Whoa...handsome guy!

So the students here are not shy in the least bit, they'll go out of their way to wave at me, say "hello" and remark that I'm "handsome." Of course, it's not so much physical beauty they're remarking on, it's the fact that I'm the only non-Korean around haha. I'm sure they'd call the Emperor from Star Wars "handsome." What was surprising is that not only do girls wave, say hi and pay a quick compliment before giggling and going on their merry way, the boys have no troubles doing the same! I was walking around the school yesterday when a male student walked up from behind, when I turned around, he saw my face and with genuine surprise and happiness exclaimed "Whoa...handsome guy!" and bowed deeply. I also snapped a few pics of my school :D

The main entrance:

The courtyard:

View from the 4th floor...I love that there are mountains EVERYWHERE:

My office is where the blue sign is at the left (just beyond the two yellow ones):

After school, Changok took me back to my place, where we found out that the previous teacher who had my place not only left the small essentials I mentioned...but also ditched her car there. No idea what the story is behind that, but rather curious. The ondol (below floor heating) in my place isn't working, so I have to use a little space heater which kind of sucks, but I don't want to bother Changok with it right now...the poor guy's already going well above and beyond the call of duty to help me out.

Anyways...I went for two walks around my neighbourhood (rather utilitarian...big apartment buildings and shops...no real beauty to speak of except for the mountains a block away from my place, which should be awesome in the spring/summer).

I got some groceries, first at a small neighbourhood grocery store, then at a bigger one (like our Safeway or Save On Foods)...surprisingly, the smaller one was no more expensive...food's pretty dang cheap here, especially if you shop around a bit.

My first trip...1.5L of Coke, two bags of chips, 1.8L of milk, and a box of cereal (with two free Spongebob cups!) for the equivalent of $10!

On the second trip, I scored a huge loaf of bread (hard to find here, and you're pretty much stuck having to eat white, from what I've seen), 200g of butter (no margarine to be found anywhere), 125g of Camambert cheese (expensive luxury, but hey...you gotta splurge sometimes), a carton of eggs, more than a kilo of strawberry jam and 500g of yoghurt (the jam and the yoghurt came in what I like to call "Mini Me deals"...they just randomly slap a smaller container of the same thing on the big container...making the whole thing really cheap (the smaller container of jam, for example is 280g!)

That whole she-bang was less than $20, but the cheese and jam accounted for about $12 of it...so all in all not too bad.

Watermelons and peppers are stupid expensive, though...a small-ish watermelon is around 20 bucks, and peppers are roughly a buck each...

After that I went home, ate my chips and watched some Futurama before passing out at 9 p.m. haha...I think I'm still getting used to the time difference, but never missed a beat because of jetlag, which is nice...I was woken up by what sounded like some drunken fool at just before 2 a.m., but other than that, the apartment/area are pretty quiet...tonight I think I'll get some more groceries (gotta stop eating chips) and explore some more in the opposite direction...oh yeah, and I started teaching...more on that tomorrow!