Pizza and Beer

Tonight for dinner, I got tired of the same ole Korean and decided to order a pizza.  Like everything seems to be in Korea, it was cutely wrapped in a package:

The pizza was actually really good, an looked completely normal - unlike many pizzas I've seen here in Korea.

Even had whole wheat crust.  For Korea, a solid 9 out of 10!

And you can't have pizza without beer, so I strolled over to Family Mart - think 7-11 - and picked out some beers.  I picked some of the more interesting ones.

As you can see here, we have "Stylish Beer" - Premium Beer with Fiber - the tag line is "Smooth & light premium beer exclusively designed for well-being of young generation".  Not quite sure why the young generation needs fiber - but watch out US, I'm sure your beer will have fiber in it too soon - everything else seems to.

And then of course, I got a Cass - Korean beer affectionately know as 'ass' to most people.  So if I'm going to be drinking ass, may as well have lemony fresh ass - I suppose.

And to prevent dehydration after my pizza and beer, I got this lovely beverage - kinda tastes like what it's called.

Hope everyone back home is well!
-Carly

Appliance Taste/Tow Truck and a George Foreman!

Look at this refrigerator I saw at the store today!

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The colors in that photo aren't that great, but it's black and bronze and sparkly.  And it will only set you back 2.78 million Won! :P or about $2300 US Dollars! (I for one wouldn't have a bronze sparkly fridge in my house).

Also came upon a lonely George Foreman grill.  I don't think anyone has bought one, and at $50 for a really really small one, I can see why!

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On the way home from the store, I saw a tow truck.  Really small and cute!

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Okay! Enough procrastinating! Time to clean my apartment!
-Carly

Lotteria

Last night, I finally broke down and ate at Lotteria.  South Korea's answer to McDonalds.

I ordered the European Frisco Cheese combo.

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As you can see, a combo comes with - a smaller than the smallest in the US drink, a child sized fries, and only ONE packet of ketchup. 

Below is a close-up of the ridiculousness of the burger though>

From top to bottom: Bun Patty, Yellow pepper, olives, fried mozzarella cheese - think cheese sticks only in burger patty form, a burger patty, teriaki sauce, tomato, lettuce, cheese whiz, and another bun patty.

The taste is actually like an 8 or 9 out of 10.

On another note, the ice cream cone at Lotteria is to die for - dairy queen creamy with a small hint of cocunut - all for 500 won - about 40 cents.

Delayed Post!

Sorry for the delay in post.  I've been a bit under the weather.  Nothing in particular, but most of my free time has been spent sleeping, I'm still really tired all of the time.  Oh well. At least I don't have a sinus infection (yet...knock on wood.)

The simplest things are so complicated here in Korea.

Today I went to the Dunkin' Donuts in my neighborhood for a coffee, and saw a donut that I wanted.  Now in the Dunkin' Donuts near my work, you just point to the donut you want, and since they are behind the counter, the lady behind the counter gets it for you.  But the DD in my neighborhood is different.  The donuts are out in cases and are self serve.  But there was no tissue paper or anything to be seen.  I finally just had to sit down in the shop and wait for another customer to get a donut.  Turns out there were trays and tongs in the corner, but it was still interesting.  There were like 20 pairs of tongs, so each customer uses their own tongs and then turns them in at the counter. 

Another thing that is complicated is cleaning, more specifically, cleaning products.  My boss informed me that I had to completely clean my apartment if I want to get my leaky sink fixed.  He said that it would be embarrassing to bring a repairman in to a dirty apartment.  So...that means buying cleaning supplies.  Now window cleaner, and like spray kitchen counter cleaner are easy enough to figure out from the pictures, but what about mopping agent!? There are no pictures, AND you can't read the solution mix you are suppose to use, on top of the fact you have no idea what it is.  I finally decided to just mop my floors with bleach, because it was the only thing in the store that I could open up the bottle and (by smelling) confirm it was bleach. 

