"I Am Speaking Korean!"

Wow, two posts in one week?! I must be on a roll...

I thought I'd share a funny story from Friday night. If you read my last blog, you know that Andrew and I said no pizza for a month. However, before we even shook on this agreement we had one clause: We could only have pizza if called and ordered it in Korean (another bucket list item: order delivery).

Sadly, it had only been a week into our agreement and we were considering pizza. Before you judge, you have to know that Pohang had a bit of snow on Friday and the roads were covered in an icy mix. Koreans drive crazy when the weather is nice, we were not about to venture out in a taxi or city bus to get something to eat. This is where the clause comes in.

Before leaving school, I had asked one of my co-teachers, Belle, if she could quickly walk me through ordering a pizza. She said I can do it online with Pizza Hut. I thought to myself, this doesn't count, I'm not doing it in Korean. Then she showed me the ordering page and I quickly changed my mind. It was TOTALLY in Korean. Page after page, step after step, I decided right then that we were still within the clause. Belle was walking me through the steps and I was taking mental picture after mental picture to try to remember. Now I can read Korean just fine, but that doesn't mean that I understand it all. When we got to the end Belle said that she could just schedule the delivery for me, to have it delivered to our apartment at 7pm. I thanked her, informed her about our "clause" and said that we had to do it on our own....BIG mistake...

When Andrew and I got home from school, I wanted to show him the convenience of ordering online. We took a vote, and again, decided that we were without our agreement to order the pizza. This was no longer a craving issue...it was about safety, right?

We got on his Mac but sadly discovered that we had to use Internet Explorer to use Pizza Hut's online site. What, how strange we thought....Plan B. I was going to have to call.

We looked up the number and I practiced saying our address like 20 times in Korean. The thing is, I was told by my other co-teacher that delivery people would have a hard time with our apartment because it was a new building and it's tucked away. So I knew if this was going to work, I needed to have my pronunciation down pat.

Nervously I dialed the number. I had thought about my opening statement, "Anyounghaceyo, waygook salam baedal juesayo, Pohang Shi" which means "Hello, I'm a foreigner, delivery please, Pohang city." (Not like they wouldn't haven known by my horrible Korean). Then I was just going to lead with my address and then my order because I would not know which one she would ask for first.

"Ring, Ring, Ring," she answers. I go with my rehearsed line and then start with my address. She starts talking a hundred miles an hour and I have no idea what she is saying. I got nervous and tried my address again. She repeats two thirds of it back to me, incorrectly. Discouraged, I tried again. She says something and then hangs up.

I'm defeated at this point. I thought for sure I was saying our address right. Two minutes later my cell phone rings. I answer it and it's Pizza Hut! And the woman is speaking a little English!! WIN! I say my line, and then my address again, slower this time, really concentrating on my pronunciation. She asked me several times the name of our apartment building, I tell her over and over again and she's still confused. My guess is that she typed it into the system and nothing showed up because A) our building is too new, or B) My pronunciation is so bad she can't decipher what the heck I'm saying. You see, the name of our building is "Castle Ahoe." Even though castle is an English word, Koreans pronounce it differently, so I had to fake a Korean accent saying an English word if that makes sense.

We get through the address and the order and I even pay. She tells me it's going to be 50 minutes. I hang up and then celebrate a little feeling so proud!

An hour rolls around and my cell phone rings. It's the delivery man. He's lost. I can understand what he's asking me, but I didn't know how to respon in Korean, so frustrating and totally my incompetence. I repeat the street name because I know he is somewhere close. We end the conversation by him saying, "Ok, ok, ok." Andrew and I decide to go out and wait for him. Another 10 minutes passes and still no delivery man. I'm feeling so bad for the poor kid at this point. In Korea, delivery men deliver food via scooter. It's like 25 degrees outside and this sweet guy is lost and knows he can't call us back to give him better directions. I see a Korean man walking down our street. I stopped him, pointed to my phone and said, "Pizza Hut, hangumal." (Pizza Hut, Speak Korean)...embarassing Korean, I know. He's waves no and walks away. Two minutes later he comes back. Calls someone and hands the phone to Andrew. The guy on the other end begins speaking great English and then Andrew proceeds to tell him that we need to call this delivery man back, and have someone give him directions in Korean. Andrew gave the guy the number and then the nice man walked away.

We waited 10 more minutes out in the freezing cold. We think we hear a scooter and Andrew takes off running around the corner and was able to flag down the delivery guy. I apologized about a million times and we stuffed a tip into his scooter glove. (Tipping in Korea is not common, ever, but this whole situation was entirely our fault, and this guy deserved every cent of that tip.)

All in all, that pizza was WELL within the clause and I had never worked so hard for a pizza in all of my life. We didn't mind in the slightest that it was cold... YUM!

