Thursday, February 11, 2010

Year 1 - Recollections and Musings

I didn't end up staying in the 1st apartment a full week. More like 3 or 4 days.Then I got to move my stuff and more from there to a building pretty much next door.

That is when I met the owners of the convenience store under my new apartment building. Salt of the Earth! They loaned me their dolly to move stuff. I had to move the fridge among other things. They even gave a free energy drink. Bacchus D. Caffeine and liquid nicotine.

The owners and their family were great. Still are. They often slipped us vitamin drinks because we looked like shit. :) First class of the split shift started at 6:30AM. We finished at 9PM. We would often gather outside their store after work and on weekends for beer and wine. They still keep a bottle of Mahjuang Red at the store in case we show up. :)

The new apartment was a disappointment. It was bloody small. The "kitchen" was an after thought. It was a typical 1 room apartment in Korea with no balcony. There was no washing machine. I had to share one with everyone else on my floor. So you would get assholes out in the hallway at 2 or 3AM yammering loud as can be on their phone while doing laundry.

My neighbours on one side were a few University boys sharing a tiny room. They could be a little noisy. Hilda used to have my apartment but moved up to a bigger one. She always went on about how quiet and nice these guys where. I guess they didn't like white guys because they wouldn't even return a hello to me. And they were less than quiet. Much less.

They would leave their door open while playing music, watching TV, or generally mooking about. Smoking in the hallway. (My bathroom "window" opened into the hallway. If you wanted to air out the bathroom you had to have it open. Even with the thin bathroom door shut you could hear anything going on out there.) Annoying shit like that. One weekend they all went away and never turned off their fucking alarm clock. It RANG for 2 fucking days!

The alarm was the kicker for me. I stopped trying to be polite to them. Started telling them off when they acted like Mooks. One day Hilda asked me about them. She said she ran into them and they talked about me. They told her I was not a nice person. I was always angry. She actually tried giving me hell for not being nice to them. I should have told her to fuck off them but I didn't. I defended myself and the conversation was left with her still trying to defend these mooks. "But they were nice to me." Years later I would regret not telling her off all the times she acted like that. But I digress.

I really enjoyed the area I lived in. It was in the area by ChungBuk National University. The main drinking/eating/party area for foreigners and university students. Lots of cheap food and booze. :)

It made for an interesting first year.

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