The day of my arrival was stinking hot and humid – one of the hottest days Daegu has seen for some time. Fortunately I was dressed appropriately for the weather – jeans, a shirt and all my heavy bags! Excellent. I was met by my new co-teacher Hyemi, who, fortunately for me, speaks very good English. We headed straight to my new school to meet the principal (“hello, I’m your sweaty, stinky new teacher”) and then on to my new apartment to drop off my bags.
The area I am living in seems nice – it has many green spaces and the school backs onto a big park and mountain. My apartment is literally a 1 minute walk from the school, 5 minutes from the buses to the city and 10 minutes from the subway. There is also a large shopping district (uh oh) just a short walk away.
My first night was a little hard, although I’ve no doubt it was made harder by the fact I had only two and a half hours sleep the night before! As well as tired, I was feeling very apprehensive and sad to have left some new and amazing friends from orientation, who have since moved to other parts of the country – Gwangju, Incheon, Busan and Jeju.
High Point – a 12 hour sleep!
Low Point – acquiring 47 new mosquito bites during said 12 hour sleep
My apartment - needs furnishing! I have since bought a couch so my room doesn't seem quite so empty...
Day 2 - Exploring Daegu
I spent my first Saturday in Daegu exploring the city and doing some shopping with my co-teacher. By 12pm I was set up in my new apartment with everything I needed (except perhaps a spa, man-servant and personal chef). I spent the afternoon in town and eventually ended up meeting a big group of existing Daegu-ites who were heading out for a night of pub golf at various watering holes around the city. I joined the crawl and met a lot of new people which was great – it was an excellent night topped off with pizza in a cup (what more could a girl ask for?) and a 3am taxi ride home that rivalled the previous 4 hour trip from Incheon to Jeonju. This was effectively four hours worth of Jeonju-narcoleptic excitement crammed into an action-packed, pant-wetting, suicidal fifteen minutes! I have since made it my mission to avoid getting taxis wherever possible as every single driver appears to have been trained at the same school – excessively high speeds, no indication, veering in and out of lanes as they please and generally driving like they’re on speed.
No comments:
Post a Comment