Hey Hey, South Korea at last. My arrival is about 6 months late, as some of you may know; I was supposed to come at the turn of last fall semester. But after failing accounting 1, it put my plans on hold. I think that it was better to have waited b/c now, I have a fully functioning support group including: Duck, Brian, and Jess (my brother’s g/f for those of you that don't know).

We arrived at our teachers’ orientation in Seoul on sept.27, a little over a week ago. The orientations main purpose was to teach all of the applicants that had no experience teaching, how to. Seoul was fun but mainly we all tried to learn how to teach, since it is a new experience for all of us. Although Brian has taught masters class' none of us have ever taught children before. Come to think of it, I haven’t had much experience with children since I was a child myself. So we didn't get to see much of Seoul, except for a market street, which in retrospect probably was not the street we thought it was.
After the second day we each consumed the new liquor that will probably be the cause of our best memories as well as nightmarish hangovers (Duck was incapacitated for about 17 hours). "Soju,” is fermented rice liquor that tastes like watered down Mr. Boston’s with a hint of splenda, sounds crazy delicious I know. The cost is about 1 dollar (1,000 won) at most the bars/restaurants here, and is usually sipped out of a shot glass. All westerners usually shoot it, and can have some fun with native speakers by yelling “one shot.” This usually gets all the locals fired up.
Enough about orientation, our drive down to Busan (southern tip of the peninsula) was beautiful. All of the countryside is very mountainous, with rice patties scattered for miles. We dropped fellow teachers off in deague, which is in the middle of South Korea. Then as nightfall was approaching, we finally made it into Busan. Once entering Busan we were quickly divided among our respected schools and separated. Duck and I are placed in the neighborhood of Dongnea. Brian and Jess are placed in the south of the city near a university and a beach (their neighborhood is nice but I forgot the name). That night Duck and I had so much food the servers had to wait till we were done with plates, so they could bring new dishes to the table. As soon as we can upload the pictures, you will see the seemingly unending plethora of food.
fun fact #1- All of the tunnels in South Korea are equipped with live mines, so they can blow/block the tunnels in case of a North Korean invasion.
The first day of school, was an experience for all of us. It was like living a national geographic picture when all of the Ethiopians bull-rush white reporters, except with us it was young Korean kids. All day kids tell us how handsome we are, and how much we look like movie stars/sports players, because unlike in America these children have never been around anyone of another race for any extended amount of time.
fun fact #2- South Korea has the highest percentage of natural born citizens in the world meaning there are 48,850,000 South Koreans and only 1,000,000 immigrants. Immigrants mostly consist of farmers wives from eastern Europe, and retired ex-patriots from the US army.
Our groups first night out was incredible, Duck and I met up with Brian and Jess near their neighborhood, mainly b/c it’s a happening part of town. We had sushi at a place called Mr. Roll, we paid about 16 dollars and had enough sushi to fill all of us up, and we were starving. After that we purchased a 40 (which was in a plastic bottle), Soju, and some unfiltered Rice wine. So after consuming every last drop of our assorted alcohol, we set our sights on Busan near Kyengseon University. The first place we went was Vintage Bar Hof, a Korean girl actually sold us on it when we were walking down the street. After the awkward elevator ride, we were introduced to the bar which was about the size of a small bar, and was not packed at all, but included young waitress' that wore Budweiser shirts. We ordered a couple of pictures of beer (Cass which one should pronounce as A-S-S) and set our sight on the dartboard, that seemed to be a pretty popular commodity in this bar. After the first couple of throws, that just happened to be bulls-eyes, it seemed I was the one to watch. I knew this because every time I stepped up after that, I could feel the eyes of about 6 Koreans burning a hole in my back. The rest of my game was a big let down, and Brian and Jess beat us every time.
After that we went to a very happening place that bore the name ghetto bar. Which was like any hip-hop club I had ever been to, except no cover and extremely cheap prices? It also included some other westerners, which loved showing the Koreans how they could shake their asses. After the beer/shots we had a ghetto bar most everything was a blur, we woke up with two bottles of unfiltered rice wine I had purchased from the convenient store late night.