Another thing that is really hard to get use to is the fact that I have no clothes dryer.  At home, I just needed to realize 2.5 hours before I needed clean clothes that I should start laundry.  But here I have to air dry my clothes, and it is SOOO humid here that often leaving the clothes to dry ALL DAY is not long enough for them to be completely dry.  I can somewhat remedy this by drying my clothes under my air conditioner, but, I've been told that the A/C here is very expensive (though what very expensive here is, I don't know), and the clothes can dry in about 4 to 5 hours.  But still, it takes at a minimum, 6 to 7 hours to wash and dry a load of clothes.

Just now, I went to Lotte Mart - which is like Wal-mart, it's sells just about everything.  There I bought a broom, and of course, I had to pick a broom with no UPC on it.   So when I finally get to the cash register to pay, mind you, I had already waited in like more than 15 minutes, because on Saturday and Sunday Lotte Mart is CRAZY busy - like positively packed - think of Wal-mart, but with having no personal space - and in a culture where it is okay, and no one thinks anything of it - if they run into you.  So anyways, I get to the cash register with my broom, and the lady sees that there is no UPC on the broom.  She points in the general direction of the store where the broom is located, and takes off - there were at least 10 people, if no more - waiting in line to check out - i do believe I've finally been cursed out in Korea...haha. How mortifying.  Oh well, I got my broom, and now I can sweep and mop my apartment. And FINALLY unpack, organize and take out my trash. 

Lots to do this weekend! I have to clean my apartment, wash and dry probably 3 or 4 loads of clothes, do an entire months worth of planning for 3 pre-school classes AND on top of that, I have to take my first test in my White Collar Crime class.  Hopefully I will be able to accomplish this.  Tonight, here in Korea it's going to be very loud.  Korea plays Uruguay in the World Cup.  Like the pictures from one of my previous posts, the streets will be packed, and there will be screaming and carrying on well into the night with the game starting at 11pm local time and then the USA game at 3:30am.  It's going to be quite a Saturday night.

Hope everyone is well back home!
-Carly

Lisa's Birthday

Before work, I stopped by Dunkin Donuts for a coffee.  Unfortunately it is nearly impossible to find drip coffee in the country. Everything - if you find coffee, is watered down espresso - so I got my iced watered down espresso - which they call "iced americano", and happened upon this lovely donut. 

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For those of you who don't know, Kimchi is spicy fermented cabbage.

When I got to school, I discovered it was Lisa's birthday.  It is a HUGE celebration for these pre-schoolers.  The school day stops, and the kid is presented with all sorts of food and presents and the other children sing songs to her and tell her how great she is.

I don't think you can see it, but there is a "6" on Lisa's birthday cake.  Lisa isn't actually 6 years olds - she's 5.  They do this really weird thing in Korea where you are born at age "1" - and you turn the next age on January 1 of the following year.  So I am Korean age 25, and turned as such on Jan 1st, 2010.  (International age - as they call it - I'm 23, and on Oct. 31, I'll be 24). 

Below is a picture of the three little girls I teach second class of the day.

Please let me know if there is anything you'd like me to write about or take pictures of.

-Carly

First Weekend in Korea, Cont.

When I got to Itaewon, I was met by a girl named Nora - who I actually met through twitter.  Before I left for Korea, I went on a twitter search engine and typed in "teach english korea" - and Nora popped up. So she and I started talking prior to my arrival in Korea, and this past weekend was the first time we met in person.

We went to a bar called the Grecko.  It's an American bar right down to the fact they serve burgers and fries.  There we watched the USA vs. Slovenia World Cup soccer game.  About every 15 minutes, 2 US Army military police and two korean military police would walk through the bar.  In the US, as you know, it's illegal to be drunk in public - in Korea, it is okay to be drunk in public - in fact why go to a bar, when you can sit outside of 7-11 in lawn chairs drinking beer you bought in the store.  But anyways, the Army walks through because the US government still enforces the "no drunk in public" rules for the soldiers, even off duty.  If you're in the army, and you're being rowdy in the bar, the military police will cart you out. 

