Hello,

after arriving in Korea on January 22, after my recent graduation on December, I have finally started (not-officially teaching) at Central Christian Acadmy in Suwon, South Korea. I am in the teachers' lounge blogging since I do not have any specific tasks to do yet.

 I've spent the past couple of weeks in Bucheon with my aunt and her family. I found that the difference between coming to Korea in the summer and in the winter is that...absolutely no one I know stays in Korea during the winter. All my international student friends and such come out for the summer but the two friends I know in Korea are either a) in the Korean army or b) teaching Mon-Sun at a hagwon in Gangnam. I've met both of these friends and they're a bit too busy to do anything right now.

So I spent over two weeks here just traveling by myself around Seoul and burning some time. Most of which was spent on the subway... just standing... hmm.

I came to Suwon Sunday afternoon and found out I had no place to stay. The school is pretty nice... small. private. But all the school dormitories are taken. :(

So I'm staying with my recruiter. I wasn't really a fan of him at first but the family is really nice.

Oh yeah, and I was looking at some one-rooms to stay and... How should I say..... They were NAST. Really, I don't care that the size of the room is one step above a closet but why do they have to be so dirty. Out of the three places I looked at...1) The first was empty but dirty and smelled like gas. 2)Was the best out of the three. It had a bed, dishes, tv, washing machine, bookshelf. But it had no room and the person who lived there just ran away and left everything. 3)A woman still lives there and the owner said she never opens the window so there is mold on the wall beside the washing machine. I don't think she is moving out this month either.  Overall, all pretty much unacceptable.

I'll be going out to see a few more places and hopefully I'll find somewhere to live. It's going to be somewhere I'll live for at least a  year so I want it to be at least clean.

It will get better. It must.