Welcome to Korea Introduction

From Lake Park

This is a photo of Lake Park, it is a very nice park that is just a quick walk from my place. Click on this picture if you would like to see some other pictures.  It is the biggest man made lake in Asia, but it is only about 3-4 feet deep and around the size of Sloans Lake so maybe I was lied to.  Maybe they actually dug the hole, sealed it up and pumped in the water all with man power and that is what they meant.  Never the less it is a nice walk and very pretty.  At night it has fountains like the Bellagio.

I hope this a helpful way to keep intouch.  This is easier than answering the same question over and over, you guys don't have to get long drawn out mass emails, or you can get a quick look how things are here with out waiting to hear back from me.

I am writing this on Monday Sept. 15, I have been in Korea 2 weeks today.

I am starting to get settled into my new job and apartment.  I live in Ilsan, it's suburb of 2 million people on the North West boarder of Seoul.  Downtown Seoul is a 25 minute bus ride from my apartment.  I walk about 25 minutes to and from work, I am going to try and walk it everyday unless I get a bike.  It is an easy 5 minute 2 dollar cab ride.  

I live in a nice studio on the 5th floor of a tall apartment building.  It has a washer a stove top and lots of room.  I have yet to figure out how to take out the trash.  There are different bags for different types of trash, everyone is must recycle. But the only trash I have right now is some old milk cartons and a few empty boxes of cereal.

The food is really good and really cheap, total cost of a tab at a sit down restaurant is usually no more than four or five dollars a person, no tipping here (for anything).

The language is tough, it is not something you can just pick up, also I keep reverting to Spanish. I will bump into some one and say "Lo siento" Or I will just say "si" when asked a question.  I guess my brain is trained to think, "They don't speak English? Well, they must speak Spanish." But it doesn't matter, because they don't know what I am saying anyway.  They use english numbers pretty regularly here so there is a lot of pointing at pictures nodding when I am trying to communicate.  

The kids I teach are really funny, they are very normal and very comparable to American students.  Just their parents are much more involved and they are in school or classes from eight to nine in the morning until seven or eight at night.

It is very easy to live here, minus the language barrier. It is a very organized place and things are different, but the different things still make since.  I've been having fun making new friends and seeing different things.  Koreans are very quirky and nice.  The old women are especially quick to help if I look confused.  I will post more interesting posts and stories in the future.  This just gets all the formalities out of the way.  

If you would like to reach me, Stmattern@gmail.com is the best address to get me at.  I can be reached on Skype (which is very easy and free way to talk) by searching my user name, Stmattern.

My address is:

Jeongbal POLY Magnet
 5th Floor Myung Moon B/D 1145 Jeongbalsandong

Ilsandonggu Goyangsi Kyounggido South Korea 410-829

I am getting a phone next week and I will let everyone know the number when I know.

Here is a slide show of Lake Park.  I know it is redundant but when I tried to post pictures on here and they all came out super small and low quality.  But  a slide show had a little better quality and I could add nice music to go along.  Then I kind of figured out what I needed to do to get pictures on here that are big enough to see.  Anyway here is a low quality slide show of Lake Park, with music.