The next day, we went to Nora's Korean co-teachers house for dinner.  This way quite an experience, the dinner lasted for HOURS and HOURS and HOURS.  We had dessert first - shaved ice with ice cream, caramel and fruit sauces, fruit, red beans - yes, red beans, gummies - about 5 different varieties of them.  Believe it or not, red beans in dessert was not too bad because everything else is sweet.

For the main course we had sahboo-sahboo.  Basically, we sat on the floor around a table.  In the center of the table they put a burner and on the burner a big pot.  In the pot they had an anchovy broth going.  And for each "course" a different thing was added to the pot.  Beef, then greens, then seafood - one piece of seafood looked like an acorn.  You put the whole thing in your mouth - and it would pop, you'd chew on it some more and spit out the "top of the acorn".

That night, Nora and I spent the night at a house that Nora is cat sitting for.  It was SOO nice to see a cat, I really miss my cat Dexter.  This guy is named Hoover!

I love the poof on his tail!

The next morning we did an American breakfast. Their attempt at "sausage" was interesting to say the least.

We went to the Korean War museum.

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After that I took the Subway home - exhausted from a super long weekend!

An interesting thing I find about the subway is that it is about 20 cars long.  And you are free to move from car to car by just pushing the black button - looks like a rectangle - on the center left side of the divider door.

Sad that Monday means back to work,
-Carly

A positively long overdue Post!!

I have to admit, I am terrible at remembering to take pictures.  I had a weekend in Seoul and walked away with like 10 pictures.  My apologies, I've never been a picture person.

Actually found this photo from my first day of work -right before I walked out the door to take the bus - bus number 1-1, which costs me 900won or 75 cents to get to work. Felt like the first day of school really. A student who wanted to impress her teachers.

On Thursday I went to get my haircut with my America co-teacher Bria.  We ended up going to Sanbondong, which is a large outdoor mall area about a 15 to 20 minute bus ride from home.  It was interesting trying to explain to someone who doesn't speak English what you want for a hair cut.  So I ended up finding a picture of what was close to what I wanted and went from there.  But there was a problem, my hair is too fine to have as many layers as the picture that I pointed to, so my hair dresser ended up calling his brother in GERMANY to help negotiate the haircut.  The hairdresser kept saying "VOOL-UME", "VOOL-UME", I got him to write down what he was trying to tell me in Korean, and it turns out that he wants me to get a volume perm, and a scalp treatment from a scalp doctor.  We'll see, I guess I've kind of grown accustom to my really really really fine hair - and apparently horrible scalp.  I really enjoyed getting my haircut - mint shampoo and condition, scalp massage, haircut and blow dry for 15,000 won - $12.45....AND you don't tip in Korea. And this place was a really upscale salon!

Thursday was actually the night that South Korea played Argentina in the World Cup, so when I got back to my neighborhood, I found this right outside my door!

I found people out in mass on the sidewalks, screens set up everywhere - to watch Korea play soccer.  It was so packed that I couldn't even walk down the sidewalk.  And god forbid I walk in front of one of the hundreds of TVs set up just for the game.


Friday night, I went into Seoul for the first time.  Since I haven't been shown how to take the bus to the subway station yet, I took a 7 minute taxi ride to Pyeongchon station for 3,000 won ($2.50) and then took the light blue line to Samgakji and then took the Burnt Orange line two stops (East) to Itaewon - the entire trip into Seoul, including the taxi was 4,200 won ($3.50) - and took about 40 minutes.
Below is the subway map. Pyeongchon is on the light blue line in the lower left corner - follow that to the burnt orange line and go two stations to the right for Itaweon.

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This post....To be continued!

