Comfortable

I've been here month now, so I'm starting to notice the little things. For example, in the teachers office, all of the heavy furniture has folded up pieces of paper or discarded books under the corners to keep them from damaging the wood floor. We don't get any beverages with our lunch so I've been using cooked rice to put out any fires or to cleanse my mouth. Also, the grapes here taste just like grape flavoring from home. Meaning, they don't taste like actual grapes, but instead taste like "artificial grape flavoring" tastes like. Also, they don't eat the skin here. You just have to pinch the grape and it'll get naked. They eat the juicy center and leave the carapace on the plate. Strangely, they eat the hard seed inside though.

Here's something I sent to my dad recently:
"We went to a restaurant Saturday night that I know you'd love. It was an all you can eat shell fish place. We got as many clams, oysters, mussels, and shrimp that we wanted. They came to us raw and alive and we had to cook them on this little grill in front of us. You would get one big half shell that's about as long as your forearm and you set that to the side. The rest, you just pop on the grill until they burst open and grab them before they spill all their juices. Then, you work them out of their shell and add the soft part to the big shell. You snip them up with a scissors into bite sized pieces, add shredded cucumber, some Parmesan cheese, thinly sliced green pepper, a little sea weed, and spicy red bean paste and let them cook and simmer in that big half shell. Then you scoop it out with a spoon into a little personal dish and eat away. Once again, it's all you can eat and it's only 10,000 won ($10). Add a couple of cheap beers and some soju (liquor) and you've got a wonderful meal. We ate six of those things along with a couple of seafood pancakes (an odd pancake mix with vegetables and shrimp, it's fried). So if you come and visit, we'll go to this place. Mom'll probably hate it, but I know you'd never leave."

I'm also going to repost stuff from the Goon Platoon forum, The Best Damn Crew. It's a forum for people who know/are friends with Nick Rempe. Their were some complaints about the lack of participation at the site, so I offered myself for a Q&A session. Here's some of the questions posed.

"I know this seems very generic. I was wondering, what country to they idolize? Is it Japan? America? One of the other countries that I don't yet know about? How are the corn dogs?

-jahee"

Well, right now they hate Japan. They're both claiming ownership over this little island called Dokdo. Korea raised a big stink saying, "We've had this for years! The imperialist dogs have taken it from us. We're not going to stand for this are we? No!" My students asked me about it the first day and most did not like Japan based on the polls I took. They love American junk, but hate our beef. All the girls like the show "Gossip Girl" and pop tunes and movies have always been popular. I talked to one of my co-teachers at length about The Dark Knight the other day for example.

I've seen corn dogs in the frozen section, but the blue stars and red and white stripes on the packaging aren't persuasive enough. They have lots of other fried food though. If I get a craving, I'll just go buy a dough ball with red bean paste in the middle.

"What kind of adapter would I need for my American toaster?

In all seriousness, are you really living in South Korea?

-bonertown"

The toaster you could probably just buy a new one hear for less than the cost of an adapter. But if you've got the settings just right and have to have it, I would get a middle eastern/asian adapter. It's just long and skinny plugs. A voltage adapter probably wouldn't hurt either.

And yes, I really am in South Korea. I've been here for about a month so far. I get paid today! A couple grand that I'm going to use to buy a telescope and a couple terabyte hard drives because I can download roughly 60-70 gb a day.

"What are you downloading? Food recipes? That is a dark and dangerous path I dare not tread.

-bonertown"

At first it started out very simple. I'd like the entire catalog of "This American Life" to listen to while I walk to work every morning. "9gb? This'll take forever." But a few hours later I was already drunk on power. From there I've downloaded a lot of games that I have yet to play. I'm in the middle of KotoR:II, waiting to play Prey, Deus Ex: Invisible War, Bioshock, played a few hours of Crysis and deleted it, CS:Source, and some others I can't think of. Then I thought, I'd like to watch a movie. Should I go to the video store? No! In only 20 minutes, I can download a movie. So then I got Fargo, Dune (in blue ray), Modern Times, The Deer Hunter, Rebel Without a Cause, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, all the Aliens movies, Vice Guide to Travel, the complete Adam Curtis discography, Planet Earth, 3 seasons of the critic, Gundam 08th Ms, The Wire, Entourage, It's Always Sunny in Philly, the mighty boosh (radio and tv), Batman the Animated Series (all of it), Curb Your Enthusiams (All of it), Arrested Development, a lot of music, and a bunch of other stuff that I can't remember because I'm at school right now. So I can barely find time to watch the stuff that I have. (In fact, I can't.) I feel safe because South Korea has given the finger to the DRM so I have no chance of reprisal. In fact, the vast majority of the software here is pirated; in schools, work places, and anywhere else, chances are it's cracked.

Which brings me into the next area. PC Bangs (pronounced bahngs). These are just internet and gaming stores. Get rid of your old concept of an arcade, because for a 0.75 cents an hour, you can play from a choice of around 80 different computer games. No need to have a LAN party when you can just go to the store and everyone together pays $20 for a whole afternoon of fun. The PCs are top of the line and all have anti-glare glass to make sure that your neighbors gaming doesn't dampen your own experience. They also sell popcorn, ramen, and every kind of non-alcoholic beverage around. South Korean kids have died in these from 72 hour gaming marathons. They didn't eat, sleep, or drink for that time period for which I cannot imagine why. So, every now and then Danny, Tane (a friend from college who is teaching as well), and I go to a PC Bang after dinner to play some Warcraft III or Brood War. It's just simpler and more fun than playing in our respective homes.

I apologize for the lack of paragraphs. Also, I'm supposed to get paid today. I hope to buy a telescope. That is if they can pay me. Apparently they need my Alien Registration Card number, but I don't have that yet. So, who knows.