The First Day in Daegu

We're still without internet, so my access to the neighbor's wifi is spotty. The guy came to install it today, but for some reason or another he's going to have to come back tomorrow or Thursday, so we'll be getting hooked up by the end of the week. We got a great night's sleep last night (neither of us slept much on the flight), and woke up early today. Our apartment is really neat, its on the top floor of the building so we have a really great view of the mountains (see the photo above). It was pretty dirty when we moved in (apparently people don't clean up when they move out in South Korea) so this morning we wandered around until we found what looked like a convenience store and bought windex and paper towels so we could wipe down the bathroom, fridge and cabinets before we moved our stuff in. It's really well furnished, and Mr. Kim, our director and boss, was nice enough to supply us with cooking supplies and utensils (pots/pans, silverware, mugs) and he even had a loaf of white bread and some cream cheese in our fridge when we got here so we didn't have to venture out to eat this morning!

We knew the cable guy was supposed to come between 11 and 11:30, so we were surprised when we opened the door at 11 to find Beth and Jess! They're even nicer than we thought- they helped us negotiate with the cable guy and then took us out around town. We started with the Trash system which is very complicated, they sort it into like 5 different categories but we think we've got it mostly figured out. They showed us how to get to our school from our apartment, took us out to lunch at a kim-bap place (they're everywhere here- kim-bap is kinda like sushi but without the fish part, it had egg, fish cake, spam and stuff inside) and showed us how to order (and pay), and then took us to E-Mart (like a Target, the other big one here is called HomePlus, and then there is also Costco). We got some basic stuff like a shower rod/curtain, hangers, and more cleaning supplies.

Tonight we're going to sit in on Beth and Jess's classes at 5:00 pm, and then who knows what after that. We're both pretty exhausted already, but are really enjoying it here. On first impressions- its a lot more like the good ole USA than I thought, except everyone's korean!

Updates soon.