Apartment Dinner

I'm at a dinner with my friend Norasha at her Korean co-teacher's
apartment. Unfortunately didn't bring my camera. Will have a full
update tomorrow.

-Carly

Sent from my iPod

Hello All!

Just wanted to let everyone know that everything is still going well. I'm spending the weekend in Seoul and actually went to an American bar last night to watch the World Cup (USA vs. Slovenia). Game started at 11pm. Was a great night. Ate a hamburger, never thought fries and a burger would taste so good.

When I get back to my house on Sunday, I promise a full update.

-Carly

So far, so good.

I really need to go out into my neighborhood and take some pictures, but by the time I get home, I really tired and hot, and just want a shower.  It is so humid in Korea.  And my school is pretty hot all the time too.  Today, while teaching my class, I was positively dripping wet, and the wife of my boss (Mrs. Lee), saw and thankfully (finally) turned on the A/C for me.  But A/C seems to scare some Koreans.  When I first moved into my apartment, my boss, Mr. Lee told me I could not sleep with the A/C on because I would suffocate, especially while sleeping.  He called it Korean Bed Death.  This of course is not true, but A/C really does seem to scare them. 

On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I work from 10am to 6:40pm with a two hour lunch break.  And on Tuesday and Thursday, I work from 10am to 5:55pm - with a 1.5 hour lunch break.  So fairly long days - at least in teaching english standards.  I teach all levels of English from pre-school in a classroom setting to high schoolers in a one-on-one setting.  The high schoolers one-on-one is actually kind of hard.  There are some words that they have in their workbook that even I don't know.  Like SAT type questions. Which word is the most exact opposite meaning of Martial - I don't know Martial's meaning well enough off the top of my head to be able to tell the student. Oh well.

For breakfast, I have been eating rice porridge - very similar to oatmeal in consistency, but made of rice. But here they don't have any "breakfast" flavors - my rice porridge is mushroom flavored. Along with the rice porridge, I've been eating a banana and an apple and some Orange Juice -- in a effort to make it feel like to me breakfast.

For lunch, I have the option of either eating lunch at the school with the pre-schoolers - an old lady cooks lunch every day and brings it to the school (today we had pickled cucumbers, tofu and radishes, black beans -but seasoned with soy sauce, and left hard(er), not mushey, rice and a mushroom soup - or, I can eat a restaurant downstairs of my building.  As far as I can tell, it's a "be been bop" restaurant - and everything is very cheap. You can get more than you can eat for 3,500 to 4,000 won (depending on what you order), so $2.85 to $3.25 -and there is no tipping in Korea!  Also another interesting thing that I find is that all the chop sticks here are metal - back home I've seen plastic and wooden chop sticks, but never metal.

For dinner, I have also been eating out as well - as I have no cooking furnishings at my apartment.  The teacher that I am replacing at my school never ever cooked. He didn't even have a bowl or a cup at the apartment. But my school director has agreed to get me some kitchen furnishings, so I hope to cook, at least a little bit, mainly breakfast, here soon. 

Today was the first day that I took the bus to school alone.  And it was a major fail.  I got off the bus too early and than got incredibly lost. As I walked down the street, I showed an old korean lady and envelope with the schools address written on it. And like all Koreans, wiped out her cellphone and promtly called the school and asked how to get there.  She has me cross the street and popped me on a bus.  But having no idea where I was, or even if I would recognize the school from the new bus, I hopped off after a stop or two and flagged down a taxi.  Turns out I was more or less just across the street from the school - well, across a 6 lane highway full of crazy korean drivers!

I promise to whip out the camera soon and take some pictures to share.
-Carly

First Day of Work!

So the days here are way longer than I expected. I have to leave for work at 9:10, and then I'm at work 9:30 to 6:40 but have a 2 hour break for lunch. So weird hours I guess.

