Saturday, November 8, 2008

Neighborhood exploration

I'm glad that I arrived when I did. Friday was good for me to get to see some students without having to teach. It's nice to ease into the whole thing fairly slowly. Saturday and Sunday allowed me to walk freely about the neighbor. As I was on the cusp of a mullet, like I am about every 2 months, I decided that I would get a haircut.

I'm happy with the haircut I got. I mean, without knowing the language and all, it turned out really well. Through a charade of hand gestures, we negotiated that the haircut would be W8,000 (about 6.50 USD) and that my hair cut would be "toe-gum." I was proud that that was my contribute. It's Korean translation is "a little." I suppose it could be taken two ways. First being take a little hair away. This is what I meant. Second could be that I only wanted "a little" hair. I think she took it to mean the latter, but regardless, I'm happy with the result.


After walking around the block and trying to get familiar with the area, I was traversing through a crosswalk eyes peeled because pedestrians certainly don't hold the right away here, and what did I see? Another "foreigner!" Sweet Jesus! We sparked up conversation immediately. Scott, a well versed English bloke who was on his way to "see a couple of Chinese bird's", showed me around Masan. We had traditional Korean chow, Garbi, at a restaurant downtown. He should me Kyangnam University before we eventually went down to a ex-pat bar, one of the two in Masan, called "All That Jazz". He says the crowds there are very hit or miss. Saturday night it was a definite "miss." But it was good to see that, if a guy needed a reasonably priced (W3,000) mediocre beer on tap, he could find one.


Long story short, it looks as though I have my first friend in Korea.

1 comment:

Colette Reid said...

So did Scott think you were "very handsome" as well? I am glad you have a friend there! It will be nice to speak English (fluently) with someone else.