SO, to give a quick re-cap, here's what I've learned in thepast month and a half since my last update:
I love Thailand- the cashew chicken and rice, the extremely cheap, low quality clothes and jewelry, the heavenly Thai massages, the beautiful islands, the crowded city of Bangkok full of tuk tuks (little motorized bike-taxis), ping pong tourneys, elephant rides, insects sold as food, and the excessive amount of foreignbackpackers sharing the same experience.
I no longer like my initial favorite food in Korea, Bibimbap. Eggs, rice, and long, stringy vegetables got really old after the first month. My new favorite is korean bbq duck wrapped in leaves, mmmm.
Koreans have no concept of personal space or what I'd call "American common courtesy". I still haven't been able to get used to walking down the sidewalk and getting completely run over/into by koreans who I clearly made eye contact with two seconds before, but then pretend not to see me. Korean women and grandmothers (ajumas) tend to be the biggest offenders here.
Bosses in the "real world" or more accurately in Korea are far different from small Christian University bosses. Thanks to current my boss, I have now moved three times since getting here and am now in an apartment the size of a normal american standard bathroom, I have changed schedules too many times to count, working overtime without pay and then having my job threatened when I brought the issue up, and been accused of not paying my phone bill, when my boss (also the accuser) had failed to set up the automatic bill pay that he assured me was in place. I was also just asked to pay for two and a half months worth of rent, gas, and internet, for my time in the first apartment, where I spent a total of 2 weeks. This was finally resolved when I brought out a calendar and showed my boss the exact days of my stay there.
That last two paragraphs sound like a lot of complaining and maybe some cultural insensitivity (sorry, can't help it), but I really do still love Korea. I've recently taken up rock climbing and have joined a few others on weekend trips to some beautiful places in Korea to climb, including a waterfall surrounded by cliffs. I've decided that my weekends feel like a waste if I'm not using them to see other parts of Korea, so I've been taking little backpacking trips as much as possible, including some of the beautiful beaches and islands of Korea. Public transportation here is great and easy to use, after you figure out how to read the Korean alphabet and pronounce names of places, which makes travel really easy.
Oh Korea. I'm four months in, eight to go.
