I assumed that the first day would be the easy one due to excitment etc. To be honest - it was terrifying! The person who picked us up from the airport was wonderful and drove us to our apartment...... our extremely empty, surprisingly spacious yet sweltering apartment. We're looking into getting air-conditioning as we take several cold showers a day! The apartment itself is situated in a poorer area and although clean, it has no closet space or fridge yet. Moreover you cannot drink the water that comes into an appartment here as it has not been treated. In Korean apartments there are no sinks or showers in the bathroom. The entire bathroom is tiled and it is a giant showering area. The one thing that reminds me of home is the ugly wallpaper that could easily be found in any Canadian student housing.
The first day we decided to go for a walk and buy some of the things we had not brought that we would need such as food, towels, shampoo etc. Interestingly though, even determining what was a shop was difficult and finding the ones we required was impossible. There were store-like fronts with nothing inside with open doors, nauseating smells emerging from what we assumed were restaurants, and places that looked as though they sold food-like items but we could not read the packaging to determine what it was that we would be purchasing. We finally concluded our search by finding a corner store that sold coke! Best coke ever. Armed with that along with a bottle of water and another bottle of what we presumed was dishsoap we decided to call it a day and ended our frustrating shopping experience victoriously.....
Fortunately Michael, the individual who picked us up from the airport came by soon afterwards and began to show us around. It's amazing how simply understanding where grocery and department stores are located can make you feel more secure. Something about being able to attain basic necessities and not starve to death I suppose!
We still cannot work the phones but hope to rectify that today to call our parents.
Today is our first day of observation before we begin teaching so I suppose I should go and prepare.