The search for food begins..

August 30^th
I was told last night to meet at the Avalone school, a few buildings down from my temporary apartment, at 1:30 pm. This left me with the whole morning to explore the town. My first mission: coffee! On almost every other street corner there are “Family Marts”. These are pretty much a slightly nicer gas station type store. I entered one and found my new favorite Korean product: ice cold Starbucks “lattes” sealed in a cup with a little expandable straw. I loaded up on those and went out to search for my next meal. I walked up and down the street desperately looking for restaurants showing pictures of the dishes they offered. Even with the seemingly endless choices of places serving food, I had little success finding anything that I could confidently identify as meat-free. Almost all of the food looked to be the same noodle and meat dishes with the occasional egg or shrimp thrown in. Fried chicken restaurants also appear to be extremely popular. Finally I entered a shop and with the help of my handy Korean/English dictionary pointed out “I am a vegetarian” and was able to order a noodle/egg/vegetable soup mixture.

Soon it was time to head to Avalone, where I thought I would be teaching. However I was told once there that this was just a secondary school, and I would be catching a “bus” (a small van of children also heading to their classroom) to my destination across town. Once there I followed the excited students into a building where I was met by my fellow foreign teachers- the first English speaking people I had talked to in what felt like weeks! The teacher, Emma, whose job I am taking over for showed me around quickly and tried to catch me up and introduce me to students as best she could before the student’s speech contest started. This was an opportunity for some of the more talented children to recite stories in English or sing songs that they had memorized. It was not only extremely cute but also pretty impressive what a strong grasp many of these young children already had on the language. This contest lasted all afternoon so I did not do much actual observing of the teaching process. I was put on a bus once again back to my apartment where it was time to venture out now in search of dinner. I walked deeper in a new direction towards what appeared to be the busier part of town. There were many clothing shops with American brands, I even saw a Brooks store! Ever thought of a new location, Drew? There was also a huge market of many fresh fruits, vegetables, baked goods, meats, and lots and lots of fresh seafood. There were tanks of live squids, and fish so fresh they were still flopping around in their display baskets.

 It all looked delicious but since I have not figured out the stove in my place, nor do I have so much as a pan or a plate here now that I think about it, I kept looking for something already prepared. I came across a “European restaurant” where there were English subtitles to each dish and was finally was able to eat something I could identify.