Impressions of Icheon

So! I've been in Icheon for a whopping 48 hours now. The move went rather smoothly- the new school sent a driver to get me, we loaded my stuff up, and off I went. Was about a 90 minute drive from Ilsan, which wasn't too bad.

Even though I've only been here a short time, I already know Icheon's going to be very different from Ilsan. It's a smaller, older city- it's not quite 'middle of nowhere,' but it's nowhere near as big and flashy as Ilsan. I think I'm living in one of the quieter neighborhoods too. There also seems to be far more mom & pop style stores, instead of the big chains one tends to see in Seoul- or if they're chains here, they're far different ones. Furthermore, the recruiter (an American, for the record) told me he thought there was about 60-something expats here, as compared to the at least a few hundred living in Ilsan. Suppose going to LePub every week spoiled me.

I'm not too far from Icheon's strip, which is a shopping plaza sort of thing. It kind of reminds me of Myeong-Dong, only, y'know, smaller and far less crowded. There's a farmer's market at one end, so I imagine I'll at least do well when I want fresh produce. I also saw a store that had a bootleg Superion set to match the bootleg Defensor I got a bit ago- I'm definitely gonna pick that up soon enough. Yay nerdery.

My apartment came pre-furnished, along with a lot of stuff the previous owner (the teacher I'm replacing) left behind. Books, shelves, cooking utensils, computer speakers, dishes- I was quite excited to dig through the stuff to see what was being left behind. There's even a 'Learn Korean' workbook which I should probably start working on soon, too!

On the cons side, the apartment doesn't have a dishwasher, and the bathroom is against an exterior wall so it tends to get kind of cold, and I haven't figured out how to use the washing machine yet. Even still, it's a nice little place, and I've lived in rougher conditions.

In any case, I start work at the new school tomorrow! Exciting times.

Another quickie! I honestly don't think anyone's gonna read this entry 'til the World Series is over, though. :)

Yes, I did a lot this past weekend. In fact, I've been busy this whole week, which as made me either too busy/too tired to put in a blog post.

In any case, I have BIG NEWS. Namely, I'm moving!

Long and short of it is, I'm not that good at teaching Kindergarten- so I wound up finding another job where I'd work with older students, for less hours, for more money. Slick!

The rub, however, is this job is in Icheon, which is something like 50 minutes southeast of Seoul. I've heard it's nice, however- and it's honestly not TOO far fro me to make a weekend trip to the big city whenever the coolest stuff is happening.

The Ilsan school was very accommodating, too, and honestly things went off in the best possible way. I'll miss the kids (some of them, at least), but so things go. It's funny, however- yesterday, when I told the kids goodbye, all the kindergarteners went "NoooOOooo!" and were sad. The elementary school kids, on the other hand, were more like 'So?'

So yeah. Moving! Crazy. My ride should theoretically be here in an hour or so, and the teacher they got to replace me in Ilsan will be moving in around the same timeish, I think? I've spent the last while cleaning up my apartment- right now, it's still a bit dusty and such, but it's no longer something that will terribly horrify my successor. It's unfortunate, though, as we all went and hung out a little bit at the other American teacher's pad on Wednesday, and his pad is MUCH nicer than mine, so we kept on telling my replacement that his apartment is the exception, not the rule.

So yeah. Expect reports to come about the city of Icheon, my new apartment, and even a brief report on nerdery in Korea. Woo!

A quickie!

Yes, I've been tardy in blog posts. But here's an update nonetheless.

Last weekend was fairly low key- it rained a ton on Saturday, so I stayed in. Sunday was gorgeous, however. I traded in some books at What the Book (Seoul's leading English language bookstore) for new ones, and then I met up with my Cousin and our friend T at a big flea market thing at Seoul World Cup stadium. I didn't get anything at the market, however- mostly because the books were in Korean, and the clothes were in Korean sizes. It was still fun going, nonetheless! I also saw a bootleg Bruticus- which I didn't get, as I have the actual mold back home in the states.

Afterward, we took a walk along the river and had some galbi in T's old neighborhood. T's been in Korea for a long while, and she had some really interesting stuff to say about the rapid growth and gentrification of that part of Seoul.

And, uh, that's it. Work's been going fairly well. It helps that I get to teach a Halloween-based unit. "Freddy Kreuger" is one of the vocabulary words. I've gotten a lot of mileage out of showing them random clips from Abbot & Costello Meet Frankenstein (a movie I'd like to see in its entirety, come to think of it).

Went out boozing last night- LePub's a little different under the new management, but I'm sure it'll be fine. Seemed fairly busyish. Ambled home around 2am, and now I'm awake! Mostly.

