A New City: New Adventures

Moving from what Koreans regard as a simple farm town to the metropolis of Seoul (which is over 3 times the population of Houston with an area smaller than the "farm town" that I moved from) has been an interesting adjusting experience. I'm still not quite settled into my apartment (which I have successfully nicknamed "the cube" personalized front door mat to come soon :-)), but it is coming along. My new apartment comes with a security guard downstairs, but I don't know what he's securing because he's the one that goes into my apartment while I'm at work even though he has no earthly idea what he's doing (different from Suncheon where the apartment manager would call our school and ask and then I'd change my passcode later). I'm trying to get my internet set up, but there's no active signal coming out of the wall. So I tell my boss this and she calls him so his solution is to just go and buy another CAT5 cable (completely disregarding the fact that no less that a foot [my mistake 1/3 of a meter] away from my router is a CLEAR bag containing at least 5 cables of varrying lengths). His is yellow so I guess that's a nice change from the drab greys that all my other cords are. As a result I have a wireless router putting out the strongest signal of worthlessness. Oh well. That'll get fixed once I type it into a translator and just be like here. It's not entirely his fault. When he was growing up the internet was where they pulled fish out of after a successful day on a boat. THE SUBWAY This has been an interesting experience to say the least in regards to commuting. First of all when I was staying with Scott and Heana for the first two days of work in order to get to the school by 9:00 Scott and I were leaving his house at 5:30ish so he could drop me at the train station on his way to PT. So in order to be ready by this time you can imagine what time I was waking up to shower. Geez. Then an hour on the train and then the metro. Now that I'm moved into my apartment it is just 30 minutes door to door. I'm a five minute jaunt away from the metro entrance which is going to be nice during monsoon season and our school is less that 3 minutes from the exit so it's vry convenient. Now, I am by no means a subway system virgin after residing in Rome and DC, but there is hardly anything similar amongst the three of these. In Rome all you need to know is that people smell and Italians sweat. A LOT! In DC everyone on the subway is in similar lines of work so thank God for iPods as everyone just tuned out the other passengers. Most of the people I'd ride to DC with on the metro would be reading something on the Blackberry's (the old ones with the wheel on the side, wow how technology has advanced). In Seoul especially on the inner city circle line during rush hour it's like hearding cattle. You might not want to see if you can fit into that 1.5"x1.5" space, but the people behind you have other plans for you and so the fun begins. I literally had no choice but to rest my chin on this lady's shoulder the other morning as the people were packing into the subway car as if I were putting my sleeping bag back into a stuffsack. Needless to say I'm definitely happy for an iPod full of tunes as this helps me phase out the world on the subway. Technologically Unfortunate So this month in the world of Byron's electronics has been a skydive without a chute. First one of my harddrives decides that it's done. Now this wasn't a huge issue in regards to my tv shows and movies as I'd transfered most of these, however my 40GB of music was the primary victim followed by my pictures for my digital picture frame that I've collected from various places such as Dee's computer, Mom's computer, and Grandma's computer. So I was only a little depressed about this occurence because as long as I keep my iPod charged then it's going to have those songs and my running MP3 player is set up for a while. Then a couple days later my iPod goes out once again (it seems to freeze up about once a week and the simplest solution is to let the battery expire and then when I recharge it everything is okay until the next time). I thought this one was going to be the worst because usually the screen just won't leave whatever song it was on, but this time it was completely black. YIKES. This morning however I am happy to report that it came back on after a good charging so it is chug-chugging along for the time being. Then the keyboard on my laptop decided to go "tits up". I was describing it in this way the other night at dinner and a girl goes "you're the first person that's not British that I've ever heard describe something like that." I explained to her that it's the way that my dad has described things that just up and die in the past and then I thought back to mom telling me how much I'm turning into him. This was re-emphasized a few weeks earlier when my buddy was asking me which way to get somewhere and I explained "well it's six one way, half-a-dozen the other". He had a bewildered look on his face and I explained that it's something dad also says when the results of a decision are likely to be the same regardless of the choice. I know that you're probably thinking that with the off topic banter that I was done with my technological mishaps, however I only wish that I was. On Monday at work my tablet decided that it was going to base-jump off of my desk and land on its corner (which I'm thinking you can guess how that turned out). I was already planning on sending my tablet back to have it serviced because there was a dead strip on the screen, however I was not overly fond of the idea of both my laptop and my tablet being away at the same time. Thanks to Murphy and his law though the decision was made very simple. MOVING IN KOREA With my appliances and other miscellaneous things I've acquired in Korea I wasn't going to be able to move with just a few bags, so I was contemplating a moving truck (I love UHAULS, especially one's with Mom, Charlie, James and me all crammed in the front bench seat). However I was informed that this was a rather expensive option in Korea. I was told that I should pack them in boxes and mail them. I was like that sounds pricey, however for a box that could fit an old-school box tv it's just 4 dollars worth of shipping. Woohoo! So I grabbed three bags and then shipped the rest. Now most of the time the cheapo train I ride is crowded and there isn't really room for luggage so in preparation I decided to buy two tickets so I'd have a seat for my bags. However, this was a newer train and had a luggage rack on the end of the car which was perfect so I just enjoyed the trip with no knee-spreading-birthers sitting next to me (reference to an earlier blog post). Heana was sweet enough to bring a load of boxes and drop them off after her class that she has in Seoul on Wednesday nights and there's like three more that I gave her cash to mail. Yay! That's it for right now. Love all y'all.