New picture walk

Quite some time ago, when I first moved to South Korea, I put up a picture walk going from my house to the subway station. I like picture walks because it shows the little things that i see along my way... as if you were walking along with me.

Here's a new picture walk, from my house to bring Ryan a forgoten cell phone while he was writing at his favorite cafe.




Here's the front step to my house. Yes, house! I am so pleased to be out of apartements again. We rent a little one story 2 bedroom villa. Here you can see the tiny little garden I built here with random bricks from the neighborhood. I have osteospermum, columbine, pineapple sage, campanula, basil, one pink tulip, and some sprouting lettuce and spinach.


After turning to the right, (you can still see a little of my garden!), you are faced with a steep, crumbly hill. This slope has made nervous many koreans in high heels durring summer, and even myself have to hold onto the wall durring winter. It's really quite steep. It didn't help when a construction company dumped a big pile of sand at the top of it, and now the whole slope is made more slippery by sand everywhere.

You can still see the side of my house in this picture (on the left). Once reaching the top of the hill, you can look down and see the convenience store that is so close to us. This street is also quite run-down and steep, cars rarely drive here, all we get is the occasional motorcycle really (which you can see parked beside my house). I guess when you live on a mountain, steep hills is what you get.

Following the curve of the street you saw previously, you reach my bus stop! This bus takes me up the mountain when I don't feel like walking it. Busses here are really cheap. While there are no monthly bus passes, you load up a money card and it only costs 60 cents per trip.

This is the construction site along the way down the mountain. I have no idea what they're building but whatever it is has a basement, and is quite large. A small apartement building maybe? My area is highly residential, as many foreigners live around here.

Keeping on going down the street. Note the lack of sidewalks... but the cars are usually pretty careful as it is a residential neighborhood and lots of people walk around here. The PB is a Paris Bagette, a large chain here in korea with acceptable french bread.

Here's a small family run grocery store, and a hardward store beside it. The hardware store is closed since it's sunday.

And we've arrived at the cafe to find ryan!

Here's your cell phone, Ryan!

First post!

Well, this blog goes out to primarily all my friends and family back home, but also my art blog friends if you are interested. Feel free to lurk/skim/comment obsessively/ignore as desired :). I do not yet have Internet at home (until Friday morning), so i am at a local pc-bong (Internet cafe) and can therefor not post pictures. Pictures will come in later posts!

On Monday, December 22nd, 2008 (three days ago) my flight landed in Incheon (which is very close to Seoul where i live). I have moved to Seoul until (minimum) January 2010 to teach English with my boyfriend Ryan.

I have decided to embark on this great adventure for a variety of reasons. Mostly, I had been going through some life changes, and the opportunity presented itself at the perfect time. My boyfriend got a job offer to go work in Korea, as he had twice before, and i decided to go with him. I now work teaching English to elementary children here in Seoul.

Yesterday was my first day of work. The school was beautiful. It is in a high rise type place, on the third floor. My bosses seem very nice and very enthusiastic. The kids seem very high energy, but you will find that anywhere. Yesterday was the Christmas party. Ryan got to be Santa :). (He made a great Santa!). We spent most of the day creating games, including our own version of Quiddler (a word creation game). The school is now on Christmas break. School resumes on January 5th. I think the timing worked out perfectly... i had a chance to meet people at the school, ask my questions, and get things set up, and now we have 10 days to get settled into our new place.

I am fascinated here how everything is sort of all jumbled together in high rise places. At the school, the ground floor is a grocery store. Above that, there are many things such as a dentist office, a couple of restaurants and... my school :). My own apartment is on the second floor of a high rise, with the ground floor being a 7-11, a dry cleaners and a Korean restaurant. Who'd have thought I'd be living above a 7-11? That kind of thing would never have happened at home hahaha. On the other hand, Seoul is a BIG city, and it is crowded. Lines for taking the bus stretch longer than to get into an Irish pub on st. patrick's day, and that's on a daily basis in the morning. (Thank goodness i walk to work). Everything is sort of jumbled together on top of one another here. It is fascinating to see what is around.

As for my place, we are very pleased. For a Korean apartment it is really a fair size. It has nice hardwood floors, a kitchen, a living room, a bedroom, and a bathroom. It did not come fully furnished, only a bed, a desk (but too nice for my art :( ), a fridge, a stove, and a bookshelf. We will still need to get a kitchen table and chairs, something to sit on in the living room, and an art desk for me. Something like a night stand and a coffee table could be nice for me, but not absolutely necessary.

So, today we are going to Yong-san neighborhood, as they have a good store for small appliances. We need adaptor cords for our laptops, so we can charge them. Then, I will be able to post at will (!!!) from home and the comfort of my own apartment (as soon as we get internet on Friday).

This morning we went out to Paris Baguette for breakfast. I am so pleased... there are three french bakeries within a five minute walk of my apartment. Two 'Tous Les Jours' and one 'Paris Baguette' (I like the Paris baguette better as they also have a juice bar and are also a cafe). Walking in there reminded me so strongly of the bakeries around where my parents lived in Germany. The place is filled with sooo many delicious breads, cakes and so much more. I couldn't resist! We had really nice french style fresh salads, and we picked up a variety of baking for at home including bread. I can bet that i will find myself there often in the mornings. Who needs breakfast at home when you can have fresh sticky bun/croissant/turnover/raisin bread/one million other things, with fresh squeezed juice, right on the way to work? Ryan and i were able to buy two lunch sized salads (that were very good), croissants, a mocha cake, a sausage turnover thing, and a baguette for only 20 dollars. The baking is mostly only around 1.50, so it seems very reasonable. I will be posting pictures of this place later. It is the kind of place i know my mom would love.

Well, i think this is already a kind of long post, so i will be off now. It would be nice if you could leave a comment here, even just to say a quick hello, so i know how many people made it over here from my last blog/to my new blog.