I really enjoyed teaching the pre-schoolers. It was really fun. Today's word of the day was "come". So I had the stand in a line and call the the next person in line across the room, "______(Name), Please come here."  The 4 year olds ate that up.  Also all the children seem to have American names.

Anyways, really very tired, will update more extensively tomorrow, hopefully with some pictures of my neighborhood!

Made it to Korea!

Left my good friend Julie's apartment in DC at 4:50am with a crap ton of luggage. One bag was 52 lbs, the other 65 lbs.

My flight to Korea had no leg room

...But I did get to see Mt. Rainer (Seattle) from the plane!

My new boss picked my up and had a very cool GPS type device that advised him everytime the speed limit changed, which was like every kilometer almost, and also advised him where the traffic cameras were.

My first meal in Korea was at Lotte Mart - pretty much exactly like Wal-mart

...And it was RAW fish in a bowl with rice and veges. Basically tasted like Sushi in bowl form with no seaweed. Also had miso soup. Which Koreans call soy soup.

And now for some photos of my apartment! (yes! that's a sink/shower combo you see!)

On my Way!

Dad took a photo of me as he dropped me off at the metro! - And also took a picture of his finger...go Dad!

Nothing says a good day like Free Starbucks!

What a good day today.  Woke up, drove to Starbucks for my last cinnamon dolce iced latte for a while and timed things positively beautifully...their computers were down, so therefore my coffee was free :-)

Managed to get all of my boxes moved to my grandmother's house, so all I have to do now is vacuum my apartment and pack my suitcase and carry-on.

In an effort to be able to take some larger bulky stuff with me, I bought some vacuum sealed space saver bags.  I keep having dreams that the bags explode and refill with air and I arrive in Korea with nothing. Hopefully this does not happen. But the fact that I'll arrive in Korea with my comforter (bed spread), my favorite winter coat, and my 600 thread count egyptian cotton sheets will hopefully make these space save bags worth it!

Anyways, this will be the last entry until I get internet set up in Korea, but I will update you all as soon as I can!

-Carly

Matresses are HARD to move!

Spent most of the day moving my big stuff, bookshelf, dresser, bed, couch etc.  All  I have to say is I should have probably just thrown the mattress away and gotten a new one when I got home, they are SOOO hard to  move, extremely heavy and very awkward to carry.  Which has left me with no bed or anywhere to sleep at my apartment.  Thankfully my best friend is out of town and I can sleep in his bed.  And the best part of all is staying at his apartment means I get to see my kitty Dexter, who Dan will so kindly be watching for me while I am in Korea.

Met a former co-worker of mine, Jessie, at the Cellar for drinks tonight.  It was so nice to see her and see how things were going at the old job.  It was also probably my last night out at the Cellar, and really before I leave.  So many happy memories at the Cellar.

Alright, better get back to packing and cleaning. I only have tomorrow to finish my list of things to do!
-Carly

Car's Ready to Sell

I cannot believe how soon I start my journey to Korea.
Wednesday - Move big furniture and pack what is "staying behind" - and move said stuff to my grandmother's house
Thursday - clean apartment and pack what's coming with me.
Friday - 10am - my dad takes me up to Washington, DC - 2 suitcases, a carry-on and "personal item" in tow
Saturday - 5am - Super Shuttle comes to pick me up and take me to Washington Dulles (IAD), plane for Seattle leaves at 8:23am.

One of the things my dad assigned me to do before I leave was completely clean and vacuum my car so that he could sell the car while I was in Korea.  And now sadly, that is off my to-do list. This car and I have a lot of history.  I even drove her 4200 miles each way to Fairbanks, Alaska.  I'm going to miss my silver 1998 Volvo S70 Sedan - SOOOO many memories.

Had lunch today with my sister at a place called Green's.  It's in downtown Blacksburg, Virginia. The sushi was excellent.

Welp, I better get going, my dad comes over tomorrow at 11am to help me move my furniture.