This weekend's gonna be a bit more eventful, however- in a few minutes, I'm going out on a work-picnic thing with the other teachers, which should be fun. And after that, there's apparently some sort of comics festival thingamajig going on here in Ilsan, which I'm rather excited about. I'm hoping to get a glimpse at a Korean-nerdy subculture, but it may just be a bunch of bookstores hawking manhwa. Either way, expect overthinking analysis to come!

And because it's a short entry, have some pictures of my beer shelf. I like to keep track of what kinds of beers you can get over here. This isn't ALL of what's available- but it's a good part of it. I'd say at least 75% of these were bought at the same homeplus, too. 

That's all I've got for now. Stay tuned!

Man, you were really drunk on Friday night." The Welshman told me.

"I was?" I said. I then took a tally of the previous evening's imbibements. This...was somewhat of a long list. Really, the part where I'd gone awry was having scotch early on in the evening, mostly because whiskey tends to make me a bit...ah, rowdy. And then Gundam Guy started playing lots of Electric Six on the bar's speaker system, which also tends to make me a bit rowdy.

Not that there wasn't occasion to booze it up, though- y'see, LePub, my primary expat hangout, is being sold to a new owner. Who, admittedly, I hear is pretty cool, but it'll be a change in the bartending staff, at the very least. So it goes!

I made it home safely, though- I may have had quite a bit, but I certainly know when it's time to pack it in. Saturday was fairly quiet. I briefly stopped by the makkoli festival that was going on, but I didn't have anything to drink while I was there- didn't feel like boozing it up, y'see.

I had originally meant to swing by Hongdae for a punk rock show at Club Spot, but I was feeling vaguely sick-ish, so I didn't bother. Nothing too bad, but I just didn't want to pull another all-nighter. Instead, I went...to LePub! Again, as Saturday was the last night it was under the current ownership. I took it much easier this time around. Which was funny, as I ran into The Welshman and Co at LePub, and the lot of them had been partying hard since lunch on account of the Rugby World Cup. I'm actually a bit jealous of their enthusiasm, but what can you do?

Sunday, again, started quiet. Had lunch with some friends of mine, and (after a bit of hemming and hawing on my part) I DID wind up going to Hongdae, whereupon I went to two places I should've visited a long while earlier.

The first was Castle Praha! Yay microbreweries! The decor of the place is certainly neat. Service was a little slowish, though, and the beer was a bit pricey...but I will say their witbier is deliiiicious. Though it's hard not to be when you're up against Korean beer. Heh.

The second place was DGBD, one of Hongdae's leading music venues. Or...something. They were having the 24th Kimchiabilly Night there, and I am very, very glad I went. It's been awhile since I've seen a live show, and it just reminded me how much I love seeing obscure live music while drinking crappy beer. It's the little things, y'know. The place had a fairly neat space going on- you actually entered via the balcony and had to take a stairwell down to the floor. I guess the cool kids hung out up top, but the joke's on them, as the bar's down below!

The crowd was mostly Korean, and a bit thin-ish, being a Sunday night- but I've seen some DAMN good shows on Sundays, too. I think it's got to do with the really enthusiastic fans being the ones who bother to get up to stuff on a weeknight, y'know?

Playing that evening was...

The Strikers, a pretty straightforward punk-rock trio. Good energy, though!

Copy Machine- you can tell they're a ska band 'cause the singer's wearing a neat hat. These guys were GREAT- they had a really peppy, fun, third-wave sort of sound. On the one hand, they kind of cheated, as they didn't have a horn section- the keyboardist just had a Korg set on 'horns.' On the other hand, the keyboardist was playing both sections, so that's pretty impressive anyway.

Peppermint Jam- the only non-Korean band on the list, they were Japanese Rockabilly (which made me kind of wish I'd worn my Guitar Wolf shirt, but eh). Was funny, being an American seeing a Japanese band in Seoul- I think the guys from Peppermint Jam knew about as much Korean as I do- which is to say, not much.

And finally, the Rocktigers! This was my second time seeing them, and they're no less kickass after the first go-round. Velvet Geena is still tiny and full of swagger. Honestly, any one of the bands I saw that evening would've been worth it, but the Rocktigers set was damned solid. What's more impressive is that, according to the Korea gig guide website, the Rocktigers & Peppermint Jam packed their gear up and took it to a different club for a 10:30 gig. That's hustle! I s'pose if I wanted to, I could've checked that out as well for a double dose of radness, but I decided against it, opting to get home at a halfway decent hour. Fancy that!

In any case, I managed to survive yet another Monday. Though with Halloween fast approaching, I really need to get a costume put together. Right now, I'm kind of leaning towards 'cardboard robot' or, if I'm REALLY ambitious, 'cardboard Optimus Prime...because if you're gonna go for something, why not go big, right?