No longer alone in a foreign country

As the title suggests, I successfully met Simon on Saturday at Noksapyeong tube station (which is only a short walk from our flat). He arrived at about 5.45pm, which was earlier than expected and I met him like an excited teenager. We dragged his bag back to the bedding shop under the flat and I introduced him to the landlady (by introduced, I mean that I gestured at him saying 'boyfriend' over and over in bad Korean). He loves the flat too.

Here are some pre-Simon photos of the flat, when it was all nice and tidy still:



This is the view from my balcony at night:


Oh and this is the supermarket a few shops down that makes me smile every time I see it:


So, seconds after arriving, Simon starts chatting to this Canadian guy and his Korean girlfriend who were on the roof next to ours. I'd never even seen them before (I'd seen their suicidal dogs but not them). I couldn't believe it. He'd been there five minutes and had already wangled an invitation to this guy's house. The closest I came to making friends last week was when I waved at a Korean lady on the roof of a building over the road. She ignored me.

We wanted to go out for dinner, as Simon had been eating kimchi all week in the compound. So we hopped on the subway, which of course I hadn't done before. Here's our station:



That's my obligatory cheesy face pose. The subway is really easy to use and we now have T-money cards, like Oyster cards, which you charge up with money and can be used on the buses, which is handy for me. We went to Hongdae, which is a studenty university area with tons of trendy-looking Koreans, and had dinner in a not-very-Korean place, where Simon had been with Rosy last year. We had massive sausages and tempura prawns. And lots of beer. We didn't stay there long though as it was late and we were tired. When we got back, we went to this convenience store down the road, Family Mart, bought some beer and sat outside in the sort of covered area they have, drinking them.

On Sunday, Simon had to go to his school to be videoed or something so I got up really quite late, watched some anime and then meandered along the road looking for the key copying man. His stall is right opposite and open but god knows where he was. It was open all day but we didn't see him and then about six hours later he finally showed up and we now have two keys, both of which you have to really force into the lock before they'll turn.

Anyway, I went for a wander when I initially couldn't find Mr Keyman and as I was walking back, I looked up and saw the Canadian guy and his girlfriend on the roof and then looked at ours and saw some shifty looking character hanging around, which gave me a bit of a shock but it was only Simon. We then walked into Itaewon, which is a real foreigners district. There were westerners everywhere and lots of places like Burger King, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc. And places like this sports shoes shop:


Oh and we also saw a tailor who, according to the pictures in his window, had catered to the likes of Magic Johnson, Pavarotti and:


Yes, that's right. Steven Seagal. Or Sigal, as the sign said. After wandering up and down Itaewon, with Simon imparting helpful information that he'd learned in the compound ("If it's one barber's pole, it's a barbers. If there are two barber's poles, it's a brothel." and "If it says 'karaoke' and not 'norae-bang', it's karaoke with girls. Like a brothel" - I mean, who has been hanging out with all week?!), we had some food and then headed back to Family Mart for a beer outside again. We read a bit and chatted a bit and that was the end of the weekend really. Oh, actually, we bought some, er, exceedingly cheap DVDs in Itaewon, so we came home and watched Gran Torino and Choke. We have Transporter 3 to enjoy at a later date. It was, all in all, a very pleasant weekend.

As today is Monday, Simon had his first day at his school. Now, I teach classes of, at the most, 14 kids. Simon's classes can be between 30 and 40 kids, so he was quite nervous. I sent him a text near the end of the day asking how it went and the reply said 'it sucked'. He then went out for drinks with his other teachers (all Korean) so he's not back yet for me to ask why. I had my three classes today and I taught half of the second and most of the third on my own and it went well. I'm starting to suss out the kids a bit more and I'm starting to get favourites already and use their weird English. "Teacher, writing?" "Yes, writing. I mean, write this down." and when I was talking to two Canadian teachers (our teaching staff are all western), I found myself talking to them as if they didn't understand. I bet Simon and I are going to end up yelling at each other in broken English every night, as if we're still teaching. Sometimes, they do weird things or say something funny, or just do kiddy things and I'll start laughing, so I need to stop doing that and be a little more stern. They are hilarious though. And some of them are really bright, which makes the classes a lot easier. I don't get home til about 8.30pm most days and Simon should be getting home around 5.30pm (when he isn't boozing it up with the other teachers) so we'll only really be able to spend a good amount of time with each other at the weekends. It's not so bad though. I'm starting to get to grips with my job and we're in a good location so....hooray I suppose! I'm just disappointed that I'm not going to be in England for the launch of episode 6 of Zomblogalypse. And if you don't know what I'm talking about, please go here and be educated:

www.zomblogalypse.com

See? Still pimping it out from halfway round the world. Anyway, bye for now and I'll write soon.