-Carly

Suitcase Returned

Today I had a farewell lunch with Christine and Elena.  It was nice for two reasons, we all worked together last summer, so it was a nice reunion, and secondly because both of them packed their lives into 2 suitcases and moved around the world, just as I'm about to do.

I finally couldn't take it anymore and returned the oversized suitcase.  Everything I read said as long as it was under 50lbs I wouldn't get charged, but the thought of having the chance to return the suitcase and not doing it and than get a $200 oversized luggage fee was just unbearable.  So I ended up getting a hard plastic spring purple spinner case with no outside pockets.  At least this one will by very easy to spot coming off the luggage return instead of the generic black wheely I had before.

As of now all of my clothes are sorted into piles and everything that I'm throwing out is bagged outside waiting to go to the dump.  So now all I need to do is move my furniture (Wednesday), pack everything staying in Virginia, pack everything going to Korea into 2 suitcases and 2 carry-ons, and clean my apartment just a little bit. And then also wash all the bedding and clothing I'm bringing with me.  Oh and clean out my car, which my dad is selling. How sad, I've driven that car 50,000 miles in the last 2 years including to and from Alaska in summer 2008. Which reminds me, I want to keep the license plates off that car.

Is it sad that the hardest part about sensoring what I'm bring with me is how to only pick like 4 pairs of shoes to bring with me!? I own like 20 pairs.

Tomorrow I eat lunch with my sister at Green's Sushi. Never eaten a meal with my sister alone, so this should be fun (long story, 9 year age difference).

Well hopefully I get a lot of stuff done tomorrow!
-Carly

Things to consider

So yesterday I bought a samsonite spinner plain black suitcase at Ross, got it home and realized it's 66 linear inches - 4 over the maximum of 62 linear inches allowed on most airlines. Everywhere I have read, and with some help of friends in twitter, everyone pretty much assures me if I don't draw attention to the bag, and it is under 50 pounds I should be completely fine and not be charged an oversized bag fee. But the thought of shelling out $100 or even $200 for 4 linear inches over really irks me. Did a test pack of the bag and it came in at 48 pounds. God, maybe I should just return the bag and not worry about it.

My flights to Korea are United Airlines Washington Dulles to Seattle-Tacoma and Asiana Airlines Seattle to Seoul (Incheon International Airport). ---omg, break! just ran out of coffee --- Also, just looked it up. Both Washington Dulles and Seattle-Tacoma airports have wifi with AT&T. I will have about 2.5 hours of layover at each, and I'm beginning to think the $7.95 daily pass for internet will be worth it.

Goodbye Dan, Hello Over-sized Suitcase!

Today I said goodbye for 10 months to my best friend Dan. I don't leave the states for another week, but he's had a vacation planned to go home to Ohio since before I got my leave date for Korea. But with any luck, Dan will come visit me in Korea next April. Before I took him to the airport, we did some of our favorite things: lunch at Sheetz, window shopping for appliances and electronics, and of course reminiscing about some of our favorite memories -- errrr! table (long story, has to do with a toothless man in a montana bar).

After I dropped Dan off at the airport, I stopped at Ross and found a super-huge samsonite spinner suitcase for $50 (4 wheels). So I bought it, brought it home and discovered that it is 65 linear inches, 3 over the airline requirement of 62 inches. I wonder if anyone will measure!? I frankly have never seen them with measuring sticks at the luggage check-in counter. I mean its a normal shaped suitcase, so maybe they won't notice it's 3 linear inches too big. God I hope I don't get slapped with an over-sized luggage fee! But then again 7200+ cubic inches of packing space is a beautiful thing. Aside from the slightly over-sized normal suitcase, I plan on bringing an over-sized duffle bag. But from what I read, they don't have size requirements for duffle bags. We'll see I guess.

Also stopped by my parents house today. Picked up a few things, and amazingly found my plug adapters from when I studied abroad in 2006. My parents house has a way of swallowing things, it's the reason I went to Ross in the first place. The basement swallowed my old roller duffle bag shaped suitcase.

