South Korea

HIYA!

The apartment, briefly. This is a nice place. It's standard in Korea for employers to pay for the teacher's apartment. I don't know how much this place costs, but I suppose it's not real cheap. I pay for utilities: water, electricity, and gas. Fine. I'm pretty frugal anyway with my use.

The floors are heated, not the air. That's standard in Korea. I like it. They're heated by turning on the gas which runs heated water in piping below the floor. My boss says you can control where the heat is going but it doesn't seem possible. So, he says, at night when I'm asleep, I can turn on the heat to only the room where I'm sleeping. Again, it doesn't seem possible. He says he'll ask the apt manager. The floor doesn't have carpeting. It's sort of like linoleum I guess. With a wood pattern. Easy to clean.

It's got two bedrooms, one a master bedroom and the other a small bedroom. They both have beds, a big one and a small one. I use the bigger bedroom with the big bed. There's a full bathroom with hot water. No bath which would be nice in winter to soak in. There's a small kitchen / dining area but is plenty big for one person. There's a fridge and a few kitchen utensils. There's a gas stove. The only kitchen things I've bought are a fork and a butter knife! There's a washing machine which I'm still not good at operating. The manager says to just use cold water and that it's better, for some reason, to wash in cold water. I don't see why he would care much about the temperature that I use for washing clothes since I pay for the utilities. The washing machine is in a room to hang dry clothes. Plenty big. Just outside this laundry drying room is the balcony. Sort of southeast facing which is good. There's plenty of sun. At least there is on sunny days anyway!

There's a TV with cable. But I've told the boss to disconnect the cable since I don't want to watch anything much. I'd rather save the money. The TV isn't even plugged in. I never watch anything.

Wow, this isn't so brief, is it?! The boss gave me two clocks, a wall clock and a table alarm clock. He gave me an electric / battery shaver and the telephone. He's so good to me. Wow. I'm saving money in quite a few ways here.

I will write about this someday, I suppose. Maybe not!

I'm leaving soon for some shopping.

Oh, there's even an umbrella here. And big mirrors. The entrance is like in Japan, where you take off your shoes then step up a little to go into the apartment.

I've really got no complaints at all about this place to live. Well, I could say that I'm cold but that's more me than anything else.

I've determined to overcome being cold. I'm looking in to taking a yoga class, or some other thing. I'm really interested in something disinctly Korean, but Tae Kwon Do is about kicking and punching, which I'm not interested in. I've heard about something else but forget what it's called. More like Tai Chi.

Okay, that's all.

Troy.

HIYA!

I've asked my boss if he thinks I could do some gardening around here somewhere and he says it shouldn't be a problem. I've asked the son of the apartment manager and he says the same. I'm not ready to start. I'll need to ask my boss for some help. He says he can ask the owners of the garden just outside the apartment building if I can use some of the land. I'd be happy to rent a piece. But only if the land isn't contaminated with lots of agricultural chemicals. In that case I'd rather get a bunch of pots and other things to plant in on the rooftop. I could also use my balcony. And buy some soil.

Alternatively, I wonder if I can use a piece of land at one of the nearby temples. That'd be really neat. They've already got tangerine groves and a bit of vegetables growing. This morning I saw a lady walk over to a tangerine grove with a small bucket. There was some composting grass beneath the trees. She opened the bucket and dumped the stuff out of it, and buried it in the decomposing grass. The stuff looked like she'd been fermenting it. So I'm wondering if the lady is doing organic agriculture here. If so it'd be an ideal place for me to grow some vegetables.

There's also a lot of wild things growing all over that I'm really interested in growing to eat. When I walk around I always look at things growing. I've seen quite a few that I know to be edible. Some from Thailand, some from the US. Once I start doing something I'll see about pulling these plants up to take back and put into soil.

I don't know if I'd plant and grow "weeds" though at a temple. People may not appreciate it very much.

So all this gardening stuff really depends to a great extent on my boss. He's the only one I know around here who speaks much English. Yet he's really busy with other things so I don't want to give him too many things all at once.

One other thing I want to do about gardening is go to some of these botanical gardens around to ask what local plants are edible and see about planting some of them. There's a native plant association of some sort here in Korea. I've seen a contact for the group here on Jeju Island so I'll see about contacting him.

Enough.
Troy.

HIYA!

