1st day in Seoul!

This morning went by pretty smoothly and quickly. We got back to the airport, found the place that I can pick up my SIM card, and took the bus headed for Gangnam Station. With only 4 people on the bus, we only made two stops around Gangnam and the whole trip took only 1.5 hours. From the station, it didn't take too long for us to find the language cafe.... up on a hill (seriously, everything in Korea that's not on the main street is on a hill).

The cafe looks really nice and we started working.... today!

But before that... lunch! We got recommendation to eat at the Chinese Korean restaurant. Joyce got the cold Jjambbong and I got the kong guksu.

I just wanted to try the kong guksu since I've heard about it for so long. Verdict? I think I'm just not a cold noodle person. Every time I eat cold noodles, I just feel "ok" about it. The kong guksu is made out of bean powder soup with noodles, cucumber, and some sprouts. Mmm... I added a lot of salt, but still not salty enough for me. It feels like I'm eating soybean soup with noodles. I'm glad I finally tried it, but I think I'll go with things like kalbi jjim next time. Haha.

Joyce and I then walked around Gangnam a little before we had to start working.... and found this Gangnam Style thing. She said we had to do it.

Very touristy indeed.

After lunch, we started doing the language cafe where we conversed with students one hour at a time. These are mostly university students or working adults who want to improve their conversational English skills. Many of them admit that although they learned English in school, they never had to practice speaking, which means they can pass written, reading, and listening exams with flying color, but they don't feel comfortable enough to speak in English.

After four hours of conversing with these people, I feel pretty drained. Joyce felt the same way too. Although we had 10 minutes break in between sessions, many people want to keep talking, so that means we basically talked for four hours non-stop. Since many of them may be too shy in making conversations in English, I had to direct most of the conversation, which makes it an even more tiring day. It's pretty much like teaching in high school for me again because: 1) I talk non-stop, 2) I had to keep asking guiding questions to have them answer, 3) no breaks (I always had students come in for tutoring during break, lunch, after school... etc). It was nice meeting these people, but it was very tiring doing that.

We then went to the place we are staying... well, I think Joyce and I are just too old for this. It's a very small apartment with two small rooms (imagine a normal sized room in US). One room is for the guys, the other is for the girls, which has 3 bunk beds. Imagine putting 3 bunk beds in your room. The bunks are not very sturdy... and I feel like I could pull it down if I were not careful. Because we arrived later than other people who had been here for a few days to a month already, we had the upper bunks. My bunk was across from the A/C and it was soooooo cold that I just couldn't take a nap. Not to mention the bunk to ceiling distance was really short.... making it impossible for me to sit up in my bed. When I sleep in it, I felt so claustrophobic that I had to leave the room.

The kitchen, bathroom, and overall the entire place is just so shabby. I told Joyce that we are basically living like Kpop trainees, and we seriously do look that way. Except we got no pay, or no promise of advancement :( I'm not quite sure what living expenses we're saving since the living situation is just not good. I'm surprised that these volunteers would actually be willing to stay here. I suppose when you're a student aged person, you don't quite have a choice.

Joyce took a nap until around 8pm, at which time, we both went around Gangnam to walk around and to look at the Kakao Store. We were basically like walking zombies because we were so tired.

On the way back, we saw Hot Star!! What the?! I guess they're trying to invade the Korean business....

I'm glad that Joyce mentioned on the way back that maybe we can just quit this cafe thing after a week instead of staying for three weeks. We just can't imagine how we can live there for three weeks with the living situation. Sigh. This means we need to start looking for a place we can live in.... hopefully not too expensive, but at least we can live more comfortably. Pray for us that everything will work out!!