panic over, turns out there are TWO chilgoks 20 mins from each other.. how confusing.. i am the one inside the city limits, not as previously thought a half hour drive outside the city. i have posted a revised map showing the two chilgoks. actually pronounced chill-gu so i'm calling it chill-dude (easier to remember). korean writing is not so bad either once you spend a few hours. i dont think theres a grammer so its just the phonetics of pronouncing the words and learning the shapes for them.

also, its common for people to ask have you eaten, which just means hello, so not really talking about food. which gets confused if they are really asking whether you have eaten or not?
was able to watch euronews and france24 on the internet. bbc sites are blocked outside Uk. also figured out how to change youtube settings to english

so when we arrived in daegu i met with the coteacher at the meeting point then she drove me to the school. her name is suki, she is in her 20s and speaks good english. we arrived after 430 and some of the staff were still in the staffroom. i met with the vp, the principal was not there. everyone was excited to meet me and i tried out some korean greetings which really impressed them. then we drove to my apt and was i in for a shock

so we leave the nice develped part of town and head into the older run down part. the streets are all 3 stories, cars parked on either side, only room for one way traffic to drive. i did not like the look of this and i knew i was not getting one of those nice new shiny apartments you see on youtube. so we arrive at this icky 4 story apartment building.

as soon as you open the door there is a 4 ft cupboard facing you to put your shoes in creating a partition in the entrance. we could not bring the suitcases in so i had to move the cupboard out the way. then they start freaking out coz i'm wearing my outdoor shoes in the apartment. first of all its my apartment so i can wear what i want. second, its was just a one off as we were moving suitcases. apparently there are no exception.

then i take a look at the place and i was like, is this it? there was a bed which was just a bare mattress. no bedding was provided such as pillows, sheets, blanekts. over here you need a mattress pad as the bed is hard like a table. all the cupboards were bare as well. no dishes, cutlery, pots whatsoever. there is just a beat up microwave. my tv is an old 90s not a flatscreen.
the bathroom is very old as well. there is one tiny window and no vent fan. the shower head is above the sink, so if you rest it on the handle it sprays into the sink, so not exactly able to have a shower like that. the cabinet was hanging of the wall. they offered to give me a hammer so i can bang it back. i politely suggested that the landlord should do this incase i break something and get blamed when really it should be his responsibility ot fix it in the first place. small laundry room outside the bathroom with sliding doors to partition the bathroom laundry area from the livng area.

i just wanted to get out but was being polite about it. the tv did not have cable hooked up. there is no internet outlet. the air conditioner is kinda beatup too. overall just reminds me of a bad hostel i must have stayed at, only i am here for one year not two nites. suki asked me if i liked it so i just had to say i suppose. she offered to drive me to the homeplus/tesco about 10 mintues away and i wanted to get out

that area is the nice part of town. brand name stores, little shopping area, restaurants, movie theatre, new high rise apartments. i asked why they couldnt give an apartment there if it was the same distance from the school but they said it cost more. so she left me as she had plans for the evenings so i basically had to find my first meal by myself. i found a pizza hut and had a shrinp pizza for $12 and ate the whole thing. by our standards it would be a medium.

then went back, tried to have a shower but it is only cold water. took my bedding out the suitcase, bedsheet, pillows, used the blanket as a matrress pad. then the air condition will not work and refused to switch on when it was working fine when we left. luckily there is a table fan in the apartment or i would have died. tried to sleep but the noise of the fan bothered me. tried the air condition again and it swtiched on but the noise was still bad and couldnt sleep.

this morning came in and all teh school kids saw me, started waving and saying hi. at 9am did a presentation to the staff so did my korean greetings, and showed them the ice wine chocolates i had brought which they really loved. my voice is totally gone from the a/c last few days so not the greatest first impression when i am barely croaking.

now they want me to sit in the teachers room to 430 and do nothign. they should have given me friday off, just a school tour and send me home. met the principal who with the most bored and disinterested tone just told me to do a good job. i'm told this is a low performing school, not sure if just english or all subjects. maybe he's just given up and lost all enthusiasm. he's wearing brown slippers btw.

now sitting here all day trying to figure out how to change the operating system to english. i downloaded the google toolbar which will translate web pages, but commands in other programs are still in korean. the english lab is really good. it has a lot of money spent on it with furniture and colours. i am the only one that gets my own classroom, everyone else has to share generic rooms in the corridors. i'm the third foreign teacher in this school. the last guy just went back to toronto

people are really nice and i told them they each have to teach me one korean word as a way to make them feel comfortable talking to me as otherwise they wont. not just the language but they cant lose face and look stupid in this culture. other than that just sitting here till 430 killing time. they are making the other teachers do this and we are all messaging on facebook. kids are coming up to me saying hi and running away. thinking about doing soccer after school and christmas pantomime as more activities. for the chusuk holiday i get tues-fri off the week before my bday so another waste of time just coming in for the monday or it would have been a 9 day holiday.

actually 165 people were placed in daegu and there were 450 people in our orientation group. there are two other groups so over 1000 people in total. the apartment is not so bad once i dressed it up a bit. used fridge magnets to put some stuff up and hung some artwork. there is nowhere to lock valuables so i am just using my suitcase. there are a couple of other teachers in my area, just have to arrange to meet up. some people have great apartments, others are worse than mine. one guy is in a temporary apt with no bed, fridge, washing machine or a/c for five days. when i get my alien registration card in 10 days then i can get cellphone, internet, cable.

the guy i'm replacing left a lot of kitchen and cleaning stuff for me which is now 'missing'. first i thougth it had been taken by someone. now they claim its in his old apartment so they have to get it from the landlord. at lunch today i asked for someone to take me to the cafeteria so i dont look like an idiot with all the students looking. nobody came. i had no food in my apartment and just had the shrimp pizza from last nite. i just went out and walked over to mcdonalds by homeplus. had a shrimp burger with fries and pop for $2.70.

there is a little food court on the other side of tesco with dunkin donuts, kfc, and korean food. kfc has a shrimp burger too so i'll try that next time. have to figure out how to take the bus into town which is not that big. i'm close to the bus station where they have alibaba and some pakistani food. already saw two foreigners in homeplus at lunch so will try to meet the others in this area and try to take the bus downtown.