Wow, this is really a nice area. I like it here a lot. My boss saw on the news last night that we're supposed to get a typhoon this weekend. But when I woke up this morning it was overcast but no rain. So I decided to take a walk. Walked up the road where I've never walked before. Away from the beach. Found three temples. Zen / Seon (Seon is Korean while Zen is Japanese) temples. Beautiful. My boss actually drove me to them last week. But I didn't realize until this morning that they're so close to home. Great. The one that I'll go to tomorrow for a 10:30 Dhamma Talk is not one of these, however. Walked around the temple compounds and they're quite peaceful and beautiful. Small and unpretentious.

I've been to the beach but only once! It's only a few minutes away but I've spent more time getting settled in that going out to see things. The one time I did go out it was cold and windy. No fun. The beach is quite pretty though with rich black sand. It's said to be good for your health.

There are no high rise apartment buildings in the immediate area. There are a couple in distance. There are lots of houses and small apartment buildings here. So I don't get the big city feel. Plus with so many small garden plots all over the place, it feels pretty rural. Walking around the neighborhood where the temples are the road is real narrow. Very rural feel.

One of the nice things about Korea is that there is so much green around. In the countryside anyway. People planting gardens and other things everywhere. Theres's some unused land which has it's own weeds and brush.

It's the weeds that I'm most interested in. There's mugwort or is it wormwood. Or is it the same plant with different names? My boss told me this plant is very good for health. He said it's the first plant to grow after the atomic blasts in Japan. So, he says, it's very strong. Interesting, at the very least.

I'm going to do some gardening somewhere. I'll write about that in my next entry in a few minutes.

Troy.

HIYA!

Friday morning of my second week. So far, so good. My boss asked me last night what I hate most about being here on Jeju Island. I thought for a moment and told him the kids going wild and being inattentive in class. He understands. Before that he asked what I liked most. I told him that there is some quality to many older people that I like a lot. That mellow, slow, patient quality to country people. Americans as well. I remember my Grandpa and how he had that quality. I always liked that a lot. I sense it here in many of the older people here. Nice.

As for the kids, well. I've determined to not get angry. I did get angry a couple of days ago but have vowed to come away from that. I don't want kids to be afraid of me. I don't want to be angry. That day I felt irritable already so to go into classrooms with rowdy kids, uncooperative kids, inattentive kids, that was hard. All day. But yesterday went much better because I was in a better mood and frame of mind. I'd also determined to be okay in midst of the chaos. But the real test will come today. Monday Wednesday and Friday I have pretty much the same schedule, while Tuesday and Thursday are pretty much the same. The real challenge will be later this afternoon.

I can see understand why we generally avoid things in life that we don't like, but I can also see good reason to go into things that we don't like. It is possible to change. Possible to get over that dislike, that hatred, that aversion. I'll do it. I've got one year and I'm committed. I feel like I can do it too.

I'll write more another time. There are lots of things to write about. A Zen / Seon temple that my boss took me to. Gardening on the rooftop or on a piece of land right below my apartment. My apartment itself. The area where I live. Money.

Troy.

HIYA!

I got internet installed today at the apt. My boss has also arranged for a telephone hook up. Both supposed to be done today by the same guy. Well, no. The guy who came only hooked up the internet connection.

I have a telephone number, just no hook up yet. My number is

82-64-900-8877

82 is South Korea's country code. 64 is the area code for Jeju, where I live.

I have an address. I have my apt address but my boss, Mr. Mun, asked me to have all mail sent to the school. I don't care .... Tell, ya what. I'll ask him about this. Maybe I'll give you my apt address. Seems the better option. But if he has some good reason why he asked me to have mail sent to the school, then I want to know. But right now, so far as I can tell, it would be better to have mail sent to the apt.

I need to leave for school in about ten minutes so I'll stop here.

Dad, I'll call you as soon as I've got a phone connection. But if I can't get one real real soon, I'll find a place to make an international phone call. Actually, somebody was supposed to come yesterday to do both connections. I told Mr. Mun that nobody came so he did something, and this internet guy came today. I'll see if I can get a phone hook up tomorrow.

My feeling is that I'd rather have a home phone than a cell phone. It's cheap. And I don't want to have a cell phone with me all the time. They're super convenient and everything, but, well ....

This internet connection is also really cheap. About US$22 per month. Set fee. High speed connection.

Troy.