South Korea...where the livin' is cheap...also, school makes a mistake, I pay for it...awesome.

Yesterday was an excellent day, I'm just doing review and games with my classes, and they're starting to be fairly well behaved, so we had a lot of fun. I only had 3 classes (I'm on a 2-week rotating schedule, and Week A Thursdays are my easiest days), so it was a really chill day. After work, my coworkers dragged me to a volleyball game between my school's teachers/vice principal and Naeseo Middle School's teachers. I thought it'd be lame, but I got dragged, so I didn't want to make a big scene out of not going, but it was actually pretty entertaining...plus it looks good that I show my face at events like this. My friend Hayley works at Naeseo Middle School, so I got to see her, which was a bonus. After the game, they served up watermelons, which are ridiculously expensive, but oh-so delicious here! You know how at home the centre of the watermelon is the most delicious part? Yeah, the entire thing is like that here. Mmmm....too bad they're about $12 when they're on sale for a fairly small one. When they're not on sale, they're around $20-35 on average for a smallish one.

After the game, I went home, made myself some awesome scrambled eggs and met Ross, Nicole and Dawni for dinner (well, they ate, I kept them company haha). While we were walking around in Samgye, we bumped into Maggie, Tom and Liz, which is pretty sweet...I love the fact that I now randomly bump into people I know all the time. The dinner was a true Korean-style one, with us sitting on the ground and the big hotplate kind of thing in the middle of the table, your food cooking in front of your eyes. I really should take a picture of it one of these days. After that, we just chilled at Ross and Nicole's castle (it's the massive apartment) and talked about camera gear with Ross haha.

Okay...two more things...one...living in Korea is really cheap. I haven't been watching how much I spend, I eat well, go out for lunch/dinner with people all the time, travel as much as I feel like and even spent 100,000 won on foreign foods a couple of weeks ago. This month also included buying a blanket for 45,000 won and a few more smaller one-time things. Even so, I crunched the numbers last night and in the month of April I spent about 800,000 won, which translates into $705 CDN. So, my goal of sending $10,000 per year home is very realistic with enough money left over to do a bit of travelling. (I'm thinking Thailand or Philippines and possibly Japan if this whole nuclear thing blows over). 

Also, while talking about traveling, I had a really dumb idea...so I was born in Hungary and headed west to Canada. Then I came to Korea (west again). So, if I make it from here to Hungary I'll have officially travelled around the world. That got me thinking of taking the scenic route back home when the time to leave Korea comes. Soooo....this is just a pipe dream so far, but I'm thinking of flying into Beijing, then taking a train across China and Russia to St. Petersburg, then likely flying into Budapest, spending some time there, and depending on how much money I'll have, maybe a few weeks in Western Europe then home. Again, this is nothing serious so far, but I think it bears researching. If I can do it for $2-3k, it might be the trip of a lifetime and a great way to wrap up my time in Korea. 

Now, for the stupid stuff...my school forgot to take off taxes (taxes are REALLY low here), and initially said they'll just take it off next month. Now they want me to wire it to the school. Of course wiring money costs money, so I literally have to pay for their mistake. It's a small enough amount that it's not worth raising hell over, so I'm going to swallow it, but it kind of sucks and they're really unapologetic about it, which doesn't help the situation. Oh well, such is life. 

Now, for some random pictures, because I hate posting just my random ramblings...

Something tells me a 6-pound tub of nacho cheese sauce ain't all that gourmet...

I brought 5 Lock & Lock containers, thinking there's no way they would have those here...when I was packing, I was very adamant about bringing them. Well, turns out they're everywhere, they're dirt cheap, and I haven't used my own yet....fail...

Delicious popsicle :D 

Okay, that's it...no plans for the weekend yet, might hang out with Mark and his girlfriend Kez, or possibly do a couple of daytrips...the weather is supposed to be all over the place, so I think I'm postponing my idea of doing a two-day trip until a solid sunny weekend :) 

Have a great weekend, peeps! Talk to you on Monday (when I'll have less chatter and more pictures, I promise!).

T