Okay, time to brew a pot of vinegar, my lack of attention managed to mold the coffee pot.
-Carly

Goodbye Blackberry, Hello Non-CDL

Today is the day I gave up my Blackberry. I don't leave the states for another week, but sadly had to say goodbye to my precious crackberry today. But thankfully my blackberry will be left in good hands with my best friend using it and "saving my number" for me. I'm hoping that my iPod Touch will be my new "crackberry" while I'm in Korea, because as fas as I have been able to research, people on E-2 Visa's can't get smart phones in Korea. I guess we'll see.

Also my first non-CDL drivers license in 3 yrs arrived in the mail today. It was super sad to give up my CDL -best college job ever driving city transit buses - but this way I won't come back from Korea with an expired drivers license. You see, in Virginia, a CDL must be renewed in person at the Department of Motor Vehicles, while a regular drivers license can be renewed online. If I were to keep my commercial drivers license, and thus let my license expire while I'm in Korea, I would come back to the states and have to retake ALL of the drivers test, the written and even parallel parking...and yeah, I would rather avoid that.

Also step 1 in my plan to send money home from korea is complete. I have no idea if this will actually work, but I did read about it on one blog somewhere on the interwebs. But anyways, I added my best friend to my bank of america account here at home and got him a debit card - which arrived in the mail today - step 1. Once I'm in Korea, I plan on opening a bank account at a major bank that offers an international debit card. Once I have that international debit card (which will be connected to my bank account where my Korean Won paychecks are deposited), I will mail the international debit card to my best friend back home. And then the money transfer via ATM will commence. You see, he will withdraw money using the (say for example) Woori Bank debit card at a Bank of America ATM. And then because Bank of America ATMs are soo cool and also accept Cash Deposits, he'll use the debit card that was issued to him connected to my BofA account and deposit the cash right into my US bank account. So I'm hoping that instead of having to pay in excess of $20 dollars on each side of a wire transfer ($20 to send the money and $20 to receive the money), I will instead pay 1% plus a $3 ATM fee. So if I sent $1000 home, I would pay $10 plus $3, or $13 instead of $40+! ---We will see if this plan works once I arrive in Korea.

Alright, time for bed, I can only breathe out of one side of my nose -- stupid sinus infection.
-Carly

8 or 9ish Days Until Korea

I guess it's only fair to start my blog about Korea -- pre-Korea. So here I go.

From the moment I decided I wanted to teach English in Korea to actually going has been a 3.5 month process. Most of which was waiting for my Virginia criminal background check to come back -- one of the requirements for an E-2 visa in Korea.

But now that I have my visa, a flight to Korea and a school to teach for, everything just kind of seems surreal.

In preparation for Korea, I've done my best to change all of my addresses, since I'm keeping my US cell phone number, I set up a google voice number so that my friends can text me and even call and leave a voicemail, I got rid of my commercial driver's license --just in case I stay in Korea for more than a year, it would really suck to come home to Virginia with an expired license (CDLs must be renewed in person in Virginia, whereas regular driver's licenses can be renewed online), figured out a place to store all of my furniture, and even added a friend to my bank account to help me "manage" funds while I'm gone.

For now I still need to:

Sort through all of my clothes --pile them: Korea, Stay and Trash

Box all of my stuff -- figure out what I can *stand* to be thrown in the trash

Move all of my furniture -- my grandparents were kind enough to let me store things in their basement

Clean my apartment -- this one is not as important as my roommate found someone to take over my lease

Buy some cotton twin sized sheets -- none of this polyester crap for me!

So in other words, I pretty much need to do everything but forward my mail.

And finally, feel free to comment, I will do my best to answer questions about deciding to go to Korea, the E-2 Visa process, choosing a school, contracts, recruiters, etc. you name it.

~Carly