South Korea - Orientation Day 1

They are an intriguing people. From the moment they wake they devote themselves to the perfection of whatever they pursue. I have never seen such discipline. I am surprised to learn that the word Samurai means, 'to serve', and that Katsumoto believes his rebellion to be in the service of the Emperor.
Okay, so I stole that from The Last Samurai, but they are people and I really was surprised to hear that the word Samurai means 'to serve'.

The Koreans are really friendly, well, the younger generation and most of the older women that I have met are anyway. A few of the older men grunt at me when I walk past them in the street, not all of them, just some; others simply don't acknowledge me (which is kind of cool, I like to think that I'm a young Patrick Swayze out looking for my Whoopi Goldberg, wait, maybe that's not cool :). My original response was to grunt back, but luckily I stifled that impulse...Ahh,the grunting...Based on my personal experiences I initially concluded that it was the indigestion from their superhot food, but apparently it voices their disapproval or disgust, thanks, thanks for judging me. Nevertheless, they are polite and I have met old men that are really cool, for instance, when I got to my school I was introduced to several teachers and this one dude kept on pointing out all the single chicks very loudly. Rock on! Just get that out there, right off the bat :D

Enough intro. Let's get to the first bit of this trip. I'm gonna make this quick and as painless for me as possible (as this will undoubtably be the least eventful part of my experience). I'm going for a very rushed, cluttered writing style, as this is pretty much how it all felt. That's great you say, but I don't actually care, so get on with it already :D



I would recommend SingaporeAir, for they absolutely rocked. Loads of entertainment, good food and the seating wasn't bad either. Met up with other teachers from South Africa and Suzanne and I actually finished a bottle of Jim Beam in the back by the galley on the first leg of the flight :D.
They really won me over when, at 11am, I said: "Is it too early for a Jim Beam?" to which the attendant coolly replied: "It is never too early, sir." My kinda people. I shared a few laughs with the passengers sitting next to me, which might have been directed at me cause I vaguely recall slurring :} (i blame it all on lack of sleep!). One of them was a hot Fillipino chick, sadly her husband sat behind us, sad for him I say! She was not the only flirty one on that flight (this was when I was still sober before you shake your head at me).

Anyway, so, I got to Korea and my EPIK (English Program in Korea) orientation after a 20 hour flight or something like that, with about 3 hours sleep in 50 hours, ouch (couldn't sleep the night before I flew, too busy packing and I went out for beers and such things with Dean in the wee hours). Despite this, in true Saffer style, the first thing I did was to go out for beers and I ended up getting lost on the way back.
Being lost in a foreign country is not as much fun as not being lost, but close.
I have a very good sense of direction so I wasn't actually "lost" per say, it's just that my building was tucked behind another building and being ricockulously tired I had not paid enough attention; later, I would discover that I was mere footsteps away from it (damn jetlag, curse the extended period of boozing and to hell with that three passage labyrinth). After 40minutes of walking up and down I was forced to use a tree as a urinal, fear had gripped me, what if I got caught, what then, how would I explain? What would come next? Luckily, that never happened and hopefully I will never need to know.

I spoke to people, but no-one understood me and just when I lost all hope of finding the place, my roommate came walking down the street. It was serendipitous, for I had not met him before and also because I don't think I entirely understand the meaning of that word. It was truly fortunate as my original plan had been to wait in the main road for 3 hours until the EPIK curfew forced the others to head back; by then I would probably have been an icicle and one of the drunk ones would no doubt have needed to cut me loose with a yellow sword. All was well. Well, almost...my roommate snores (continuous tense)...now, I know that I snore but this was something else for he had been feeling ill the one evening, sinuses...Henceforth, he shall be known as The Rattlesnake. Also, at times he very much resembled a cat purring under water, drowning contently.

And on that night, Marius slept like a baby...so what, he was constantly waking up, crying, screaming and kicking (never got that saying to be honest)?