We're officially moved into our new place. It's pretty nice, and much roomier than expected. According to the Koreans, Ansan is in the country. Funny, to call a population of 600, 000 and skyscrapers everywhere the "country." We live in an apartment building called Sky Palace, which also houses an Outback Steakhouse, a convenience store, a jewelry store, a baby store, a barber's, and what we think is a laundromat. Across the street is Newcore, a large department store with a 2 floor grocery store (Kim's Club) in the basement. There is also a Pizza Hut, a couple of banks, a coffee shop, and an Italian place visible from our front entrance. We have everything we need within 20 paces, it's pretty convenient!
On our second day in Korea, we explored a little bit, and the first thing we fell in love with was the Korean Waffle. The cutest, fluffiest, most scrumptious waffles we've ever had, and only 2$! They are really popular, and we haven't seen a coffee shop that doesn't sell them (maybe Starbucks?). We spent a few hours in that coffee shop with hot chocolate and stealing internet on our laptops. Needless to say, we don't have internet at home yet.
Further exploration revealed a hardware store (thank goodness, our kitchen only came equipped with a couple of chopsticks and a frying pan), lots of Western restaurants like TGI Fridays, a million little Korean restaurants and random stores we can't figure out yet because we don't understand Korean. We also managed to use Google Maps to find the subway, only ten minutes from our apartment.
Today was Chloe's first day of school, and she was pretty nervous. She didn't get any instructions, just a couple of books and the class times. She got up at 4am to get ready, and look over the books a bit. She got to the school a bit early, and met some of the students outside. The receptionist showed up around 6:20 to let everyone in. Chloe's classroom already had her picture on it and everything. Her first class was fairly simple, just one student, and really friendly. Her second class was pretty much the same, different student. She also met her co-worker, a really nice guy from South Africa who has been helping her out a LOT. He's also very friendly, and is going to introduce us to some good Korean restaurants.
At 10:50, Chloe gets a 7 hour break, so she and Sam (who doesn't have to start work until next week) went to meet Chloe's friend, and explore Namdaemun market which has really random things for sale. We had lunch at a really cheap Korean restaurant that we can never remember the name of. Chloe tried dumpling and ddok soup (ddok is rice cake in Korean) and Sam had a beef stir fry that he won't stop gushing about.
At 6pm, Chloe had to go back to school for student testing. Very simple, she just has to interview new students and place them in the proper level. Her night classes are longer than the morning, but no students showed up on the first night, so she got to go home early!
We've been having fun so far. Chloe's co-workers invited her and Sam out for drinks and nore-bang, a kind of private Karaoke room. It was pretty awesome. We also have a lot of work to do on our apartment, buying a double bed and some more storage, you know, little things. We've been to Costco and bought some Canadian food (fortunately Chloe's friend has a membership card). We've explored the Korean version of big department stores, and found them confusing but fun. Especially the food courts- you have to order your meal from a central counter, and wait for your number to get called from the specific vendor. Not exactly easy if you don't speak Korean. And we still need to get all the annoying stuff done, doctors check-up, alien registration card, bank account, things that need a Korean friend to do the translating. So, we're busy!
