The first weekend

Alright, we are off work for the weekend. We did our training on Friday and went apartment hunting which was totally unsuccessful. We got up the next morning and went with Ian (our recruiter) to look at a few more apartments. Did I mention that coffee is ridiculously over priced? You pay $3 for a grande coffee!! Ok, so I think I will have to make my coffee at home and do what I use to back in Oregon. The store prices are just as insane. $20 for a pound of coffee, completely outrageous!! I might have to drink Foldgers for a while :(

As I was saying, we were apartment hunting on Saturday. We absolutely loved the sixth apartment we saw, it actually had a shower stall in it!! It was a bit more spacious than the ones we had been looking at, which means it's 400 sq. ft. versus the 300 we have been seeing. It was 950 but came completely furnished. It turns out that the owner took out a loan to upgrade it which means that the building is not completely paid off and if he defaults on payments he could loose the building to the bank and we would lose our deposit. Sorta risky, but do we really want to take that risk? No. So we had to settle for a smaller place with no shower stall because the options are limited. July is typhoon season. It is hot and muggy mixed with rain, people don't want to move when it's hot, muggy, and rainy. We will likely be in the hotel until Wednesday and move to our new home. The bright side: we can make it look cuter when there is only one wall to decorate and we will save more money :)

Sunday we went to Onnuri church at 11:30am. It was just a short jaunt on the subway. The mega church racks in about 40,000 people, but obviously not at the same service. We went to the English one with about 300 people, most of them Korean that spoke English. A nice man by the name of Greg introduced himself and asked us to join him. The service was interesting. The pastor say amen a lot and expects you to repeat after him. Greg invited us to lunch so we went. He was nice, but like most people we are meeting, they want to share all their knowledge about Korea with you like it is the secret to a youthful potion or the last World Series. Everyone has something different to say and they all pronounce words differently. The most important information I have received is the best place to get chili cheese fries!! They never tasted so good and it's my 3rd day here. I think for the first month or so we will be exploring different churches to see what fits us well.

Needless to say we are on information and language overload. Patrick is so good and taking it all in. I find myself nodding along and waiting to digest it at a later time. I will report that I am not walking off every time the subway door opens. I consider that a huge victory in itself.

Tomorrow we begin work at 8:30am and have health checkups. We need a resident card to get a cell phone and we need a health check to get a resident card. Does that mean I need a health check up to get a cell phone? Such interesting discoveries.