Lights

3-25-2010

Day 18 of 365: As my third week in Ansan is soon to be complete, I am finally beginning to familiarize myself with my surroundings. Venturing out into the unknown has been a slow process for me. All of the exploring that I've done so far has been on foot, and I haven't walked more than 20 minutes from my apartment in any direction. Ansan, which is about the same size as Austin, has a substantial downtown/business district. This area doesn't have any tall buildings, but is instead crammed with 5-7 story buildings covered with neon lit signs on every level. Since I can't read many of the signs, I just see one big, glowing, multicolored spectacle at night, and my apartment building is on the doorstep of the awesomeness. Go figure, but I tend to gravitate toward any shop or business that has English somewhere in the title, and I almost always stay on the street level. The limitation is fine with me for now, but down the road it'll be exciting to go back to places I've been and explore further when I can read and understand a little more.

Hopefully my 'understanding' will come sooner rather than later since my Korean language course began last night. Fortunately for me, it is within the 20 minute radius. It's also free. The class was set up for any foreign English teachers in Ansan by the Korean Ministry of Education. There are 19 students in my class, most of whom are Americans. We have an interesting mix. There are students from LA, Detroit, NYC, Chicago and Austin (me), as well as a few from Canada and Ireland. I don't know where the rest are from yet because half of them didn't show up for the first class. Sounds familiar. Several of the students/teachers actually live in my building. I know this because I've seen them, even ridden the elevator with a few, but they ignore me for the most part; especially this one bearded guy who I've seen at least 3 times and he's never even acknowledged me. His aviator sunglasses and tweed hat help round out the douchiness. The guy from Canada is pretty cool. He told me about some rugby and baseball leagues around town that he thought I'd be interested in. Maybe I'll learn to play rugby.

Today in class I showed my kids what I had learned last night. They were thrilled as usual. I even let them teach me a few simple words. This really got the whole class interested and involved, which is not always easy to do. Oh yeah, they loved the shoes by the way (Blog entry - Say "Hello"). I put some hard scuffs in them on the very first day I wore them after doing a power slide (inspired by The Boss in the Super Bowl XLIII Halftime Show) while teaching a song to the kids. I don't know what came over me; I would have never done that in my boots or Nike Shox. Maybe it was the microphone in my hand that made me feel like a rock star, or maybe there's something to these shoes after all...