Sunday, July 9th
Seoul
7:55 p.m.

I haven't written in here in awhile. I've been meaning to, but I just haven't gotten around to it until now. Classes started last week. So far it looks like they're going to be pretty easy. I finished all of my homework for this weekend in less than two hours, and now I have the rest of the evening to myself. . . .

There are basically no laws here. Everyone has the right of way, obeying the red lights is optional, and helmets are not required on motorcycles. They do seem to respect crosswalks, though, which is definitely a good thing. :)

There are little blueberries on the ground all over campus, just like the blackberries in the parking lot at my apartment back home. [I always see an older woman picking them off the bushes and collecting them off the ground.] This campus is incredibly beautiful. I'm going to have to do some serious picture-taking around here before I go home. They don't do a good job of keeping walkways well-lit at night, though.

I've been doing a lot of shopping this week, especially this weekend. I spent well over $100 yesterday. There're only a few things left that I want to look for, though. My choosiness with respect to prices has really been enhanced anyway. I'll bargain for a lower price on a six-dollar T-shirt now.

They don't seem to have any bills larger than $10 here. Yesterday I changed $400 of traveler's checks into Korean won, and all they gave me was $10 bills - like 43 of them. (The Korean equivalent of a $10 bill is 10,000 won, although $10 is actually worth a little more than that.) The bills are a little bigger than American money, too, so some people have had trouble fitting them into their wallets. [We've had the same problem with our Yonsei student ID cards.]

I've used the subway system three times now. It's really easy. There are plenty of signs and announcements in English. I don't think I'd want to try to take a bus or a taxi without a Korean speaker, though. There is no existing map of all the bus routes or anything.

The first time I took the subway was to see about a job that was advertised outside the International Division office. It starts in a week or so. . . . I'll be teaching English to small groups of preschoolers and first-graders.

[This did not happen. The people who were going to hire me never got the groups together. If they had, though, I probably would have been making at least $35 an hour.]

While I was transferring trains, a woman stopped me and asked me, "Why are you here?" I can't tell you how many times I've been asked that question in the last two weeks. [Click here to read my answer.] Anyway, she too wanted me to tutor her children, so I took down her number and gave it to someone else. And last weekend a man who works for Korean Air approached me and asked me to teach him as well. Apparently being a white woman is like advertising your abilities as an English teacher around here. Not that I'm complaining - I had wanted to try to do some of this while I was here because the money's so good.


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