All You Need is Love

Mine and Andrew's mantra these past two weeks, All You Need is Love. Sleeping on the floor, wearing wrinkly clothes, walking our little tails off, and trying to be patient with all these frustrating issues..."Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be, it's easy, all you need is love, all you need is love!" And how fitting since we are newlyweds. (cue the audience awwwwwwwww)

Ok, it’s been a little while, about two weeks since my last post. It has been an array of emotions, from frustration to joy and I will try my best to recall some instances.

First things first, on August 31^st, Andrew and I moved out of that closet we were living in and into a brand new “mini two room” apartment. We were excited but annoyed at the same time. We moved in to an empty apartment. Literally nothing!! No bed, no closet, no table, no chairs, and no couch! So at the end of our first week of teaching, instead of celebrating, we spent Friday night at Homeplus (like Walmart) purchasing some necessities; a blanket, pillows, a cooking pan, two plates, two bowls, a trash can, silverware, 2 cups, milk, cereal and floor cleaner. For the first two weeks we were super strapped for money. We only brought over about $300 that had been converted to Korean Won, and the rest was in USD. (The banks close at 4pm, and we don’t leave school until 4:30pm, so we couldn’t exchange any money.) So we were only buying necessities so we’d have enough money to eat and take the taxi to and from school which is now more expensive because we live further away….ugh.

So with necessities bought, we spent the first night in our apt, on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors with floor cleaner. They were covered in dust and grime. Since we knew we’d be sleeping on the floor for several nights, we at least wanted it clean! (Pictures to come in the next post, when our futon gets delivered!)

The rest of the weekend we spent exploring our new surroundings. And we walked….A LOT. We are an amazing 5min walk to Bukbu beach which is full of café’s and seafood restaurants. We are a 25 minute walk to downtown, where there are more restaurants and a lot of shopping, and sadly, we are a 40 min walk to Homeplus L

Our second full week of school was ok. We both were exhausted from six nights sleeping on the floor but Christmas came early for us on September 5^th when we finally got a bed and internet! Wahoo! Friday the 7^th we were taken to pick out a closet so we could finally get out clothes off the ground. (Funny story about the closet: The school bought us a closet on Tuesday. It was waiting for us when we got home and I was so excited when I heard about it. HA! A closet…it was a foot and a half long horizontal bar that two of us were supposed to share! Ugh, I began fuming…and once again, Andrew had to calm me down. He talked to his co-teacher about it, and that’s why we were taken shopping to buy a new one on Friday! Yeah Andrew!)

Other furniture we have up to this point: a small table that Andrew swiped from a side of the road trash pile on our walk back from downtown (score, a FREE table!), a cubby type orange dresser that we took from another school’s trash pile on the way back from dinner at the beach (score again!), and the bed that the school provided. We are looking into buying a futon this week, so we are getting closer!

We have found a few Korean restaurants that we like so far. One ripped us off….grrr, and the other is fairly close walking distance which I’m sure we will frequent. I was able to order off the Korean menu and speak it entirely in Korean, so I was pretty proud of my selfJ

September 4th has proved to be the most frustrating days to date. Pretty much all amenities for foreigners require our Alien Registration Card (ARC). To get this, we had to wait on our medical check from orientation. After a week and a half, we had it in hand and went to a photo shop to get "new passport photos" because our American ones were the wrong size. So we each paid $12 to get a set of eight really ugly photos (you can't smile) when we really only needed one. So, we took our medical check and our heinous photos to the immigration office to apply for our ARC card. The immigration officer looked at our photos and told us he couldn't use them because the background was slightly gray and not  "white." Pissed does not even describe our emotion at that time. So we left, to get more ugly pictures taken. The closest place charged us $13 each...so we have now spent $50 for the required one photo each with 15 useless pictures left over.

The frustration is not over yet. We returned to the immigration office with our "bright white" photos and our filled out form. He then asked us for our orientation certificate from EPIK. We tried to explain that we did not have this since we did not have to attend orientation. Well, he wouldn't let us apply for the card without it. LONG annoying story short, we had to visit that office three times before we finally could apply...it cost us $70...ugh.

On Saturday, September 8^th, Andrew and I decided to try to find Pohang’s famous Jukdo market. It was super easy to find as it is full of over 2,500 vendors! An easy 25 minute walk and we arrived to the fish part of the market. Similar to the Busan fish market, it was full of flopping live fish, squirmy octopus and screaming vendors. Once we passed through that we made it to the home goods, the clothing and all the misc. I managed to by some rain boots for $10 bucks so I call it a success! It’s definitely a must see in Pohang.

Hopefully our ARC cards come in so we can get cell phones this week. Typhoon Samba is currently taking over Korea so it has been raining for three days straight it's supposed to rain for three days more....fabulous, I love typhoon season! ...."all you need is love."