And then I woke up…

So my first day in my apartment was interesting, and this will be the foundation of everything I will go through over the next year.  Sound ridiculous?  You have no idea.

It’s Monday.  I was told that I would be picked up by James (he’s like my manager, while Kyeong Hee is my boss) at 9am, so I got up and got ready, ate the banana and 3 clementines that she left me as my only food supply and then sat on my stairs.  I don’t have any furniture, so the stairs seemed like the best place to wait.  My apartment has no land line or internet, and the only means I have for communicating is my American cell phone that costs 3 bucks a minute.  Yikes. Also, I don’t have any food or any money (since there was nowhere I could find in the airport to exchange my money when I arrived).  So, after an hour of waiting on the stairs, checking to see if I really had the time right on all my clocks, I decided to use my phone to call my boss to see where James was.   She assures me that he will come soon, and that I can just relax until he gets there.  Ok, sounds good.  So, four hours later I finally get a knock on my door. By this point, I was laying on my bed trying to get some Korean studying in. Yes, trying.  I’m a little annoyed that they knock a few times before I get down the stairs considering I’m the one who has been waiting for hours and they can’t even wait 30 seconds. So, 3 people come barging into my apartment and start walking around saying this and that (in Korean) about all the things wrong with it.  I don’t understand why this wasn’t done before I moved in, but whatever.  I got reprimanded for stepping down into the shoe area with my socks so that I could open the door. Nice. Twice in 24 hours.   I guess I just can’t figure this shoe area out.   Honestly though, I can barely reach the door without stepping down, but I’m proud to say, I haven’t done it since that first time. Ha!  How ‘bout them apples?!  So, after that, the other two people leave and it’s now just me and good ol’ James.  Thank heavens, because I was beginning to wonder what I would do if they never came for me.  I couldn’t very well go out to buy food, since I didn’t have any money, and honestly, I had no idea where a grocery store was.  Even then, if somehow I miraculously got some money and eventually found a grocery store, I would probably get lost trying to find my way back to where I live. 

So off we go, me following like a lost, jet lagged puppy.  He takes me to a little restaurant that is just around the corner from where I live and says that it’s cheap and a lot of foreigners go there.  Well, he didn’t mention the food quality so it must not be that great.  Anyway, we head over there and they have a menu with NO pictures, so I’m thinking, why the heck do foreigners get their food here?  I guess, in the end, it doesn’t really matter because most of the pictures they do have at places are deceiving.  Yeah, be careful…“oh, those are fish eggs”.   So, speaking of weird food, he orders me a soup (which I already have a hard time eating without a million crackers) that I probably won’t ever order for myself again.  Not that it was horrible, or that I wouldn’t eat it again, I just wouldn’t choose it for myself.   It had what I thought were rice noodles, but he said they were tofu noodles, which were big and thick, and I couldn’t eat using anything, not chopsticks, a spoon or a fork.  Yeah, way to start off easy.  I mean, come on, I’ve only been here a few days!   Thanks for making me feel like an idiot.  So, anyway, there was seaweed in it (greaaaat) and these spongy, egg-like rectangles floating around in it, and some really colorful little spongy stars and circles and stuff.  So, I ask what they are made of, and he’s all “oh, it’s fish”…Um, yeah, at first I didn’t know if we were having a language barrier issue or if he was for real.  Hey, don’t get me wrong, I’m a fan of fish, but I’ve just never had it blended into a paste (with who knows what) then cooked into the texture of a soggy omelet before.  Anyway, I wasn’t gonna complain… I still have no food at home, remember?   Any food looked good at this point.   Anyway, we head off to the “headquarters” which will be the base of a lot of the upcoming events.  Ok, I’m gonna be honest.  There’s a lot of time that I spend at the headquarters where I have no idea what’s going on.  I’m just sitting around waiting for people to talk to me when they’re ready.  Anyway, eventually, they decide (since I was adamant about it) to help me open up a bank account.  So they hand me off to this Korean girl (soon to be one of my best friends) and send us off to the bank, which is conveniently on the bottom floor of the same building.  So, the bank was a bit ridiculous trying to get through, since I have no idea what my address is, I have no telephone number and I don’t know where I work.  Good times.  Well, we worked through it and eventually I got some of my American money put into my Korean account.  Yay! After that, I sit around at the headquarters again, so glad I could be a part of a meeting that I have no idea what it’s about.  They let me know that I can’t eat anything after nine because I have to fast until I get my mandatory health check at the hospital the next morning.   This was fine by me, of course, since not only do I fast once a month on a regular basis, but I still didn’t have any food at my apartment.  Well, they tell me when I need to show up the next morning, and that’s that.  I’m off to find my apartment for the first time by myself, and luckily I remembered the octopus tank that is right next to where I live.  Even better, in each building I have had to go to up to this point I have always been on the 7^th floor, (which is lucky here J)  so I haven’t had a hard time remembering.  After finding my way safely home, I  ate some stale french fries (that I forgot I had at the bottom of the McDonalds bag that she gave me the fruit in…hey, I’m in survival mode ) I had a drink of water, and I went to bed.  THE END (ok, just trying to keep my posts shorter and more often…don’t worry, things will start going faster once I get past the first few days)