Woke up at 6:30 am again this morning and again felt like I had been sleeping for days, even though last night I didn’t get to bed until around 1. I’m hoping this whole jetlag thing starts to wear off soon- I’m not sure I’m ready to become a morning person quite yet. This time though, I didn’t go back to sleep, deciding instead to make better use of my time, as long as I was awake enough. So I started working on my personal political manifesto, something I’ve been thinking about doing for a long time but hadn’t gotten around to starting. I’m calling it “Rules and Regulations of a Decent, Fair, and Just Society.” I’m only about three pages in, and its months and many, many edits away from being worthy of public criticism, but still, I’m excited I’ve finally started it.
I decided I would test out the free “continental breakfast” this morning since I was awake for it, so went downstairs at around 8:15 to see what it was like. Breakfast was held in this tiny little sweatshop of a room in the basement of the building, and included cereal, some cut up bananas and oranges, and hardboiled eggs. It was about what I expected it would be, so I wasn’t very disappointed. Certainly not worth waking up for, though.
On my run this afternoon, I decided to aim for the park again, this time trying to look it up on Google Maps before I left. As it turns out, Google Maps here is in Korean, so it’s pretty difficult to navigate for someone like me who is still struggling with getting down “hello” and “thank you.” I ended up finding what I’d been looking for, but it wasn’t a park in the sense of the word that I knew it; instead, it was a large complex of apartments and businesses interspersed in a fenced in green area. I did manage to find a little recreation area that had outdoor exercise equipment—a few bench presses and a couple of funny-looking machines that you stand on and rotate 180 degrees so you are literally upside down (I saw a middle-aged Korean man doing this in a full dress suit, and I had to struggle not to laugh)—but that was about it. Not really what I was looking for in terms of a good place to run, but still an adventure.
On my way back to the hotel, I walked through this neat neighborhood made up of back alleys that were bustling at midday. I wanted to stop and get some fruit at one of the street vendors, but I didn’t have my dictionary with me, and was afraid I’d get ripped off if I tried haggling with the guy, so I stopped in at a little grocery store a few blocks down instead. That was an interesting experience itself; I wanted to get a sense for what kind of things were in the average Korean grocer, and I think I figured that out. There were some familiar items and even a small section of imported goods (including cans of Ragu tomato sauce for 5,500 won), but mostly it was new. A lot of fresh packaged seafood, a lot of dried goods, and a LOT of Ramen. The dairy section had milk, yogurts, and a small amount of cheese, but I am still struggling to figure out if they sell skim milk here (and if they do, what the label looks like).
When I got back to the hotel, I asked the guy behind the front desk for a map of the city and the metro system, which he was able to produce for me after looking in the back closet for a minute or two. He showed me where on the map our hotel was, which was a very useful exercise. As it turns out, my hotel is not in central or downtown Seoul. In fact, I am on the opposite side of the river as downtown. Still, having the map did help me orient myself a bit to the district of the city where I am. I found out that I’m not too far from the Olympic Park (only a couple of stops on the metro), home to the Summer Games in 1988. I was also able to find some legitimate-looking parks on the map that are pretty close, so I think I might try running to one of them tomorrow.
Wandered around the area for a while in the afternoon, then finally settled on a place for lunch. I wasn’t quite sure what I had ordered until a woman brought out what was basically a bowl of greens with a fried egg, along with the usual side dishes (kimchi, pickled radish, etc.) and a bowl of something that I found out was soybean paste soup after confirming with the waitress (my first attempt at Korean!). I was able to get through lunch with a minimum amount of sweating, so I was thankful for that.
I have my first session of training for Chungdahm this evening, which will consist of an exam covering the company’s history and code of conduct, as well as some basics in English grammar and reading comprehension. After all those years of Spanish and Hebrew, I’ve finally learned what the present perfect progressive is. I’m hoping the session tonight will give me a chance to meet some more people, especially some others who are staying at my hotel so I’ll at least have some people to get to know over the weekend. Should be an interesting and informative evening.
No comments:
Post a Comment