Coffee, Beer?

After traveling by bus for 2 hours with Troy and his wife, I tiredly set foot in my temporary new place. My real apartment wasn't ready yet (Troy is finishing up the cleaning and receiving the furniture they ordered today) so I am in the other teacher's place until he arrives on Sunday. It's not bad, perfect for one person, although my apartment will be one room smaller. I've got a balcony, a bathroom a main room, and a bathroom. Perfect for me. I'm able to steal the internet in here because they haven't turned it off yet.

I took a shower last night, which was interesting as there aren't separate shower stalls, you shower in the bathroom, because there are drains in floor. Showering in front of a big bathroom mirror is a humbling experience. Then I slept on this really comfortable bed, that has memory foam, I think. I was surprised that I made it through the night without waking up, but I got a full 7 hours which I feel is an impressive jab in the face of jet lag.

I decided to get out today. I am still unaware of my general area, but I can orient myself a little. Down the street, I was told, was a department store, with grocery store on the 2nd floor. I found Home Ever fairly quickly. And it certainly is a department store. The first floor as underwear, shoes, purses, cosmetics and jewelry. I got the second floor by an inclined moving walkway (not an escalator, no stairs) I wasn't sure what groceries to get, so I decided to just get a couple of necessities. This turned into what items I could distinguish. The end result was a bag of nectarine, croissants, cheese, milk, strawberry jelly, Pringles, Peanut Butter Oreos, milk and juice.

On the way back, I looked at some of the stores on the street perpendicular to mine. There were a lot of places that I had no idea what could be contained, there were a couple of places that I could decipher, most of them sold food. All of them had exclamation points. My favorite was a resturaunt that simply said "Coffee and Beer." What a duo. There are your too choices: Folgers or Budweiser, take your pick. This choice says a lot.

After my trip, Troy's assistant, Lauren came by. She rang my doorbell, and upon opening it, I was greeted by her lovely face and then a pink streak running through the doorway and into the kitchen, then bedroom and finally stopping in front of me. When the streak stopped, I realized it was a tiny smiling girl, in the cutest outfit this side of the Yellow Sea. It turned out this was Lauren's 5-year-old, Jenny. They became my tour guides on a quick trip to the hagwon, which is literally 60 seconds from my apartment. Jenny is a bundle of energy. Lauren warned me, "I have been speaking only Korean with her, so she is ready to speak in English with you." For the next hour, we talked about Ariel, Cinderella, how much we like teddy bears, she drew me pictures and then declared, "New teacher, I like you and your shoes." We came back to the apartment and they left, Jenny being my new favorite friend who will chat about Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn and long towers (of which I received a picture).