, cool in the shade, and in the mid '60's (Fahrenheit of course).

Kang also came over to our apartment tonight so he could teach us how to use the thermostat. It's been a little chilly at night and we thought we knew how to operate our fancy in-floor radiant heat system, but apparently we didn't. We now know the system of "push this button and this button, and when this light is on you're good; and to change the temperature do this." When the day comes that we can read Korean perhaps it will make more sense to us, but at least for now we have a warm floor and aren't chilly anymore!

Our shoe rack was also delivered this evening. As you may know, it is very customary for people to remove their shoes when entering a home or restaurant, so naturally it is customary to have a shoe rack at the entrance. Because our apartment is so new, said shoe rack was not yet in place, so a few days ago a couple gentleman came with a tape measure, eyed up the size of our foyer and left. Tonight, a few other gentleman returned with not just a shoe rack, but a whole shoe wardrobe! We were expecting some sort of open shelved piece of furniture with a few shelves, but what we got was much more. It measures probably 4' wide, 10" deep and perhaps 6.5' tall and comes with three full height doors. We have room for our shoes and still have about 75% of the thing open for some much needed storage. It's great! Unfortunately, our small entrance foyer space just became even smaller, but that's ok, we'll deal with it.

Below are some photos from our hike up the nearby mountain and our shoe rack:

View of Jinyeong-ri from beginning of hike

 Small Buddhist temple nestled into base of mountain

 Path we walked up near the base of the mountain

 Big, scary, ugly and scary spider. One of many

 A chestnut shell posing with Amanda

 Amanda and our friend Kang trying to figure out why someone piled up a bunch of rocks

 Pavillion at the top of the mountain

 The Korean landscape

 A Praying Mantis we stumbled upon in the middle of the path

 Motorized-basket-on-track for transporting sweet persimmon

Sweet Persimmon

Our spanky-new shoe / storage cupboard!